Woolf critical essays

Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown - Dec 1910

On or about December 1910 human character changed (about the shift from victorian era to georgian era)

Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown - character

‘I believe that all novels… deal with character and that it is to express character’ is the chief purpose of lit

Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown - code of manners

“At the present moment we are suffering, not from decay, but from having no code of manners

Modern Fiction - materialism

No single phrase will sum up the charge or grievance which we have to bring against a mass of work [the canon] so large in its volume and embodying so many qualities, both admirable and the reverse.” -> these writers are concerned “not with the spirit but with the body” -> “materialists’

Modern Fiction - proper stuff

The proper stuff of fictions does not exist; everything is the proper stuff of fiction, every feeling, every thought; every quality of brain and spirit is drawn upon; no perception comes amiss

A Room of One’s Own - money and a room

a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction

A Room of One’s Own - living poet

but the living poets express a feeling that is actually being made and torn out of us at the moment

A Room of One’s Own - money v vote

‘of the two - the vote and the money - the money, i own, seemed infinitely the more important’ [when discussing inheriting money v getting vote]

A Room of One’s Own - protected occupation

anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation

A Room of One’s Own - oppressed women’s writings

her books will be deformed and twisted. she will write in a rage where she should write calmly […] she is at war with her lot

A Room of One’s Own - fatal

it is fatal for anyone who writes to think of sex