Woolf describes authors in her era as being a part of three major groups: the Victorians, the Edwardians, and the Georgians. These divisions are based on the reigning eras of the royal families in England. The Victorians are characterized as describing a human being by their surroundings and their possessions, clothes, etc. As the oldest group of the three, this is typical since in the older times a person was viewed according to their belongings and family status. The Edwardians are accused as using their novels as a social commentary while still failing to properly characterize humans in their works. Finally, the Georgians are the new generation of writers. Woolf characterizes herself under this artistic grouping. The major difference: what creates realism in a fictional character. This stark contrast is what Woolf argues throughout the majority of her writings.
The Victorians and Edwardians focus on external details and monotonous descriptions rather than on the perspective of the character. Woolf believes that characters should not be defined by the way they look or what they are surrounded by. Rather, characters should be described by their beliefs and their views of the world and its various objects. No longer are characters judged and confined to their clothes, their family, or their land.
The world began to cast away these prejudgments and give every soul equality and a fair shot at life. It was indeed a small step, but a giant step at the same time. Though the progress was not that massive compared to what we see today, but it was necessary and momentous. This shift in viewing a person - ignoring their surroundings and focusing on their perspective - eventually led to a change in space and the blurring of class lines. One can even view these changes in art. Where paintings were once based around social class, they are now put into a realistic perspective. Where once a master and servant were in different worlds, now they interact. Where a husband once had dominance over his wife, there now came a shift towards moderation and equality. Now that there was a shift towards social equality, what would become of art? Surely it would be effected by these changes.
Eventually these shifts led to a split in artistic culture. There became a culture appealing to the masses and a culture that appealed to artists themselves. Though social class had been done away with, a sort of artistic bourgeoisie arose to appreciate art for its academic value: thus high culture arose. Pop culture is that which is marketed to the public and follows a more non-academic and entertaining approach.
I feel this is an accurate and concise analysis of the artists in Woolf's era. I am still confused on what defines high art and generally believe it is just a construct of those who want to feel important.
ReplyDeletePay attention to formating. Clearer paragraph breaks would have made this a lot easier to read. It is not that the paragraphs were not there, just indenting or spacing them would have helped.