2. Bennett's critique of John Galsworthy's works. Galsworthy was another Edwardian criticized in Woolf's "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown." (1910)

Bennett, Arnold. "John Galsworthy." Books and Persons. (New York, George H. Doran Company, 1917), pp. 214-216 (July 14, 1910) annotated bibliography: Bennett praises A Man of Property by John Galsworthy (one of Woolf?s ?materialists?). Bennett finds the novel highly original and worth reading more than one time. He writes, ?Except for the confused impression caused by the too rapid presentation of all the numerous members of the Forsyte family at the opening, it has practically no faults?it is original?There are no weak parts in the book, no places where the author has stopped to take his breath and wipe his brow.? In the essay, it is apparent that Bennett admires what Woolf considers unnecessary to a novel -- ?intensity? and ?form.? For A Man of Property, Bennett writes, ?the tension is never relaxed. This is one of the two qualities without which a novel cannot be first-class and great. The other is the quality of sound, harmonious design.? Contrary to Woolf, Bennett highly values these aspects of the novel, and he puts A Man or Property in the same rank as Crime and Punishment.

3. Bennett writes about his rules and standards for a successful novel. (1914)

Bennett, Arnold. Writing Novels.The Author's Craft (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1914), pp. 37-66. annotated bibliography: Bennett sets down various rules and standards he feels must be complied with if a novel is to be successful. First he finds two major attributes that a novelist must have: a sense of beauty and a fineness of mind. He thinks that sensitivity towards beauty and an able mind to appreciate it are indispensable to an artist. ?[The writer] has seen beauty in [life]. He could have no other reason for writing about it. He may see a strange sort of beauty; he may ? indeed he does ?see a sort of beauty that nobody has quite seen before; he may see a sort of beauty that none save a few odd spirits ever will or can be made. But he does see beauty.? Bennett gradually looks upon this sensitivity to beauty as an intensity of vision. Like Woolf said, Bennett clearly states that every novelist should have a passionate intensity of vision, and unless the vision is passionately intense, the artist will not be moved to transmit it; and ?the motive to pass it on will thus not be exist.? In regards to the other attribute of a novelist (? a fineness of mind?), Bennett writes that the writer must be able to conceive the ideal without losing sight of the fact that it is a human world we live in, and above all, his mind must be permeated and controlled by common sense.

But as much as Woolf admires foreign novelists such as Balzac, Dostoevsky, or Stendhal, Bennett disparages them, because these foreign authors do not have, according to his standards, the proper technique of novel writing. ?The great novelists of the world?have either ignored technique or have failed to understand it. What an error to suppose that the finest foreign novels show a better sense of form than the finest English novels!? Bennett exclaims, as he continues to observe that Balzac was a prodigious blunderer and Dostoevsky was clumsy and careless. They keywords in the entire essay are ?technique? and ?form.? Bennett places a huge emphasis on those words throughout the essay. For instance, he refers to ?the glitter of technique? and that even more important than technique is design or construction. And thus Bennett proceeds to set down a few rules (exactly what Woolf finds cumbersome and annoying) that great novelists have often ignored ??to the detriment of their work.? The rules are: the interest must be centralized; the interest must be maintained (it may increase, but it must never diminish); good plots are essential; the plot should be kept throughout within the same convention. In fact, Bennett firmly believes that all plots are and must be ?a conventionalisation of life,? criticizing Georgian writers (Mark Rutherford, George Eliot, the Brontes, and Anthony Trollope) for lack of good plots.

4. Virginia Woolf's letter to Janet Case prior to Benett's publication of "Is the Novel Decaying?" (1914)

Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf II, 1912-1922. (New York & London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 55. annotated bibliography: Before Bennett published ?Is the Novel Decaying?? in 1923, Virginia Woolf had read Bennett?s works, and in this letter, she recommends one of his novels to her friends.

Excerpt (December 10, 1914):

To Jane Case,

Have you read Thomas Hardy?s new poems? They?re quite the most beautiful things I?ve read since ?certainly since Meredith ?Shall I send you them? Also, Arnold Bennett?s Price of Love [1914] is good?

6. In a letter to Roger Fry, Woolf proposes forming a reading club that came to include Arnold Bennet as a membert. (1916)

Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf II, 1912-1922. (New York & London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 116. annotated bibliography: In a letter to Roger Fry (September 10. 1916), Woolf proposes forming an evening club that parallels the reading clubs of our day. Eventually, her plan came into effect at the ?Omega Workshops,? where the club met once a week. Among its members were Yeats and Arnold Bennett.

7. The first of her series of "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" essays, Virginia Woolf writes about her complaints against the "materialist Edwardians" in the prominent journal, The Times Literary Supplement. (1919)

Woolf, Virginia. "Modern Novels. The Times Literary Supplement (April, 1919). annotated bibliography: ?Modern Novels? is another one of Woolf?s essays about writing. She makes three major points in this essay. First, that ?Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Galsworthy? are materialists (with Mr. Bennett the worst culprit of the three) and focuses too much on the external aspects of their fictional characters (e.g. clothes, property, travel styles) to the effect that their portrayal of human nature is crude and coarse. Though their characters live abundantly, ?even unexpectedly,? we still do not find that exactly how they live, and what the live for. As Woolf points out, the writings of these ?materialists? are so mundane that they could have been done by government officials.

This observation naturally follows with examples Woolf gives with Russian authors and James Joyce. Discussing the superiority of their writings, she makes the second proposal that writing should concentrate on the human spirit, the human imagination, not just the crass externalities of every day existence. Woolf talks about Anton Tchehov?s short story, ?Gusev,? in which some Russian soldiers are lying ill in the hospital of a ship that is taking them back to Russia. The story is seemingly boring, since no plot is apparent, but as Woolf points out, it isn?t the plot, or time and place that the situation takes place, but the author?s interest in the human spirit that knits the whole thing together. ?There is no need that a story be brief and intense, as there is perhaps no answer to the question it raises,? she states, but it must reflect the imagination and thoughts of individuals, of life as they experience it.

For current and future writers, Woolf makes the final and most prominent suggestion that custom should be discarded and imagination yielded to if the aim is creation and art. ?The proper stuff of fiction does not exist, the stuff of fiction is what is honest and not adventitious,? she says. Making an example of Joyce, she says that his writings comes closer to life because they preserve more sincerely and exactly what interests the author, not what interests convention. She feels that it isn?t the method of writing that matters, but what is actually being said: ?any method is right, every method is right, that expresses what we wish to express.? Indeed, novels and short stories do not necessarily have to have comedy, tragedy, or romance in them, a notion that writers seem to adhere to, but, according to Woolf, they must portray the human spirit, intimate the human mind. (This notion is apparent in Woolf?s novels, such as Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.)

8. In a diary entry, Virgini Woolf reflects upon the merit of her own work, Night and Day, in relation to contemporary literary trends. (1919)

Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf , I: 1915-1919. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1977), pp. 259 (March 27, 1919) annotated bibliography: Virginia Woolf reflects on her own writing and its relation to contemporary trends in literature.

Excerpt:

In my own opinion N. & D. is a much more mature and finished and satisfactory book than The Voyage Out; as it has reason to be. I suppose I lay myself open to the charge of niggling with emotions that don?t really matter. I certainly don?t anticipate even two editions. And yet I can?t help thinking that, English fiction being what it is, I compare for originality and sincerity rather well with most of the moderns. Leonard finds the philosophy very melancholy. It too much agrees with what he was saying yesterday. Yet, if one is to deal with people on a large scale & say what one thinks, how can one avoid melancholy? I don?t admit to being hopeless though ?only the spectacle is a profoundly strange one; and as the current answers don?t do, one has to grope for a new one; and the process of discarding the old, when one is by no means certain what to put in their place, is a sad one. Still, if you think of it, what answers do Arnold Bennett or Thackeray, for instance, suggest? Happy ones ?satisfactory solutions ? answers one would accept, if one had the least respect for one?s soul?

9. Benett publishes his controversial book: Our Women: Chapters on the Sex-Discord. (1920)

Bennett, Arnold. Our Women: Chapters on the Sex-Discord. (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1920). annotated bibliography: The entire book is a survey of Bennett?s views on the male-female discord that Bennett believes has always existed ever since man came into being. In the introduction to the book, Bennett cautions (and in a sense, justifies himself) his readers of the contents that are to follow by stating that the author of the book is by no means unprejudiced, asexual, or a detached individual. Bennett proposes to summarize the ?discord between the sexes? in his book, but he has no intention or desire to resolve the discord, to ?establish harmony and put an end to the vast altercation,? for he believes that the altercation is fundamental and eternal. Bennett?s objective, as he states, is to merely assist in the development of that altercation. Organized into nine chapters (1. Change in Love; 2. The Abolition of Slavery; 3. Women as Charmers; 4. Are Men Superior to Women? 5. Salary-Earning Girls; 6. Wives, Money and Lost Youth; 7. The Social Intercourse Business; 8. Masculine View of the Sex Discord; 9. Feminine View of the Sex Discord; plus the Introduction), Bennett?s book presents a thorough discussion of the ?sex-discord? seen through masculine eyes. The contents of Chapter four were perhaps the most controversial (also what Woolf referred to when writing to the editor of the New Statesmen). Essentially, Bennett?s answer is that men are superior to women.

Excerpts:

??One must seize and proclaim the truth?and the truth is that intellectually and creatively man is the superior of woman, and that is in the region of creative intellect there are things which men almost habitually do but which women have not done and give practically no sign of ever being able to do.?

?Some platitudes must now be uttered. The literature of the world can show at least fifty male poets greater than any woman poet. Indeed, woman poets who have reached even second rank are exceedingly few ?perhaps not more than half a dozen. With the possible exception of Emily Bronte no woman novelist has yet produced a novel to equal the great novels of men?No woman at all has achieved either painting or sculpture that is better than second-rate, or music that is better than second-rate. Nor has any woman come anywhere near the top in criticism. Can anybody name a celebrated woman philosopher; or a woman who has made a first-rate scientific discovery; or a woman who has arrived at a first-rate generalization of any sort??

Referring to women: ?Intuitions are the natural resource of a type of mind which is not adept at reasoning. They are an entirely absurd substitute for reasoning.?

?However, I do believe that women are superior to men in two respects: will-power, and tenacity or perseverance. The volition of women has always struck me as terrific, compared to men?s.? ?Every man knows in his heart, and every woman knows in her heart, that the average man has more intellectual power than the average woman?Superior intellectual power means, and always did mean, domination. Women in the main love to be dominated. They are not entirely happy until they are dominated, at any rate in appearance. I feel here that I am writing like an old-fashioned man. I cannot help that. Truth is truth. I am not an old-fashioned man. I am a feminist to the point of passionateness. But at the risk of being ostracized and anathematized by all the women-feminists of my acquaintance, I shall continue to assert not only that even in this very advanced year women as a sex love to be dominated, but that for some thousands of years if not for ever, they always will love to be dominated. This desire to be dominated is a proof intellectual inferiority. It is instinctive and it survives??

10. Virginia Woolf responds to Bennett's recently pulished Our Women in a diary entry. (1920)

Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf II, 1920-1924. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1978), p. 69. annotated bibliography: With Bennett's recently published Our Women (his controversial argument for the intellectual superiority of men), Woolf expresses in her diary that she will write a ?counterblast? essay.

Excerpt (September 26, 1920): ?But I think my two months of work are the cause of it, seeing that I now find myself veering round to [John] Evelyn, and even making up a paper upon Women, as a counterblast to Mr. Bennett's adverse views reported in the paper.

11. Woolf writes to the editors of New Statesmen regarding Desmond MacCarthy's favorable review of Bennett's Our Women. Her letters were later published in the journal, as well as the subsequent counter-arguments by MacCarthy. (1920)

Woolf, Virginia. "The Intellectual Status of Women."The Diary of Virginia Woolf II, 1920-1924. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1978), p. 339. annotated bibliography: The 1920 publication of Bennett?s Our Women and the subsequent praise of it by Desmond McCarthy (a columnist known as ?Affable Hawk?) prompted Woolf to dispatch several letters to the New Statesmen counter-arguing their opinions. Woolf?s protest was published under the heading: ?The Intellectual Status of Women.? In her letters, she argues that with the increasing education of women, they have contributed more and more to the fields of literature, drama, and painting. ?I cannot swallow the teaspoon administered in your columns last week by Affable Hawk. [As he says], the fact that women are inferior to men in intellectual power stare him in the face. How, then, does Affable Hawk account for the fact which stares me in the face that the seventeenth century produced more remarkable women than the sixteenth, the eighteenth than the seventeenth, and the nineteenth than all three put together?? asks Woolf. She goes on to give an example of Sappho, a woman, but one of the greatest Greek poets. In a second letter to the New Statesmen (after ?Affable Hawk responded), she gives quotes J.A. Symonds to point out that the Aiolian women were able to contribute to the culture of Lesbos because they were given the same education and opportunities as men. They were not confined domestically, nor were they given rigorous discipline, like the Spartans.

Woolf further builds her argument by saying that with increased education of the twentieth century, women are improving and capable of improving still. But according to Woolf, education is not enough, as she writes, ?But it is not education only that is needed. It is that women should have liberty of experience; that they should differ from men without fear and express their difference openly; that all activity of the mind should be so encouraged that there will always be in existence a nucleus of women who think, invent, imagine, and create as freely as men do, and with as little fear of ridicule and condescension.? After Woolf?s second letter, the ?Affable Hawk? withdrew from the debate, saying ?If the freedom and education of women is impeded by the expression of my views, I shall argue no more.? 1922

12. In another letter to Janet Case, Woolf talks about Edwardian and Georgian writers. (1922)

Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf II, 1912-1922. (New York & London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 529. annotated bibliography:
Excerpt (May 21, 1922):
To Janet Case,
...Leonard says I?m narrow. I say he?s stunted. But don?t you agree with me hat the Edwardians, from 1895 to 1914 made a pretty poor show. By the Edwardians, I mean Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, the Webbs, Arnold Bennett. We Georgians have our work cut out for us, you see. Theres not a single living writer (English) I respect: so you see, I have to read the Russians: but here I must stop. I just throw this out for you to think about, under the trees. How does one come by morality? Surely by reading the poets. And we?ve got no poets. Does that throw light upon anything? Consider the Webbs?that woman has the impertinence to say that I?m a-moral: the truth being that if Mrs. Webb had been a good woman, Mrs. Woolf would have been a better. Orphans is what I say we are ?we Georgians?

13. Bennett reflects on the necessary ingredients of a successful novel. He also makes the observation that no contemporary author has yet displayed the potential for mastering the novel art, including someone like Virginia Woolf. (1923)

Bennett, Arnold. "Is the Novel Decaying?" Cassell's Weekly (March 1923). Reprinted in Things that have interested me , 3rd series annotated bibliography: Bennett stresses the importance of character-development for a successful novel. He first generalizes how fictional characters should be developed and the necessity of a character?s authenticity, ?realness.? ?The fist thing is, that the novel should seem to be true,? Bennett writes, but ?it cannot seem true if the characters do not seem to be real. Style counts; plot counts; invention counts; originality of outlook counts; but none of these counts anything like so much as the convincingness of the characters. If the characters are real, the novel will have a chance; if they are not, oblivion will be its portion.? Elaborating on the ?realness? of a character, Bennett cites several examples to illustrate his idea of good character-creating, including Watson in The Sherlock Holmes stories and the heroes of The Three Musketeers. It isn?t so much the plot that made those novels classics, says Bennett, but their unforgettably real, tangible characters ?characters that are so curiously familiar because we encounter them in real life. ?Many novels of Dumas have very marvelous and brilliant plots. For instance, Monte Cristo. But the Musketeer volumes outshine them easily, because of the superior convincingness of the characters.?

After Bennett reflects on the necessary ingredients of a novel, he makes the observation that no contemporary author has yet displayed the potential for mastering the novel art, including someone like Virginia Woolf. This is because, according to Bennett, the younger generation authors are too focused on details and states of society when they should have paid more attention to the full creation of their characters. ?They half-forget that any society consists of individuals,? writes Bennett.

Finding deficiency in the younger generation novels, Bennett cites Virginia Woolf?s Jacob?s Room as an example of what he means by ?too much detail.? He points out that she is too obsessed with originality and wit that the characters themselves are lost. Though Jacob?s Room is exquisitely written, Bennett observes, its characters do not ?vitally survive in the mind? and are lost in her profuse details of originality and cleverness. Making Woolf an example of his disappointment with the younger generation novelists, he admits that he ?cannot yet descry any coming big novelists.? And it is precisely this phrase that piques Woolf, as she quotes this line at the beginning of ?Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown.?

14. Woolf's most famous essay in her debate with Arnold Bennett. She writes about a need to diverge from obsolete Edwardian literary traditions and a hope that, one day, novelists can truly learn the craft of charecter-creation, of capturing a character like "Mrs. Brown." (1923)

Woolf, Virginia. "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown. The Nation and Athenaeum 34 (December, 1923): 342-343. annotated bibliography: Virginia Woolf criticizes the Edwardian mode of character development in the novel. She points out that the Edwardians, like Mr. Bennett, put forth an all-too-general picture of a character, saying that ?The Edwardian novelists give us a vast sense of things in general; but a very vague one of things in particular.? Woolf gives Mrs. Brown as an example of Bennett's failure in creating her ideal of concrete, real, ?solid,? ?flesh-and-blood? character. She wants to bring back character from the ?shapelessness? into which it has lapsed, to ?sharpen its edges, deepen its compass?? Mainly, Woolf feels that the Edwardian development of character places too much emphasis on its place in the plot of the novel, but the character itself is not sufficiently described in terms of its internal emotions and thoughts, for though we read about the characters, ?in none of them are we given a man or woman whom we know.? Moreover, the Edwardians would use some ?keywords? to describe the character at hand, and then leaves the rest to the reader's imagination. But, as Woolf attests, characters like Raskolnikov, Mishkin, or Alyosha of Dostoevsky cannot be simply described by those few ?keywords? that the Edwardians like so much to use. The Georgians, writers of a new generation like herself, attempt to give the full range of a character and capture the real essence of human relations by expanding and elaborating on the sentiments and conscious or unconscious thoughts of characters.

The most clever aspect of Woolf's essay is that she takes Bennett's words: ?The foundation of good fiction is character-creating?If the characters are real the novel will have a chance; if they are not, oblivion will be its portion? into her argument but then uses her own definition of ?real? characters to defy Bennett. And perhaps the most caustic of her comments is that Bennett is trying to hold fast to old, familiar Edwardian conventions and to reject everything new and original.

15. Woolf talks about her love of words and what she feels about her own writing. (1923)

Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf , II: 1920-1924. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1978), pp.247-249. annotated bibliography:
Excerpts (June 19, 1923):

?But what do I feel about my writing??Do I fabricate with words, loving them as I do? No I think not.?

?Am I writing The Hours from deep emotion? Of course the mad part tires me so much, makes my mind squint so badly that I can hardly face spending the next weeks at it. It?s a question though of these characters. People. Like Arnold Bennett, say I can?t create, or didn?t in Jacob?s Room, characters that survive. My answer is ?but I leave that to the Nation: its only the old argument that character is dissipated into shreds now: the old post-Dostoevsky argument. Idaresay its true, however, that I haven?t that ?reality? gift. I insubstantise, willfully to some extent, distrusting reality ?its cheapness. But to get further. Have I the power of conveying the true reality? Or do I write essays about myself? Answer these questions as I may, in the uncomplimentary sense, and still there remains this excitemnent. To get to the bones, now I?m writing fiction again I feel my force flow straight from me at its fullest. After a dose of criticism I feel that I?m writing sideways, using only an angle of my mind. This is justification; for free use of the faculties means happiness. I?m better company, more of a human being??

16. Her third essay in the "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" series, Woolf elaborates further on the danger of following Edwardian conventions of character development. (1924)

Woolf, Virginia. "Character in Fiction. The Criterion (July, 1924). annotated bibliography: In the essay, Woolf elaborates further on the danger of following Edwardian conventions of character development. Woolf cites examples in Bennett?s writing in order to point out that his method does not really let readers know the characters, but would rather have to rely on his descriptions of superficial externalities to imagine what the character is like. For instance, Woolf thinks that Bennett?s Hilda Lessways fails to give readers a sense of what Hilda is really like but is rather successful in describing Hilda?s surrounding, such as her house, the view outside her window, or the man who?s outside of her window. Woolf complains that Bennett never really explicitly describes Hilda but always introduces her as a part of her environment/background. ?House property was the common ground from which the Edwardians found it easy to proceed to intimacy?and thousands of Hilda Lessways were launched upon the world by this means. For that age and generation, the convention was a good one.? Woolf goes on to explain that for her age and generation, it is time to break free of the conventions that Bennett followed and start to really write about the character itself and not just its immediate surroundings.

Woolf gives an anecdote of meeting an old lady, ?Mrs. Brown,? on a train ride. The essay, in fact, revolves around this anecdote in that Woolf finds a novelist?s major difficulty is to convey to readers a previously unknown character, such as a ?Mrs. Brown? whom on meets on an ordinary train ride. Bennett fails in this respect, because, according to Woolf, ?the Edwardians has [not] so much as looked at her. They have looked very powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window?but never at her, never at life, never at human nature.? Woolf feels that the Edwardians fail to create ?real? characters because they adhere too much to convention, to introducing characters with certain accepted ways, so that the character is lost in those rules and regulations. If we can forget those rules and conventions, Woolf implies, ?Mrs. Brown,? symbolized as life itself, can then be truly characterized in writing, and we can have one of the greatest ages of English literature if only we are determined to ?never desert Mrs. Brown,? the ever elusive character in fiction.

17. In a diary entry, Bennett writes about his feelings toward Woolf's recently published ?Character in Fiction." (1924)

Bennett, Arnold. The Journal of Arnold Bennett. (Garden City, NY: The Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1933), p. 786. annotated bibliography: Bennett mentions how T.S. Eliot wanted him to reply to Woolf?s ?Character in Fiction? in the Criterion. From the tone of this journal entry, it seems as if Bennett did not really, at least at first, take seriously Woolf?s rebuttal, while Woolf was genuinely piqued by Bennett?s first criticism (something which Bennett did not expect to draw such a response from Woolf). In fact, he did not know of Woolf?s response in the Criterion until Eliot told him. Moreover, it was Eliot, and not Bennett himself, who originally wanted Bennett to respond back.
Excerpt (September 10th, 1924):

T.S. Eliot came to see me at the Reform Club last night, between two of my engagements. He wanted to interest me in Virginia Woolf?s reply in his Criterion (2nd reply it really was) to a few remarks of mine about character drawing in fiction about a year ago in Cassell?s Weekly [referring to ?Is the Novel Decaying??]. He wanted a contribution on the subject. I said I would do one, probably in the form of fragmentary notes, but that I wouldn?t give a date for delivery and I would make it a reply to her.

18. In his weekly column, "Books and Persons" (The Evening Standard), Bennett comments upon the ongoing debate between Woolf and himself, while listing what he believes to be the major defects of Woolf's novels. (1926)

Bennett, Arnold. "Another Criticism of the New School." The Evening Standard Years: ?Books and Persons' 1926-1931 . (London: Chatto and Windus, 1974), p. 4-6 (December 2, 1926) annotated bibliography: Bennett singles out Woolf as the leader of the ?new school? of novelists but an incompetent one at that. He writes that Woolf has ?written a small book about me, which through a culpable neglect [he] has not read.? Such a statement dismisses Woolf as someone not significant enough for Bennett to actually pay attention to. He goes on to generalize the flaws in Woolf?s works, especially in Jacob?s Room and Mrs. Dalloway:

"I have read two and a half of Mrs. Woolf?s books. First, The Common Reader?Second, Jacob?s Room, which I achieved with great difficulty. Third, Mrs. Dalloway, which beat me. I could not finish it, because I could not discover what it was really about, what was its direction, and what Mrs. Woolf intended to demonstrate by it."

From the passage, it is apparent that Bennett more or less dismisses Woolf?s work; at least, he does not take them seriously. In his essay, Bennett further lists what he believes the three major defects of work from Woolf and her new school: 1) no moral basis; 2) no movement towards climax; and 3) no vitality. These defects contribute to a lack of sympathy on the readers? part, according to Benentt. In regards to character-creation, he writes that Woolf may tell readers ten thousand things about Mrs. Dalloway, but never really ?showed? them Mrs. Dalloway. There was no coherent and complete picture of her. And finally, as condescension towards Woolf, Bennett does mention that some brief passages in Woolf?s novels are ?exquisitely written.? However, he immediately qualifies that statement with: ?But to be fine for a few minutes is not enough. The chief

19. In a diary entry, Bennett writes about a dinner party hosted by H.G. Wells. Coincidentally, Virginia Woolf was also present. (1926)

Bennett, Arnold. The Journal of Arnold Bennett. (Garden City, NY: The Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1933), p. 910. annotated bibliography: Bennett and Woolf were guests at a dinner hosted by H.G. Wells. Bennett talks about the people he saw there, including the Woolfs.
Excerpt (November 4th, 1926):

We were ten minutes late for dinner at H.G. Wells?s, and H.G. himself was eleven minutes late. The Shaws were there, and Frank Wells, and Marjorie Craig and the Leonard Woolfs. Both gloomy, these two last. But I liked both of them in spite of their naughty treatment of me in the press. Shaw talked practically the whole time, which is the same thing as saying that he talked a damn sight too much. After dinner he and Dorothy and Virginia Woolf and H.G. formed a group and never moved. I formed another group with Charlotte Shaw and Jane Wells, and never moved either. I really wanted to have a scrap with Virginia Woolf; but got no chance.

20. Bennett comments upon Woolf's recently published and much critically acclaimed, To the Lighthouse. (1928)

Bennett, Arnold. "Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse (1927)." Evening Standard , (June 23, 1927): p.5 . annotated bibliography: Although Bennett writes that To the Lighthouse is Woolf?s most original and best novel yet, his essay is mainly a listing of all of what he believes to be its flaws. Bennett first gives some credit to the work by declaring that it is indeed the best work of Woolf?s he has seen. It is the best, yes, but the compliment comes with a qualifier: the novel is the best of Woolf?s, but it still does not meet Bennett?s standards of a ?first-rate? novel. Why? Because, as Bennett proceeds to offer his critique, the plot of the novel was too ?designed? to exhibit virtuosity; the novel?s grammar was debatable; the form and style of her sentences are monotonous; and the middle part, titled ?Time Passes,? showed Woolf shirking the difficulty of creating the sense of passing time. Throughout the essay, Bennett?s tone is condescending, like that of a ?father-figure? (as the critic Daugherty suggested). He points out the novel?s flaws one by one, continuously picking it apart as he writes to his concluding statement that, still, after all the defects he has listed, ?To the Lighthouse has stuff in it strong enough to withstand a lot of adverse criticism.?

21. Bennett offers his opinions on various Victorian authors, including Dickens and the Bronte sisters, whom Woolf also mentions in her "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" essays. (1928)

Bennett, Arnold. "Candor About the Great Victorian Novelists." The Evening Standard Years: ?Books and Persons' 1926-1931 . (London: Chatto and Windus, 1974), p. 68-70 (July 6, 1927). annotated bibliography: With regards to Dickens, Bennett?s opinions are much like the critique, J. D. Beresford?s: he believes that Dickens had only a common mind and an inferior writing style. Regarding the Bronte sisters, he highly praises them, just as Woolf does, selecting them to be the most talented feminine authors.

Bennett writes that although Dickens was a creative genius (considering his volumes upon volumes and episodes upon episodes of stories), his books were tedious to read. ?I have never been able to read a novel of Dickens from beginning to end,? writes Bennett. This statement clearly demonstrates the Bennett ideal of the novel (from ?Writing Novels,? The Writer?s Craft): that novels must maintain the reader?s interest; the interest may increase, but never diminish. According to Bennett, Dickens failed in this aspect. And much like Beresford, Bennett feels that Dickens?s only attribute was creating comic, memorable, and stereotyped characters:

?His novels are very patchy?His plots are childish, his sentimentality is nauseating. That he had a kind heart and a democratic passion for justice is quite beside the point. Many hundredth-rate novelists have had kind hearts and a passion for justice. On the other hand he was a superlatively successful creator of comic characters, and nobody but a genius could have written his best scenes of comedy. These scenes are rich; they are full of the juice of English humor. But in order to get at them, what a price you must pay in tedium! I will not pay the price. The purse of my patience is too shallow??

In fact, writes Bennett, the only novel of Dickens that he has read from beginning to end was A Tale of Two Cities; and the task was only for monetary purposes.

Writing about the Bronte sisters, Bennett gives them the highest praise. He even ventures to rank them above some of the best contemporary male writers:

?I would rank both Emily and Charlotte as bigger people than Thackeray. They had fundamental power fully equal to Thackeray?s. And in addition they had a sense of beauty which heaven denied to him, and a sense of the romantic quality of life which he could not approach?I regard Wuthering Heights as the summit of feminine attainment in fiction?As for Charlotte, Jane Eyre, Vilette, and Shirley are all fine, extremely fine, and the first two come as near to Emily?s lonely masterpiece as any work by any woman ever did. If the word genius is applicable to any writers it is applicable to Emily and Charlotte. What fire! What loveliness! What creative force! What invention! What style!? This kind of praise of female novelists might have even surprised Woolf. Bennett?s view of these two feminine novelists is not unlike that of Woolf?s in Women and Fiction and A Room of One?s Own, in that he, too, believes they would have achieved even more had they been given the same opportunities as the opposite sex. Reminiscent of Woolf?s feminist outlook and even her diction, Bennett writes:

?Had destiny given them a chance, instead of installing them in an ecclesiastical drawing-room whose windows overlooked a country churchyard, what could they not have accomplished! Their trouble was that they knew not enough of the world. Charlotte learnt more of it than Emily; but both were inadequately furnished with external inspiration. They lacked perspective, and the fault was heaven?s not theirs. Miraculous creatures, however, they were. The other major Victorians must stand over for seven days.?

22. Bennett critiques Woolf's Orlando in this essay, as well as commenting upon her work and future potential as a novelist in general. (1928)

Bennett, Arnold. "A Woman's High-Brow Lark." The Evening Standard Years: ?Books and Persons' 1926-1931 . (London: Chatto and Windus, 1974), p. 210-212 (November 8, 1928). annotated bibliography: Although Orlando was immensely popular at the time of its publication, Bennett at first refused to read it, ?partly for obstinacy and partly for a natural desire for altercation at table about what ought not to be read.? However, upon hearing his most respected critics (Desmond MacCarthy and Hugh Wadpole) praise it, Bennett then gave in and read it. After having read it, Bennett was greatly disappointed. According to him, the book is nothing but a play of fancy or a wild fantasia with no real substance. At core, it is simply a ?high-brow lark? illustrated with realistic photographs.

Bennett?s tone is quite condescending towards Woolf, as if he expected nothing from the book, and after having read it, found exactly that. He writes that the first chapter of Orlando is only ?goodish,? but the second chapter and the ones after that show a ?startling decline? and ?fall-off.? Indeed, Bennett even disparages the book for its incorrect grammar towards the end, stating that ?the writing is good at the beginning, but it goes to pieces; it even skids into bad grammar.? In a sense, Bennett entirely disapproves of the work; and his acerbic and harsh remarks must have cut Woolf to the bone. For instance, he says:

?The [book?s] theme is a great one. But it is a theme for a Victor Hugo, not for Mrs. Woolf, who, while sometimes excelling in fancy and in delicate realistic observation, has never yet shown the mighty imaginative power which the theme clearly demands. Her best novel, To the Lighthouse, raised my hopes of her. Orlando dashed them, and they lie in iridescent fragments at my feet.?

Furthermore, Bennett argues against Edwin Muir?s decision that James Joyce, Woolf, and Aldous Huxley are the most innovating novelists of their age; Bennett writes, ?I could concede him the first and the last, but I have horrid doubts about the middle term. In particular I have failed to perceive any genuine originality in the method of Mrs. Dalloway. If originality there is, it fails in its object of presenting a character.? The statement seems almost a personal jab at Woolf, who talked so much of character-creation in her three versions of ?Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown.?

23. In an essay published in The Realist, Bennett talks about the major qualities of a ?serious novelist? and he classifies these qualities as 1) breadth of outlook; 2) destructiveness and constructiveness; 3) sympathy and antipathy. (1929)

Bennett, Arnold. "The Progress of the Novel" The Realist , 1928. annotated bibliography: The essay is highly organized and a little on the didactic side. Bennett takes the tone of an instructor giving a lecture to aspiring writers. He first generalizes the qualities of a successful novel. Bennett feels that the novelist must have an intense interest in people, creating stories around them; and the same, the novelist must have a message, a moral resolution that his plot is based on. And to have a moral resolution, serious novels are based on the assumption that something is wrong, observes Bennett, as he says, ?perfection, happily unattainable is the end of progress, is death. Imperfection is life.? Moreover, Bennett feels that the characters in the novel must clash with each other to create tension, to keep the audience focused. These generalizations provide the introduction to Bennett?s essay. And regarding his three main categories of novelists, Bennett provides detailed examples from literature masterpieces to establish his point.

For instance, Bennett feels that novelists must have a breadth of outlook, not limited by self-imposed walls. He gives Jane Austen as an example of creating walled-in worlds. She builds an imaginary wall round a tiny expanse of life and pretends that nothing exists beyond that wall. (Woolf responds to this seemingly limited outlook in ?Women in Fiction? and ?A Room of One?s Own,? saying that women are not given the same opportunities as men to travel and experience the world as men did.) Bennett then proceeds to give a counter-example of Austen with Balzac, writing that the key quality which makes Balzac a ?serious novelist? is described in two words: ?No Walls.? Balzac?s novels are said to encompass every aspect of French life, including every class of French citizen, activities of each class, province relations, class relations, etc.

Besides a breadth of outlook, Bennett cites destructiveness/constructiveness and sympathy/antipathy as two other necessary qualities of literary masters. Yes, one could point out what?s wrong with society, says Bennett in relation to destroying the current image of society, but one must also construct it, provide an idea/method to improve it. Bennett gives H.G. Wells as the most prominent example of a novelist who provides both destruction and construction of society. For the sympathy/antipathy aspect, Bennett gives Dostoievsky as a champion of extreme sympathizers (ironically, Woolf uses Dostoievsky to criticize Bennett in ?Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown?). ?Dostoievsky, whose nature had for human imperfections that universal, Christ-like, uncondescending pity which should be the ideal of all novelists,? writes Bennett.

24. A Room of One's Own is a long essay based upon two papers that Woolf read to the Arts Society at Newnham and the Odtaa at Girton. The papers were too long to be read in full and have since been altered and expanded. (1929)

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1929). annotated bibliography: The tone and content of the essay are reminiscent of those in ?Women and Fiction? that Woolf published in The Forum during 1929. Woolf?s most important message ?the one message that she hopes readers can take as a ?nugget of pure truth to keep on the mantel-piece for ever? ?is that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. And throughout the essay, Woolf comes back to this theme, supporting her thesis again and again. Though she provides much analysis regarding women and writing and education in her book, Woolf states that she has shirked the duty of coming to a conclusion upon the questions of women and fiction. They remain, so far as she is concerned, ?unsolved problems.? What Woolf proposes to do, however, is to show readers how she arrived at the opinion about the room and the money. Contrary to Bennett when referring to differences between the sexes, Woolf feels that one can never hope to tell the truth. ?One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one?s audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker.?

It is interesting to note that while Bennett in his Our Women points out the tendency of more intellectually endowed women always tend to seek men?s company, Woolf states the infinite interest of women to men. ?Why are women, judging from this catalogue, so much more interesting to men than men are to women? A very curious fact it seemed, and my mind wandered to picture the lives of men who spend their time in writing books about women; whether they were old or young, married or unmarried, red-nosed, or humpbacked ?anyhow, it was flattering, vaguely, to feel oneself the object of such attention, provided hat it was not entirely bestowed by the crippled and the infirm,? writes Woolf. Like Bennett, Woolf devotes a chapter to the differences between men and women. However, instead of asking whether men are superior to women, she analyzes why women (who ?attracts essayists, novelists, young men who have taken the M.A. degree, men who have taken no degree, men who have no apparent qualification save that they are not women?) have been paid so much attention, yet disparaged at the same time.

As part of the support of her thesis, Woolf also discusses the education (or lack thereof) of women throughout history. She gives an example of Laday Winchilsea?s poems written in 1661:
?How are we fallen! Fallen by mistaken rules, And Education?s more than Nature?s fools; Debarred from all improvements of the mind, And to be dull, expected and designed; And if some one would soar above the rest, With warmer fancy, and ambition pressed, So strong the opposing faction still appears, The hopes to thrive can ne?er outweigh the fears.?

The common feminist belief is that women did not contribute to literature as much as men have because of their lack of education and opportunities. But even more so than those, Woolf believes, the situation is worsened by the fact that women were discouraged from anything intellectual, while men were encouraged to achieve their highest intellectual ambitions; the rewards for women artists were not nearly as great as those for men, if there were any rewards at all. Along the same lines, Woolf writes, women are not free from material worries, nor are they hardly ever given an isolated place ??a room of their own ?to concentrate on writing, creating. In the book, Woolf states that to write a work of genius is a feat of prodigious difficulty. ?Dogs will bark; people will interrupt; money must be made; health will break down.? But these difficulties are amplified for women; they are ?infinitely more formidable.? Why? Woolf gives the following reasons:

?In the first place, to have a room of her own, let alone a quite room or a sound-proof room, was out of the question, unless her parents were exceptionally rich or very noble, even up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Since her pin money, which depended on the good will of her father, was only enough to keep her clothed, she was debarred from such alleviations as came even to Keats or Tennyson or Carlyle, all poor men, from a walking tour, a little journey to France, from the separate lodging which, even if it were miserable enough, sheltered them from the claims and tyrannies of families. Such material difficulties were formidable; but much worse were the immaterial?the world did not say to her as it said to them, Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me. The world said with a guffaw, Write? What?s the good of your writing??It is the effect of discouragement upon the mind of the artist??

Thus, A Room of One?s Own reflects Woolf?s justification and validation of women?s writing and art. It is a demonstration that, given the liberty from daily material concerns, the rewards and encouragement bestowed upon men, the necessary isolated niche to work, the same opportunities, education, and social experiences, women would achieve and contribute just as much, if not more, than what men have.

25. Bennett critiques Woolf's A Room of One's Own, while generally commenting on his debate with Woolf. (1929)

Bennett, Arnold. "Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1929)." Evening Standard , (November 28, 1929): p.5 annotated bibliography: In the essay, Bennett recognizes that the public thinks there is a feud between Woolf and himself: ?I have often been informed by the elect that a feud exists between Virginia Woolf and myself, and I dare say that she has received the same tidings.? However, as he proceeds to comment upon Woolf?s A Room of One?s Own, Bennett presents to readers a nonchalant attitude in general toward Woolf and what she thinks of him. He even admits to the higher social position of Woolf, as if accepting, but not caring at all, the opinions of Woolf and her Bloomsbury circle:

?True, she has written a book about me and a mythical Mrs. Brown. But I have not read the book (I don?t know why). True, I always said, until she wrote To the Lighthouse, that she had not written a good novel. But I have said the same of lots of my novelist friends. True, she is the queen of the high-brows; and I am a low-brow. But it takes all sorts of brows to make a world, and without a large admixture of low-brows even Bloomsbury would be uninhabitable.?

Having shown his general feelings about his debate with Woolf, Bennett continues the essay with a detailed critique of A Room?s One Own. Mainly, Bennett analyzes the essay?s thesis and its feminist implications (or lack thereof). For the essay?s thesis (that ?it is necessary to have five hundred a year and a room wth a lock on it if you are to write fiction or poetry?), according to Bennett, Woolf not only failed to support it, but it was not a valid thesis in the first place. Bennett gives a personal example that he once wrote successful novels without having five hundred a year ??nor fifty.? Indeed, he states, ??from the moment when I obtained possession of both money and a lockable door all the high-brows in London conspired together to assert that I could no longer write.? Besides the convincingness of the thesis, Bennett feels that Woolf digresses too much ?she is too enticed by needless, ?floral,? decorations:

?Virginia Woolf?s thesis is not apparently important to her, since she talks about everything but the thesis. If her mind was not what it is I should accuse her of wholesale padding. This would be unjust. She is not consciously guilty of padding. She is merely the victim of her extraordinary gift of fancy (not imagination)?Whereas a woman cannot walk through a meadow in June without wandering all over the place to pick attractive blossoms, a man can. Virginia Woolf cannot resist the floral enticement.?

After this string of disparagements, Bennett goes on to say that the essay was not actually feminist, because, as he quotes from the essay, Woolf wrote that ?Women are hard on women. Women dislike women.? These statements, according to Bennett, made her a non-partisan in the age-old battle-of-the-sexes. Indeed, Bennett points out that Woolf made no satisfactory conclusion about the disparateness of men and women in A Room of One?s Own, just as ?nobody every has and nobody could.? Thus, by describing Woolf?s lack of a valid thesis and her apparent inconclusiveness of the male-female disparity, Bennett gives his readers the notion that, contrary to popular opinion, Woolf has not really accomplished any great feats.

26. Woolf publishes one of her most feminist essays, "Women and Fiction," the themes of which are reminiscent of those in A Room of One's Own. (1929)

Woolf, Virginia. "Women and Fiction." The Forum 81 (March, 1929): 179-183. annotated bibliography: In this essay largely regarded by critics as one of Woolf?s most feminist pieces, Woolf talks about how women, given few opportunities, have intermittently contributed to literature and its course through history, from Murasaki, to George Sound, to George Eliot and the Bronte sisters. She mainly points out that, women in history have not been exposed to the same kinds of experiences as men (such as education, politics, careers, war), so naturally, their writing is bound to differ from those that have been created by the likes of Tolstoy, who traveled the world and society as a rich and privileged man while Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters were limited to the society they observe from their drawing rooms.

?It is probable, however, that both in life and in art the values of a woman are not the values of a man. Thus, when a woman comes to write a novel, she will find that she is perpetually wishing to alter the established values ?to make serious what appears insignificant to a man, and trivial what is to him important. And for that, of course, she will be criticized; for the critic of the opposite sex will be genuinely puzzled and surprised by an attempt to alter the current scale of values, and will see in it not merely a difference of view, but a view that is weak, or trivial, or sentimental, because it differs from their own.?

Despite these literary obstacles, Woolf believes that women will continue to write, and not just novels, but criticism and poetry as well. With the changing politics and societal views of her time, Woolf is confident that women will one day have ?a room to themselves,? writing their own literary history.

27. Woolf talks about a dinner party at Ethel Sand's, for fourteen guests, on December 1 st , 1930. Arnold Bennett was also present. (1930)

Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf , III: 1925-1930. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1978), pp. 334-335 (December 2, 1930). annotated bibliography:
Excerpt (December 1st, 1930):

?No I cannot write that very difficult passage in The Waves this morning (how their lives lit up against the Palace) all because of Arnold Bennett and Ethel [Sand]?s party. I can hardly set one word after another. There I was for two hours, so it seemed, alone with B. in Ethel?s little back room. And this meeting I am convinced was engineered by B. to ?get on good terms with Mrs. Woolf? ?when heaven knows I don?t care a rap if I?m on terms with B. or not. B. I say; because he can?t say B. He ceases ? shuts his eyes ? leans back. One waits. ?begin? he at last articulates quietly, without any fluster. But the method lengthens out intolerably a rather uninspired discourse. It?s true, I like the old creature: I do my best, as a writer, to detect signs of genius in his smoky brown eye; I see certain sensuality, Power, I suppose: but O as he cackled out ?what a blundering fool I am ? what a bay ? compared with Desmond McCarthy ? how clumsy ? how could I attack professors?? This innocence is engaging; but would be more so if I felt him, as he infers, a ?creative artist??

28. Bennett also mentions Ethel Sand's dinner party in his diary. (1930)

Bennett, Arnold. Journal. (New York, 1933), p. 910. annotated bibliography: In a diary entry, Bennett mentions Virginia Woolf after a dinner party at Ethel Sand?s.
Excerpt (December 1st, 1930):

?Virginia is all right; other guests held their breath to listen to us.?

29. Bennett dies from typhoid in March of 1931. In her diary, Woolf makes a tribute to Bennett in her diary. (1931)

Woolf, Virginia. A Writer's Diary . (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1953), pp. 165-166 (March 28, 1931). annotated bibliography: ?Arnold Bennett died last night; which leaves me sadder than I should have supposed,? writes Woolf in the first sentence of the diary entry. She goes on to list all the qualities of Bennett that come to her mind and admitting that he had more credit to him than what she publicly gave him. She concludes the diary entry with regret of his passing, feeling somehow deprived of a genuine critic of her work.
Excerpt describing Bennett:

A lovable geuine man; impeded, somehow a little awkward in life; well meaning; ponderous; kindly; coarse; knowing he was coarse; dimly floundering and feeling for something else; glutted with success; wounded in his feelings; avid; thicklipped; prosaic intolerably; rather dignified; set upon writing; yet always taken in; deluded by splendour and success; but na?ve; an old bore; an egotist; much at the mercy of life for all his competence; a shopkeeper?s view of literature; yet with the rudiments, covered over with fat and prosperity and the desire for hideous Empire furniture; of sensibility.

From this description, Bennett is no the incompetent, erroneous person that Woolf makes him to be in the public eye. She seems to be describing a man all too human, with his merits and imperfections, achievements and failures. From the last few comments of the previous excerpt, Woolf seems condescending, and somewhat as Hynes said, her comments are written from the vantage of an aristocratic, ?high-brow,? well-bred, drawing-room woman. Nevertheless, Bennett seems to have gained Woolf?s respect, as her diary entry concludes with the following:

[He has] some real understanding power, as well as a gigantic absorbing power. These are the sort of things that I think by fits and starts this morning, as I sit journalising; I remember his determination to write 1,000 words daily; and how he trotted off to do it that night, and methodically covering his regulation number of pages in his workmanlike beautiful but dull hand. Queer how one regrets the dispersal of anybody who seemed ? as I say ? genuine: who had direct contact with life ? for he abused me; and I yet rather wished him to go on abusing me; and me abusing him. An element in life ? even in mine that was so remote ?taken away. This is what one minds.

30. In a diary entry, Woolf talks about her yet unpublished book, The Pargiters ( later named The Years), in relation to Bennett's literary style. (1933)

Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf , IV: 1931-1935. (NY & London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1982), pp. 161 (May 31, 1933) . annotated bibliography: Woolf talks about her writing of the book The Pargiters later named The Years. She feels that she needs to be bold in and venturous in finishing the book; at the same time she puzzles over how to give intellectual argument and ordinary ?Arnold Bennett? life the form of art.
Excerpt (May 31, 933):

I think I have got to the point when I can write for 4 months-straight ahead at The Pargiters. Oh the relief ?the physical relief! I feel as if I could hardly any longer keep back that my brain is being tortured by always butting against a blank wall ?I mean Flush, Goldsmith, motoring through Italy: now, I tomorrow, I mean to run it off. And suppose only nonsense comes? The thing is to be venturous, bold, to take every possible fence. One might introduce plays, poems, letters, dialogues: must get the round, not only the flat. Not the theory only. And conversation; argument. How to do that will be one of the problems. I mean intellectual argument in the form of art: I mean how give ordinary waking Arnold Bennett life the form of art? These are rich hard problems for my 4 months ahead. And I don?t know my own gifts at the moment. I?m disoriented completely after 4 weeks holiday ?no 3 ?but tomorrow we go to Rodmell again. And I must fill up the chinks with reading --& don?t want to settle down to books?

This excerpt is quoted in ?The Whole Contention Between Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Woolf? by Samuel Hynes. In his case, Hynes suggests that, for Woolf, Bennett represented ordinary, waking life. For Bennett, Woolf represented Art ??highbrow, bloodless,