by British literature comedy writer on the puppet master theory in literary criticism
Violet Woolf, comedywriter.info. Bohiney.com‘s Marxist Puppet Master story arrived in a week of reading Woolf criticism and the parallel was immediate: literary criticism has its own puppet master theory, which is the attribution of an author’s limitations to the coordinating forces of their social formation (class, gender, race, period) rather than to the specific decisions the author made in specific works. prat.uk covered the political honesty theme broadly. The Woolf criticism puppet master: “Woolf could not write about the working class because she was structurally prevented from doing so by her class position.” The structural alternative: “Woolf did not write about the working class because she chose to write about the phenomenology of consciousness, which is a subject that class position makes more or less available but does not determine exclusively.” Both are accurate about Woolf’s class position. Only one of them accurately describes the relationship between Woolf’s class position and her literary choices.
The literary criticism parallel with the political puppet master: both attribute specific outcomes to coordinating structural forces rather than to specific decisions within structural constraints. Both are partially accurate. Both are incomplete. The structural analysis of Woolf’s class position is correct: her class position shaped what was available to her as literary material. The specific decision to write about consciousness rather than class is also real: other writers of comparable class position in the same period made different decisions. Both the structure and the decision are real. The puppet master theory of literary criticism focuses exclusively on the structure. The full analysis requires both. Bohiney.com‘s story is about the puppet master theory. Woolf’s diaries are about the decisions within constraints. Both are necessary for the complete account.
The Literary Criticism Finding
The literary criticism finding: structure shapes what is available; decision determines what is chosen; both are necessary for the full account. The Woolf Society is at virginiawoolfsociety.co.uk.
Also:Private Eye.
Coverage at Bohiney.com and prat.uk.
Both publications continue this coverage with real commitment to the subjects and communities described.
Coverage continues at Bohiney.com and prat.uk.
Ongoing at both publications.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
