Virginia Woolf, in A Room of One’s Own, utilizes her sixth chapter to personify literature and compares it to a child, often noting that both a female and male counterpart is needed to produce harmonious writing. She often discusses the detriment of lacking an androgynous mind as it can ultimately lead to the mutation of literature. Stereotypically, mothers are seen as emotional figures while fathers are viewed as stern and authoritative individuals. Woolf demonstrates in her writing that the perfect balance between the two genders is needed and almost required in order to generate a well-rounded work of literature much like this balance is needed to create and raise a beautiful child.
A major component of Woolf’s argument can be found in her …show more content…
She questions the effect of “unmitigated masculinity” “upon the art of poetry” (101). Woolf mentions the “ meeting of academicians whose object it is ‘to develop the Italian novel’” (101). Moreover, their sole duty was to set a rubric for art, which is believed to be a free form of human expression. Just as a child’s mind cannot flourish creatively by being constantly restricted and tied down by strict demands, neither can great literature or art be made once censored by the …show more content…
Great poetry cannot “come out of an
incubator” (101), but it is to be nurtured by the author and “ought to have a mother as
well as a father” (101). Woolf then again discusses the Fascist poem and the horrors that
can result from it stating that it “will be a horrid little abortion such as one sees in a glass
jar in the museum of some county town” (102). As the Fascist poem is driven on
censorship and masculinity, the freedom of expression in art is lost resulting in a
mutation of literature. Art is being morphed into something that it is not supposed to be.
Similarly, as a child without a balance of female and male counterparts results in
mutation, it is true that work of literature that is wholly masculine results in a monster.
“Woolf described the fusion of gender traits as a magic moment when "the mind is
A major component of Woolf’s argument can be found in her …show more content…
She questions the effect of “unmitigated masculinity” “upon the art of poetry” (101). Woolf mentions the “ meeting of academicians whose object it is ‘to develop the Italian novel’” (101). Moreover, their sole duty was to set a rubric for art, which is believed to be a free form of human expression. Just as a child’s mind cannot flourish creatively by being constantly restricted and tied down by strict demands, neither can great literature or art be made once censored by the …show more content…
Great poetry cannot “come out of an
incubator” (101), but it is to be nurtured by the author and “ought to have a mother as
well as a father” (101). Woolf then again discusses the Fascist poem and the horrors that
can result from it stating that it “will be a horrid little abortion such as one sees in a glass
jar in the museum of some county town” (102). As the Fascist poem is driven on
censorship and masculinity, the freedom of expression in art is lost resulting in a
mutation of literature. Art is being morphed into something that it is not supposed to be.
Similarly, as a child without a balance of female and male counterparts results in
mutation, it is true that work of literature that is wholly masculine results in a monster.
“Woolf described the fusion of gender traits as a magic moment when "the mind is