What did Virginia Woolf mean by 'modern fiction' in her 1919 essay, contrasting it with the 'materialists' like Arnold Bennett?
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Correct answer: It should record impressions as they fall upon the mind, however disconnected
Woolf critiqued 'materialist' writers like Arnold Bennett for focusing on outward appearances. She argued that life is not a series of 'gig-lamps symmetrically arranged' but a 'luminous halo' of shifting impressions that fiction should faithfully capture.
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