Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
To the Lighthouse
The Window, Time Passes, The Lighthouse — Woolf's 1927 novel structured by the death and absence at its tripartite centre
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | To the Lighthouse (Mid (Woolf at the height of her powers)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
To the Lighthouse
The three temporal structures — the single day, the ten-year interval, the post-war return — as the formal structure.
Space
To the Lighthouse
The Hebridean holiday house and surrounding landscape as the contained spatial frame.
Matter
To the Lighthouse
The embodied lives of the Ramsay family; the material decay of the house in "Time Passes."
Observer
To the Lighthouse
The multiple stream-of-consciousness observers; the house as quasi-observer in "Time Passes."
Energy
To the Lighthouse
The energies of family-relational life; the entropic energy of time and war.
Information
To the Lighthouse
The accumulated family memory; Lily's painting as the symbolic effort to preserve experience.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Lily Briscoe's painting — finished, in the novel's closing lines — has been variously read as triumphant artistic achievement and as merely personal-aesthetic conclusion against the indifferent passage of time. The Mrs Ramsay character has been read autobiographically (Woolf's mother Julia Stephen as model); the novel's relation to Woolf's family memory has been a continuing biographical-critical theme. Auerbach's "Mimesis" identified the novel as a turning-point in Western fiction.