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A review by theinquisitxor
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
4.0
"Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, not bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."
This was the first Virginia Woolf that I have read, and I throughly enjoyed it. I read this for my Women Writers class this semester, and we haven't discussed it in class yet, but I'm really looking forward to it. It kinda amazes me that Woolf wrote this in 1929. One one hand this seems like such a progressive essay for the time, but then I realize that the centennial for this essay isn't actually that far away. Only 10 years.
Either way, some of what Woolf talks about is simply great. The idea that a woman needs "a room of one's own" if she is to be a woman writer is really interesting. Its something I never really thought about, that for most of history, women didn't have their 'own space' and the ability to do things in privacy. Jane Austen used to cover up whatever she was writing whenever someone walked into the room. The Bronte's were able to write because their father was going blind, so they therefore had a freedom many women never got. Here's a couple of my favorite passages from this essay:
"She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominated the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband."
"...is that any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at."
"Thus towards the end of the eighteenth century a change came about which, if I were rewriting history, I should describe more fully and think of greater importance than the Crusades or the Wars of the Roses. The middle class woman began to write."
"Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own."
"Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross-roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up dishes and putting children to bed. But she lives; fro great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among in the flesh."
This was the first Virginia Woolf that I have read, and I throughly enjoyed it. I read this for my Women Writers class this semester, and we haven't discussed it in class yet, but I'm really looking forward to it. It kinda amazes me that Woolf wrote this in 1929. One one hand this seems like such a progressive essay for the time, but then I realize that the centennial for this essay isn't actually that far away. Only 10 years.
Either way, some of what Woolf talks about is simply great. The idea that a woman needs "a room of one's own" if she is to be a woman writer is really interesting. Its something I never really thought about, that for most of history, women didn't have their 'own space' and the ability to do things in privacy. Jane Austen used to cover up whatever she was writing whenever someone walked into the room. The Bronte's were able to write because their father was going blind, so they therefore had a freedom many women never got. Here's a couple of my favorite passages from this essay:
"She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominated the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband."
"...is that any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at."
"Thus towards the end of the eighteenth century a change came about which, if I were rewriting history, I should describe more fully and think of greater importance than the Crusades or the Wars of the Roses. The middle class woman began to write."
"Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own."
"Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross-roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up dishes and putting children to bed. But she lives; fro great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among in the flesh."