13 Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”
In This Chapter
Author Background
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was born into the affluent and intellectual family of Sir Leslie and Julia Stephen. She was one of eight children; both of her parents had been widowed. Julia Stephen brought three children to her second marriage, Sir Leslie brought one, and they had four children together. Sir Leslie Stephen was a writer, critic, philosopher, and scholar. Virginia and her siblings grew up in an intellectually vibrant atmosphere, with access to their father’s extensive library and frequent visits by many of the most important thinkers and writers of the late Victorian period.
Trauma in the Early Years
Woolf suffered a number of traumas as a child: her mother died when she was thirteen; one of her half-brothers sexually abused her; her half-sister died when she was fifteen. When Woolf was in her twenties, she lost both her father and a brother to illness.
Woolf herself began in adolescence to suffer severe bouts of depression; in adulthood, these tended to regularly occur after she had completed a book. She attempted suicide more than once while depressed; sadly, she did finally kill herself in 1941, when she weighted her pockets with stones and drowned herself in a river near her home.
Modernist Influences
Woolf, her siblings, and her husband were extremely influential in the Modernist movement. Together with her sister Vanessa and her brother Adrian, Woolf began holding intellectual salons in their home after the death of her father. Their gatherings of writers, intellectuals, and avant garde artists became known as “The Bloomsbury Group.” The group included such notable figures as Lytton Strachey, E.M. Forster, and John Maynard Keynes.
Her Writing
Woolf began publishing novels in 1915 with The Voyage Out, which was followed in 1916 by Night and Day. These two generally realistic novels were followed by her first truly innovative novel Jacob’s Room in 1922 and her masterpieces, Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927).
In these later novels, Woolf found her distinctive voice and style, marked by poetic images and rhythms and extensive use of the stream of consciousness technique. Woolf was equally influential as a reviewer. In her essay on the fiction of her contemporaries, “Modern Fiction,” she indicts their tendency to ignore the truths about life and humanity and focus instead on the minutiae of everyday life. Additionally, in 1917, Woolf and her husband Leonard founded the Hogarth Press, which published many of the most innovative writers of the period, including Elizabeth Mansfield, T.S. Eliot, and Sigmund Freud.
Woolf’s short stories, essays, and novels construct important feminist tropes like “Shakespeare’s Sister,” a posited figure Woolf explores in “A Room of One’s Own” (1929) to point out the disparity between available opportunities for male and female writers. In such works as Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927), Woolf delves deep into personality, identity, and the conjunction of art and the individual, especially in terms of what about the individual, if anything, will last (like art). Her development of the sometimes poetic, sometimes ambiguous stream-of-consciousness style attunes well with these explorations.
Background on “A Room of One’s Own”
“A Room of One’s Own,” published in 1929, is a lengthy essay which is now generally published alone. It is actually a compilation of two lectures on “Women and Fiction” that Woolf delivered to women undergraduates at Cambridge.
In the essay, Woolf comments on the need for women who aspire to write to have an independent income and a private space in which to be alone. Additionally, Woolf includes a speculative section on “Shakespeare’s Sister” as she laments the absence of a canon of women writers. Woolf emphasizes the need for a truly androgynous voice as the way forward for twentieth century literature.
You can borrow and listen to the full text of “A Room of One’s Own” through Internet Archive’s Open Library by clicking here:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL39379W/A_Room_of_One%27s_Own?edition=ia%3Aroomofonesownwoolrich
In this section, we’ll focus in on an excerpt from the larger essay: “Shakespeare’s Sister” (follow the link to read the full script of this excerpt).
As you’ll see in the reading, Woolf wonders what might have happened had “Judith,” an imagined sister of Shakespeare, tried to have the same career as William. The piece is a classic, and brings up significant questions about education, opportunity, sexual commodification, and the fate of the woman artist.
Complete the following reading questions to engage with the text and prepare for class discussion:
1. On Naming and “The Old Gentleman.” One of Woolf’s most famous passages regards the experience of “looking about the shelves for the books that were not there.” Shortly after that famous passage, we read “an old gentleman, dead now, but who was a bishop.” What do you think Woolf’s point, about that “old gentleman,” might be?
2. On Naming and Judith. Think of the name Judith (the one Woolf chose for Shakespeare’s sister). Can you find any literary, cultural, historical, or religious reasons that might underlie Woolf’s choice of the name?
3. On Similarities and Differences. How were William and Judith similar? Different?
4. On Contemporary Application. Do you think Woolf’s essay relates at all to current events/current culture? Explain.
What influenced Virginia Woolf? Why did she write?
Where did she live?
And, why did Woolf, both with “Shakespeare’s Sister” and throughout her career, take on a longstanding patriarchal tradition?
The interactive game below provides insight into those very questions. Click around and see what you can find out.
The following questions can be used to help facilitate further discussion about Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” and the various themes and elements present in the essay. These questions can also be used as writing prompts to allow students to reflect individually.
- What is the significance of the title, “A Room of One’s Own”? How does Woolf use the idea of having a physical space as a metaphor for women’s liberation and creative expression?
- Woolf argues that throughout history, women have been systematically excluded from the literary canon. Do you agree with her analysis? How has the literary landscape changed since Woolf’s time in terms of women’s representation and recognition?
- One of the central themes of the essay is the importance of financial independence for women. How does financial autonomy empower women and enable them to pursue their creative ambitions? In what ways have economic opportunities for women evolved since the time of Woolf’s writing?
- Woolf examines the portrayal of women in literature and emphasizes the need for female characters with more agency and complexity. How do the representations of women in literature today compare to those in Woolf’s time? Are there still areas where progress is needed?
- The essay discusses the impact of societal expectations on women’s creativity and intellectual development. How does Woolf’s analysis resonate with contemporary discussions on gender roles and societal norms?
- Woolf explores the idea of a “room of one’s own” as a metaphorical and literal space for creativity. How does having a physical space to work and think affect one’s ability to engage in creative pursuits, regardless of gender?
- Woolf raises the concept of “androgyny” in creative expression, suggesting that the best writers have a balance of masculine and feminine qualities. What do you make of this idea? How does it relate to the breaking down of gender stereotypes in contemporary society?
- In the essay, Woolf mentions the importance of history and heritage for women writers. How can acknowledging and valuing women’s literary heritage help in addressing gender inequalities in the literary world today?
- How does “A Room of One’s Own” contribute to the broader feminist movement and the fight for gender equality? How have Woolf’s ideas influenced subsequent feminist theories and activism?
- Woolf discusses the importance of women supporting and uplifting each other in their creative pursuits. How can contemporary society foster an environment where women can encourage and empower one another in all aspects of life?
Sources
Robinson, Bonnie J. British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond. University of North Georgia Press, 2018. https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/english-textbooks/16/, CCA-SA 4.0
Turlington, Anita et al. Compact Anthology of World Literature II. University of North Georgia Press, 2022, https://alg.manifoldapp.org/projects/compact-anthology-of-world-literature-ii, CCA-SA 4.0
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Internet Archive Open Library, 9 Sept. 2023, https://openlibrary.org/works/OL39379W/A_Room_of_One%27s_Own?edition=ia%3Aroomofonesownwoolrich
Woolf, Virginia. “If Shakespeare Had a Sister.” A Room of One’s Own. 1929, https://www.d.umn.edu/~tbacig/cst1010/chs/woolfe.html
“Shakespeare’s Sister | Fiona Shaw | Figures of Speech.” YouTube, uploaded by Almeida Theatre, 11 May 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ-bOoKV6xM
Sullivan, Margaret. “Finding Virginia.” Twine, https://sullyms.itch.io/eng-242-almost-finished
In the arts and in literature, the term avant-garde identifies a genre of art, an experimental work of art, and the experimental artist who created the work of art, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable to the artistic establishment of the time.
