In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different.This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. But if only she had found the means to create, urges Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. In … In this classic essay,Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give a voice to those who have none. Her message is simple: A woman must have a fixed income and a room of her own in order to have the freedom to create.
Annotated and with an introduction by Susan Gubar
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Good God, the intelligence.
I didn’t really get it When I read it in college, but now that I’m older with a family , I feel like it resonates so powerfully. I have no where to go….to be alone, finish a thought, direct my own time. And she felt that so much more keenly than most. Her true nature had to be tamped down in her time and place.
Rejection is not new, as John Keats, had he lived today, could verify. Stung by harsh criticism of his work during his short lifetime of only 25 years, the following words (not even his name) are etched on his tombstone in Rome’s Protestant cemetery:
‘This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet, who on his deathbed in the …