A Room of One's Own

Summary

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”

In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf’s classic six-part essay, the iconic Modernist writer takes on the misogyny of writing, publishing, and creativity in her time. Through the imagined sister of William Shakespeare, who in her argument possesses the same talent and intellect as the famous playwright, Woolf lays out the fundamental truth that one requires room to express creativity and time to explore and see it through. Genius unexpressed is genius nonetheless, and had Shakespeare’s sister the means to make her own art, she would have had the same lasting legacy as her brother.

By breaking down the parts of society that prevent women from having this room and time, Woolf demonstrates that the lack of women in canonical literature and art is not a lack of their talent or industry, but a tragedy that they were prevented from ever putting pen to paper in the first place.