Virginia Woolf "A Room Of One's Own" Chapter 4

Chapter 4

In the 16th century, thinking of Elizabethan gravestones with all the kneeling, their hands folding children, who mourned their mother’s early death, looking at their houses with their gloomy and cramped front rooms the narrator found it impossible for a woman to write poems.

One of the first who dared to express herself in writing was Lady Winchilsea[1], born in 1661, aristocratic by birth as well as by marriage, and childless. She wrote poems and expressed herein her indignation about the social position of women. Pope and Gay two English poets called her “Bluestocking with a tendency to scribbling”.

Her contemporary the Duchess Margaret of Newcastle[2] wrote: “Women live like bats or owls, are slaving away like animals and die like worms”. Like the aforementioned she complained bitterly the women’s fate. Her mind grew crazy for freedom and loneliness. It goes without saying that the insane duchess served as a warning in order to intimidate bright young girls.

Since no intelligent woman obeying the rules of decency should write books Dorothy Osborne[3] only wrote melancholic and sensitive letters. Letters could be written while men talked as long as they were not disturbed.

Mrs. Aphra Behn[4] was a middle class woman who owned virtues like humor, vitality and courage. By reason of her husband’s death she was forced to make a living by using her talents. She was the first to succeed.

The great chance at the end of the 18th century was that women of the middle class commenced to write. Female writing was no longer a sign of insanity, it gained practical importance. Husbands could die or stroke of bad luck hit families. Hundreds of middle class women started writing or translating. The immense mental liveliness, exchange of opinions, meetings and writing of essays resulted from the fact that women were encouraged enough to earn money by writing. In the narrator’s opinion the fact that women turned to writing in general was more important than single books.

Jane Austin[5] did not possess a study of her own. Most part of her work must have been written in the living room. She took carefully care that no servant, no visitor or any person outside the next of skin perceived her occupation. Jane Austin was the first to be able to write without hate, bitterness or fear. Nevertheless, she still suffered from her life’s narrowness. It was impossible for a woman to leave her home alone. She was never traveling, never going by bus through London or was eating out all by herself. Maybe it was her nature not to long for what she did not possess.

Mary Benton doubted that this was equally true for Charlotte Bronte[6]´, who expressed her longing for distant areas in her book “Jane Eye”. The restlessness laid in her nature and tortured her. Surprising is the fact that most of the excellent novels were written by women who were to poor to buy several sheets of paper at a time.

George Elliot[7] escaped from the social constraints. But she was only able to flee into the isolation of a villa in St. John’ wood. Her marriage similar partnership with a married man was generally met with disapproval.

The young Tolstoy[8] did more or less the same thing, went into war and was able to gather various experiences unhampered and unscolded. Had he been living in the back of beyond, would he have been able to write “War and Peace”?

The women’s values described in books were very different from the men’s ones.
The male values seemed to prevail. An important book stated a critic, deals with war, and an unimportant one with female feelings. What genius and honesty must have been required to withstand in a pure patriarchal society. Jane Austin and Emily Bronte’ accomplished this deed. They wrote like women wrote, disregarding the permanent warning to write only this or that.

Another great problem that occurred was the lack of tradition; women could not retrace opinions or wording from former female novelists. In view of the fact that variety and freedom of expressions are utmost essential in the area of art, this inadequacy and lack of tools of the trade must have strongly affected women’s writing skills.

[1] Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720) was writing poems, which were influenced by her friends Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and John Gay.
[2] Margart Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle 8 1623-1673), eccentric poet with interest in the developing natural science
[3] Dorothy Osborne (1627-1695) was writing letters, which presented a vivid picture of her epoch and the relationship between both genders.
[4] Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was the first female professional writer, especially successful with her theatre plays.
[5] Jane Austin (1775-1817) was a famous English writer
[6] Charlotte Bronte (1816-1853) was an English novelist and the eldest of the three Brontë sisters whose novels
have become enduring classics of English literature.
[7] Mary Ann Evans (1819 – 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist
[8] Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian writer – novelist essayist, dramatist and philosopher