Concetti Chiave
- V. Woolf uses Shakespeare's fictional sister to highlight the economic and social barriers preventing talented women from achieving artistic success in the past.
- The passage is structured argumentatively, weighing pros and cons before reaching a conclusion.
- Woolf initially criticizes women for not achieving historically significant feats but shifts to acknowledge their roles in nurturing and educating society.
- She employs irony to comment on the recent acquisition of basic rights for women, such as education and property ownership, highlighting their historically delayed progress.
- The tone of the passage evolves from apparent criticism to a recognition of women's contributions and the irony of their late emancipation.
This passage is part of a series of lectures V.Woolf gave at a women's college to a female audience.
They were collected into 'A Room Of One's Own' , an essay.
What is the Hypothetical Role of Shakespeare's Sister?
V.Woolf speaks on the subject of women and literature using, as an example, a hypothetical fictional character, Shakespeare' s sister, i.e., a talented woman, as gifted as her brother, who would have never had the possibility to write a great work of art because of the economic and social conditions women were subjected to, in Shakespeare's time.
As she clearly states in the first lines, her intention is to encourage women to 'go about the business of life'.
This passage has an argumentative structure, Woolf lists pros and cons and then reaches a conclusion.
Apparent Accusations and Change of Tone
At first, she apparently accuses women of being ignorant, she says they have never made a discovery of some importance, they have never ruled an empire or led an army, they have never written anything like Shakespeare's works.
From line 8, her reasoning changes, and she admits that women have been busy in giving life and breeding, washing and teaching all the human beings in existence at that time.
Irony on Women's Rights
From line 18, she ironically remarks that women have lately started to enjoy ' immense privileges' as 'two colleges for women', the possibility to possess their own property after marriage and the right to vote.
The irony lies in the fact that only very recently women have conquered some of the elementary rights which have always been granted to men.
In lines 40-41, the writer states that now the
Domande da interrogazione
- What is the significance of Shakespeare's sister in V. Woolf's lecture?
V. Woolf uses the hypothetical character of Shakespeare's sister to illustrate the barriers talented women faced in the past due to economic and social constraints, preventing them from achieving artistic greatness like their male counterparts.
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