A Room of One's Own Page #3

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particularly in the upper classes the

truth will often took place while one or

both parties were in the cradle and

marriage when they were scarcely out of

the nurses charge

now this passage refers to 1470 soon

after the time of Chaucer the next

reference we have the position of women

comes some 200 years later at the time

of the Stuart's it was saw the exception

of a women of upper and middle class to

choose their own husbands and when a

husband had been assigned he was Lord

and Master so far as law and custom

could make him yet even serve neither.

Shakespeare's women nor those of

authentic seventeenth-century memoirs

seemed wanting in personality and

character

I'll certainly if we consider it

Cleopatra must have had a way with her.

Lady Macbeth one would suppose had a

will of her own Rosalind

one might conclude was an attractive

girl Professor Trevelyan was speaking no

more than the truth when he said that.

Shakespeare's women did not seem lacking

in personality and character indeed not

being an historian one might go further

and say that women had burnt like

beacons in the works of poets from the

beginning of time Clytemnestra.

Antigone fedra Cressida Desdemona the.

Duchess of Malfi Milliman Becky shark.

Anna Karenina Emma Bovary had a table

the names flocked mind

nor do they recall women lacking in

personality and character indeed if

woman had no existence saving the works

of fiction written by man I might

imagine her to be a person of the utmost

importance

very various heroic and mean splendid

and sordid infinitely beautiful and

hideous in the extreme as great as a man

some might think even greater

but this is woman in fiction in fact as.

Professor Trevelyan points out she was

locked up beaten and flung about the

room so a very queer composit being thus

emerges imaginative issues of the

highest importance practically she is

completely insignificant she pervades

poetry from cover to cover she's all but

absent from history in fiction she

dominates the lives of kings and

conquerors in fact she was the slave of

any boy whose parents forced her wing

upon her finger

the most inspired words the most

profound thoughts fall from her lips in

literature in real life she could hardly

read could scarcely spell and was the

unique property of her husband

but it's certainly a strange monster one

makes up if one reads the historians

first and the poet second a worm

wings like an eagle the spirit of beauty

in the kitchen chopping up suet but here

am I asking why women did not write

poetry in the Elizabethan age and I'm

not sure how they were educated whether

they were taught to write whether they

had sitting-rooms

how many of them had children before the

age of 21

what in short they did between 8 in the

morning and 8 at night but they had no

money evidently according to Professor.

Trevelyan they were married whether they

liked it or not before they were out of

the nursery it would have been extremely

hard even on this showing if one of them

had suddenly written the plays of

Shakespeare and I thought of that old

gentleman who is dead now but was a

bishop who declared that it was

impossible for any woman past present or

to come to have the genius of

Shakespeare

he wrote to the papers about it he also

told a lady who applied him for

information that cats do not as a matter

of fact go to heaven although they do

have souls

of a sort

how much thinking those both gentlemen

used to save one how the borders of

ignorant shrank back their approach

cats do not go to heaven

women cannot write the plays of

Shakespeare

be that as it may I cannot help agreeing

with the bishop at least in this that it

would have been impossible for any woman

to have written the plays of Shakespeare

in the age of Shakespeare Shakespeare

himself went very probably his mother

was an heiress to the Grammar School

there he may have learned Latin and the

elements of grammar and logic he was it

as well-known a wild boy who poached

rabbits perhaps shot a deer and had

rather sooner than he should have done

to marry a woman in the neighborhood who

bore him a child rather quicker than was

right that escapade sent him to seek his

fortune in London he had it seemed a

taste for the theatre tradition tells us

he started by holding horses at the

stage door soon he got work in the

theatre he became a successful actor

living the hub of the universe meeting

everybody knowing everybody practising

his art upon the boards and exercising

his wit in the streets and even gaining

access to the Palace of the Queen

but I like to imagine mmm since facts

are hard to come by the cheeks beer had

a wonderfully gifted sister called.

Judith let us say she was as adventurous

as imaginative as a god to see the world

as he was she was not sent to school she

had no chance of learning grammar and

logic let alone of reading Latin she

picked up a book known again perhaps one

of her brothers and read a few pages but

then her parents came in and told her to

mend the stockings or mind the stew and

not a moon about with books she

scribbled a few pages on the sly up in

the Apple loft but was careful to hide

them what set fire to them soon however

before she was out of her teens she was

betrothed to the son of a neighboring

wool stapler she cried out that manage

was hateful to her and for that she was

severely beaten by her father

she made a small parcel of her

belongings let herself down by rope one

summers night and took the road to.

London she was not 17

the birds that sang in the hitches were

not more musical than she was she had

the quickest fancier gift like her

brothers for the tune of words like him

too

she had a taste for the theater she

stood at the stage door she wanted to

act

she said men laughed in her face the

manager a fat loose lipped manga Ford

and bellowed something about poodles

dancing and women acting no woman he

said could possibly be an actress he

hinted you can imagine what she could

find no training in her craft but could

she even seek her dinner in a tavern or

roam the streets at midnight yet her

genius was perfection and she lusted to

feed abundantly upon the lives of men

and women in the study of their ways at

last

but she was very young oddly like

Shakespeare the poet in her face the

same grey eyes the same rounded brows

the last Nick green the actor manager

took pity on her she found herself with

child by their gentlemen

so.

Who can measure the heat and violence of

a poet's heart when court entangled in a

woman's body and so

she killed herself one winter's night

and lies buried at the crossroads where

the Omnibus is now stopped outside the.

Elephant and Castle

that more or less is how I think the

story would run if any woman in.

Shakespeare's day had had Shakespeare's

genius but for my part now I agree with

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