Virginia Woolf was one of the founders of the Modernism movement and was considered one of the most important and prominent
of English writers. She wrote many articles and essays and was herself an interesting figure to study.
Her book, A Room of One’s Own, is really just an extended essay addressing Woolf’s thoughts on the question of women and fiction. A Room of One’s Own examines and comments on the struggles of the
female artist/author and whether she is able to produce art of the quality of other successful male authors.
According to Woolf, a female author in order to be successful and achieve publication and recognition must have her own income or money supply and a room of her own to write in.
Through her lectures at Cambridge University, which is what her essay is based on, Woolf poses many
questions. One of these thought provoking questions is why women for so long have written and been published under assumed-male-names. Is it because the general public (back in the 20’s) would not believe a female writer would have any credibility writing in a normally male dominated field? Why do authors such as Emily Bronte and Jane Austen write such typically feminine books?
Woolf believed that women were at a distinct disadvantage to men because they were mostly not highly educated, did not possess much knowledge of the world and the employment of motherhood and housekeeping kept them very busy. Another reason female writers had no access to publication is because they were subjected to male domination that left them without any useful attributes that would help a writer to succeed.
A wonderfully written essay that encourages individual thinking by an author determined to bring the prospect of Modernism (at least in 1928) to the public’s attention with a definite emphasis on the state and view of the women’s literature culture.