Una stanza tutta per sé

Di Virginia Woolf

Introduzione di Armanda Guiducci
Traduzione e prefazione di Maura Del Serra
Edizione integrale

Illustre capostipite dei manifesti femminili del Novecento europeo, e primo brillante intervento della Woolf sul tema «donne e scrittura» (allora oggetto di un dibattito oggi banalizzato più che superato), Una stanza tutta per sé è un piccolo trattato ironicamente immaginifico, personalissimo nella misura godibilmente tesa di toni e motivi (il conversational, le proiezioni letterarie, l’analisi sociale, la satira, la visione). Il leitmotiv della stanza, grembo e prigione dell’anima femminile, si allarga fino a comprendere tutti i luoghi della dimora umana: la natura, la cultura, la storia e infine la «realtà» stessa nella sua inquietante-esaltante molteplicità.

«Ma, direte, Le abbiamo chiesto di parlare delle donne e il romanzo – cosa c’entra avere una stanza tutta per sé? Cercherò di spiegarmi. Quando mi avete chiesto di parlare delle donne e il romanzo, mi sono seduta sulla riva di un fiume e ho cominciato a chiedermi cosa significassero queste parole.»


Virginia Woolf

nacque a Londra nel 1882. Figlia di un critico famoso, crebbe in un ambiente letterario certamente stimolante. Fu a capo del gruppo di Bloomsbury, circolo culturale progressista che prendeva il nome dal quartiere londinese. Con il marito fondò nel 1917 la casa editrice Hogarth Press. Grande estimatrice dell’opera di Proust, divenne presto uno dei nomi più rilevanti della narrativa inglese del primo Novecento. Morì suicida nel 1941. La Newton Compton ha pubblicato Gita al faro, Una stanza tutta per sé, Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, Notte e giorno, La crociera, Tutti i racconti e il volume unico Tutti i romanzi.

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Newton Compton Editori
• Data di uscita: 16 dic 2013
• ISBN: 9788854141902

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was an English novelist, essayist, short story writer, publisher, critic and member of the Bloomsbury group, as well as being regarded as both a hugely significant modernist and feminist figure. Her most famous works include Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own.

Anteprima del libro

103

Titolo originale: A Room of One’s Own

Quarta edizione ebook: giugno 2012

© 1993, 2006 Newton Compton editori s.r.l.

Roma, Casella postale 6214

ISBN 978-88-541-4190-2

www.newtoncompton.com

Edizione elettronica realizzata da Gag srl

Virginia Woolf

Una stanza tutta per sé

Introduzione di Amanda Guiducci

Traduzione e prefazione di Maura Del Serra

Edizione integrale

Newton Compton editori

Il percorso creativo di Virginia Woolf

¹

Nel nostro secolo tanto ricco di ottime scrittrici (pensiamo solo a Karen Blixen, Marina Cvetaeva, Anna Achmatova, Katherine Mansfield, Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Yourcenar, tanto per una veloce citazione), Virginia Woolf resta, e resterà per qualche secolo di là dal confine del Duemila, la più grande scrittrice d'avanguardia del Novecento europeo fra Proust (che amava) e Joyce (che aborriva). Amava Proust (la cui lettura le era stata proposta in anteprima culturale dalla sua cerchia veramente progressista di Bloomsbury) per l'ampia gamma sottile e vibratile delle rifrazioni psicologiche nelle quali si dissolveva il personaggio tradizionale a contorni perfettamente chiusi, realistici, inafferrabile, ahimè, nella sua interiorità.

«L'aspetto individuale, i segni caratteristici sono realtà puerili. Sotto di essi tutto è buio, diffuso, insondabilmente profondo» (Gita al faro). Aborriva Joyce per i suoi «vortici di oscenità». L'amica scrittrice Katherine Mansfield le aveva portato da visionare l' Ulysses in forma di scartafaccio, convinta si trattasse di un testo straordinario.

Una attività critica intensa e ininterrotta, iniziata fin da giovanissima, la condusse a meditare sui problemi della letteratura e a chiarire a se stessa le ragioni della propria poetica, commisurandola sul solido blocco della tradizione letteraria inglese, e la portò ben presto alla audace convinzione che il romanzo tradizionale di fattura ottocentesca non corrispondesse più né alla realtà mutata del Novecento né, soprattutto, all'essere umano mutato. «Il carattere umano è mutato», scriveva nel dicembre 1910, «si è fatto frammentario ed elusivo».

Nel '22 Virginia ruppe gli ormeggi, si lanciò; e scrisse, dedicato a Thoby, l'amato fratello morto, La camera di Giacobbe. Aveva già dolorosamente varato (sette stesure fra una minaccia e l'altra di follia), forse con l'occhio a Jane Austen, che ammirava, un romanzo del tutto tradizionale: La crociera e, poco dopo, Notte e giorno, uscito a filo con la guerra mondiale, nel 1919, il cui tradizionalismo indignò molto la Mansfield (non era più possibile scrivere così, dopo una guerra che aveva sconvolto il mondo!), ma che per lei, Virginia, rappresentarono un banco di prova, una sfida estrema al grande romanzo realistico, per lei incarnato al suo top in Tolstoj: era lei in grado di padroneggiare la tradizione realistica classica del romanzo inglese? Può essere anche che quel rifarsi alla tradizione realistica classica dei suoi esordi abbia rappresentato per lei una solida sporgenza cui aggrapparsi nelle crisi depressivo-maniacali che la perseguitarono dal '13 al '15, per due anni dopo il matrimonio con Leonard Woolf.

La crociera e Notte e giorno, anche se prolissi (specie Notte e giorno) tutt'altro che privi di bellezza alla lettura, specie La crociera con le sue scene di delirio allucinatorio, vanno considerati due fasi del pervicace, ostinato processo di autorealizzazione di Virginia in scrittrice fra una crisi e l'altra a tendenza suicida. Sotto questo aspetto, fu, fino al fatale 1941, un'eroina: presentiva tutto l'orrore della perdita della lucidità, la terrifica minaccia della follia disgregatrice, lottò sempre con il costruirsi una identità di scrittrice sempre più salda e mediante la creatività. «Il pieno uso delle nostre facoltà significa felicità».

Gli anni fra il '15 e il '22 furono dunque un periodo cruciale di trasformazione della Woolf da aspirante scrittrice in scrittrice. Allorché scrisse secondo il realismo tradizionale i suoi primi due libri era tuttavia già in pieno conflitto con se stessa. Mentre scriveva Notte e giorno si era chiesta - a proposito dei romanzi impeccabilmente confezionati secondo verosimiglianza - «fatica sprecata giacché oscura e tarpa la luce dell'ispirazione» -: «È proprio così la vita? Devono essere proprio così i romanzi?».

Nei racconti Lunedì o martedì del '21 che, con sua gran felicità, piacquero molto al suo amico poeta T.S. Eliot, aveva incominciato a costruire secondo quell'approccio lirico obliquo che avrebbe generato poi il sottile, inconfondibile tremito poetico delle sue pagine future. La propria voce la trovò nella Camera di Giacobbe, dopo venti anni che l'andava cercando. Aveva ormai 40 anni.

Come Joyce, ma senza supporlo, Virginia considerava la «trama», tanto più se avvincente (come in Conrad), una «volgarità da giornalisti» e il primo suo passo in senso sperimentale fu nella Camera di Giacobbe il fratturare la trama. Scritto con l'evidente scopo di dimostrare che Jacob Flanders, il protagonista, era inconoscibile, il libro assembla una raccolta di frammenti-ricordo (attinti alla vita dell'amato fratello morto Thoby): Jacob bambino che gioca sulla spiaggia, Jacob a Cambridge, a pranzo, in Grecia, nella biblioteca del British Museum, e così via. Gli avvenimenti principali, come la morte di Jacob nella prima guerra mondiale, non vengono menzionati, devono essere dedotti dai loro effetti secondari: così, la madre di Jacob insieme all'amico di Jacob, Bonamy, ne svuotano la stanza e non sanno più che farsene delle sue scarpe. Nel destino di Jacob è implicita una domanda: ma dove conduce questa civiltà guerrafondaia? Dobbiamo accontentarci di frammenti e di ombre, vuole amaramente qui dirci la scrittrice, giacché noi non siamo che ombre e amiamo disperatamente esseri che non sono altro che ombre. «La vita non è che una processione di ombre e Dio solo sa perché le abbracciamo tanto ardentemente e le vediamo scomparire con tanta angoscia, dato che sono ombre». La scrittrice vuole qui renderci visibile che dobbiamo accontentarci di ombre e di frammenti: tale è la condizione tragica del nostro amore sulla terra.

Verso il '20 la Woolf aveva già elaborato una propria visione della vita e dell'io, che comportò la scelta formale del monologo interiore, atto a fluidificare le rigide forme scandite del romanzo realistico e a umanizzarne i personaggi, permettendo al romanziere di penetrarne l'interiorità altrimenti inattingibile, celata com'era dietro il luccichio dei bottoni della giacca o dello sparato, celata cioè dietro l'aspetto esteriore dell'io tutto proteso sul mondo fisico e sociale. Esiste, pensava la Woolf un aspetto esteriore dell'io, quasi fosse un guscio plasmato dalle passioni famigliari e personali, la personalità, affacciato sull'esperienza e sul tempo che lo cangiano e lo modificano, il passato premendo sul presente e il presente sul passato. Ma fluidi e cangianti sono in realtà i contorni dell'io. «Io sono fatta e rifatta continuamente», dice Susan nelle Onde. Secondo la Woolf i personaggi dei romanzi realistici tradizionali erano costruiti in base a una nozione troppo superficiale dell'io umano.

I personaggi di Virginia Woolf raramente sono racchiusi in contorni precisi. Aleggia intorno a loro un senso d'inesplicabile e di mistero. La Woolf intese simultaneamente esprimere sia il mutamento che la continuità dell'identità individuale - e li espresse nei Ramsay di Gita al faro, nella Signora Dalloway, nei sei personaggi delle Onde. Come in Joyce che, nonostante il parere contrario dell'amica K. Mansfield e del ben più autorevole amico T.S. Eliot, Virginia continuò tuttavia a disprezzare come «un manovale autodidatta che si schiaccia i brufoli», l'innovazione formale sostanziale della Woolf fu, in definitiva, quella del monologo interiore, del flusso di coscienza, che le permetteva meravigliosamente di esplorare l'interiorità dei personaggi: ricordi, desideri, sogni... I personaggi, con una duplice, e logorante, tensione della scrittrice, potevano adesso essere simultaneamente veduti sia nel loro aspetto esteriore che nella più difesa intimità del loro essere.

Questo modo di trattare i personaggi fu perfino più avanzato di quello di Joyce. «Noi siamo zebrati, multicolori», sosteneva la Woolf. E a ragione: molte presenze invisibili, a volte fantasmatiche, interferiscono con il nostro io più segreto, interiore (e sono anzi proprio loro a stabilizzare la continuità della nostra identità), lo striano, lo zebrano, lo rendono multicolore.

Nell'uso del monologo interiore, da signora raffinata quale era e non amante della psicoanalisi, scansò le melmose pozze dell'Es nelle quali Joyce aveva fatto profondamente affondare Leopold Bloom e Molly Bloom, generando quei «vortici d'oscenità» che lo avevano reso tanto sgradevole alla Woolf.

E, quanto alla sua personale visione della vita, Virginia la espresse in un articolo del '19, oggi famosissimo, Modern Fiction:

Esaminiamo per un momento una mente comune in un giorno comune. Essa riceve una miriade di impressioni - banali, fantastiche, evanescenti o scolpite da una punta d'acciaio - che le provengono da tutte le parti. È come una pioggia incessante di atomi... Registriamo gli atomi così come essi cadono sulla mente e nell'ordine in cui cadono, tracciamo il disegno, per quanto sconnesso o incoerente sia all'apparenza, che ogni immagine o incidente incide sulla coscienza.

La forma non era dunque prescrivibile e, infatti, la Woolf continuava:

Se lo scrittore potesse basare il suo lavoro sui suoi sentimenti e non sulle convenzioni, non ci sarebbero più trame né commedie, né tragedie, né storie d'amore, né catastrofi, alla maniera precostituita. La vita non è una serie di lampioni piantati in forma simmetrica, è un alone luminoso semitrasparente che avvolge la nostra coscienza dall'inizio alla fine. E non è forse compito del romanziere saper rendere questa qualità fluttuante, inconoscibile, inafferrabile, con il minimo intervento di ciò che è sempre esterno ed estraneo?

Intorno al '24 Virginia giunse all'acme della ribellione contro il romanzo tradizionale modellato da tutta una stirpe maschile, e nel contempo prese piena, orgogliosa coscienza che il suo talento era decisamente femminile, poetico e lirico, con radici in una ipersensibilità in grado di folgorarla in momenti eccezionali con piccole epifanie, piccole rivelazioni del «disegno nascosto» dietro il non essere, cioè dietro l'ottuso spessore delle apparenze della realtà quotidiana. Scrivere era per lei la «grande gioia» di poter rendere reale per mezzo di parole il disegno celato dietro il non essere - disegno nel quale tutti noi esseri umani rientriamo in quanto parte del mondo, mondo che «è un'opera d'arte» di cui «noi siamo le parole, siamo la musica». Presa coscienza della natura, femminile e poetica, del proprio talento, Virginia decise di scrivere secondo quanto lei, donna e «sopraffatta dalla poesia della vita», sentiva la vita: «un alone luminoso avvolgente la coscienza», senza più farsi ricattare, per sfide concorrenziali di parità con l'uomo, dai modelli maschili di romanzo.

Frattanto fin dal '23 aveva preso sempre più vita nella sua immaginazione una figura femminile: Clarissa Dalloway. Clarissa, una signora dei quartieri alti londinesi, le richiamava tutta una serie di amiche aristocratiche che l'avevano affascinata per la loro grazia, elegante disinvoltura, «quasi esseri che si muovessero in un mondo superiore». La signora Dalloway fu per la Woolf una tappa di grande importanza: fu il primo romanzo nel quale, senza più problemi o complessi d'inferiorità, attinse alla grande riserva della sua esperienza femminile, e si abbandonò alla propria vena lirica, anzi elegiaca. In Clarissa Dalloway, sulla cinquantina, che, indebolita da una malattia, avverte dolorosamente il passare del tempo e della vita, vita che lei ama intensamente, la Woolf trasfuse il proprio senso di estasi di fronte alla vita e la propria intensa consapevolezza di ogni attimo vissuto. Clarissa si appiglia con tutti i sensi alla pienezza di ogni attimo vissuto per combattere il doloroso sentimento della vita come un graduale processo di perdita e di compromesso. Dedica una giornata al fine di creare una serata di vita splendida - in forma di ricevimento - per i suoi amici: una creatività tipica della vita femminile tutta tesa a intessere rapporti.

Nel clou del suo ricevimento serale, Clarissa, vestita di verde e di argento, si muove come una sirena nelle onde e, in quel felice fluttuare fra la gente, riconosce dentro di sé con gioia: «ancora possedeva quel dono: di essere, esistere, e tutto riunire nell'attimo fuggente».

A non gran distanza dal risplendente salotto di Clarissa si aggira, disperato, in preda alle forze del caos e della follia, a visioni allucinatorie, un certo Septimus Warren Smith, reduce di guerra. Il romanzo è costruito sulla continua contrapposizione fra l'amore estatico di Clarissa per la vita e l'impulso di morte di Septimus - e nasce di qui la sua straordinaria ricchezza.

La signora Dalloway continua il ricevimento anche dopo avere saputo del suicidio di Septimus, non già per cinismo ma per riaffermare la vita e la creatività contro la morte e la distruzione. Nella Signora Dalloway Virginia inaugurò il suo personale e originale modo di narrare: la pioggia impressionistica degli atomi sulla mente umana.

Quasi tutto quello che narrava era un riflesso di piccoli fatti insignificanti sulla coscienza ondeggiante e cangiante dei personaggi, la quale, come un prisma toccato dalla luce, rimandava rifrazioni e dissolvenze. Ne sortiva davvero un senso della vita come di un palpitante alone luminoso. Il tempo non ha offuscato questa scrittura così leggera, ritmata sull'onda, screziata di immagini. Quando l'ebbe terminato di scrivere, la Woolf annotò sul suo diario: «Ora posso scrivere, e scrivere e scrivere». Aveva ormai abbracciato in pieno, sentiva, il proprio punto di vista femminile.

Il libro uscì nel 1925 e nello stesso anno Virginia cominciò a scrivere Gita al faro, libro considerato il suo capolavoro e che uscì due anni dopo.

L'altro passo in avanti della Woolf fu di spezzare, mediante una satira fantastica, la rigida connessione sociale fra identità sessuale e ruolo. E lo fece col dipingere un brillante e rocambolesco ritratto di Orlando, ora uomo, ora donna, ritratto ispiratole da Vita Sackville-West, una aristocratica lesbica che si era presa di lei e la cui gran classe e casata la affascinavano. Ora

Recensioni su Una stanza tutta per sé

[lydia1879 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Whenever someone talked about Virginia Woolf, they talked about this book, and how much they loved it. They recommended I start here, with A Room of One's Own, a collection of essays given at a speech at various universities.

I was skeptical. Up until very recently, I didn't read a lot of non-fiction. But this isn't just a collection of essays - you get a sense not only of Woolf's writing, but of the woman herself.

In this book she speculates that Shakespeare had a sister, and wonders how successful she might've been. (Not very, unless she had A Room of Her Own.)

The reason I love this book is because Virginia Woolf takes all that is familiar to me as a former history major, (the sexism rife throughout literature) and picks it apart. She's vulnerable, she's frustrated, she's a little bit bitter, but her writing is beautiful.

I'll leave you with one of the passages from the book that has stayed with me since I read it a few years ago.

"A queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband.”

[judtheobscure · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

After a friend recommended it I found a copy and read it through in a day. It is really amazing and full of hard, crystallised truth, discursive and contemplative and philosophical and fervent. Wonderful stuff that had me jotting down extracts in my notebook over and over. I need to read more of her.

[dreamingtereza_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Essential.

[bookomaniac-1 · Valutazione: 2 su 5 stelle]

Essay, op basis van lezing uit 1929, over het lot van de vrouw en mogelijkheden om er uit te breken. Zeer wervend en met mooie inzichten, maar niet altijd vlotte lectuur door onduidelijke opbouw.

[readandfindout · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

3.5 stars. I enjoyed the overall tone of this book as well as Woolf's writing style (for the most part). There were some sections that were just a little too stream of consciousness for my taste. I had mixed feelings throughout though.

[helenliz_1 · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

This is a book based on a couple of lectured given by Virgina Woolf. Published in 1928 it is an interesting read. She starts with her ideas as to why women are under represented in history and in literature. The surmise is, roughly, that men who have written are those that have had the money and space to be able to find the time to write. They are not being dragged from one job to the next in order to feed the family, therefore they have the time to be able to create. She uses a hypothetical sister of Shakespeare to make her point. How did Judith manage? Well she didn't get to go to the Grammar school, so her learning was whatever she managed to pick up from William's school books, and she was always being told to put that book down and do her chores. She, similarly, fled to London, but you can't put a woman on the stage, so she gets treated as a lady of small repute and ends up, knocked up, in an unmarked grave under the roundabout at Elephant & Castle. The surmise that in order to create you need to have the time and space to do so I can believe.What didn't chime with my way of thinking was that women & men are different, and that they would write differently as a result. A woman shouldn't try and write like a man, but should continue to write in a predominantly female manner. Woolf does suggest that each sex is a mixture of both manly & womanly characteristics and that both sexes should use both characteristics when writing. So a woman shouldn't try to write in a purely manly manner, but use elements of that style to augment the feminine. I have a spot of bother with that, as it assumes that men & women are chalk & cheese. I don't think they are. I prefer to consider that, by nature, there are differences, but they are in an overlapping continuum. There are things that remain relevant in this now, 90 years later, and in some ways it is god to see how things have moved (women are granted degrees and have had the vote, for almost a century, for instance). On the other hand, there seems to be any number of ways in which this was still contemporary. There remains much to do.

[mariannehusbands · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

I have been questioning much in my life lately with particular guilt about how much I have let both myself and my sex and my children down, given the opportunities that I have had. I have parents who throughout my childhood have actively encouraged me to get a good education and who have nutured and supported me to achieve my best and I squandered it. I have worked in life and had some great jobs but right now I am completely dependant on my husband for a living - shame on me!!!! I am time rich - I have loads of time. Every day I am dripping in time and I waste it on Candy Crush Saga and yet I am so terrified that there is hardly any time left at all - what a travesty!!!!!I read A Room of One's Own in two sessions - I could not sleep after the first session as my mind was already racing.After completing the essay this evening I am compelled to write down my thoughts in this review.So firstly, Virginia Wolf got me thinking, her essay made me look at myself and my responsibility not only as a woman but as a human being. What I take from what she writes in her argument is that historically women have been denied opportunities such as education, freedom of movement etc and as a result they have in general been unable to achieve in the same way as men - eg academically or vocationally but in 1928 those opportunities are improving for women and so women can no longer hide in excuses so long as they are well off, which I believe is the second point she is making in so much as it doesn't matter whether you are male or female you still need to have money to write. I think it goes further and really it is also about respect. Not about men having respect for women but about us all having respect for ourselves as human beings and respect for each other. Let's stop blaming men and just embrace who we are men or women we all count. There will always be exceptions to any rule but basically at the end of the day it comes down to this. Stop making excuses and blaming others and just do it - whatever it is JUST DO IT because nowadays anything is possible by anyone. (so long as you have your freedom, have access to education and can afford to live ) This is what I took from the essay on first reading - oh and there is something about lesbianism in it too.

[sasham-1 · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

Made me really appreciate the things I take for granted, living in a modern, western country - the ability to own property, have a job, control my money and have a political voice and choices in my life: It pays to be reminded that it hasn't been that long since women had none of those things and we should never take them for granted.

[mmoj_2 · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

I felt the book covered as much about men as it did women. Woolf was such a widely read author that almost every page had me wanting to pick up another work mentioned. I am still wondering though could the room of one's own be oneself and the strength of character, pride and sense of self be the 500 pounds?

[thedivineoomba · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This book is near perfect when Virginia Woolf writes about "Women and Writing". She hits it spot on too - women don't have the resources that men do - so they never get a chance to have a proper education because they aren't allowed in the men only libraries of the time. They don't have their own space or their own income, and she points out this is true for anybody, but women mostly (because men can become "made", while their wives will only move up to more drudgery).It is written with a gentle humour that hides a scathing argument. She uses anecdote to statistics to point blank obviousness to stand against the arguments made by men (that women don't have the mental capacity to write fine poetry, or think, or play politics, or even have a say in the world)- this book, while slim, manages to argue each point and does it with grace.

[cavernism · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

A fantastic essay- amazing (and perhaps a bit sad) that the words Woolf wrote about women in 1929 still resonate in 2015.

[vhartpowers · Valutazione: 1 su 5 stelle]

I'm only half way through, but thus far, sigh, it's so monotonous and she goes on and on repetitively about men. Alright already, we got it!
I find it interesting that in just 54 pages she has already mentioned women suicide at least four times and I wonder if she had already been having issues with her illness at that time.
She does a disservice to women; going mad and killing herself. For all her snooty snubbing about poor people being so inferior to the rich.
So one must be a rich woman with a room of her own to be intelligent or be an artist of any kind? According to her writing, this is what can be surmised.
What a long rant against men. . . and women in some parts. She comes off as a very miserable person.
pg 108 "a poor child in England has little momre hope than had the son of an Athenian slave to be emancipated into that intellectual freedom of which great writings are born." That is it. Intellectual freedom depends upon material things.
Women , then, have not had a dog's chance of writig poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own.

The limitation of her mind, of her thoughts.

[margaretfield · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

extended essays about women in writing and feminism in general

[melissalenhardt · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This is the first book I've ever read where I am sad I didn't read it earlier in life. It is a feminist book without being militant, angry or bitter. In fact, Woolf delivers her feminism with a smile, wink and a great deal of wit. Her defense of women shouldn't offend men. In fact, I imagine most people would nod along with her. Except fans of Charlotte Bronte. But, because of Woolf's winking demeanor through the entire paper (it was originally a lecture to women at Girton, I believe?) I wonder if she was indeed skewering Bronte for losing her message due to Bronte's "anger" or if Woolf was skewering the critics (men) who said the same about Bronte? I'm not familiar enough with Bronte, her critics, fans or otherwise to say. (I don't remember anger or bitterness in Jane Eyre, but I haven't read it in a few years.) But, I do think Woolf has an excellent point: write without anger or bitterness and your message will come across better.

I listened to the Juliet Stevenson narration of A Room of One's Own. I will listen to anything Juliet Stevenson performs. She is one of the best audiobook narrators out there, especially classics. However, I wish I had the physical book to read along. This book begs for underlining and multiple reads.

[dazzyj_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

A complex and humane polemic which is a bracing reminder of the winds against which women like Woolf bravely fought in the early twentieth century.

[dchaikin_1 · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

37. A Room of One's Own (audio) by Virginia Woolfreader: Juliet Stevensonpublished: 1929, 2011 audioformat: 5:02 Libby audiobookacquired: Librarylistened: Jun 20-26rating: 5includes four short stories: Monday or Tuesday, A Haunted House, Kew Gardens, The New DressI think I'm supposed to say something about feminism after reading this, but while I was listening I was too distracted by the way Woolf writes (and the way Juliet Stevenson reads her) to really be thinking about her points. Woolf is a wonderful stylist, who stands apart on many levels from anything written today. Clever, formally structured, elegant, but also everything is designed to bring in the reader's interest, give a universal perspective, and provide a sense of lingual precision. This is my first time reading her, I was kind of in awe at just listening to how she says what she says. She is writing about women and fiction, but really about sexism in general, and what this has meant for women then (1928) and throughout history. At one point she explains that she looked through all the books on women, all written by men, and she feels they can offer her nothing because instead of careful unbiased analysis, these books are all, everyone, pervaded by anger. She has to turn elsewhere, a point that really stuck with me. As for the rest, it was all true, all frustrating, all good to read, but also all stuff I felt we all already know and (at least in our little community here) pretty much all fully agree with. You can read this for 1928 feminism, but my recommendation would be read this to read Woolf in essay form, and be rewarded with literary critiques of the Brontës and Jane Austen, or the impact of WWI on humanity, and also with her views on feminism....Despite the cover Libby uses, I didn't get the Ali Smith introduction, but instead did get four short stories. The New Dress was my favorite and I'll have it in mind when I get to Mrs Dalloway, one of these days.

[rayski_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Essentially an essay on feminism. Woolf explores historical women writers and her contemporaries. Looking at their works, their personal situations and compares to male writers in similar times. In particular how men are afforded more advantages to successfully write and very few women are provided any opportunity at all, much less an education. She also looks at how women writers are viewed, specifically looked down on and those who are extremely successful are seen as oddities. Woolf makes cases for far less renowned women writers who were provided little education, lack of a work environment (outside a kitchen) and makes a case for how these women are possibly even more amazing than their more famous contemporaries because of what they can do given their society imposed constraints.The book took a little to get its feel and where Woolf was going, but once you were there it was enjoyable.

[turnthepaige · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

It almost seems ridiculous for me, lowly college student, to presume to judge a work of Virginia Woolf's. Sacrilegious, even. But, ah well, my opinion is what it is. Overall, I enjoyed this book, or "extended essay," I suppose it technically is. Writing in 1928, Woolf proposes that a woman must have a room of her own and "five hundred a month," or rather, the ability to properly contemplate and the authority to think for herself, in order to create. More specifically in order to write. Her observations were thought-provoking and sometimes troubling relatable to the state of literature today. A couple of passages in particular startled me with their modern relevance:"Yet it is the masculine values that prevail. Speaking crudely, football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial'. And these values are inevitably transferred from life to fiction. This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room. A scene in a battle-field is more important than a scene in a shop--everywhere and much more subtly the difference of value persists."^^That is so precisely the (Jennifer Weiner) argument being had today over the merits of so-called "chick-lit.""Making a fortune and bearing thirteen children--no human being could stand it. Consider the facts, we said. First there are nine months before the baby is born. Then the baby is born. Then there are three or four months spent in feeding the baby. After the baby is fed there are certainly five years spent in playing with the baby...If Mrs Seton (the mother), I said, had been making money, what sort of memories would you (the child) have had of games and quarrels? What would you have known of Scotland, and its fine air and cakes and all the rest of it?"^^Again, that is so the modern working mother struggle, in a nutshell. Parentheses in that passage are mine.There were flaws, of course. I don't know how much Woolf's advice could help very poor or non-Western women. Some bits were convoluted/a bit boring. She dissed my girl Charlotte Brontë a bit (in the nicest way possible, and she was probably right).But meh. She's still a genius.

[cbl_tn · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Based on a series of lectures on women and fiction, Virginia Woolf in A Room of One's Own examines both women as authors and the portrayal of women in literature written by men. The lectures were given in 1928 and were published a year later, just a decade after women had secured voting rights in Great Britain. Woolf encourages young women to aspire to financial security and space for solitude in order to find their voice. The condition of women that Woolf describes is foreign to me some eighty-five years later, and she might be surprised that I find her exhortation to write to be more limiting than encouraging. She seems to assume that all women would want to write if given the opportunity to do so. There's little encouragement for women whose interests and passions lie elsewhere. This book represents an important step in women's history and women's writing and it rightly deserves the continuing attention it receives. For me, it provided a good point of comparison with the greatly expanded educational and vocational opportunities that were available to me when I came of age.

[lycomayflower · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

I enjoy Virginia Woolf more and more as I get older (and as I have the opportunity to read her books for a second and sometimes third time). I read A Room of One's Own in a masters class on the essay and I suspect I read it once before that in undergrad as well. This time it's for my last doctoral comp. I love her style here, which is discursive but eminently followable. Her insights into the difficulties of being an artist and a woman seem, in some cases, just as relevant today as they were in 1928 (the conflicts involved in the decision to both work and bear children) and in some cases not (the revelation that a woman should be free from financial dependence on a man) and in some cases to apply to both men and women equally today (the notion that a writer should have her own room into which she can retire and be free from interruptions). Altogether, a satisfying and enjoyable read--and one I look forward to reading some day entirely for its own sake rather than for some stated purpose dictated by my studies.

[bhowell_35 · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This wonderful book seems to be a rite of passage for every young woman in university. It fascinated me when I read it in University ( a long time ago). Indeed i discovered Virginia Woolf and read all of her books in one summer when I was 19 or 20. The only one that I struggled with and did not particularly enjoy was Orlando. Now my daughter is reading A Room and occasionally reads out passages to me. It is as compelling today as it ever was and it is one of many books that I think I should reread.

[juliette07_1 · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

Just completed this brilliant essay for A Novel challenge. It was originally presented by Virginia Woolf to undergraduates of Girton and Newnham Colleges, Cambridge, England in 1929. In essence it is centred upon the theme of women and fiction - yet she devlops ideas that move through life, literature, philosophy and society. I loved her reflective thinking and the way in which she linked her thoughts so seamlessly. In my opinion it was five star plus plus and one of the most wonderful reads I have ever experienced - on a par to war and Peace in terms of impact ...I reserved this book from the library and received the Hogarth press edition of 1959 - that is an old book! However I simply must get my own copy - it has so inspired me. There is a sense of compulsion as I read that I knew I would have to read this work again. I savoured every page, idea and reflection. If you are interested in women, their place in society through history and their writings this is a must for you!

[angelic55blonde · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This is a must read for anyone, woman or man. It's a great feminist text but her writing is amazing. It's one of the best essays I have ever read.

[kjforester · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

As a woman who has longed to write but never been able to distinguish herself from those around her, this essay resonates. At certain times in the book, I felt like I was sitting in the room listening to her say, "But almost without exception they [women] are shown in their relation to men...And how small a part of a woman's life is that...(page 82). I wonder if women, for all our triumphs over paternalistic constraints in less than a century, have recognized we are truly separate beings and not defined by the labels - daughter, sister, wife, mother, caregiver - we attach to ourselves? Woolf's contention that a woman needs her own income, idleness and privacy to create is as true today as it was in 1929 and yet how many women are able to claim this time without guilt? Her closing words haunt me, "...if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women..." (page 114).

[emily_morine · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

In addition to being a seminal feminist text, A Room of One's Own is one of the most finely crafted essays in the English language. Its informality and wittiness, and the seamless, seemingly effortless way it seems to guide the reader from thought to thought, make it easy not to notice the beautiful logical structure underpinning the whole. It also has some gorgeous examples of Woolf's style of psychological free association. Such a beautiful essay!

[arelenriel · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

This is a must read for anyone in the field of Women's studies.Woolf writes clearly and concisely about how societal expectations can restrict a woman's life so that she has nothing left for herself. Good book. Many interesting viewpoints for debate.

[beau0p0laurence · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

a feminist classic every Women's Studies student (formal and informal) should read

[pamplemousse_1 · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

Woolf's witty and charming essay on women and fiction, making the assertion that for a woman to succeed as a novelist she must have an independent income and "a room of her own", i.e. space to write. Along the way, Woolf has some fine things to say about the history of women in the arts, and their position at the time of writing. Although the style is clearly Edwardian in tone -- it is hard to imagine someone writing with this voice today -- I found it both attractive and entertaining to read, and the subject still of great relevance.

[saskreader · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

From the book jacket: " ...for everyone who has ever wondered why it is that women are largely absent from the history books, unless they are queens, mothers or mistresses."

[sweetiegherkin · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One's Own is an extended essay on the topic of women and fiction based on some lectures that Woolf gave at a couple of women's colleges in 1928. Of course, being a novelist, Woolf’s style of writing an essay varies a great deal from the typical one. To tackle this weighty subject, she invents a woman named Mary Beton and follows in Mary’s steps for a couple of days to make observations on the historical role of women in general, how women were treated in the modern day, and glances at the literature of both women and men. Woolf is characteristically imaginative and descriptive in her prose even as she describes essentially nonfiction topics.The main thesis of Woolf’s work is that women need the time, money, and space to become superior novelists (or writers of any sort, for that matter), and she implores women to acquire a private room of their own and a good 500 pounds a year in earnings to be able to become effective and noteworthy writers on par with their male counterparts. She also spends a great deal of time looking at past women in literature to note what contributions – whether positive or negative – these role models provide for the female writers of her day. This book is short enough that it could easily be read in a single day or sitting if one is dedicated (and has enough uninterrupted time), but it contains so many rich thoughts and musings that it provides plenty of fodder for contemplative reading and thinking. Even though some parts are dated, this book is still sadly relevant in many ways. For instance, consider the following quote:"Yet it is the masculine values that prevail. Speaking crudely, football and sport are 'important': the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial.' And these values are inevitably transferred from life to fiction. This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room."This is essential the same thing being said in the present day by authors like Jennifer Weiner. I definitely recommend reading this book for Woolf’s many poignant observations that cause the reader to stop and think about failings in our culture, especially when it comes to gender inequality, and about literature as a whole more critically. My feeble review is not really doing A Room of One's Own justice so I’m simply going to close it here with a quote containing one of Woolf’s later observations in the book. "All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are ‘sides,’ and it is necessary for one side to beat another side, and of the utmost importance to walk up to a platform and receive from the hands of the Headmaster himself a highly ornamental pot. As people mature they cease to believe in sides or in Headmasters or in highly ornamental pots."