Shakespeare’s Incandescence
Virginia Woolf broaches the subject of Shakespeare by exploring the fact that a professor whose work she has studied suggests that a woman could never write anything in the way of the playwright’s genius. It is her conclusion that, at any rate, it would have been impossible for a woman to match the genius of Shakespeare in the time of Shakespeare (Woolf, 3).
Woolf posits that if Shakespeare had had a sister, and this sister matched Shakespeare in adventurousness and imagination, she would have had no opportunity to exercise these qualities in likeness to that of Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare, Woolf explains, would have been sent to a private school where he would have learned rules of logic and grammar while this sister would have been offered no such opportunity (Woolf, 3).
Her parents would have discouraged her from even musing about in Shakespeare’s papers and books. Her suggestions seem accurate and well thought out. She is saying that capability was not the determining factor in females’ realizing genius. Preparation and opportunity also must be present, and these things were not afforded to females of Shakespeare’s time.
Shakespeare would have ventured to London with his inclination for the theater, acting and living at the center of creativity at the time (Woolf, 3). Woolf suggests his fictional sister, posed here for the purpose of argument, would have been betrothed and forced by the fire of her similar talents to shame her father and abandon that betrothal. This is obviously something that cannot be verified. Woolf, his carried away by her admiration for the struggles a female of genius would have had to endure.
She takes her example here to the extreme, and in so doing cheapens her main point. It is not necessary for the fictional heroine of her example to flee a betrothal and kill herself out of a need to preserve her brilliance. The fact of the matter is, most women in this circumstance simply endured the confines of the expectations placed upon them and did not end their lives out of some desperate need to honor their talents or die. Yet, with all the mangled passions of a poet trapped inside Shakespeare’s fictional sister so painfully, she would have, Woolf, imagines, committed suicide to escape the pain of so little self-actualization.
She continues to describe the impossibility of Judith, even if she had existed, possessing a genius like Shakespeare’s, because Shakespeare’s genius is one that emerges in aristocracy. The servility pressed upon women is not the soil from which that type of genius could spring (Woolf, 3).
This is a completely believable assertion. Women who needed to earn their sense of self from constantly performing tasks to others’ expectations would have naturally become, in some fashion, mentally dependant. If there is any component that all genius shares, it is originality, and this feature would have had little opportunity to flourish when constantly met with an expectation of subservience.
The genius of fiction in a man is met with indifference by the world. The genius of fiction in a woman is met with a scoff (Woolf, 3). The difference in the response is explained by Woolf through assigning to the world a plausible statement it may as well have made to either sex in reference to such fictional genius. The world told men their writing made no difference and told the women to write at all was ridiculous (Woolf, 3). She explains how difficult it is for a man to write an entire work from his mind without impediment to highlight how much more daunting the task must have seemed to women inclined.
This is where she comes upon the truth of incandescence of Shakespeare’s mind. His work, she points out, bears no hint to his inner sufferings, to his pains, or to his grievances with the world, but manages to stand on its own—complete musings of a writer who was able to drive out, through the light of his blinding brilliance, entire, self-sustaining fictions that require no consideration of intention of the author. The meaning of her analysis of Shakespeare is that he, being of a genius supported by the freedom of his family’s status and his gender, is put in an optimal circumstance from which to bring to life his elaborate, plot-driven, imagination.
To this, it is easy to respond with a simple question. Does Woolf believe that all creative genius is wasted when used to combat personal plight? In looking at Shakespeare’s work it is not impossible to view his inclinations for certain forms of drama. Does this not provide insight into who the author was, and what she preferred? In Woolf’s determination to paint women in the light of the forsaken and mistreated, she creates for herself a need to define creative genius in a very limited way. Though from aristocracy works can be created that have little to do with the unmet, fundamental needs of the masses, which does not mean that such work is superior.
That is not the nature of Shakespeare’s superiority. His gift was one of language, and the fact that a person of his genius would not have been afforded the opportunity to work if born into a lower class is more indicative of the kinds of discrimination that were common in the age. If people valued work that reflected common struggles, perhaps women would have been provided an opportunity to indulge in the arts without forsaking their roles. Perhaps artist and woman would not have been a juxtaposition of terms.
Woolf’s Research
Woolf finds that female writers, as they begin to appear in print sometime after the Elizabethan Era, often use their poetic inclinations to struggle with the role of women in society. She finds that women poets like Lady Winchilsea burst with indignation in their writings (Woolf, 4). Lady Winchilsea’s mind, in contrast to Shakespeare’s, is rife with impediments to the pure experience of a creative heart. Woolf notices that Lady Winchilsea of the seventeenth century is able to set aside her indignation, her sense of oppression, and write with the natural embers of the creative spirit lighting the way to her words (Woolf, 4).
Woolf simply points out that this ability is blighted by the indignation present in most of Winchilsea’s writings. Woolf ultimately criticizes Lady Winchilsea for never being able to free herself from all that bound her gift. She compares the state of her talent to a flower growing out of weeds and briars (Woolf, 4). Here again, she undervalues the courage innate in such displays, and the necessity of female artists of the time addressing the nature of their confinements with all the passion that confinement would create.
Woolf continues, discussing next Margaret Cavendish. She expresses a sense of shame that Cavendish ventured into obscurity rather than to fight the good fight publicly. This is a contrast to Woolf’s assessment of Lady Winchilsea. Whereas Winchilsea wrote and exposed her work to the public without ever freeing herself of her grievances, Cavendish was so crippled by her passion and its context that she could not bear exposure. Here, again, it is worth noting that Woolf does not assign credit to Cavendish for having the courage to keep writing in the face of all that oppressed her.
She then examines one Dorothy Osborne in her letters. She explains this woman as having a talent that she was never allowed the freedom to explore professionally (Woolf 4). Her criticism in this case seems to be on the state of the world, and not directed at Osborne, noting that Osborne was made to believe that her writing was futile and ridiculous (Woolf, 4). Though this critique of the world is expressed here through the case of Osborne and her letters, it is implied in the criticisms of the previous writers as well.
Woolf seems harder on writers who came closer to self-actualization, whereas she finds Dorothy Osborne’s unrecognized talent cause for pity. This is baffling. Osborne is by all rational standards less of a success than Cavendish and Winchilsea, and yet receives none of the criticism Woolf gives to either of them.
Alphra Behn is the next writer covered by Woolf and is described as a transcendental figure. Behn is forced to make her living off of her wits, and in so doing creates for herself a life of independence. She sets a precedent, Woolf explains and realizes the possibility of women making money from their writings—something that made the endeavor seem practical for the first time. This is something Woolf admires and praises. It seems that Woolf has no admiration for those caught in between servility and independence, and praise for those conditioned in either.
In the nineteenth century, Woolf finds that there emerged many female authors. She is intrigued by the fact that these authors only seem to write novels. She makes note of the fact that Jane Austin, having to hide her manuscript as something taboo when the company approached her workspace, managed to create a work without the impediments referred to above. Woolf notes that her writing is remarkably similar to that of Shakespeare’s incandescence (Woolf 4).
Grace Poole, Woolf suggests, is an example of a genius greater than that of Austin’s, but trapped by the indignations she expresses in protest to her lot.
Virginia Woolf begins to reconcile her findings through an understanding of the various pushes and pulls women had to deal with to create any work of fiction. The successes of Jane Austin and Emily Bronte were idiosyncratic. They were special, she explains, as they both had that quality of incandescence. The fact that all women were writing without any heritage to look to in reference forced them to rework the schema of a novel into something feminine, without sacrificing any integrity as writers. This is the task they all faced, and this is the explanation Woolf gives for why so many were stunted and distracted while crafting their fiction.
Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” Lecture to the Arts Society at Newnham 1928: two papers. EBooks@Adelaide. 2010. The University of Adelaide. Web.