Please be seated and take out your graphic organizers from last time.
1. How might gender roles influence our access to opportunities?
I want each of you to come up with a specific example from either Ophelia from Hamlet, the Duchess from Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess", or Judith Shakespeare.
You must write one complete sentence that explains how gender roles might restrict a specific opportunity.
You have 2 minutes.
I want each of you to come up with a specific example from either Ophelia from Hamlet, the Duchess from Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess", or Judith Shakespeare.
You must write one complete sentence that explains how gender roles might restrict a specific opportunity.
You have 2 minutes.
The School of Life Virginia Woolf 6:52-8:44 YouTube https://youtu.be/d1W7wqXD_b0?t=6m52s
Virginia Woolf "A Room of One's Own" Section 3 (15:44 - 20:24)
How were Shakespeare and his hypothetical sister "Judith" treated differently in the first three paragraphs of this selection?
Learning Targets: -I can identify and define any unfamiliar words by drawing on
a range of strategies.
-I can read and annotate texts for comprehension.
-I can identify and explain appropriate textual evidence.
Essential Question: How are gender roles reflected in the imagined life of Judith Shakespeare?
-I can identify and explain appropriate textual evidence.
Essential Question: How are gender roles reflected in the imagined life of Judith Shakespeare?
Write your responses for each of the following questions.
From “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf
"Be that as it may, I could not help thinking, as I looked at the works of Shakespeare on the shelf, that the bishop was right at least in this; it would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare."
- Woolf says it would have been "impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare."
2.
"Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say."
- When Woolf says "facts are hard to come by," she seems to be referring to the reasons why she thinks it is "impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare."
- Therefore, these facts probably have to do with the details about women's lives that would be relevant to creative pursuits (such as writing).
- The scarcity of facts may be due to the underrepresentation of women in the texts she had been consulting.
- In the first chunk of text when Woolf makes her the statement about women and writing, she mentions that she is actually agreeing with something a bishop said about women.
- Therefore, we can speculate that women were written about, although the written material available seems to be insufficient to clarify the problem. Maybe most of the writing was done by men, or maybe the writing simply wasn't relevant (this would explain the "facts [being] hard to come by).
"Shakespeare himself went, very probably—his mother was an heiress—to the grammar school, where he may have learnt Latin—Ovid, Virgil and Horace—and the elements of grammar and logic."
- Woolf indicates that Shakespeare's mother "very probably" paid for his education in grammar school, where he may have "learnt Latin--Ovid, Virgil and Horace--and the elements of grammar and logic."
- Virgil, Ovid and Horace were major figures in classical literature from ancient Rome who have had a profound and lasting influence on Western literature.
- Grammar is to language as logic is to reasoning.
4.
"He was, it is 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 neighbourhood, who bore him a child rather quicker than was right."
- Woolf described the young William Shakespeare as a "wild boy who poached [animals]." Eventually, he "had...to marry a woman...who bore him a child rather quicker than was right." The implication being made here is that their child was born less than nine months after the wedding.
5.
"That escapade sent him to seek his fortune in London. He had, it seemed, a taste for the theatre; he began by holding horses at the stage door. Very soon he got work in the theatre, became a successful actor, and lived at the hub of the universe, meeting everybody, knowing everybody, practising his art on the boards, exercising his wits in the streets, and even getting access to the palace of the queen."
- After the "escapade" that led to his marriage and the birth of his child, Shakespeare went to London "seek his fortune." He found work in the theatre, getting a start simply by holding horses at the stage door.
- Soon after, he found fame as a performer, and (as we know from our discussions before reading Hamlet) eventually as a playwright himself.
6.
"Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister, let us suppose, remained at home. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil."
- Judith did not receive the same education as her brother, although she was otherwise very much like him. Without formal schooling, she did not have the opportunity to learn grammar or logic, nor did she get to read Horace and Virgil.
7.
"She picked up a book now and then, one of her brother’s perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers."
- Judith's family discouraged her reading beyond whatever was required for basic literacy (we are told she might occasionally "read a few pages"). Woolf suggests that her parents would have preferred that Judith perform domestic duties.
8.
"They would have spoken sharply but kindly, for they were substantial people who knew the conditions of life for a woman and loved their daughter—indeed, more likely than not she was the apple of her father’s eye. Perhaps she scribbled some pages up in an apple loft on the sly but was careful to hide them or set fire to them."
- Woolf indicates that Judith's interest in writing would have been similarly discouraged. She might have snuck off to write "on the sly" but would have had to destroy or conceal the evidence (her written work).
- "The conditions of life for a woman" must refer to the set of expectations and assumptions dictating what a woman should or should not do in that time period. Calling the parents of Judith and William Shakespeare "substantial people" indicates that they had some money (this is supported by the fact that their mother was an heiress, as mentioned earlier). So, the expectations they felt compelled to live up to would have been more or less consistent with those governing the lives of other people from the same economic class.
9.
"Soon, however, before she was out of her teens, she was to be betrothed to the son of a neighbouring woolstapler. She cried out that marriage was hateful to her, and for that she was severely beaten by her father. Then he ceased to scold her. He begged her instead not to hurt him, not to shame him in this matter of her marriage. He would give her a chain of beads or a fine petticoat, he said; and there were tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him? How could she break his heart? The force of her own gift alone drove her to it."
- Judith did not want to get married, and told her father "it was hateful to her" (meaning she hated the idea).
- Her father reacted first by beating her, then begging her, and eventually even tried bribing her with gifts.
"She made up a small parcel of her belongings, let herself down by a rope one summer’s night and took the road to London. She was not seventeen. The birds that sang in the hedge were not more musical than she was. She had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother’s, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre."
- How does Woolf describe Judith's talent and interest in writing and theatre here?
In other words, she is just like her brother, William Shakespeare.
"She stood at the stage door; she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager—a fat, loose-lipped man—guffawed. He bellowed something about poodles dancing and women acting—no woman, he said, could possibly be an actress."
- Compare Judith's experience coming to the theatre to that of her brother.
- How does Woolf imagine the men at theatre would have reacted?
Judith Shakespeare was laughed at, William Shakespeare was given work holding horses near the stage door.
Compare:
"He bellowed something about poodles dancing and women acting—no woman, he said, could possibly be an actress."
"...the bishop was right at least in this; it would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare."
"He hinted—you can imagine what."
13.
"She could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight?"
- Why could she get no training in her craft?
Because she is a woman, the men refuse to give her a chance to cultivate her natural talent, which is comparable to William Shakespeare's talent.
On the basis of her gender identity, she is denied access to the opportunities she needed to become a playwright like Shakespeare.
- What do you think Woolf means when she asks, "Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight?"
Women were a frequent target of harassment and were often judged on the basis of how well they conformed to gender schemas. A women venturing out alone at night might be judged harshly in a patriarchal society. A woman may even judge other women for behavior seen as somehow "unbecoming of a woman" or "unladylike."
Since a woman doesn't really owe the world any more explanation for her gender than a man does for his own, we can imagine there were always women who defied convention, but they are few and far between, since most women are encouraged from a young age to marry a man, have children, cook, clean, etc. It is hard to imagine many women would have been going out at night if this is something which is generally frowned upon. Which means that women were also alienated from one another, because men took up all of the social space. There wasn't "room" for women.
Even when women could gather, it was always something to be excused by men, or it was in some preordained place, with some affair at hand. Women couldn't just freely wander, or "roam." They were supposed to stay indoors at night.
The double alienation of women from a patriarchal society as well as from one another by that society is an issue dealt with in other sections of the full text.
14.
"Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women and the study of their ways. At last—for she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows—at last Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so—who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body?—killed herself one winter’s night and lies buried at some cross-roads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle."
- What do you think Woolf means when she says "who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?"
A poet's heart generates "heat and violence" when the poet is unable to practice their art. Since women are defined by their sex and excluded from a patriarchal society, a woman poet would be prevented from pursuing her art. Woolf indicates that the effects would be profoundly damaging.
A woman poet would lack three things essential for the perfection of her craft: the time to work, the space in which to work without interruption, and the financial independence necessary for each.
These three things are captured in Woolf's demand for "a room of one's own."
A woman poet would lack three things essential for the perfection of her craft: the time to work, the space in which to work without interruption, and the financial independence necessary for each.
These three things are captured in Woolf's demand for "a room of one's own."
15.
"This may be true or it may be false—who can say?—but what is true in it, so it seemed to me, reviewing the story of Shakespeare’s sister as I had made it, is that any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at. For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty."
- Why does Woolf bring up insanity here?
- What is the impact of social pressures on Judith Shakespeare's well-being in this paragraph?
"No girl could have walked to London and stood at a stage door and forced her way into the presence of actor-managers without doing herself a violence and suffering an anguish which may have been irrational—for chastity may be a fetish invented by certain societies for unknown reasons—but were none the less inevitable. Chastity had then, it has even now, a religious importance in a woman’s life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest."
- What is chastity? Why does she mention chastity here?
"To have lived a free life in London in the sixteenth century would have meant for a woman who was poet and playwright a nervous stress and dilemma which might well have killed her. Had she survived, whatever she had written would have been twisted and deformed, issuing from a strained and morbid imagination."
- What does Woolf mean when she says "had she survived, whatever she had written would have been twisted and deformed, issuing from a strained and morbid imagination?"
"And undoubtedly, I thought, looking at the shelf where there are no plays by women, her work would have gone unsigned. That refuge she would have sought certainly. It was the relic of the sense of chastity that dictated anonymity to women even so late as the nineteenth century. Currer Bell, George Eliot, George Sand, all the victims of inner strife as their writings prove, sought ineffectively to veil themselves by using the name of a man."
- What does "anonymity" mean? What is Woolf saying about women writers in this paragraph?
"Thus they did homage to the convention, which if not implanted by the other sex was liberally encouraged by them (the chief glory of a woman is not to be talked of, said Pericles, himself a much-talked-of man) that publicity in women is detestable. Anonymity runs in their blood."
- What do the words "publicity" and "detestable" mean?
- Who does Woolf say "did homage to the convention...that publicity in women is detestable?"
- What does she mean by this?
Homage is like "paying tribute to" or "abiding by." To pay homage to a convention is to live by it, to shape one's actions according to it.
Women writers who whose to remain either anonymous or to write under pseudonyms were both essentially paying homage to women's exclusion from public life, including the creation of great art.
Therefore, to pay homage to this particular convention is to remain nameless rather than be known as a woman writer.
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Vocabulary for this week (Quiz Friday, November 18)
- wits (noun) – the ability to think or reason
- forsooth (adverb) – in truth; in fact; indeed
- stoop (verb) – to do something that is not honest, fair, etc.; to bend down or over
- munificence (noun) – the quality or action of giving or bestowing liberally
- ample (adjective) – fully sufficient or more than adequate for the purpose or needs; plentiful; enough
- warrant (noun) – something that serves to give reliable or formal assurance of something; guarantee, pledge, or security
- pretense (noun) – a claim made or implied
- dowry (noun) – the money, goods, or estate that a wife brings to her husband at marriage
- disallowed (verb) – decided that (something) is not acceptable or valid
- avowed (verb) – openly declared
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