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A Room of One's Own

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A Room of One's Own

By: Virginia Woolf
Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
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About this listen

A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.

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A Room of Ones Own is an exhortation to women to write and express themselves. It briefly explores the social patriarchy, economic obstacles and prejudice that marginalised and prevented them. Only when women gained independence and education were they liberated to write. And this theme applies to many oppressed groups.
VW comments that the “history of men’s opposition to womens’ emancipation is more interesting than the emancipation itself” and revealing how the struggle for women’s rights produced further backlash !

So articulately written and superbly read by the consummate Juliet Stevenson

Articulately written and superbly read

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The performance of this piece is brilliant, and can help process some of the longer prose and the deeper meanings of Woolf’s work.

The reader

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Can't believe I hadn't read this before, it is such a great piece. I am glad I have recently listened to Bronte, Eliot and Austen, as she often refers to works by them

Amusing, clever and incadecently well-written

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An incredible voyage into the mind of Virginia Woolf. Her mind, laid bare for all to see, is a sharp prism that refracts beautifully her own times - with acute commentary on history, literature, psychology and sociology.

The focus of the essays is on the role, status and experiences of women in literature (but also in society more broadly). The observations are rich and varied, but with a main materialistic thread, centred around the hypothesis that intellectual freedom is dependent upon material resources: a steady income and "a room of one's own."

The mode of presentation follows her famed stream of consciousness style. The poetic escapades and flights of fancy are not loosened into phantasmagoria, but rather intervowen into a cohesive central message. The first marvel of this work is how utter an artistic success it is; and the second is how inspiring, biting and revolutionary it is as a feminist pamphlet.

The core idea is commonsensical, yet simultaneously a dangerous proposition: make sure that nobody need toil for basic resources, in order to liberate women and liberate the mind.

The social commentary is swollen, dripping with an aesthetic miasma that envelops the lucky reader submerged in her succulent prose.

A feminist classic

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Very interesting writing, beginning to end! Women in literature, great topic. VW would have loved this new era of women writing. We are so lucky to be 2020.

Informative, well structured, well read...

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