This reading from Virginia Woolf, A room of one’s own is about Virginia’s view, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (339), and the process she went through to conclude at this opinion. She admits that this “leaves the great problem of the true nature of fiction unsolved” (339). The whole essay is her explanation on how she concluded on the fact that women need money and that they are unequal to men. “I propose making use of all liberties and licences of a novelist, to tell you the story of the two days that preceded my coming here” (340).

She chooses not to answer to the problem of women and fiction and she instead tries to go deeper by talking about different famous writers. The “I” she uses in her story is not her. It is not important what is the name that we choose to give her, but she talks about her experiences and her thoughts so that the reader can see where her opinion started. She reviews the state of scholarship, both theoretical and historical, concerning women. She also elaborates an aesthetics based on the principle of “incandescence”. I believe that she uses the imagery of light and fire in chapter 1 because she wants to describe her aesthetic side of view.

Something that I really liked is how careful Woolf was in chapter 2, not to blame men for the unfair treatment of women. She blames the universe and its violence stating “life for both sexes—and I look at them, shouldering their way along the pavement—is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion that we are, it calls for confidence in oneself” (357).

In chapter 3, Woolf continues talking more about the relationship that women had with literature during the time of Elizabeth. She writes “Here am I asking why women did not write poetry in the Elizabethan age, and I am not sure how they were educated; whether they were taught to write; whether they had sitting rooms to themselves; how many women had children before they were twenty-one; what, in short, they did from eight in the morning till eight at night” (364).

I would like to raise a question on that last part. What are the differences that the relationship between women and literature in the Elizabethan years are with today. Do you think that female writers have the exact same value as male writers in the 21^st century? Also, during our semester we read about female writers that weren’t wealthy but they still wrote great literature. Do you think that nowadays is more important to be wealthy than centuries before in order to be able to be a great writer?

Emily Dickinson’s poems are often described experimental because in her poems she usually writes about simple everyday facts in a very unique and different way. She is often the observer of the poem and she talks about her experiences and how she sees simple things like a bird eating a worm (poem 328) through her eyes. For example in poem 328, there is a bird eating an Angleworm and she describes it in detail using anthropomorphism. She writes “he drank a Dew from a convenient Grass”, which is like a human drinking from a glass. Also, in poem 465 she is describing her death in a very unique way. She talks about what she sees, what she hears (Fly buzz). She uses many of her senses and I think that in lines 13 and 14 she uses her vision and her hearing talking about the buzz and the color of the buzz being blue, to show two other actions which are the moment of her death and her leaving.

She generally uses a formal soft tone something that one of her great inspirations, John Keats, used. Moreover, their poems have a lot of descriptions about nature and beauty and how the two are connected. Another thing that I thing they have in common is that some of their poems appear hopeless. For example, Keats poem “When I have fears that I may cease to be” and Dickinson’s poem 258, are both poems that the writers sound a bit hopeless. In her poem 258, Dickinson seems to have pain and problems that are internal. In line 9 of the same poem she directly writes “ None may teach it-” which is like saying that no one can help her overcome her problems.

Throughout her poems, we can see that she uses a lot of dashes in different times and places and she also capitalizes words, not only the ones that the line started with, for many different reasons. To start with, the dashes usually served as bridges between sections of her poems to show that they are separated. She might have also used the dashes so that the reader pauses when there is a dash or even as a period. She could also use them as a parenthesis to emphasize what she just wrote. Moreover, dashes could serve to indicate interruption or a shift in her thoughts. She also capitalized words to give more emphasis to these words. Another possible version of her use of capitalization could be the fact that she spoke German, which is a language that typically capitalizes nouns.

Seeing her original handwritten versions doesn’t really change my interpretation of the poems but it definitely brings more emotions. You can see even more and feel her words when she wants to emphasize them because you actually see the original ones capitalized.