For next week, I've decided to institute some changes in your reading schedule for A Room of One's Own. Chapter 4 needs to be read by Friday of next week, Jan. 25 instead of by Tuesday. Some questions will accompany it to help direct your reading. Here are a few of them below, some borrowed from a British Lit course:
Read Chapter 5 by the following Friday, February 1, and Chapter 6 by the following Friday (Feb. 8).
- What is the general focus of chapter 4?
- What criticisms does Woolf make of Lady Winchelsea's poetry? What is her purpose here?
- How does Woolf trace the history of women's writing from the eighteenth century onwards? Why was the novel the main genre for female writers in that period?
- What contrast between Jane Austen / Emily Bronte and Charlotte Bronte does Woolf make? What limitations did Austin and Emily Bronte reject that Charlotte Bronte was unable to reject?
- Woolf discusses the "newness" of the novel, its suitability for women writers. To what extent does Woolf index her argument here to notions about the supposed differences between men and women?
- What do you make of the transition at the end of the chapter?
Read Chapter 5 by the following Friday, February 1, and Chapter 6 by the following Friday (Feb. 8).
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