Fascinating analysis and a great listen! I haven't listened to your other videos, although I will be now. But based just on this one, is the standard of "feminist text" you're using here to argue Room of One's Own isn't necessarily a feminist text rather narrow? You convincingly provide evidence of nuance in the essay, but I don't see how that operates as a contrast to it being feminist. Feels like perhaps you are responding to an anti-feminist listener who needs to be convinced the piece has value despite the obvious anti-sexism and are worried that "feminist essay" is justification for dismissal by some? The idea of great writing requiring an androgenous perspective is fascinating at the end there. That definitely hadn't stuck with me from when I read the essay like 20 years ago, so appreciate you highlighting it. Obviously very ahead of its time, now I'd argue that a gendered perspective can be an element of great writing, as long as that perspective isn't narrowly confined to the gender binary, and obviously there's a whole wealth of queer literary theory which illustrates there are many more ways to transcend the binary than androgyny. But still, of course there's also people even today harping on about the superiority of the male voice or whatever, so Woolf's is far from completely surpassed.
![A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf [Audiobook ENG]](/img/n.gif)
Thank you! I'll be reading this one now!
Fascinating analysis and a great listen!
I haven't listened to your other videos, although I will be now. But based just on this one, is the standard of "feminist text" you're using here to argue Room of One's Own isn't necessarily a feminist text rather narrow? You convincingly provide evidence of nuance in the essay, but I don't see how that operates as a contrast to it being feminist. Feels like perhaps you are responding to an anti-feminist listener who needs to be convinced the piece has value despite the obvious anti-sexism and are worried that "feminist essay" is justification for dismissal by some?
The idea of great writing requiring an androgenous perspective is fascinating at the end there. That definitely hadn't stuck with me from when I read the essay like 20 years ago, so appreciate you highlighting it. Obviously very ahead of its time, now I'd argue that a gendered perspective can be an element of great writing, as long as that perspective isn't narrowly confined to the gender binary, and obviously there's a whole wealth of queer literary theory which illustrates there are many more ways to transcend the binary than androgyny. But still, of course there's also people even today harping on about the superiority of the male voice or whatever, so Woolf's is far from completely surpassed.