Shakespeare's Sister : Key info
Shakespeare's Sister is a notable literary work by Virginia Woolf. A complete discussion of this literary work is given, which will help you enhance your literary skills and prepare for the exam. Read the Main texts, Key info, Summary, Themes, Characters, Literary devices, Quotations, Notes, and various study materials of Shakespeare's Sister.
Key info
Key Facts
- Full Title: Shakespeare’s Sister (an excerpt from A Room of One’s Own)
- Writer: Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
- Title of the Author: Novelist, Essayist, Feminist, and Modernist Thinker; a central figure of the Bloomsbury Group
- Written Time: 1928 (originally delivered as a series of lectures at Newnham College and Girton College, Cambridge)
- First Published: 1929 (in A Room of One’s Own)
- Genre: Feminist Essay / Social Criticism / Literary Imagination / Argumentative Prose
- Tone: Analytical, Reflective, Ironical, Sympathetic, and Persuasive
- Form: Prose essay blending argument, fiction, and historical imagination; uses a hypothetical narrative of Shakespeare’s sister “Judith” to make a feminist point
- Narrative Voice: First-person reflective narrator (Virginia Woolf herself, combining intellect and imagination)
- Point of View: First-person (subjective, reflective, and socially critical perspective)
- Structure: Divided within A Room of One’s Own; this section focuses mainly on,
- The Social and Educational Inequality of Women
- The Imagined Life of Shakespeare’s Sister (Judith Shakespeare)
- The Impact of Patriarchal Society on Women’s Genius and Expression
- Style: Elegant and imaginative prose enriched with irony, symbolism, historical analysis, and emotional appeal. Woolf blends fact with fiction, using rhetorical questions, vivid imagery, and a conversational tone to engage readers.
- Central Idea: Women of genius, like men, have existed, but patriarchal society deprived them of education, independence, and creative opportunity. “Judith Shakespeare,” imagined as Shakespeare’s equally gifted sister, could never become a writer because society denied her freedom, education, and recognition.
- Significance: A landmark feminist essay exposing how social, economic, and educational inequality silenced women’s voices in literature. It became a foundation text for feminist literary criticism and women’s rights movements.
- Summary in One Line: “Genius needs freedom, and women were denied it.” (“প্রতিভার বিকাশের জন্য স্বাধীনতা দরকার—আর নারী সেই স্বাধীনতা থেকে বঞ্চিত ছিল।”)
- Setting:
- Place Setting: England (mainly Elizabethan London and Stratford, in imagination; also Woolf’s Cambridge lectures)
- Time Setting: 16th century (Elizabethan Age), contrasted with early 20th century England (modern feminist awakening)
