Coleman Rohde

10/26/20

Shakespeare’s Sister

Virginia Woolf was an English writer known for her use of stream of consciousness

within her writing. In one of Woolf’s books, ​A Room of One’s Own​, she explores how even

though women were often capable of producing great literary works they were often constrained

by gender roles which prevented them from doing so. In a small section of the extended essay

she tells a hypothetical story of Shakespeare’s sister.

Shakespeare’s sister is extraordinarily gifted, perhaps even more so than her brother,

though she was not sent to school. She attempted to educate herself but was told by her parents

to “not moon about with books and papers” and instead mend the stockings. Eventually she was

engaged against her will and as she cried out in resistance she was beaten by her father. She ran

away and went to London and went to the theatre to act and fulfill her dreams but she was

refused by men who laughed in her face. Then the actor manager took pity on her and got her

pregnant and so she killed herself.

Reflecting on the story Woolf even concedes that women born in Shakespeare’s time

could not have Shakespeare’s genius because genius is born out of education and access to

resources such as time and capital. Women in the time of Shakespeare often lacked education

and often time as well, especially if they were married. She speculates that much of the

anonymous poetry, ballads, and folk songs were created by women who simply lacked the

resources to publish such things. She argues that gifted women in the sixteenth century would

likely have gone mad and killed themselves as attempts to use their gifts for poetry, or other arts
dominated by men, would be thwarted. Woolf then identifies that many of the successful female

authors of the era used male names in order to publish their works.

Ultimately I agree with Woolf’s sentiment. No woman born in Shakespeare’s era could

have Shakespeare’s genius simply because she was never afforded equal access to education,

capital and time. Women of the sixteenth century were often subject to live lives as housewives

tending to the children and doing chores such as laundry that occupy a great amount of time.

Married women in this sense would often never have the time for education and writing and

poetry which explains how many successful female authors of the sixteenth century were often

unmarried. Even unmarried women, however, could not really own anything in the sixteenth

century and thus lacked capital to fund their creative endeavors. Women had the ability to do

everything a man could creatively but they were never afforded the opportunity to practice and

put into use their creative skills without sacrificing their identity as a woman.