He bellowed something about poodles dancing and women acting—no woman, he said, could possibly be an actress. He hinted—you can imagine what. She could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight? Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women and the study of their ways. At last—for she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows—at last Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so—who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?—killed herself one winter's night and lies buried at some cross-roads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle.5
That, more or less, is how the story would run, I think, if a woman in Shakespeare's day had had Shakespeare's genius.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
What is the significance of Woolf's spiderweb image? What does it mean that a work of fiction, like the web of a spider, must be "attached to life at all four corners"?
Why does Woolf quote extensively from Trevelyan's History of England? For what material facts about women's lives does she want historical evidence? How are these facts connected to her overall point that a woman needs "a room of her own" to become a writer?
What female literary characters does Woolf cite as proof that women have been extremely important to the Western literary imagination? How does the importance of women in literature compare with the importance of women writers to literature?
To what facts about the lives of women during the Elizabethan period does Virginia Woolf not have access? How does her limited knowledge affect the narrative she is constructing?
What is the major point of the story Woolf invents about Judith Shakespeare? How does the character of Judith Shakespeare function rhetorically in her larger argument?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Compare Woolf's fictional account of Judith Shakespeare to Fredrick Douglass's account of his own life in "Learning to Read" (p. 24). How is Douglass able to overcome some of the obstacles that Woolf describes? Do you think that Frederick Douglass could have become a writer and activist if he had been a woman?
How does Woolf's portrayal of the woman writer compare with Christine de Pisan's view of women who exercise influence in political matters? Does somebody like Christine de Pisan refute any part of Woolf's argument?
5. Elephant and Castle: A well-known London pub tracing back to the eighteenth century that became a bus stop.
3. Compare the character of Judith Shakespeare in Woolf's essay and the symbol of the bird in Toni Morrison's Nobel Lecture (p. 217). In what way might her use of Judith Shakespeare be similar to Morrison's use of the bird?
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Analyze Woolf's use of fictional narrative as a rhetorical device in "Shakespeare's Sister." Use your analysis as a springboard to discuss the rhetorical value of stories generally.
Compare Woolf's use of fictional narrative with Jesus's use of parables in the Book of Luke (p. 541), or Plato's use of a fictionalized myth in "The Speech of Aristophanes" (p. 74).
Write an essay in which you support or refute the claim that women writers are still disadvantaged by some of the challenges that Woolf articulates in "Shakespeare's Sister."
richard feynman
O Americano Outra Vez [1985]
RICHARD P. FEYNMAN (1918-1988) was one of the most respected theoretical physicists of the twentieth century. As a young man, he worked on the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear bomb during World War II. In the years that followed, he taught physics at both Cornell University and the California Institute of Technology and conducted research in quantum mechanics and particle physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his contributions to the theory of quantum electrodynamics.
Unlike many of his colleagues in the highest levels of theoretical physics, Feynman had a reputation as a patient and talented classroom teacher. He frequently remarked that if a teacher could not explain a scientific concept clearly to a college freshman, the teacher didn't really understand it. His classroom lectures to undergraduate students at Caltech were compiled in the three-volume Feynman Lectures on Physics (1970), which has become a widely read introductory text to some of science's most difficult concepts.
In the later part of his life, Feynman became a public figure whose reputation as a quirky nonconformist was almost as well known as his reputation as a brilliant scientist. Much of this reputation derives from two bestselling books: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman (1985) and What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988). Both are composed of short, oral reminiscences collected and edited by Feynman's friend, Ralph Leighton. In these stories, Feynman presents himself as someone who has little use for rules, authorities, and structures. A recurring theme is his unwillingness to observe the rules of polite behavior and pretend to be impressed with people just because they are wealthy, famous, or in charge of resources. The Richard Feynman that emerges in these books is a man with an obsessive and insatiable curiosity—someone who grew up fixing radios and picking locks and never stopped trying to figure out how things worked.
"O Americano Outra Vez" ("The American Again") is taken from Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. It tells the story of Feynman's trip to Brazil in the summer of 1950 to spend time at the Brazilian Center for Physical Research. While there, Feynman interacted with a number of Brazilian students who were preparing for teaching careers. He discovered that their educations had equipped them with surface facts about physics rather than a genuine understanding of physical processes. This experience became a platform for Feynman to discuss the difference between learning something and learning about something—one of the most important