Living in the U.S., I am not always able to listen to BBC broadcasts. But I could — and did — give a listen to a new
one on the Radio 4 show “In Our Time.” It discusses Virginia Woolf and A Room of One’s Own (1929).
In the 42-minute program, Melvyn Bragg and guests Hermione Lee and Michele Barrett discuss Woolf’s classic and oft-quoted essay about women and literature that contains the famous line: “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
The discussion also involves:
- how Woolf’s views in A Room of One’s Own are reflected in her 1928 novel Orlando,
- the precursors to Room, Woolf’s 1928 lectures at Newnham and Girton colleges, the latter of which she attended with Vita Sackville-West,
- Woolf’s ideas about the lecture as a form,
- women’s roles as figures in literature rather than writers of literature,
- Woolf’s invention of Shakespeare’s sister,
- Room’s humor,
- Room’s legacy,
- and more.
Hermione Lee is emeritus professor of English literature at the University of Oxford and Michele Barrett is emeritus professor of modern literary and cultural theory at Queen Mary, University of London.
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