For a long time, I have been a fan of Jane Austen’s novels. I have read almost all of them, and I really admire her for everything she accomplished. Virginia Woolf made me appreciate Jane Austen much more than I did. Woolf was the author I needed to support me in my enjoyment of Austen.
Jane Austen lived in a time where women could be nothing but daughters and housewives. She was a writer in a time where nothing could be expected out of a woman. However, she wrote 6 of the most beautiful novels in English although she had no money and no room. She is world-wide recognized and dearly loved. Woolf states in many parts of her essay that Jane Austen proved the world, and men, that women could perfectly write as good as men. In some extent, Woolf compares Austen to Mozart in the following quote: “For while Jane Austen breaks from melody to melody as Mozart from song to song...” Therefore her genius is as Mozart’s or Shakespeare’s, to whom she also compares Jane Austen. “Here was a woman (Jane Austen) about the year 18oo writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching.” Thus, Jane Austen could write as the best of men and none of her conditions such as having no room, being poor, being interrupted and being a woman interfered in the complexity and richness of her writing.
