the luxury of financial freedom (Roseman 18). History turns up legal rights of women in the early modern period, which were non-existent. This topic of women, and their powerlessness, contradicts their strong female characters from ancient times to the present. "It would have been impossible, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare." She makes up the imaginary character of Judith Shakespeare (Woolf 46). Judith is as gifted as her brother, but receives no education except that which she can create for herself. Although she is "the apple of her father's eye," her family expects her to be something that leaves no room for her talent. She writes in secret, but hides or burns her work for fear of finding. When she begs to be allowed not to marry her father beats her. Afterwards she runs away. She wants to go into acting and is finally taken up by a theater-manager, becomes pregnant, and commits suicide. The narrator turns to history to look for "facts" about the relationship between women and literature. Relevant facts prove to be few. "Here am I asking why women did not write poetry in the Elizabethan age, and I am not sure how they were educated; whether they were taught to write; whether they had sitting rooms to themselves; how many women had children before they were twenty-one; or what they did from eight in the morning till eight at night (Periodical 2)." Never-the-less, the narrator gives an analysis of the conflicting values and impulses to which such a woman would have been capable. She points out that sexist assumptions come from within as well as from without (Roseman 19). Judith Shakespeare takes us beyond facts, touching the tragedy that would have been at the heart of an intelligent woman's experience at that time. The narrator elaborates more that genius depends on certain conditions, material and social. All art is permitted by a historical, social, and economic reality, whether or not that reality finds ar...
