How do the underlined sentences develop the central
idea?
For though we say that we know nothing about
Shakespeare's state of mind, even as we say that, we are
saying something about Shakespeare's state of mind. The
reason perhaps why we know so little of Shakespeare-
compared with Donne or Ben Jonson or Milton-is that
his grudges and spites and antipathies are hidden from
us. We are not held up by some 'revelation" which
reminds us of the writer. All desire to protest, to preach,
to proclaim an injury, to pay off a score, to make the
world the witness of some hardship or grievance was
fired out of him and consumed. Therefore his poetry
flows from him free and unimpeded. If ever a human
being got his work expressed completely, it was
Shakespeare. If ever a mind was incandescent,
unimpeded, I thought, turning again to the bookcase, it
was Shakespeare's mind.
- A Room of One's Own,
Virginia Woolf
O They emphasize the idea that male writers did not
face obstacles that women did at the time.
They show that male writers were able to hone their
craft despite not having access to books.
They convey the idea that only a genius like
Shakespeare is capable of such greatness.
They support the idea that the human mind cannot
achieve greatness without books and privacy.
