Virginia Woolf's “A Room of One's Own” offers an important piece of literary analysis with an eye toward the evolving role of the author. Throughout Woolf's discussion of writers past and present, she repeatedly references the work of William Shakespeare, particularly his play Antony and Cleopatra, as a model for an "ideal" writing style that authors should revere. In her essay, Woolf is clear that Shakespeare possessed a rare form of authorial style that few could match, referring on multiple occasions to Shakespeare's writing as "incandescent" and "unimpeded". Her writing was truly successful, Woolf argues, because of her ability to express true creative genius without allowing her personal beliefs, prejudices, or agendas to interfere with the integrity of her work, and thus allowing for a definitive interpretation that directly follows by the reader. By looking at specific passages in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, readers can witness her use of deliberately indistinct words in describing characters, as well as her use of metaphors that serve to exemplify this incandescent, "unhindered" style that Woolf holds in such high esteem. consideration throughout the book. the course of his own writing. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To begin analyzing Shakespeare's unique writing style, readers must first identify how Woolf argues for it and how she describes it in "A Room of One's Own." For example, in describing to readers the “ideal” circumstances in which successful literature is produced, Woolf uses Shakespeare as a prime example. She states:. . . The mind of an artist, in order to make the prodigious effort to liberate the work within him whole and entire, must be incandescent, like Shakespeare's mind. . . Perhaps why we know so little about Shakespeare. . . it's that his grudges and dislikes are hidden from us. We are not helped by some "revelation" that reminds us of the writer, every desire to protest, to preach, to proclaim an offense, to pay a bill, to make the world witness to some difficulty or resentment has been born from him and consumed . Therefore his poetry flows from him free and unhindered. If ever a human being could fully express his work, it was Shakespeare. If ever a mind was white hot, unobstructed, I thought. . . it was the mind of Shakespeare” (Woolf, 56). These lines serve directly as the foundation for Woolf's opinion of Shakespeare as an author; however, they also open a wider door to readers, as Woolf fails to reveal how Shakespeare's writing is interpreted as "incandescent" or "unimpeded": it is up to the reader to delve into the specifics of Shakespeare's plays to look for evidence. of these terms to which Woolf so often refers. To find examples of this style of writing, readers can simply look to specific descriptive passages embedded in the text of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. One of the main methods Shakespeare uses in his verse is his ambiguous and purposeful characterization of the play's key players. In other words, Shakespeare deliberately uses terms that can be interpreted in various ways. Woolf praises Shakespeare's ability to show no prejudice in his writings; thus, his character descriptions are highly intertwined with careful wordplay so as not to promote one specific view or characterization over another. This aspect of Shakespeare's writing allows for his opinionsor preferences to remain latent in his writing. For example, by using specific wordplay to describe his characters as constantly changing in Antony and Cleopatra, they, consequently, cannot be defined one-dimensionally; and they change like the readers' opinions from one scene to another. Through this description of the androgynous character, Shakespeare ensures that readers can use a multitude of lenses to see his characters through, rather than in a single dimension. Particularly evident in Antony and Cleopatra, the resulting opinion of how certain characters should be defined is ultimately left to the reader's literary devices and interpretations, as Shakespeare's language makes it increasingly difficult to gauge how he feels. on characters as author – the signifier, according to Woolf, of a successful writer. For example, in Act I sc. i, Cleopatra, a character who demonstrates her particular ability to transform into new personalities over the course of the play, makes a comment to Antony on the subject of becoming his future queen, stating: "But lord, forgive me, / Since my become kills me when they don't look right at you” (Shakespeare Ii52-53 Although this phrase can be read as a simple comment on Cleopatra's ability to adapt to Antony as the new queen after the death of his ex-wife, the word "becomes" produces multiple meanings, further referring to Cleopatra's fluid transformations within the work, her constant shifting moods, and the numerous versions of herself she presents to readers. Although it may be easy to see Cleopatra as a manipulative seductress one scene, it's just as easy to see her as a star-struck lover in the next scene, accentuating her uncanny ability to constantly change and transform, and further demonstrating Shakespeare's skill. language to do it. It is for this reason that Shakespeare's language becomes so important: it helps promote his characters in a variety of ways, rather than through a single accepted definition, even if the language appears in a single way on the surface. Another example of Shakespeare's deliberately ambiguous wordplay occurs in Act II, during Ahenobarbus' description of Cleopatra's personality. Ahenobarbus states: “Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale / Its infinite variety. Other women fill / Feed appetites, but she makes one hungry / Where more full. For the basest things / become themselves in her, that the holy priests / bless her when she is riggish” (Shakespeare II.iii.276-281). The phrase “infinite variety” in this passage also deserves further interpretation. Through the inclusion of this phrase, Shakespeare assures readers that there is more to Cleopatra than a single definition. The word “variety,” for example, does not carry with it an accepted connotation and can instead be interpreted at the discretion of readers. Shakespeare's continued focus on the changing “varieties” of his characters from scene to scene allows readers to decide for themselves how these characters should be characterized. It is for this reason that Woolf describes Shakespeare as having no prejudices or writing about impediments. Readers do not get a sense of Shakespeare's personal point of view through his characters, and by adding words that attest to their mutability and fluidity, the play is able to take on whatever form the reader interprets, rather than a single point of view. specific views or sympathies that Shakespeare wanted. overcome: his personality exists and is formed through the eyes of the reader. Furthermore, Shakespeare also uses this play on words to describe the ever-changing personality and actions ofAnthony. In the final lines of the play Antonio states: "Here am I Antonio, / Yet I cannot keep this form visible, my knave" (Shakespeare V.xv.13-14). Once again, Shakespeare's decision to use the phrase “keep this form” helps to define Antony as, so to speak, indefinable. Throughout the work this pattern holds true for both Antony and Cleopatra: neither can maintain a defined "form," allowing readers' views and analyzes to similarly change shape from scene to scene. This ambiguity creates a broader definition of his characters, leaving them a product of their ever-changing and unpredictable actions and how readers interpret them, rather than how the author does. By allowing Antony and Cleopatra to have such a variety of portrayals, Shakespeare cleverly places their final characterization in the readers' hands, not his. At the end of the play, it is up to the reader to determine whether Antony dies as a war hero or a lovelorn madman, or Cleopatra as a political tactician or an overzealous actress. Shakespeare does not allow any personal gospel or grudge to “shape” his characters, demonstrating his ability to keep his prejudices and sympathies in check. His characters speak for themselves, rather than Shakespeare speaking for or through them. Combined with Shakespeare's tactfully presented wordplay to enable the displacement of his characters, his use of metaphor to assist in their description also demonstrates Woolf's portrayal of her writing as purely ""incandescent". Shakespeare uses the form of metaphor both as a descriptive tool that allows for a reader-based interpretation of specific characters or scenes, as well as offering a more unique form of writing than a free verse description of the same event or character. The fact that Shakespeare casts his characters in such different lights throughout the play is reinforced by his use of metaphor to describe and assist this very phenomenon, thus giving his writing its creative or "incandescent" quality. Shakespeare uses the form of metaphor as a unique perspective that allows readers to form their own interpretation of a character, based on an individual, personal interpretation or metaphor. For example, Antony's lines in Act V do not simply serve to describe Cleopatra as her character intends, but can also be applied in a broader sense to the thematic shift of characters' actions and emotions from one scene to the other. Antonio, through a statement about clouds, also works to describe the hearts of the play's main characters, stating: Sometimes we see a cloud that has the appearance of a dragon, / A vapor sometimes like a bear or a lion , / a turreted citadel, a leaning rock / A forked mountain, or blue promontory / with trees above that wink at the world / and mock our eyes with the air. Have you seen these / signs. / They are the re-enactments of the Black Vespers. [ … ] What is now a horse, / even with a thought / The wheel streamlines and makes it indistinct / As it is water in water. / (Shakespeare IV.xiv 3-14) It is through metaphorical description such as this that allows Shakespeare to permeate the boundaries. Allowing readers to understand that they might see a “dragonlike” Cleopatra in one scene and a “lioness” in the next attests to the flexibility of her character from one scene to the next. This use of metaphor to describe the variability of his characters is central to Shakespeare's profound ability to not limit the lenses through which readers can view his characters; thus presenting the unique form of her writing, or what Woolf calls.