Not many people know that under different circumstances, Charlotte Brontë - whose 202nd birth anniversary is tomorrow - might have gone down in history as an artist. As a 12-year-old, the first ambition of the author of Jane Eyre was to be a professional miniature painter. For her, art was not just a passion, but a career goal and a means of escape. Charlotte constantly battled a deep sense of unfulfilled ambition, exasperated by the societal constraints of her time. She did not want the kind of jobs available to unmarried women from modest backgrounds - she wanted to draw and paint. [...]Apollo tells about a recent celebration of Romani art and culture which included this:
Charlotte's keen study of visual imagery helped her 'read' paintings - this played a big part in her growth as an author. The visual arts provided her succour in her early life, helping her to bring the ideas and subjects of pictures into her literary writing.
Charlotte's dream of being a professional painter may never have been realized, but she made sure her experiences with art counted for something. Her ability to notice minute details in people - a skill likely inherited from her study of fine points in prints and engravings - is reflected in her writing. Sample her description of Edward Rochester: "I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw - yes, all three were very grim... His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonized in squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the athletic sense of the term - broad chested and thin flanked; though neither tall nor graceful." Charlotte's description is as good as a portrait of the man.
In the year 1848, Charlotte received a letter from her publishers asking her to do the artwork for the second edition of Jane Eyre. She responded with her characteristic wit: "I have... wasted a certain quantity of Bristol board and drawing-paper, crayons and cakes of colour, but when I examine the contents of my portfolio now, it seems as if during the years it has been lying closed some fairy has changed what I once thought sterling coin into dry leaves, and I feel much inclined to consign the whole collection of drawings to the fire." Thankfully, she did no such thing - at present, close to 200 original artistic works of Charlotte Brontë exist in the world. (Nayantara Mazumder)
At the Long Night of Coming Out evening, a stage dressed to resemble outer space played host to a range of of performance pieces by Romani artists from across Europe. A futuristic sisterhood of Romani alchemists claimed to possess the secret of human survival. The ghost of Heathcliff appeared in a straitjacket to ask why his Gypsy ethnicity had been whitewashed from so many interpretations of Wuthering Heights. (Damian Le Bas Jr)Another recent event told by El Mundo (Spain) was a gathering of women from all walks of life to read fragments of works of literature against prejudice. The texts had been compiled by Ángeles Caso, who wrote the Brontë-related novel Todo ese fuego.
Los fragmentos leídos abarcaron textos escritos por mujeres desde el Siglo de Oro hasta la primera mitad del siglo XX (María de Zayas, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë y Edith Wharton entre otras) muestran muchos temas todavía vigentes hoy en día. La periodista Ángeles Caso se encargó de la selección. "He buscado textos que expresasen bien la rebeldía, la insatisfacción y el combate. Tenemos un gran árbol genealógico de mujeres valientes y luchadoras reclamando la igualdad de derechos", resumió. (Translation)This columnist from Diario de Cádiz (Spain) looks back on her first grown-up reads.
Y Jane Eyre: historia que, leída con gafas violetas, da para un cuento de terror que el Ancho mar de los Sargazos sólo empieza a abarcar. Somos todas nuestras historias, las de dentro y las de fuera de la sangre. (Pilar Vera) (Translation)Mirror describes the film adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society as
Very much a love letter to literature of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, so true to form our romantically named heroine is caught between the attentions of Glen Powell's dashing American diplomat, and Michiel Huisman's hunky book-loving farmer, called Darcy, sorry, Dawsey. (Chris Hunneysett)The Sun tells how actress Claire King was 'groomed by a man when holidaying with her family as a teen'.
The star admitted she kept her plans a secret from her parents as she was obsessed with the idea of her having a holiday romance with the man, who she said "looked like Heathcliff", the handsome anti-hero from Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights.My Palm Beach Post features a local co-valedictorian whose favourite novel is Jane Eyre. An announcement from Emma Butcher on Twitter:
Recounting the ordeal, she explained: "I was 14, as well, when I had a similar thing.
"'I wasn't groomed' - but I was. I was on holiday with my parents and I got taken out.
"And my idea was all the romance and things because he looked like Heathcliff and I wanted to be Cathy." (Kayleigh Giles)
SO HAPPY. My academic monograph, 'The Brontës and War', will be published by @Palgrave_ in 2019! Thank you to all that supported me along the way. A special thanks to @BronteParsonage, who have been a joy to work with over the years. pic.twitter.com/T5t0dPrDkg— Emma Butcher (@EmmaButcher_) April 19, 2018
This weekend in Brussels:Brussels Brontë Weekend
21 April 2018
11:00 Talk by Lucasta Miller – The Brontë Myth: Emily Brontë’s legacy
Dr Lucasta Miller is a writer and critic. Her The Bronte Myth (2001) chronicles the history of ‘Brontëmania’ in a fascinating combination of biography, literary criticism and history. It traces the evolution of the public personae of Charlotte and Emily Brontë since the first biography of the family by Elizabeth Gaskell, showing how they have been reinterpreted by each generation and cast as everything from domestic saints to sex-starved hysterics.
14:30 Meet John Sutherland
John Sutherland is Emeritus Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. A specialist in Victorian fiction, he is the author of 18 books including the two books of classic fiction puzzles Is Heathcliff a Murderer? and Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? He will chat about his miscellany of Brontë curiosities The Brontësaurus: An A–Z of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë (and Branwell), published in 2016, and take questions.
Venue: Gemeenschapscentrum Op-Weule, rue Saint Lambert 91, 1200 Woluwe Saint Lambert (next to Woluwe Shopping Centre). One talk: Non-members €10, members €5. Two talks: non-members €15, members €7. Registration essential for all events. To register, contact Helen MacEwan
22 April 2018
Guided walk
This two-hour walk features Brontë places in the Place Royale area. Entrance fee: €10.
10am, 22 April 2018, to register, contact Helen MacEwan.
As we boarded the train to Leeds, to check out Haworth, where the Brontë sisters wrote their classics and are buried, we realised we had just scratched the surface of Scotland. There is so much more to see on a future visit. (Ahmad Faruqui)Coincidentally, Christopher Fowler explores the North of England:
‘Can I ask – have you ever had a proper job?’I explained that I’d been a journalist and had run a film company before becoming a writer, and she cut me off. ‘No, a proper job.’‘Like what?’ I asked.‘You know,’ she replied. ‘Lifting.’True, I hadn’t done any lifting except at the gym, but I knew a bit about books. I knew that Thomas De Quincey, John Braine, Charlotte Brontë and Alan Bennett were all from the North, as were Margaret Drabble, Beryl Bainbridge and Jeanette Winterson. Bainbridge’s novels, like ‘Young Adolf’, based on the myth that Hitler once worked at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, brought hilarity to death and darkness. [...] Forget about the Brontës; I’ve always admired David Nobbs, John Braine, Winifred Holtby, Alan Sillitoe, Stan Barstow and Keith Waterhouse, who mixed dark and light together almost without thinking.The Telegraph and Argus tells about a new project at Keighley railway station.
Passengers can now learn more about a town’s rail history as they wait for a train.Interpretive posters outlining the impact of railways on Keighley have been installed in the waiting rooms on platforms one and two of the town’s station.Behind the project is the Keighley Station Partnership (KSP), a group dedicated to improving information provided at the site. [...]Keighley BID officer, Phil Walker, said: “Keighley Station is a ‘destination gateway’ to Brontë Country and there has long been a need to provide information on what the town has to offer to visitors arriving from Leeds, Bradford and Skipton, as they walk up the long ramps to the forecourt.“We hope these imaginative posters, and others yet to come, will do that and Keighley BID has been happy to provide eight new poster cases to fulfill this need.” (Alistair Shand)We have several reviews of the film adaptation of The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Society.
When Juliet arrives from London, she is regarded with awe simply because she is the author of a book about Anne Brontë. When the book lovers discover she is planning an article about them, their attitude changes. They’re harbouring some painful secrets which they don’t want to share.As in Ealing comedies, the community is far stronger than any individual. The mildly eccentric members of the literary society remain remarkably loyal to one another. The war, meanwhile, is presented as an inconvenience. The members of the Potato Peel society are so busy discussing Brontë and Charles Lamb’s Shakespeare stories that they manage to keep the outside world at bay. (Geoffrey Macnab for The Independent)
It's 1941, the Channel Island of Guernsey is under German Occupation and a group of friends are caught out after curfew. In desperation, they tell the patrol that they're returning from a meeting of their reading club, figuring the Germans will fail to find anything subversive in the act of reading Emily Brontë and Charles Lamb. (Sandra Hall for The Sydney Morning Herald)
THE PLOT: Post-war London. Juliet (Lily James) is an avid reader and an even more passionate writer. Her latest book on Anne Brontë wasn’t exactly a bestseller. Still, her publisher Sidney (Matthew Goode) has confidence in her cheerful approach to life. Juliet is contacted by Guernsey resident Dawsey (Michael Huisman) about tracking down a Shakespeare book. He relates a brief story about his book club, The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society and how it gave them hope during the German occupation. Intrigued, Juliet heads to the small island in the English Channel to find out more. There, she meets the other members of the Society including the bitter Amelia (Penelope Wilton), who objects to Juliet writing about their wartime experiences. However, this is a story that needs to be told… (Gareth O’Connor for Movies.ie)
Shaffer and Barrows’ short, breezy novel wasn’t aiming for Brontë to begin with, but it’s received soapier treatment still in the slick hands of co-writers Don Roos (some way from “The Opposite of Sex”), Thomas Bezucha (“The Family Stone”) and Kevin Hood (“Becoming Jane”). (Guy Lodge for Variety)Actor Ben Hardy tells Digital Spy about BBC One's new Woman in White miniseries.
"What really struck me about The Woman in White is just how ahead of its time it was – especially the actual themes of the piece."They're more relevant now than they were when we filmed it, actually – this idea of these two women living freely within the strict structure of Victorian society and a heinous patriarch coming and spoiling everything."It feels very current and the pacing as well... I read the book in a couple of days and it was 600 pages, which I couldn't do with Charlotte Brontë!"This is more modern in terms of pace, and hopefully a modern audience will respond to it." (Morgan Jeffery)Critictoo (France) highlights 6 roles played by Toby Stephens, including his Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre 2006.
Jane Eyre (2006)
Avant de devenir le capitaine Flint (voir plus bas), on peut dire que le rôle le plus emblématique de la carrière de Toby Stephens sur le petit écran était sans aucun doute celui de M. Rochester dans cette adaptation de Jane Eyre avec Ruth Wilson en tête d’affiche.Célébrée comme étant l’une des meilleures adaptations, l’acteur incarne ce mythique personnage de la littérature, l’exemple type du héros byronien, aussi passionné qu’imparfait. (Carole) (Translation)
4. JANE, THE FOX, AND ME BY FANNY BRITT“ Hélène has been inexplicably ostracized by the girls who were once her friends…Fortunately, Hélène has one consolation, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Hélène identifies strongly with Jane’s tribulations, and when she is lost in the pages of this wonderful book, she is able to ignore her tormentors. But when Hélène is humiliated on a class trip in front of her entire grade, she needs more than a fictional character to allow her to see herself as a person deserving of laughter and friendship. Leaving the outcasts’ tent one night, Hélène encounters a fox, a beautiful creature with whom she shares a moment of connection…Before long Hélène realizes that the less time she spends worrying about what the other girls say is wrong with her, the more able she is to believe that there is nothing wrong at all.” (Chelsea Hensley)According to Electric Lit,
The Best Book Is the One You Can’t Remember Partly or wholly forgotten books can be much more valuable than the ones that are fresh in our minds [...]Books have a strange relationship with memory. I have sometimes been convinced that a certain book contains a lengthy, rapturous, intricately-detailed description of a place, or a clear yet careful elucidation of a complex idea, only to go back and find a scant couple of sentences. On the other hand, there are entire chunks of books that my memory elides (did anyone else forget the whole second half of Wuthering Heights?). (C.D. Rose)El País (Spain) features writer Gerald Murnane.
¿Posmodernismo? “En absoluto. Se escandalizaría si le dijera cuántas obras consideradas maestras no he leído y cuántas otras de las que nunca ha oído hablar me influyeron”, dice. “Tras Emerald Blue, en 1995, decidí dejar la ficción y me dediqué a trabajar para mi exclusivo placer sobre mundos imaginados. Tenía la ambición de traspasar el paisaje de la novela y entrar en otra dimensión ficticia, como hicieron las hermanas Brontë y Proust”. (José Luis de Juan) (Translation)Tes discusses school assemblies:
I give a lot of assemblies now and I’m always aware of the privilege of having the (almost) undivided attention of several hundred busy people. I, therefore, try my best to be interesting. Over the past few months, I’ve talked about the Sudan expedition of 1885 and the battle of Trafalgar; I’ve quoted poetry from Henry Newbolt, Charlotte Brontë and TS Eliot; I’ve drawn lessons from the films Strictly Ballroom and War Games; I’ve told the story of the (almost) elimination of polio; and I’ve even proved that there are infinitely many primes (although I think I lost a fair section of the audience in that one). (James Handscombe)Burgh Vivant posts about Britsburgh Literary Society's recent Evening with Jane Eyre. The Echo posts about Wuthering Heights.
After some performances at the LAMDA Linbury Studio (April 4-April 12), the LAMDA students take their production of We Are Three Sisters by Blake Morrison to the Bowness Theatre Festival:We Are Three Sisters
by Blake Morrison
Written by Blake Morrison
Directed by Amelia Sears
Designed Nate Gibson
Performed at The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere
Thursday 19 April: 2.00pm & 7.30pm
Against the backdrop of the windswept Yorkshire village of Haworth, three remarkable young women endure life in a gloomy parsonage. With neither curtains nor comforts, Charlotte, Anne and Emily Brontë brighten the confines of their lives with outspoken wit, aspirations, dreams and ideas… and they write.
With exquisitely drawn characterizations, a nod to Chekhov and a touch of poetic licence, We Are Three Sisters by Blake Morrison evokes with piercing clarity the personalities of these three spirited women.
The festival, which is on from Friday April 27 until Sunday April 29, will be hosted by the Old School Room, in Church Street and is being run by Brontë Bars and Events.Daily Mail wonders whether you 'fancy starring in your own Emily Brontë drama' at Broughton Hall, which was seen in Wuthering Heights 1992, has been turned into a rental cottage.
Organiser Kath Thornton said: "We're having a War of the Roses Lancashire versus Yorkshire theme, with some exclusive beers on the rack.
"Goose Eye Brewery is brewing a special festival ale called 'Wuthering' and Bowland Brewery, from Clitheroe, is brewing the other special ale called ‘Heights’.
"As it's Emily Brontë's bicentennial year and, as we've done in previous years, we want to celebrate the great achievements of the Brontës.
"As well as more than 30 ales to sample we have the ever popular Branwell's Gin & Rum Shack." (Miran Rahman)
A 16th century stately home that was once used as a location for the 1992 re-make of Emily Brontë's classic novel Wuthering Heights is available to rent for holidaymakers.Mundo TKM (Mexico) recommends Wuthering Heights as one of five books to read if you are broken-hearted.
The seventeen-bedroom manor house Broughton Hall is located in the picturesque village of the Broughton, just south of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and can be rented for around £7,000 a night.
The breath-taking property sits within 3,000 acres of stunning grounds and is described as a grand and luxurious historic house, offering a 'unique destination.' (Ed Riley)
Cumbres Borrascosas de Emily BrontëAmerica Magazine on Muriel Spark and what her novels 'can teach us about life'.
Catherine aprende a cogerle afecto a Heathcliff, un niño que su madre ha traído a casa porque está en desnutrición tras quedarse huérfano. Sin embargo el pequeño no es bien recibido por el padre y hermano mayor de Catherine, quienes lo ven como un inmundo gitano. Los años pasan y Catherine es enviada a estudiar lejos de las Cumbres Borrascosas, luego de que sus padres mueren, mientras que Heathcliff es desterrado de este lugar en donde se enamora de su hermana adoptiva. Cuando Catherine vuelve a las Cumbres, ha cambiado: ahora es una señorita de comportamiento sofisticado gracias educación que ha recibido. Catherine confiesa que ama, desde pequeña, a Heathcliff , pero ella prefirió casarse con el hijo de los Lintón, una familia burguesa, por su estatus. Esto ofende profundamente a Heathcliff quien herido por el desamor de Catherine decide hacerle la vida imposible. (Translation)
Sandy Stranger [a character in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie] is a plotmaker, too, right from the start. As a young girl she is given to elaborate fantasies scripting herself into scenes with the likes of Alan Breck from Stevenson’s Kidnapped, Mr. Rochester from Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Anna Pavlova, the great Russian ballerina. (Robert E. Hosmer, Jr.)Bustle reviews The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky by Jana Casale.
Maybe she’s Jane Bennet, or Jane Eyre, or Janie Crawford, or Tita de la Garza; Meg March, or Molly Weasley, or Robin Stokes, or Bridget Jones. Quite possibly, she’s Margot from ‘Cat Person’.Malibu Arts Journal reviews the biopic Lou Andreas-Salomé, The Audacity To Be Free.
Or maybe she’s all of them, and more. (E. Ce Miller)
Protofeminism predates the feminist movement. Women like Lou and Charlotte Brontë, and other such authors, were challenging and critiquing the treatment of women in the US and British society. Their literature pre-sage the 20th century monumental changes like the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 and the Representation of the People Act in 1928 in Britain. A protofeminist is an early author, thinker or leader who despite cultural norms to the contrary sought equality for women on every level. It is because of women like Lou and Brontë that modern women can say we are feminists. Not that we can long lounge on our laurels today. Everybody can ponder the limp corkscrew and broken balloons of our premature festivities until Monday morning when Cimmerian realism again wags its spindly finger under our noses mocking our lack of this and that. (Kriss Perras)The Morung Express (India) has an article by Anjan K Behera, Research Scholar at Nagaland University.
I always love listening to my mother narrate stories of her childhood. [...] Although she studied in an Oriya medium school, my mother had read works of Charles Dickens, the Brontës, Rudyard Kipling, R K Narayan, and Ruskin Bond by the time she finished her schooling. These books, she says, helped her imagine new lands, meet new people, and travel to various places, all from the comfort of her home.Inspired by the collection of short stories Reader, I Married Him (edited by Tracy Chevalier), J.S. Cherfi has written one of her own. Lucy Turns Pages posts about Manga Classics' Jane Eyre. Life of this City Girl posts about Jane Eyre 2011.
The Mansions in the Sky poems by Simon Armitage appeared in the September issue of PN Review:PN Review 237, Vol. 44 No. 1, Sep - Oct 2017Thesis:
Mansions in the Sky. The Rise and Fall of Branwell Brontë
by Simon Armitage
An Analysis Of Translation Of Cultural Words In “Jane Eyre” Novel By Charlotte Brontë
Fitriani Lestari, 2017
Universitas Pamulang, Tangerang Selatan, Indonesia
The translation procedures applied in Jane Eyre novel including its translation in Indonesian. To support the study, the writer used the theory of Newmark (1988). In analyzing the data findings, a descriptive qualitative method was used. The results of this study revealed that there are four categories of cultural words found in this novel such as ecology, material culture, social culture, and organizations, customs, activities, procedures, concepts. Among all of the cultural word categories proposed by Newmark, only one category was not found in the novel, namely gestures and habits category. In rendering the selected English cultural words into Indonesian, eight procedures were used. They are: (1) cultural equivalent, it was used to translate the cultural words of bird of paradise, easy-chair, mama, and working people(11%); (2) Expansion; it was used to translate the cultural words of mastiffs, convolvuli, robin, elm, pollard willow, linnet, plover, bilberries, bush-holly, crape and Charles I (31%); (3) transference, it was used to translate the cultural words of foxglove, primrose, miss, and Felix (11%); (4) naturalization, it was used to translate the cultural words of Scotland, oak, and orthodox (9%); (5) couplets, it was used to translate the cultural words of crocuses, pansies, double daisies, and Psalms (11%); (6) descriptive equivalent, it was used to translate the cultural words of Welsh rabbit, ottoman, widow’s cap, and charity school (11%); (7) synonymy, it was used to translate the cultural words of carriage, pelisse, cloak, and porridge (11%); (8) notes, it was used to translate the cultural word of negus (3%). The results of the analysis showed that ecological cultural words are the most dominant among them. Meanwhile, the dominant procedure applied by the translator was the expansion procedure.
By the labour of the hands : a emancipação através do trabalho : protagonistas femininas na ficção de Anne Brontë
by Lima, Sónia Aires
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
The present dissertation aims to demonstrate, how labour – and its resulting salary – gave the nineteenth-century middle-class woman a measured possibility of some type of independence. Although frequently inferior to what was to be considered fair and rarely comparable to what a man would meet, it will be weighed bearing in mind its social impact. A theoretical frame of work will be drawn to support the present study. This essay will also question whether women’s emancipation led, in fact, to a tangible independence and to an awareness of their precarious situation, or whether a professional career was just another method for women to confine themselves. This dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first part, composed of three chapters, a contextual framework of Victorian middle-class women will be presented, according to three main aspects: society, culture and education. Their way of life will be described; nineteenth-century notions of Gender will be approached, as well as how these notions were perceived through the analysis of Victorian literary works. The second part of this essay, also composed of three chapters, specifically explores the middle-class women’s emancipation through work in the Victorian Era. Thus, literary works by Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) – are analysed, bearing in mind the issues they approach, as well as their borrowings on the author’s own working experience. These are key works in this dissertation insofar Anne Brontë’s female characters are significant examples, although in distinct situations, of women who use labour as a means to achieve their independence. The second part of this study opens with an introductory note on the Brontë family. Its main purpose is to describe Anne Brontë’s context in order to better understand the author’s views on women’s lives since, to this day very little is known about this writer. A brief biography of Anne Brontë is followed by a cultural analysis of Brontë’s novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) which will enable us to draw a more clarified portrait of nineteenth-century notions of work and labour observed from a woman’s perspective.
Charlotte Brontë on ‘Emma’According to The Mary Sue, it's time to 'Stop Romanticizing Mr. Darcy When There Are Way Better Options in Literature'.
Jane Austen just can't catch a break. Charlotte Brontë was also an outspoken critic of Austen, finding her books to be somewhat lacking in emotion: "I have likewise read one of Miss Austen’s works — Emma — read it with interest and with just the right degree of admiration which the Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible and suitable. Anything like warmth or enthusiasm—anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works... Jane Austen was a complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete, and rather insensible (not senseless) woman. If this is heresy, I cannot help it." (Charlotte Ahlin)
Question: What’s more attractive than an intelligent, compassionate, rugged Professor, who has tumbling brown hair, cares for orphans, and loves to hear about your work?We don't aim to criticise Louisa May Alcott's work, which is great, but why the need to take the fun out of reading? What if we like reading about Rochester and Heathcliff but still are smart enough to know that they are not male role models and might not be ideal partners in real life? We find it rather patronising and belittling to women, to be honest. We don't see any articles telling men to stop romanticising, say, Holly Golightly and settling for Maria von Trapp.
Answer: A rich, rude snob, who despises dancing, scoffs at your family, and calls you “tolerable, but not handsome enough,” behind your back.
Apparently.
Little Women’s male romantic lead, Professor Friedrich Bhaer, is often overlooked for his contemporary in 19th century literature, Mr. Darcy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Described as “one of the most adored romantic heroes ever,” Mr. Darcy’s fans are steadfast in their devotion. But should the qualities of this prideful man, who doles out kindness only selectively, really be the epitome of literary romance?
This year is the 150th anniversary of Little Women’s first publication, providing us with an ideal window to update our amorous ideals and redirect our Darcy-veneration to a more modern, unconditionally kind leading man. [...]
It’s this villain-to-hero transition that Louisa May Alcott directly rebels against in Little Women and her other novels. Dr. Christine Doyle, Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, said, “The 19th century feminist in her, is that she doesn’t have any faith in heroes that the villain can supposedly turn into.”
The transformation is a common character development among Victorian romances, most notably also seen in the classics Jane Eyre, with Rochester, and Wuthering Heights, with Heathcliff. Said Doyle, “That kind of pushy, older guy, she resists that.” She continued, “The women’s role is not to save the guy, there’s no equality in that relationship.” (Clare Church)
« Jersey affair » : quand Emily Brontë rencontre la « bête de Jersey » [...]An article on commuting in the Los Angeles Review of Books:
Jessie Buckley (récemment découverte dans la série Taboo avec Tom Hardy) et Johnny Flynn (entraperçu dans Sils Maria), sensuels et troublants tous les deux, magnifient leur rôle d’amants terribles, sauvages comme Catherine et Heathcliff chez Emily Brontë, et le film, il faut bien l’avouer, leur doit beaucoup, leur doit énormément, beaucoup à leur alchimie, à leur fièvre et à leur fougue les portant loin, et jusqu’à l’abîme. (Michaël Pigé) (Translation)
Such optimism seems more prevalent among the young. For those of us who are now on the cusp of middle age, a commute isn’t so much a journey of progress as a footpath around regrets and deferred ambitions. By the time they were my age, Emily Brontë had penned Wuthering Heights and the Buddha had renounced all worldly possessions, but all I have to my name are a handful of publications and one year toward tenure at a small Midwestern university. (Barrett Swanson)Beauty and Lace posts about Michael Stewart's Ill Will.
An exhibition in Québec, with artwork by Isabelle Arsenault (who illustrated Jane, le renard et moi):runs until May 6 2018More information on ActuaBD.
Isabelle Arsenault's Imaginary Worlds
Musée de la Civilisation
In comic- or illustration-form, Isabelle Arsenault's work is unique in its particular use of colour, which conveys her characters' emotions. The presence or absence of colour are passageways between reality and imagination, monotony and exception, uncertainty and proof.
Full of parallel realities, Isabelle Arsenault's imaginary worlds are made of organic elements, delicate plants and colourful flowers. The author tells her stories with a depth and sensibility characteristic of her personal style.
First published by Éditions La Pastèque, the originals of her five main works lead readers to appreciate the immense talent of this internationally known children's illustrator and dive into the depths of her imaginary worlds.
A presentation of the Musée de la civilisation and the Festival Québec BD, in collaboration with Éditions La Pastèque and Télé-Québec.
Perhaps because of where I was coming from (1965-68), I wanted more silliness from the first five episodes. I tell the writers that when I last spoke to Stephens he was about to be Mr Rochester in the BBC’s Jane Eyre. Now I have just watched him adjudicate a fight between a robot and an alien dinosaur. They laugh and say they have finally brought the great classical actor down to their level. That’s the spirit. As Parker Posey says of Dr Smith, perhaps Lost in Space needs to work out when losing your marbles could help. (Andrew Billen)Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog features writer K.D. Dowdall:
At age twelve, I discovered Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and for several years, I was Jane Eyre, in my imagination. It wasn’t far from the true. My family had fallen on hard times. Experiencing poverty is something one never forgets. It would not be my life story.À Pala de Walsh (in Portuguese) features Douglas Sirk's 1957 film Interlude.
O filme de Sirk ensaia um jogo muito próximo daquele proposto por Charlotte Brontë em Jane Eyre. Quando Jane Eyre se encontra com Mr. Rochester na capela, a fim de contrair matrimónio, a cerimónia é interrompida por um homem que anuncia que a união não pode efectivar-se porque Mr. Rochester está, na verdade, casado com Bertha Mason. Esta mulher está viva, porém enlouquecida, e mantida isolada no sótão de Thornfield Hall. Esta situação narrativa é particularmente surpreendente e marcante na economia narrativa do romance de Brontë porque o leitor está a ler um livro intitulado Jane Eyre, que é sobre a vida dessa mesma personagem, sendo inclusivamente escrito na primeira pessoa. Isto é, o protagonismo de Jane Eyre neste livro homónimo é indiscutível, e, contudo, o que esta sequência narrativa põe em evidência (para o leitor e para ela) é que a narrativa pessoal desta mulher se cruza com uma outra narrativa pessoal, a de Bertha Mason, na qual Jane assume inevitavelmente um papel secundário, o papel da outra (Jean Rhys aproveitaria esta mesma relação quiasmática para escrever Wide Sargasso Sea, que toma Bertha como protagonista).Yesterday was the birthday of Maria Brontë (née Branwell), mother of the Brontës, and AnneBrontë.org celebrated it with a post about her.
Algo da mesma ordem acontece em Interlude. Se todo o filme fora centrado em Helen Banning, e em particular na possibilidade do seu romance com Tonio Fischer, o espectador é agora levado a questionar esse protagonismo, não só porque, como em Jane Eyre, a protagonista é aqui revelada como a outra, ou a segunda mulher, mas particularmente porque o filme nos diz, através do retrato, que Helen Banning é uma espécie de duplo de Reni, um substituto de um original perdido, e que esta é a única razão pela qual Tonio Fischer se apaixonou por ela. Ou seja, ele apaixonou-se por ela devido àquilo que ela não é. De alguma forma, se a mulher no retrato é aquela que Tonio amou no passado (o filme deixa isso claro), das duas mulheres que ele tem agora disponíveis, Helen Banning é aquela que se parece mais com o retrato, uma vez que Reni já nada tem que ver com a mulher que fora outrora, estando agora condenada à condição arquetípica, como Bertha Mason, de madwoman in the attic. Assim, é a própria americana que corresponde agora a um postal fantasioso.
Desiludida, Helen Banning afasta-se de Tonio. Estamos então no momento protocolar da comédia romântica em que o par se separa, a cerca de 2/3 do fim do filme, para se poder reencontrar no final e cumprir assim o happy ending. É justamente esta abertura, a um happy ou a um unhappy ending, que o filme trabalha a partir de então. Há dois cenários alternativos: de acordo com a comédia romântica protagonizada por Banning e Fischer, um happy ending corresponderia à união final do par. Mas há Reni, que, ao contrário de Bertha Mason (que, no romance de Brontë, nunca deixa de ser uma personagem indubitavelmente secundária), adquire aqui uma relevância que impede que ela seja desconsiderada. (José Bértolo) (Translation)
An alert for today, April 16, in Pittsburgh:Britsburgh Literary Society - An evening with Jane Eyre
04/16/2018 06:00 PM - 09:00 PM ET
The Library Pub
2304 E Carson St
Pittsburgh, PA 15203
Have a drink and good food in The Library Pittsburgh pub before participating in a discussion on Charlotte Brontë's classic work - Jane Eyre, seen through the eyes of Alan Stanford, Artistic and Executive Director of PICT's upcoming production. Charlotte Brontë's beloved Jane Eyre will leap off the pages of the novel onto the stage of the Fred Rogers Studio at WQED from April 5-28.
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the stage adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel as Stanford, who adapted the novel for the stage, discusses the origins of the production, provides insight into Charlotte Brontë and her sisters, and establishes the historical and social context of the play. Stanford began his career in Dublin and was principal director of the Gate Theatre Dublin for nearly twenty years. Stanford is now in his seventh year as director of PICT - Pittsburgh’s Classic Theatre.
Come and learn from Alan Stanford and enjoy the discussion. Special thanks to PICT, Alan Stanford, Eileen Clancy, and Carolyn Ludwig for their help in making this Britsburgh Literary Society event possible.
Britsburgh membership page.
Have a drink and good food in the The Library Pittsburgh pub before participating in a discussion on Charlotte Brontë's classic work - Jane Eyre, seen through the eyes of Alan Stanford, Artistic and Executive Director of PICT's upcoming production. Charlotte Brontë's beloved Jane Eyre will leap off the pages of the novel onto the stage of the Fred Rogers Studio at WQED from April 5-28.
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the stage adapation of Charlotte Brontë's novel as Stanford, who adapted the novel for the stage, discusses the origins of the production, provides insight into Charlote Brontë and her sisters, and establishes the historical and social context of the play. Stanford began his career in Dublin and was principal director of the Gate Theatre Dublin for nearly twenty years. Stanford is now in his seventh year as director of PICT - Pittsburgh’s Classic Theatre.
Come and learn from Alan Stanford and enjoy the discussion. Special thanks to PICT, Alan Stanford, Eileen Clancy, and Carolyn Ludwig for their help in making this Britsburgh Literary Society event possible.
What attendees should expect: Our aim is to dive deep in to the mind of the author, to learn about the subject matter and to discuss how it is relevant today. Reading the novel or viewing the movie beforehand will be helpful, but it is not required and there aren't any tests!
Programme
6-7pm - Dine, meet and greet.
7-8pm - Discussion
8pm onwards - Social reception
Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre revolutionized fiction with its coming-of-age story told from a female perspective. Tonight, PICT Classic Theatre continues its production of the 19th-century classic. The work was adapted from Brontë’s novel by PICT artistic and executive director Alan Stanford. His dramatization was originally commissioned by the Gate Theatre, in Dublin, and has also been performed at The Guthrie Theater, in Minneapolis. The show features Karen Baum in the title role, Paul Bernardo as Mr. Rochester, and James FitzGerald as Mr. Brocklehurst; Stanford directs.Harper's Magazine discusses A View of the Empire at Sunset, by Caryl Phillips:
In 1939, three years after they’d traveled together to Dominica—Rhys’s first return visit in nearly thirty years—Tilden Smith gave her a copy of Jane Eyre, which she had last read as a girl. Rhys’s ideas for a story set wholly in the West Indies began to coalesce: she soon produced half of a manuscript, provisionally titled “Le Revenant,” which he typed up from her chaotic notes. But then they had one of their periodic arguments, and to spite him Rhys burned the typescript. Like Mrs. Rochester, the urtext of Rhys’s masterpiece “perished in the flames,” in the words of its Penguin editor, Angela Smith. It’s a sad anecdote, and all the more pitiful for what it reveals of Rhys’s self-destructive masochism. It is also, as Smith intuits, an apt metaphor for the writing of this particular book, which is so intimately concerned with the space between “sanity and madness, expectation and fulfilment.” The Sargasso Sea, which lies between Europe and the West Indies, is, Smith reminds us, “difficult to navigate, like the human situations in the novel.” Or the human situations in Rhys’s own life, for that matter. (Elizabeth Lowry)New Westminster Review mentions some books 'for reads that celebrate and empower women':
Finally, some fiction titles featuring powerful and unconventional female characters include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, The Colour Purple by Alice Walker, Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. (Jenny Zhang)Calgary Herald interviews the actress Ma-Anne Dionisio:
“I read books like Jane Eyre and Nancy Drew but missed out on The Secret Garden,” she says. “When I was offered the role, I immediately read the novel to find out who Martha was. She is a generous, authentic person who wears her heart on her sleeve. (Louis B. Hobson)The Daily Mail does the same with Katherine Parkinson:
Recently read? Jane Eyre. I wept reading it. I reacted against my mum being an English teacher by not reading many classics, but recently I thought that’s a bit sad, and I am loving discovering them. (Charlotte Pearson Meathven)Big Stamp of Approval reviews the Sheffield performances of Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre:
There are some really touching moments in the two hour performance, evoking emotions in the viewer and almost taking your heart for a dance on stage with theirs. The unison scenes are just outstanding, so together and impeccable.Today on BBC Radio4 (April 15, 06:05AM and 11:30PM):
Hats off to Cathy Marston, choreographer, for this masterpiece. She should feel super satisfied that the portrayal of the relationships and lovers on the stage is transparent and easy to dissect.
The ballet is not one to be missed and if you can get to see it, you won’t be disappointed; if you like ballet and every second of a performance filled with perfectly executed content, this one is for you. (Sophie Wilson)
Something UnderstoodEl País (Spain) publishes the obituary of the writer Sergio Pitol:
The Teacher's Art
Something Understood
Mark Tully explores the very best of teachers - and the very worst - through fiction, philosophy and memoirs, considering the essential attributes of a great teacher and the formative influence teachers can have throughout our lives.
He talks to former teacher Kabir Shaikh, who, as Director of Education for UNRWA/UNESCO, has also been responsible for providing education for half a million Palestinian refugee children in the Middle East.
There are readings from the works of Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and poet Carl Dennis, and music is provided by Carl Orff, Aaron Copland and Japanese Taiko drummer Joji Hirota.
The readers are Cyril Nri, Emma Pallant and Francis Cadder.
Presenter: Mark Tully
Producer: Frank Stirling
Sergio fue el amigo con el que conversaba noche tras noche, con quien intercambiábamos textos y chismes, criticábamos a los amigos; el amigo con quien hablaba de nuestros proyectos y viajes, de política, con el que iba a la ópera, con quien tanto viajé, con quien compartí decisivas amistades, Carlos Monsiváis, Luz del Amo, Luis Prieto, Tito Monterroso, Luis y Lya Cardoza y Aragón, Mario Bellatin, con el que veía películas clásicas que le fascinaban como Ser o no ser de Lubitsch, un amigo con quien discutía de literatura, de Emily Brontë y sus Cumbres borrascosas, quien, alguna vez me confesó, había sido fundamental para construir la estructura de sus novelas: “… en mi formación, una obra decisiva, el modelo perfecto para estructurar una novela, una escritura oblicua. Cuando la leí, me interesó extraordinariamente esa forma de construir una novela a través de un laberinto de relatos, de filtros, que le impidan al lector saber con exactitud lo que está ocurriendo… pero más, que la novela quede de tal modo abierta que un lector más o menos adiestrado pueda irla interpretando, armando, hasta crear su propia novela”. (Margo Glantz) (Translation)Zócalo (México) reviews Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls:
De Frida Kahlo a Jane Goodall (claro que se acuerdan de ella, es la investigadora de primates), de Coco Chanel a Nina Simone (buenísima cantante, ¿ya la escucharon?), de las hermanas Brontë (todas escritoras) a Marie Curie, este libro narra las extraordinarias vidas de cien mujeres valientes. Además, cuenta con las ilustraciones de sesenta artistas de todo el mundo. (Allegra Márquez Estrada) (Translation)La Nación (Argentina) misquotes Jane Eyre:
En Jane Eyre, la novela de Charlotte Brontë, la protagonista dice: "Tú no eres tus heridas". Es una frase medicinal. (Ivonne Bordelois) (Translation)Medicinal it could be (and also pinterest-like, self-help board), but not from Jane Eyre (probably from a bad Spanish translation of this):
“It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes—and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you.” (Chapter XXXVII)Postimees (Estonia) and other Estonian newspapers quote Hanno Pevkur, chairman of the Estonian Reform Party quoting Charlotte Brontë:
Ka briti kirjanik ja luuletaja Charlotte Brontë on öelnud - elu on liiga lühike, et viha pidada või ülekohut meeles hoida. (Translation)Trouw (Netherlands) reviews the novel Devil's Day by Andrew Michael Hurley:
‘Duivelsdag’ is een roman zoals ze alleen in Engeland geschreven kunnen worden, hedendaags en traditioneel ineen. Je proeft er de geest van Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ in, maar ook die van het werk van de onterecht vergeten John Cowper Powys: de aarde en de natuur met haar magische krachten waar de naar redelijkheid en beheersing strevende mens mee worstelt. (Rob Schouten) (Translation)Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog interviews the writer K.D. Dowdall:
At age twelve, I discovered Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and for several years, I was Jane Eyre, in my imagination. It wasn’t far from the true. My family had fallen on hard times. Experiencing poverty is something one never forgets. It would not be my life story.In the Quiet reviews Wuthering Heights.
Through Belgian Eyes: Charlotte Brontë’s Troubled Brussels Legacy by Helen Macewan.
Review by Kimberley Braxton
The Review of English Studies, New Series, 1–3, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgy035
Brontë Newsletter of Japan. No 96 (April 2018)
Pictures of Life in Fiction and Real Life – Charlotte Brontë, Anne Tyler & Karen Kingsbury and Some Indian Real-Life Stories
Mrs. Jeba Regis P. J., M.A., M.Phil., CELTA, Ph,D. Research Scholar
Language in India, Vol. 18:2 February 2018
What is the difference between the story of lives in the world of fiction and real life? It is indeed a perspective worth analyzing -- the study of characters in fiction and in real life. People acquire a change of path through a particular event or some such impact or phenomenon. This possibility is seen to be stronger when Faith is involved.
Las flores demasiado rojas. Notas sobre la construcción de un paisaje impresionista en Wide Sargasso Sea de Jean Rhys
by Natalia A. Accossano Pérez
Badebec, Vol. 7 Núm. 13 (2017): Septiembre 2017
En sus cartas al respecto de Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Jean Rhys explica cómo había releído Jane Eyre (1847) de Charlotte Brontë y el personaje de Bertha había despertado su interés, al punto de proponerse reescribir su historia. En nuestro trabajo, sugerimos que es posible leer Wide Sargasso Sea como si su autora hubiera tomado el retrato unívoco de Bertha para descomponerlo en diferentes perspectivas, conformando una “novela impresionista”. Consideramos que Jean Rhys construye su obra a partir de la superposición de diferentes dimensiones: la observación de la tradición, la observación de la sociedad y del individuo sobre sí mismo, y la observación de la naturaleza. Las descripciones de paisajes presentes en la novela adhieren a los parámetros de representación de la pintura de paisaje, y así, participan de la serie literaria de la écfrasis. Por lo tanto, al considerar estas descripciones como tales, las ponemos en el contexto de estudio de la teoría de la representación. Esto conlleva que ciertas implicaciones ideológicas, políticas y sociales presentes en los movimientos pictóricos podrían leerse también en las écfrasis de Rhys.
Brontë biographer Elizabeth Gaskell will drop into the Brontë Parsonage on Thursday April 19.One particular event, Kate Whiteford's Wings of Desire is featured with special attention:
Mrs Gaskell, a well-known novelist in her own right, will join Haworth Church sexton John Brown to speak with visitors about their friendship with the Brontë family.
Costumed guides will play both the historical figures during the latest Late Night Thursday at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, running until 8pm.
Admission to the Haworth museum is free to local people after 5.30pm, if they take along proof of residence in the BD22, BD21 or BD20 postcode areas or Thornton.
The last admission is 7.30pm.
The monthly Brontë Treasures session will be at the museum on April 27 at 2pm, when a curator will offer visitors unique access to treasures from the Brontë Society collection.
The same day sees the latest Parsonage Unwrapped session at 7.30pm, when Dr Emma Storr will speak about life and death in smelly, crowded and unsanitary Haworth in the 1840s. (David Knights)
Kate Whiteford has used aerial photography to create a bird’s eye view of the landscape around the Parsonage and across the moors to Top Withens, reputedly the setting for Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights.Actress Rose McGowan's ten favourite books in Vulture:
Whiteford will meditate upon the iconography of the bird of prey, its metaphorical properties and association with fight or flight, escape and predation.
The exhibition also includes a series of new works on paper, and a ‘hawkcam’ will allow Brontë enthusiasts to view the moors from the comfort of their armchair. (...)
SMJ Falconry will visit Parson’s Field behind the museum on May 27 to introduce visitors to some of the birds of prey that feature in Kate Whiteford’s film, including the tiny merlin hawk similar to Emily’s Nero.
Visitors will be able to witness flying displays with a variety of incredible birds, from the amazing speed of Peregrine falcons to the fantastic ability for red kites.
During the session, which runs from 10am to 4pm, people will be able to handle the birds and talk with SMJ Falconry’s specialist team.
The activity is free with admission to the museum, as is a Wild Wednesday! family workshop to be held on May 30 inside the museum.
The title is Flights of Fancy, and it will focus on Emily’s love of birds and her novel Wuthering Heights, where many birds are mentioned, such as larks, lapwings, linnets and cuckoos. (David Knights)
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte BrontëBroadway World Pittsburgh reviews the current PICT production of Alan Stanford's Jane Eyre:
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.”
This is an important book that as a young girl showed me that we can be indomitable, regardless of whether we are seen or not.
"What you are about to see is not Jane Eyre," director and adaptor Alan Stanford intoned evocatively during his pre-show lecture at opening night of what I THOUGHT was PICT'S Jane Eyre. Immediately explaining, he wryly stated, "This is a play, an adaptation of a novel. It is not the novel. Jane Eyre is a rather large book, big enough to kill a rat." (...)Emily Brontë at 200 on RTÉ:
A highly condensed but incredibly whole-seeing adaptation, at two and a half hours Stanford's acclaimed Jane Eyre feels like a whole story as opposed to Cliff Notes or a Wishbone special (hey, actors- remember Wishbone, the dog with a better resume than any of us will ever have?). A full-grown Jane (Cary Anne Spear) writes her memoirs of her eventful earlier life, first as a wayward and independent child (Caroline Lucas) and then as a principled but impulsive young woman (Karen Baum). The conceit of three Janes allows some of the novel's prose stylings (I cannot confirm if any are direct quotes, or simply in keeping with the book's language) to shine through. Spear's adult Jane serves less as narrator than as internal monologue for much of the show, reflecting what Baum's protagonist Jane cannot or does not say. It's a clever conceit that works for the material- one can't imagine applying this technique to a more florid, verbose novelist like Dickens, but Jane Eyre is just prosaic enough to make it work. (Read more) (Greg Kerestan)
Emily Brontë was born 200 years ago this year. Her most notable work, Wuthering Heights, is still widely read and discussed today. Niall MacMonagle joined Today with Sean O’Rourke to discuss Brontë’s life and work. (...)The Times reviews Property: A Collection by Lionel Shriver:
"Wuthering Heights is unique. There is no other book like this strange, powerful, violent love story. And Cathy and Heathcliff, they’re like no other lovers in literature. Everything about Wuthering Heights is strange."
Listen back to the whole segment on Emily Brontë on Today with Sean O’Rourke here.
When the heroine does get her man, her house, her garden, any sweetness or soppiness is vinegared. The Self-Seeing Sycamore was commissioned for Reader, I Married Him, a collection of stories inspired by Jane Eyre. Shriver’s solution isn’t so much “Reader, I married him,” as, “Reader, I watched the Downton Christmas special with him.” The modern Mr Rochester draws the line at Poldark. (Laura Freeman)Financial Times talks about rediscovering lost manuscripts of our favourite authors:
This month (?), the Brontë Society will publish two previously undiscovered works by Charlotte Brontë. Many “lost works” turn up in archives or among a writer’s boxed papers. But the 77-line poem and a 74-line story that Charlotte is thought to have written when she was about 17 had a more colourful journey.
They had been stuffed together with other papers into the pages of the stout, two-volume The Remains of Henry Kirke White by Robert Southey, a book belonging to Charlotte’s mother, Maria Brontë. It was part of a large box of goods, saved from shipwreck (just before Maria Brontë’s marriage in 1812).
According to news reports, it was sold by the family in 1861 to a private collector in the US and then bought by the Society in 2015. You can sense the excitement among the thousands of hardcore Brontë fans, but in our secret hearts, what we want from unpublished and newly discovered works is more of what we loved in the first place — another Jane Eyre. (Nilanjana Roy)
Struggling to think, live and love beyond the stifling expectations of duty, class and convention, governess Jane Eyre and Master Edward Rochester take a dark journey towards sensual and intellectual liberation. Told through Jane’s eyes, English literature’s most celebrated autobiographical novel shocked the Victorians, and Charlotte Brontë’s gothic subversion of fairy-tale romance is now distilled for the stage – under its full title – by writer/director Elton Townend Jones. Performer Rebecca Vaughan embodies everywoman Jane – and several other characters – in this intimate study of love’s realities. (Kelly Pells)
Denise le Dantec répare ici bien des clichés que je pouvais me faire d’une fille de pasteur vivant avec ses frère et sœurs, perdue dans les landes venteuses du Yorkshire : une « Jane Eyre » par excellence. Ainsi, tel un roman, alternant récit, poèmes et dialogues imaginaires – pourtant si réels – entre frère et sœurs, l’auteur nous emmène avec beaucoup de poésie sur les pas d’Emily. Des pas nous faisant traverser ces landes si chères à ses yeux, à la fois source d’ « inspiration » de sa richesse poétique et d’ « expiration » de ses sentiments les plus profonds. (Jessica Rodriguez) (Translation)
Wide Sargasso SeaiDiva lists 'awesome but psycho female characters in films who are actually kind of amazing':
Jean Rhys was already an accomplished writer when she decided to write Wide Sargasso Sea near the end of her life. Known for being a fierce rule breaker, Rhys struggled with poverty, alcoholism, depression, and discontent with a patriarchal society. Wide Sargasso Sea features many of those themes as she focuses on a prominent character from the past: The madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
The madwoman in the attic, Jane EyreThe Newport Plain Talk reviews In the Shadow of Agatha Christie. Classic Crime Fiction by Forgotten Female Writers: 1850-1917 by Leslie S. Klinger:
We get a short glimpse of Bertha Mason, Mr Rochester’s first wife, in the movie Jane Eyre. From the Caribbean, she is sexually uninhibited, lacking the Victorian reserve and mannerisms of conservative women like Jane Eyre. Locked away in the corner of a big mansion, we are told she is the “madwoman in the attic.” A prisoner of Rochester, she represents the “whore” to Jane Eyre’s “angel.” Strong, powerful, and filled with all the rage and intensity we don’t see in Jane, she is everything that the feminine and dutiful Jane isn’t, making her the perfect example of a woman who is deemed psychotic because she is untameable.
The real question therefore remains, who wouldn’t go into a rage-filled frenzy if they were placed in a strange country, in a strange house, in a room in the attic, denied all passion and love? (Stuti Bhattacharya)
Klinger then introduces us to fifteen women writers, giving brief biographical sketches of each followed by a single story penned by these talented women. Of the fifteen, I had only heard of four, prior to reading this book: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Baroness Orczy, Anna Katherine Green, and Susan Glaspell.We find this comment on The Writing Cooperative rather laughable:
Gaskell, I knew, penned the first biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë, at the behest of Bronte’s father Patrick. She also wrote several novels, including North & South, Cranford, and Wives & Daughters, which have been filmed as period mini-series often seen on PBS. But Gaskell as a short story writer was new to me. (Duay O'Neil)
However, authors use the concept of stories like Cinderella, and the novels of Jane Austen, and mix them up until they have something original. I’ve actually read a version of Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, where her terrible Aunt Reed and horrid cousins were vampires. Yes, it was so bad I had to finish it. It was kind of like people slowing down to see a car accident. (Susan L. Stewart)According to Vogue (Spain), Antía Van Weill (artist and member of the band Bifannah) is a Brontëite:
Conoces a tu pareja si... nombras el libro que relee una y otra vez.Harper's Bazaar (Germany) looks into the new fashion trends:
Luis Basilio: El único que ha releído es Cumbres Borrascosas, de Emily Brontë. (Translation)
Um den Trend zu verstehen, lohnt sich ein Blick in die Modegeschichte. Die Brontë-Schwestern mischten mit ihren Heldinnen Jane Eyre, Helen Lawrence und Catherine Linton das viktorianische Zeitalter auf und ihre Romane gelten heute als Meisterwerke der Emanzipation. (Christine Korte) (Translation)Visión del Cine (Argentina) reviews The Drunkard's Lament by Jim Finn:
Jim Finn escribe y dirige un experimento musical sobre Cumbres borrascosas de Emily Brönte (sic). Con imágenes de video bastante viejas y algunas bastante maltrechas como fondo visual, The Drunkard’s Lament es un relato epistolar y musical entre el hermano de Emily Brönte (sic) y un amigo.Chilango Times (México) reviews the TV series Doctor Foster:
Branwell Brönte (sic) descubre que su hermana Emily está escribiendo su primera novela. Y descubre también que un personaje se parece demasiado a una visión poco favorecedora suya. Así se ofrece a editarla y a sugerir diferentes cambios. Esto lo discute a través de cartas con su amigo Francis Leyland.
El film presenta una carta narrada en voz en off y luego una canción al respecto, así unas cuantas veces, siempre primero con la leyenda que nos ayuda a situarnos en fecha y de quién a quién está dirigida. En cada una de ellas, Branwell sugiere absurdos cambios sobre el personaje del que se siente un modelo.
Finalmente nos terminamos encontrando ante un relato curioso y divertido, en gran parte también porque las canciones resultan algo más pegadizas de lo que esperábamos. (Jessica Johanna) (Translation)
El tratamiento de la obsesión es verosímil. Durante toda la serie podemos relacionar la serie con obras como Luna amarga de Roman Polanski, la novela Cumbres Borrascosas de Emilie (sic) Brontë y, por supuesto, el mito clásico de Medea. (Gerardo Sánchez) (Translation)For the Love of Books!! interviews the author Kirsty Ferry:
What’s your favourite novel from another author?Associated Press reminds us how on April 14, 1939, the movie “Wuthering Heights,” starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, premiered in New York. On Rai Radio 3 a complete reading by Anna Maria Guarnieri of a Italian translation of Wuthering Heights can be found. Israel Book Review reviews the book. Hathaways of Haworth explores the differences in sartorial taste between Charlotte Brontë and her creation Jane Eyre.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. I love it. There are so many layers to it, and so many amazing speeches by Heathcliff and Cathy…it’s the book, probably more than any other, that made me want to be a ‘proper’ writer.
This Pozible crowdfunder is a LAST CHANCE to get one of my loving reproductions of the outfit worn by Kate Bush in her 1978 'red dress version' music video for her smash hit Wuthering Heights.
For the past 3 years I have been supplying these costumes to men, women and children attending The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever events around the world; I've loved dressing so many Cathys but it is a huge unpaid commitment for me and so this will be my last hurrah!
This is an ALL OR NOTHING campaign, if we don't reach the target for me to afford to do a minimum run then there will be no costumes this year, so if you want them PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!
Time is very tight to ensure I get them to everyone well before the 14th July for this year's The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever 2018.
An anthology of capital titles of western letters published in Spain, without "falling into the politically correct", according to its coordinator, Jordi Llovet, includes a Charlotte Brontë novel, but not the one you are thinking of, but Villette.La Literatura AdmirableEl País reviews the book here. A translation of the article can be read in The Turkish Telegraph.
Del Génesis a Lolita
Jordi Llovet
Pasado y Presente Ediciones
ISBN: 9788494769443
Jordi Llovet ha reunido medio centenar de textos de los mejores lectores y maestros de los clásicos de la literatura para que nos muestren los secretos de las obras más indispensables de la literatura occidental de todos los tiempos. Este libro no es otra selección o canon de los mejores libros, sino una envidiable puerta de entrada al conocimiento de obras que todo el mundo debería leer y conocer bien. Gracias a maestros como Francisco Rico, Carlos García Gual, Ignacio Echevarría, Fernando Savater, Terenci Moix, Isabel
de Riquel, Jose María Valverde o Rafael Argullol, entre otros, descubriremos las claves esenciales de esos títulos que no pueden faltar en la biblioteca de cualquier lector que se precie.
«Todos los libros que se comentan en estas páginas son aconsejables y los artículos correspondientes son todos de enorme calidad. No son muchos, pero, en realidad, tampoco se leen tantos libros en una semana, ni en un año. Una vez leídos esos artículos, eso sí, el lector habrá tenido noticia muy cabal de qué es la buena literatura,sin que deba pararse a pensar si se trata de un canon exhaustivo y perfecto. Es parcial, pero de grandes obras, escritas por grandes maestros de la literatura y analizadas por los mejores ensayistas. El director de esta antología es consciente de que hay muchos más libros que merecerían constar en una nómina exhaustiva de grandes obras escritas por grandes maestros. Pero esto importa poco: los que hay permiten entender que Occidente ha dado al mundo entero una literatura de enorme valor, y que este valor no fue vigente solo en el momento en que se publicaron los libros respectivos, sino que alcanza a todas las generaciones del pasado, el presente y el porvenir.» (Jordi Llovet)
Most pointless exotic location: Heathcliff by Cliff RichardThe Gay reviews Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre, giving it 3 stars out of 5.
Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff is rugged and brooding, a lost soul filled with darkness. Cliff Richard is . . . none of those things. That didn’t stop him taking to the stage as Brontë’s hero in Heathcliff, his 1996 musical adaptation of Wuthering Heights. “Does a fluffy bunny have despair gnawing at its soul?” asked The Times critic Richard Morrison. Leaving aside the show’s bizarre casting, the singer also made the strange decision to send Heathcliff on a peculiar gap year to India, China and Africa. This did, however, allow for some exotic choreography that can hardly have been envisioned by Brontë in the original book. (James Marriott)
Cathy Marston’s choreography nestles neatly between traditional and contemporary ballet, and is set to a score which moves between being playfully uplifting and darkly dramatic. The Northern Ballet Sinfonia was on point with their performance, having swelled their numbers from the previous tour of this production. The set is deliberately sparse, primarily comprising of screens and curtains which are used to focus the attention on particular areas of the stage and its simplicity compliments to complexity of the narrative and provides for a workable dance space; whilst the costumes give a flavour of the bleakness of the Yorkshire Moors which are occasionally peppered with bold colourThe Rumpus interviews Ted Scheinman, author of Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan and asks him about the Austen vs Brontës (pointless) debates.
Dreda Blow charms as the titular character, whilst Javier Torres gives a brooding and charismatic performance as Rochester; and Victoria Mason breathes life and insanity into the role of Rochester’s wife. In a company which danced with technical precision across the board, Mlindi Kulashe and Kevin Poeung both stood out from the ensemble and their consistency of performance and development from ballet to ballet continue to impress.
Given the rich story and the numerous events depicted in the book, there is a lot for Marston to fit into the ballet’s two hour run time, and whilst the key plot points are hit; the narrative is not always as clear as it could be. Those familiar with Bronte’s work will find much to enjoy within this production, whilst others may find the programme notes useful in keeping track.
That aside, Jane Eyre is a ballet which contains a flowing visual style, rich characterisations and a faithful adaptation of a timeless story which manages to maintain a feeling of freshness and originality in a frequently told tale. (Paul Szabo)
Rumpus: You allude to the schism between people who love Jane Austen and people who love the Brontës—dare I ask, what is that schism about?The Hollywood Reporter reviews the film adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Scheinman: I think it’s natural for fans to become clannish, and it certainly helps stir up solidarity among the in-group—nothing so useful as an external enemy. But I’m also not convinced that one ever has to choose. To oversimplify, it’s a little like the Beatles/Stones flame wars among American teens in the early 1960s. The Beatles were controlled and contained, arranging R&B styles within a sort of hallowed pop chamber. The Stones were dirty (they didn’t even wear ties!) and their music darker—the Dionysians to the mop-top Apollonians from Liverpool. That division of order vs. passion and classicism vs. Romanticism is a powerful organizing principle, and it obtains in the Austen/Brontë schsim. My impression is that a lot of the Janeites prefer the precision of Austen, and are able to find plenty of passion in those novels; it’s just passion of a different sort.
But this is a larger question that pertains to all sorts of fandom. Loving one thing often means disdaining its supposed antithesis, but once you get past that sort of blind dualism, you also start to enjoy things more. So I’m sympathetic to literary tribalism, but I also think fandom should be about enjoyment, not triumphalism. (Amy Shearn)
Cut to London, a year after the war, where Juliet and her publisher Sidney (Matthew Goode) are attending a reading of her book, a collection of lightly humorous stories by which she’s faintly embarrassed; a commercial sop after her first, a critical biography of Anne Brontë, flopped. [...]According to Deadline,
Newell and his editor Paul Tothill (Atonement) flit back and forth between the wartime occupation and 1946, in which the book club, originally spirited into being to placate the Germans, is still going strong. In addition to Dawsey and Eben, the members include Eben's grandson, Eli (Kit Connor), who was sent to the mainland days before the Germans arrived; Isola (The IT Crowd's Katherine Parkinson), a flame-haired pre-hippie fond of reciting from Jane Eyre and making her own gin; and the older Amelia (a very fine Wilton), whose ambivalent attitude towards Juliet is shaded by her grief over the death of a pregnant daughter, as well as the disappearance of Brown Findlay's Elizabeth, the daughter's best friend. Elizabeth left behind a child, and the girl's parentage — and the circumstances of her mother's departure from Guernsey — is the secret that Juliet cannot pierce. [...]
The group's syllabus seems heavy on the Brontes, but the windswept romance at this story's heart is less than intemperate. (Harry Windsor)
Benedict Cumberbatch is the first performer to sign up for the New York debut of London’s Letters Live, a stage show that pairs celebrities with actual “literary correspondence” from the likes of Mohandas Gandhi, David Bowie, Tom Hanks, Abraham Lincoln, Patti Smith and Janis Joplin. [...]The Sydney Morning Herald interviews writer and screenwriter Michelle Law.
In addition to the missives from Bowie, Gandhi, Joplin, Hanks and Smith, letters read include ones written by Maya Angelou, Elvis Presley, Kurt Vonnegut, Charlotte Brontë, Katherine Hepburn, Richard Burton, James Baldwin and Che Guevara. (Greg Evans)
The book you’ve read the most? The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, or Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. (Jaime Wells)Smart Bitches, Trashy Books recommends audiobooks read by actors, including
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: The amazing Thandie Newton narrates this one. Sarah says her narration is also very scrumptious. I’m obsessed with Newton in her role as Maeve in Westworld. (Amanda)The Debrief discusses Toffee Dating, a soon-to-be-launched app that's been 'designed to help people who went to private school find love'.
I mean, using what school you attended to divide eligible and ineligible mates is LITERALLY promoting social division, but okay.International Socialism tells a wonderful anecdote about a suffragette in Haworth in 1913:
Essentially Jane Eyre for the digital age, the app gives us 19th Century vibes, you know when you weren’t allowed to marry outside of your class? It’s also a wonderful opportunity for the prejudice state school kids experience to spill out into the dating world. Impacting their career and earning potential just isn’t enough, they should also be stopped from meeting anyone outside their class. It's only right. (Georgia Aspinall)
In 1913 [Selina] Cooper was campaigning in the Keighley by-election. She started speaking in Haworth, birthplace of the Brontë sisters, but was pelted with rotten tomatoes and eggs. “I’m stopping here whatever you throw,” she declared, “so go and fetch all the things you want to throw because I’m going to speak to you. And this blooming village would never have been known if it wasn’t for three women—the Brontës”. (Judy Cox)Coffee n' Notes reviews the Manga Classics' adaptation of Jane Eyre.
