1. Poetry in Motion in Yeats CountryEntertainment Weekly asks bookish questions to Artemis Fowl author, Eoin Colfer.
Starting in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, take the N16 to the gushing Glencar Waterfall. You’re bang in the middle of Yeats’ “waters and the wild” here, and the literary landscapes continue as you follow the local road along the shore of Glencar Lough, joining the N15 just below the prow of Ben Bulben. Head north here to see the poet’s grave at Drumcliff (“Cast a cold eye...”) and, if time permits, take a spin around Mullaghmore for Wuthering Heights-style views of Classiebawn Castle, before detouring inland towards the epic Gleniff Horseshoe and Benwiskin. It’s hard to believe such a variety of National Geographic-standard views exist within just a few dozen kilometres. From here, the drive back to Sligo takes 35–40 minutes. (Pól Ó Conghaile)
A book, TV show, movie, or album I revisit whenever I’m suffering from writers’ block I would say it would be mostly music. When I want something to inspire me, I would very often listen to Kate Bush. Me and my brother Paul were huge fans of Kate Bush because she was just so different and we had never heard anything like that. When I was starting to write stories — so in 1978, I would’ve been about 13 or 14 — she was an icon to young creatives because she, at the age of 18 or 19, had already written one of the greatest pop songs [“Wuthering Heights”]. So you just felt, if someone that young could do it, there’s no reason I can’t be doing it. Of course you think like that when you’re young because you believe you have all the talent in the world, but even if you don’t, it certainly spurs you on to try. (Chancellor Agard)This columnist from Kerrang! might want to reread Wuthering Heights:
Gothic novels like Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein dealt with a lot of staring into the sea, reflecting on unrequited love, and the enormous, extraordinary pain of being mortal. To truly be “goth” is to understand the sheer darkness and power of one’s own feelings. (Cat Jones)Or maybe it's just us who missed all that staring into the sea in a novel set on landlocked moors.
"A writer, when he's asked to discuss his craft, ought to get up and call out in a loud voice just the names of the writers he loves. I love Kafka, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Proust, O'Casey, Rilke, Lorca, Keats, Rimbaud, Burns, E. Brontë, Jane Austen, Henry James, Blake, Coleridge. I won't name any living writers. I don't think it's right."Town & Country comments on the fact that 'The Great Gatsby's Copyright Will Expire at the End of 2020' and wonders,
Interested in a Gatsby-themed musical? What about a Wide Sargasso Sea-esque version of the story told entirely from Myrtle's perspective? Or maybe a prequel entitled Jimmie Gatz? They'll all be possible next year, and at the same time, free e-books of Fitzgerald's original text are bound to proliferate.Parade may be our first sighting of Valentine's Day 2020 with a quote (the Valentine's Day quote) from Wuthering Heights.
But despite the significant change, Blake Hazard, Fitzgerald's great-granddaughter and a trustee of his literary estate, is ready to embrace the book's next chapter.
“We’re just very grateful to have had it under copyright, not just for the rather obvious benefits, but to try and safeguard the text, to guide certain projects and try to avoid unfortunate ones,” Hazard told the Associated Press. (Caroline Hallemann)
Jo March, la heroína, quiere ser escritora en un mundo que piensa como el poeta inglés Robert Southey: “La literatura no puede ser la preocupación de la vida de la mujer, y no debe serlo” (en carta a Charlotte Brontë del 12 de marzo de 1837). (Translation)El Tiempo (Colombia) interviews Italian writer Paolo Giordano.
2. Si pudiera invitar a dos personajes literarios a tomar una copa o un café con ellos, ¿a quién elegiría?Invitaría a Charlotte Brontë y a Cesare Pavese. Bueno, supongo que no será tan divertido, pero aun así. (Translation)
Western Carteret Public Library(Via Carolina Coast Online)
Let's Talk About This. Mad Women in the Attic Discussion Series
On Jan. 28, guest scholar Billy Yeargin will discuss Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
According to the description provided by the library, “Bertha, the mad woman who is literally locked in the attic in Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, has been read by critics as Jane’s alter ego, the repressed ‘dark side’ of her personality. Bertha represents the ultimate result of Jane’s suffering and oppression.
“Jane Eyre, which is often read simply as a romance novel, may be re-read as a novel about Jane’s struggle to come to terms with the various roles she is expected to or allowed to fulfill: orphan, governess, servant, teacher, and wife.”
10. Jane Eyre (1983)Cultural Gutter also roots for Timothy Dalton's Rochester.
In one of the earlier editions of board game Trivial Pursuit, a question posed was: “Which James Bond actor played Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre?” Although the other Bonds had considerable acting merits, a moment’s thought reveals that only Timothy Dalton could possibly have played a literary hero (Moore was excellent as Ivanhoe, but the part was swashbuckling rather than literary). The production is dated: the videotape medium on which the studio work was shot looks cheap now, though it was of course standard at the time. If you can look beyond the theatrical nature of TV drama of that era, the production is very good. Dalton is at his glowering, saturnine best as arguably the greatest and most memorable of the Brontë anti-heroes. (Greg Jameson)
It isn’t so much about how much or how little Dalton resembles the description of Rochester in the novel, though on rereading he does better than you’d think. It’s about the performance. I am looking for someone who is presents the emotional truth of the character—even in unfaithful adaptations. Despite his smolder, Dalton finds a sweetspot in which Rochester is appealing and vulnerable, while thundering around and doing the sketchy things Rochester does. His Rochester is more complicated than a shouting, petulant man or even a pirate werewolf. Dalton conveys a longing that is unusual, a vulnerability in a character that is rarely portrayed as vulnerable, and a fear not as much about as losing the life he believes he is entitled to as a fear that Jane does not reciprocate his love when he is feeling love for the first time late in life. And this raw performance is what keeps me in the narrative when there is lying, manipulation, and a wife in a secret room. It is not an easy thing to do, but Dalton does it. And it’s a feat easy to ignore not only because he is not considered ugly enough to play Rochester, but because the acting talents of leading men in the prime of their prettiness can be easily ignored. But Dalton accomplishes it, his appearance be damned. Dalton’s hotness becomes an argument for actively working to suspend your own disbelief. It is an argument for being open to something new, something we could not have imagined. Even if it means something as simple as accepting for the purposes of this story, Timothy Dalton is ugly. Yes, there are things that can catch and make the suspension of disbelief difficult or, sometimes, even impossible. But the unexpected and wondrous, the amazing and fantastic is out there waiting for us. We just have to be open to it. It is worth doing the work of suspending our own damn disbelief. (Carol)The Swaddle is proud to have 'made some tongue-in-cheek feminist additions to the Proust Questionnaire', such as
Are you a Jo March or a Jane Eyre? (Aditi Murti)AnneBrontë.org has a post on the recent Anne Brontë's bicentenary celebrations. The Brontë Babe Blog tackles trolls by quoting Charlotte Brontë's wise words.
A new Spanish translation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has just been published:La inquilina de Wildfell Hall
Anne Brontë
Translated by Miguel Ángel Pérez Pérez
Alianza Editorial
Colección 13/20
ISBN: 978-84-9181-769-7
16/01/2020
La llegada de una joven desconocida, Helen Graham, y su hijo a la vieja mansión de Wildfell Hall despierta el interés, y luego las sospechas maliciosas, de los habitantes del tranquilo pueblo inglés en que se encuentra la casa. No saben que Helen huye de un turbulento pasado, como irá descubriendo el narrador del relato y enamorado de ella, Gilbert Markham, al leer su diario. "La inquilina de Wildfell Hall" es una gran novela en la que destacan no sólo actitudes y opiniones relacionadas con la condición de la mujer muy avanzadas para su tiempo, sino también una moderna representación de las miserias, defectos y debilidades humanos.
Jane Eyre: A Retelling by Tanya Landman, Barrington Stoke,iNews publishes an excerpt of Deborah Orr's Motherwell. A Girlhood:
Many teenage readers, be they dyslexic, reluctant or just easily overwhelmed, may struggle to get to grips with Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece in its original form. Landman’s slim, enthralling retelling, published by “super-readable” experts Barrington Stoke, feels true to Brontë’s defiant spirit, but is infinitely easier to digest – and reading this vivid, straightforward version might well encourage strugglers to return and conquer the behemoth. (Imogen Russell Williams)
Me, though? I’d been a pretty little child. But after I learned to read, I couldn’t stop reading. Which meant, because I’d sneakily read when the rest of the house was asleep, that I was tired all the time. I looked pale and wan. And the things I wanted to talk about – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Oliver Twist, plants, trees, woods, walks, the dog, folk stories, gardens and macramé – were hardly the stuff of fascination to my peers.The Sunday Times interviews the model and actress Jodie Turner-Smith:
She changed her clothes, shoes, patterns of speech. “I would practise in the mirror, talking in a way that I thought was like black American: cutting you down with my words in five seconds if you came for me.” But at the weekends she was going to the local library, reading and studying. “My favourite book was Jane Eyre.” (Charlotte Edwardes)Patch Greater Hartford announces an upcoming production of Jane Eyre in Hartford:
A new adaptation of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë's beloved tale of courage, sacrifice and self-respect, will debut next month at Hartford Stage. The novel has been adapted for the stage by Hartford Stage Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson, who will also direct. Jane Eyre runs Thursday, February 13, through Saturday, March 14. (Nancy Sasso)Anne Brontë's bicentenary and the publication of a new edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in Spain are in La Voz de Córdoba (Spain):
Este año se conmemora el 200 cumpleaños de Anne Brontë (1820-1849), la menor de las tres hermanas novelistas victorianas. Emily es conocida por su única novela Cumbres borrascosas, Charlotte es conocida por Jane Eyre; en cambio, Anne es menos conocida. A Anne la crítica le ha dedicado menos estudios. Esta columna la rememora y la celebra. (Juan de Dios Torralbo) (Translation)Milenio 2020 (México) celebrates Wuthering Heights:
Al respecto no tengo cosa mejor para compartir que una intuición de entonces en un paper para esa materia. Hice un nexo literario y su desarrollo; va, breve. Apunté que cuando el personaje de Juan Rulfo Pedro Páramo y el de Brontë Heathcliff pierden respectivamente a Susana San Juan y a Catherine Earnshaw, los dos se entregan a destruir Comala y Wuthering Heigths. Dije que cuando Comala confunde las campanas luctuosas con una incitación a la fiesta las palabras de Pedro Páramo “Me cruzaré de brazos y Comala se morirá de hambre” bien pudieron cifrar el odio de Heathcliff por Wuthering Heights a la muerte de Catherine. Los vecinos de Wuthering Heights sobre Heathcliff: “ese demonio que no acaba de atravesar patios”; igual que Pedro Páramo en la Media Luna. Y la mejor definición de Heathcliff en las palabras del arriero sobre quién es Pedro Páramo: “Un rencor vivo”. (Luis Miguel Aguilar) (Translation)Pangea (Italy) interviews Monica Pareschi, translator of a recent new edition of Wuthering Heights in Italian. A very interesting read:
Libro miliare e inesorabile, “un diavolo di libro, un incredibile mostro”, lo diceva Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Cime tempestose è stato tradotto innumerevoli volte – la prima edizione, per i Treves, è del 1926, lo hanno ‘maneggiato’, tra i tanti, Elio Chinol e Bruno Oddera, Bruna Dell’Agnese e Margherita Giacobino, Beatrice Masini e Marta Barone – così che la versione Einaudi per mano di Monica Pareschi (già eccellente traduttrice della sorella di Emily, Charlotte, e di Bernard Malamud, di Doris Lessing, di Shirley Jackson, James G. Ballard, Paul Auster) è un piccolo evento editoriale. Nel mio privilegio di lettore, oltre a interrogare chi ne sa più di me, mi sono messo a fare un esercizio. Alcuni passi di Cime tempestose (questo, ad esempio: “Il suo insediamento a Wuthering Heights portò un’indicibile angoscia. Mi convinsi che Dio avesse abbandonato la pecora smarrita alle sue abiette peregrinazioni, e che una bestia feroce se ne stesse acquattata tra la casa e l’ovile, pronta a balzare e a seminare distruzione”) mi hanno ricordato il Cormac McCarthy più arcaico e biblico, in bilico sugli assoluti. L’osservazione mi ha fatto sorridere. Forse Emily Brontë – cioè il suo mefistofelico specchio, Heathcliff – è il remoto modello, l’idolo, del Giudice Holden che sparge terrore e innocente spietatezza lungo quel mattatoio superbo intitolato Meridiano di sangue. (Translation)Le Monde (France) reviews Fiona Mozley's Elmet:
Elmet fut l’ultime royaume celte indépendant d’Angleterre. Jusqu’au VIIe siècle, il constituait un sanctuaire pour ceux qui souhaitaient échapper à la loi. C’est en ces terres, devenues Yorkshire et célébrées dans Les Hauts de Hurlevent et les poèmes de Ted Hughes, que la Britannique Fiona Mozley situe Elmet, son premier roman. (Macha Séry) (Translation)El Universal (Colombia) visits British painter Freda Sargent who lives in Bogotá and mentions:
Muchas de sus series como ‘Temas del ermitaño’, ‘Los naipes del tarot’, ‘Los narcisos’, ‘Los carpinteros’, ‘Wuthering Heights’, beben de las fuentes de sus memorias de infancia, pero también de la poesía que ha sido esencial en su creación: Blake, Keats, Auden, Yeats, entre otros. (Gustavo Tatis Guerra) (Translation)El País (Spain) interviews the writer Najat el Hachmi:
¿Qué libro tiene en su mesilla de noche? Tengo la traducción al catalán del Libro de los avaros de Al-Jahiz, ¿Puede prestarme su pistola, por favor, de Lorenza Mazzetti y Cumbres borrascosas (que creo que leí siendo demasiado joven). (Translation)Rodrigo Fresán in Página 12 (Argentina) thinks that Sam Mendes's Skyfall may be the 'most intelligent and subliminal rewriting of Wuthering Heights'.
Nada de lo que amamos podrá extinguirse mientras vivamos. Lo sé por el autor de Alegría: parecemos como dice él personajes de Cumbres borrascosas. (José Luis Ibáñez Salas) (Translation)More news outlets celebrate the Chinese year of the rat, mentioning that Charlotte Brontë is... well, a rat: The Mercury News, Whyy ... A Wuthering Heights quote in Your Tango's 'Happy Quotes About Being Alone Everyone Who Loves Spending Time By Themselves Can Relate To'. A local politician selects Wuthering Heights among her favourite books on Granma (Cuba).
The Argentinian newspaper Clarín is issuing a collection which includes Wuthering Heights: Colección: Las mejores novelas románticas de la historiaJane Eyre will be published next April 17.
January 24: Cumbres Borrascosas by Emily Brontë
Cumbres borrascosas, la épica historia de Catherine y Heathcliff, situada en Yorkshire, constituye una asombrosa visión del destino, la obsesión, la pasión y la venganza.
Hoffman told the crowd: “I became a writer because I was a reader. I had two mentors, my professor Albert Guerard and my grandmother.” She claimed to be an escapist writer who writes what she can imagine (not what she knows) and said she enjoys reading fairy tales and telling stories with a universal emotional truth. Her writing continues to be inspired by author Ray Bradbury, “Wuthering Heights” author Emily Brontë and stories of women that haven’t been told. (Marge Dodge)Joan Bakewell in The Times' Culture Fix:
I’m having a fantasy dinner party and I’ll invite these artists and authors . . .Out & About Nashville mentions Jane Eyre in a review of the Benjamin Britten opera based on The Turn of the Screw.
Aphra Behn, Barbara Hepworth, Angela Carter, Charlotte Brontë.
There’s something almost peculiarly and particularly English about a story involving a governess, a country house that may actually be permanently swathed in mist, children whose parents are dead by one circumstance or another, and in which the secrets of the house / housekeeper / master of the house provide the crux upon which the entire work revolves. Seriously… Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. One doesn’t imagine a governess, pale children, and brooding farmhouse in Iowa, for example.The Brontës as cat people on Korazym (Italy).
Not surprisingly, all three of the aforementioned works have been set to music. Paul Gordon and John Caird’s Jane Eyre played on Broadway in 2001. Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon’s The Secret Garden came before it 1991. But the progenitor of this lot came in 1954 with English composer Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, co-created with Myfanwy Piper for that year’s Venice Bienniale. And it is the Nasvhille Opera’s winter production of The Turn of the Screw that brings us to the haunted moors of the Noah Liff Opera Center on this chilled Tennessee weekend. (William Shutes)
Le sorelle Charlotte, Emily e Anne Brontë erano grandi amanti degli animali in generale e in particolare del gatto Tiger, che viene anche raffigurato da Emily in ritratto, che scrisse anche il saggio “Le Chat”, nel quale difende la natura del gatto, che da molti al tempo, e forse anche oggi, era considerata egoista e crudele, definendola persino simile o migliore, in quanto priva di ipocrisia, di quella umana. (Vik van Brantegem) (Translation)Telegraph India suggests that,
Since the Indian all-rounder, Ravichandran Ashwin, will be following in the footsteps of Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh and Cheteshwar Pujara in playing for Yorkshire County Cricket Club this season, he should perhaps make an effort to see something of England’s largest and, in some ways, most beautiful county. [...]
Whitford also suggests that Ashwin, who will be based in Headingley, could also enjoy the rich cultural life in Leeds, visit the National Railway Museum in York and the Yorkshire Moors where Emily Brontë set Wuthering Heights. (Amit Roy)
A production of The Moors in now on stage in Urbana, IL:The Celebration Company presents
The Moors
By Jen Silverman
The Station Theatre
January 16—February 1, 2020
Directed by Mathew Green
Cast
Agatha: Joi Hoffsommer
Huldey: Kimmy Schofield
Emilie: Mindy Smith
Marjory: Lindsey Gates-Markel
The Mastiff: Matt Hester
A Moor-Hen: Emaline Johnson
Two sisters and a dog live out their lives on the bleak English moors, dreaming of love and power. The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all three on a strange and dangerous path. The Moors is a dark comedy about love, desperation, and visibility. Theaterjones.com calls it “a laugh-out-loud satire of Gothic romance with a feminist twist and a left-arm hug to the Brontë sisters.”
This awards season brought reports of male Academy voters and audiences at large refusing to watch a supposedly girlie movie like Little Women — a common prejudice that may have contributed to Gerwig's absence from the director nominees. Unsurprisingly, it's such viewers who most need to hear the film's critiques of what kind of art gets to be made and championed — and what doesn't. "What women are allowed into the club of geniuses anyway?" protests Amy. "The Brontës," comes Laurie's dispiriting answer — dispiriting not because the Brontës weren't geniuses but because women's experiences shouldn't have to be grim, harrowing or even romantic to be worth telling. (Inkoo Kang)Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) also mentions the Brontës in an enthusiastic review of the film.
Att göra en nyinspelning av ”Unga kvinnor” är lite som att filmatisera en roman av Jane Austen, eller systrarna Brontë (som dyker upp i ett samtal i filmen). (Karoline Eriksson) (Translation)In another review of the film on Página 12 (Argentina), Brontë biographer Laura Ramos seems to imply that Jane Eyre may have been originally intended for young readers.
Hasta su aparición en 1868, no existía el género de novela juvenil, aunque ya habían sido publicados en Inglaterra Jane Eyre (1848) y David Copperfield (1850). (Laura Ramos) (Translation)The Times recommends watching Lady Macbeth (starring one of Greta Gerwig's Little Women, by the way), which is on tonight on BBC Two.
The atmosphere on the wild and windy moors is more Brontë than anything. (Kate Muir)Camden New Journal wonders whether Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre may have inspired Charles Dickens to write David Copperfield.
While biographers have found no evidence directly in Dickens’ papers that he had read Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, published a year before, it was hugely successful and written in the first person.Bleeding Cool reviews the graphic novel Rain by Mary and Bryan Talbot.
Professor [Michael] Slater adds: “It was Charlotte Brontë telling her story and it might have given Dickens the idea for a novel written this way.” (Dan Carrier)
And yes, ‘Cathy’ and the Brontë moorlands around are noted and notable. (Rich Johnston)The New York Times recommends the exhibition
★ 'Five Hundred Years of Women's Work: The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection at the Grolier Club (through Feb. 8). Documenting the long and sometimes hidden history of women making an independent living, this exhibition features nearly 200 items from Baskin’s collection, including books, letters, photographs and printed matter of all kinds, along with surprises like a pink early-20th-century birth control sponge (or a “sanitary health sponge,” as its tin puts it). Among the oldest pieces is one of the first books printed by women, a 1478 history of Rome’s emperors and popes. (It’s shown open to a passage about Pope Joan, a mythical female pontiff.) The most recent are letters by the anarchist Emma Goldman, displayed, in a slyly pointed nod to the present, next to Goldman’s 1919 pamphlet against deportation. Other objects include a sample of framed embroidery by Charlotte Brontë, displayed with a Brontë letter describing her efforts to find work as a governess, and a copy of the first autobiography by a black woman in Britain: the rollicking 1857 account by Mary Seacole, a Jamaican-born nurse who, among many other things, served in the Crimean War. (Jennifer Schuessler)TV Guide lists 'The Best Romantic Movies and Shows to Watch on Amazon Prime Video This Valentine's Day', including Jane Eyre 1983.
Jane EyreThe Young Folks has recommendations for 'When You Miss Downton Abbey and The Crown and need that historical fix:', such as
Charlotte Brontë's immortal 19th-Century love story has been adapted over a dozen times, but we're partial to this 11-part BBC series from 1983, which stars Zelah Clarke as the title character and Timothy Dalton as Edward Rochester. (Liam Matthews)
Charlotte Brontë Before Jane Eyre by Glynnis FawkesThis columnist from Le Devoir (Quebec) doesn't seem to have read the Brontës much:
As soon as you flip through this gorgeous collection, you’re going to want it. It’s too gorgeous to pass up and for fans of the Brontës, historical fiction and anyone who can’t resist gorgeous graphic novels. (Brianna Robinson)
On n’arrête pas le progrès, diront certains. Et c’est bien ça le malheur. J’y vois plutôt le triomphe de cette éthique protestante, hygiéniste et puritaine qui répugne à tout contact humain. C’est la victoire des soeurs Brontë sur la Carmen de Bizet. Celle d’un monde aseptisé que la machine rassure, alors qu’il y aura toujours un risque dans le contact humain. Celui de croiser un être détestable, par exemple. Ou de tomber en amour. On retrouve d’ailleurs ce même souci de « propreté morale » dans l’interdiction des animaux de cirque et des chevaux au centre-ville. Ça pue, c’est sale et surtout, c’est vivant ! (Christian Rioux) (Translation)Co-authors MC D’Alton and Melanie Page share the books and writers they love on Female First.
MC loves Frankenstein and the works of Tolstoy, while Melanie adores Austen, the Brontës, Dracula and du Maurier.The Bucknellian interviews 'Poet, activist and college student' Amanda Gorman, whose
favorite books include the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter series, along with all-time-favorite Jane Eyre. (Nicole Yeager)The Eyre Guide discusses 'Female Relationships in Jane Eyre'.
The American Chapter of the Brontë Society presents
a co-production with KALIDASCOPES Media & Vision Productions
Anne Brontë: A Woman of Courage
Performances:
Friday, January 24 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, January 25 at 7:30 pm
New York Public Library: Jefferson Market Library, First Floor
Presented in the first floor Willa Cather Room. All events are free and open to the public
425 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY, 10011
Anne Brontë: A Woman Of Courage weaves together excerpts from Anne's novels "Agnes Grey," and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," along with sections of her poems, letters and diary entries. Born in Thornton, in Yorkshire, England on January 17, 1820, Anne was the sixth and last child of Patrick and Maria Brontë. She is less celebrated in the literary pantheon than her sisters, Charlotte and Emily. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Anne Brontë's birth, Joy Goodwin, representative of the American Chapter of the Brontë Society, in conjunction with with Miriam Canfield and Alida Rose Delaney are pleased to pay tribute to Anne Brontë's unique voice.
January 17, 2020, was the 200th anniversary of Anne Brontë’s birth: neglected Anne, forgotten Anne, Anne who is the least famous sister in a family of celebrated geniuses. But her bicentennial came at a transitional moment in Brontë studies, because the consensus on Anne is changing.The Bolton News reviews Polly Teale's Brontë at Farnworth Little Theatre.
Although Anne Brontë has traditionally been considered a much less interesting writer than her sisters Charlotte (Jane Eyre) and Emily (Wuthering Heights), over the past few decades, critics have started to change their minds. Now, they’re wondering if Anne might have been the most radical Brontë of all — and if the second of her two books, 1848’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, might be one of the first truly feminist novels.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, out now in a new edition from the Folio Society, tells the story of Helen Huntingdon and her ill-fated marriage to an abusive alcoholic. As the critic Marianne Thormählen noted in 2018, Tenant is in the odd position of never having been quite right for its time: too shocking in its uncensored treatment of domestic abuse and addiction for the 19th century, and too didactic and moralizing in its condemnation of both for the 20th century.
Victorian critics called Tenant “disgusting,” “revolting,” and “brutal;” too coarse to be truly great art in the way that Jane Eyre was. Meanwhile, the 20th century critic Terry Eagleton argued that the book’s language “is that of morality rather than imagination”: too prim and prudish to be truly great art in the way that Wuthering Heights was.
Despite critical ambivalence, on its first publication, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was a bestseller to rival Jane Eyre. But after Anne Brontë’s death in 1849, Charlotte Brontë forbade publishers from reprinting it, on the grounds that the novel was “an entire mistake,” because “nothing less congruous with the writer’s nature could be conceived.” Anne, in other words, was a perfectly respectable young lady from a respectable family, and strangers should stop judging her for writing a novel filled with such unnervingly vivid scenes of drunken abuse.
After Charlotte died in 1854, publishers began reprinting Tenant, but this time in a version riddled with errors and omissions, with entire chapters stripped away to keep the page count down. This new version of the novel — known among Brontë scholars as “the mutilated text” — was widely distributed and republished. It wasn’t until 1992, after decades of determined Anne partisans making the case that her work deserved further scholarship, that a complete scholarly edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published.
In the interim, the low quality of the mutilated text — along with Charlotte’s disavowal of the work and the majority critical consensus that Anne was the least worthy of the Brontë sisters — served to ensure that Tenant remained below the threshold of public knowledge. Today, most people have heard of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and they may even be aware of a few of Charlotte’s other novels, like Villette. But Anne appears most regularly in popular culture as a foil to her more famous sisters: the weird one, the forgotten one.
On the occasion of Anne Brontë’s 200th birthday, it’s time to change that. Because The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a wildly modern, daring, and provocative book. It’s not perfect by any means, but it shows that its author deserves our attention today — not as the odd one out among the Brontë sisters, but on her own merits. (Constance Grady) (Read more)
Nathalie Haley sustains a passionate performance throughout with an evocative and sensual style. Ben Kilburn delivers his four roles with gusto, with convincing Irish accent. Ben is easy to watch and displays expressive characterisation.More theatre in Keighley News:
Moving on to the family, Andrew Turton portrays the stoic Father, Patrick well. James Haslam has a trio of roles but comes into his own as Branwell, the family’s only brother who turns to drink and takes a mistress. James never disappoints by his acting ability and this performance was no different.
Taking on such a title and playing roles of such well known characters is not an easy task; however, the Brontë sisters are in the safe hands of three cracking actresses who were all consumed in each role. Ellie Murphy gives Emily Brontë the right amount of independence and determination as this strong willed character made her mark on life.
Rebecca Anderson delights as Ann (sic) Brontë, an innocent and well considered performance that was subtle, enchanting and well timed.
Last but my no means least, Esme Mather turns in a stunning performance as Charlotte. Intense, sincere and positively devoted to her Father, Esme displayed effortless emotion, strength and tenacity as she strived to keep her family together, forgoing her own happiness. The sadness here is that her finding of happiness and eventual love was short lived by her early demise at the age of 39.
Excellent costumes by Susan Howard and Bell costumes, and an impressive set by Phil Brookes, Chris Norris, Dave Eyre and Elaine Gawthorpe enhanced the quality of this production. Lighting by Phil Brookes provides some great mood effects that really enhanced the ambience of the piece
If you have a spare night this week, take yourself along to FLT – you will not be disappointed. (Paul Cohen)
Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is among works featured in an initiative aimed at introducing theatre to schoolchildren.Today recommends '13 classic books you'll love if you're a fan of 'Little Women'', such as
Recordings of 24 National Theatre productions – which also include Macbeth, Frankenstein and Treasure Island – are being made available free to state primary and secondary schools, plus colleges, across the region.
Jane Eyre, Haworth-based Charlotte’s best known novel, was published in 1847.
It depicts the emotional and spiritual development of the heroine.
The National Theatre Collection, produced in partnership with Bloomsbury Publishing, has been drawn from a decade of live broadcasts and previously-unreleased archive material.
Recordings are accompanied by learning resources, which include rehearsal insights and short videos.
It is planned to increase the collection to 30 titles by March and add further resources later in the year.
Alice King-Farlow, from the National Theatre, said: “We are thrilled to announce that the collection is now available free for state schools to access.
“We believe all young people should have the opportunity to watch, make and explore theatre as part of a broad and balanced education.
“The collection is an essential part of our commitment to schools.” (Alistair Shand)
3. "Jane Eyre," by Charlotte BrontëLancashire Evening Post recommends Tanya Landman's retelling.
This list would not be complete without a mention of Charlotte Brontë. In "Jane Eyre," the reader follows the main character through being orphaned to arriving at Thornfield Hall, the home of the mysterious Edward Rochester. [...]
10. "Wuthering Heights," by Emily Brontë
Another Brontë sister classic, "Wuthering Heights" follows the character of Heathcliff from being a young man to old age. (Kara Quill)
Age 9 plus:Telegraph mentions this retelling too:
Jane Eyre: A Retelling
Tanya Landman
Reading classic novels can seem daunting to youngsters so Barrington Stoke has harnessed the storytelling talents of prize-winning author Tanya Landman for this poignant and powerful retelling of Charlotte Brontë’s eternally popular Jane Eyre.
Landman, who won the Carnegie Medal in 2015 with Buffalo Soldier – a young adult novel featuring an African-American slave from the Deep South at the end of the American Civil War – is renowned for her thought-provoking novels set in nineteenth-century America.
And she brings her observant eye and writing skills to this beautifully realised and accessible retelling of one of the greatest novels in the English language. Whilst honouring Brontë’s classic tale of a spirited heroine’s search for love, independence and belonging, Landman accentuates the key themes and scenes from the original text in a more concise format without compromising on the impact and importance of the original. [...]
Renowned for her own precise, powerful and emotional storytelling focus on strong female characters, Landman proves to be the perfect voice to bring new life to this timeless story and give young readers the impetus to go on and read the original Jane Eyre for themselves. (Pam Norfollk)
This drive to update the classics for young readers is the new rage in publishing. Earlier this month, we had Tanya Landman’s “truly accessible” version of Jane Eyre; which follows recent rewrites of everything from Kipling’s Jungle Book to Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers, in which we see the arrival of a girl from India. (“India!” a third former gasps.)Palatinate looks at Jean Rhys's works beyond Wide Sargasso Sea.
It is easy to dismiss such projects as mere marketing ploys. But Landman’s Jane Eyre, which is printed in a dyslexic-friendly font, is part of a commendable campaign to introduce reluctant readers to the classics. (Emily Bearn)
It would not be an understatement to say that the early writings of Jean Rhys have been partially obscured by the momentous legacy of Wide Sargasso Sea. Abounding with intertextuality and deeply enmeshed within a rich literary tradition, it is difficult to study Wide Sargasso Sea without Jane Eyre as a point of reference, and equally challenging to discuss Jean Rhys in isolation from Charlotte Brontë. (Constance Lam)Grazia (France) interviews writer Gaëlle Nohant, who claims that Jane Eyre changed her life when she read it when she was 8.
Un livre pour se libérer des complexes ? Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë : en montrant à quel point il est possible de transformer son destin, ce roman a changé ma vie. Il a fait germer ma vocation d'écrivain lorsque j'avais 8 ans. (Translation)Apparently, people have forgotten about Tom Hardy playing Heathcliff as ScreenRant includes this role on a list of '10 Tom Hardy Roles You Forgot Happened'.
9 Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is the kind of project that will repeated many times across time. It's a novel that has been adapted repeatedly and so it's no surprise that Hardy has take part in one version of this grim and gothic English tale.
Tom Hardy actually took a starring role in the 2009, two part TV mini series. He was one half of the destructive lovers, Heathcliff. The character was portrayed with the same dark charm as you'd imagine, based on the writings of Emily Brontë. (George Chrysostomou)
A new beautiful Folio Society edition of Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Anne Brontë
Illustrated by Valentina Catto
Introduced by Tracy Chevalier
Published to mark the 200th anniversary of Anne Brontë’s birth, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall completes the Folio collection of the Brontë sisters’ most distinguished titles.
While her sisters penned wildly passionate novels with heroic protagonists and Gothic undertones, Anne Brontë’s masterwork is firmly rooted in reality. Its frank depiction of marital breakdown and a woman’s forthright and daring response to her situation sent shockwaves through Victorian England, and the novel quickly became a publishing phenomenon. Returning to the unadulterated text of the first printing, this exceptional new edition includes Anne’s heartfelt preface defending her work, as well as an essential new introduction by historical novelist Tracy Chevalier. New illustrations by Valentina Catto blend artistic techniques that perfectly befit the era but also feel contemporary in their execution, drawing readers into the heart of the narrative. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall joins Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights as part of our lavishly designed and illustrated Brontë series.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë. (Folio, $67.95.) To celebrate Brontë’s 200th birthday, a new edition of her second novel — an instant hit when it was published in 1848 — with an introduction by Tracy Chevalier and illustrations by Valentina Catto.Encore's Carpe Librum has discovered the wonders of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.
“The Eyre Affair” really works because the world-building and story blend so perfectly. Without “Jane Eyre,” there is no mystery, no romance, no conclusion to an incredibly well-crafted suspense thriller. But mapped over each other, it’s an action-adventure story: “Jane Eyre” mixed with “James Bond” (but with a female protagonist), filled with literary allusions and jokes.The Sisters' Room features Paola Tonussi's biography of Emily Brontë. Chris Neville-Smith's Blog on Theatre reviews Blackeyed Theatre's take on Jane Eyre. And finally, an exciting tweet from the Brontë Parsonage:
Unfortunately, this experience outed Jock as having never read “Jane Eyre.”
“So do I have to have read ‘Jane Eyre’ to like this story?” he asked as I was sputtering in disbelief. I mean one of us had a British Common Wealth Education.
“No, you don’t have to have read ‘Jane Eyre,’ but it certainly helps … and I mean, you’ know the story, right?”
He shook his head.
I took a deep breath and gave him the basic plot outline of “Jane Eyre,” overlaid with remarkably little commentary and correlations to the plot of Fforde’s book.
“I see why you like this so much,” Jock noted in self-defense at the end of my summons. “Did you say this is a series? There’s more joy to come?”
I nodded.
“Brace yourself, sweetheart—he even handled the authorship question with time travel.”
Needless to say, I am now a Thursday Next convert. (Gwenyfar Rohler)
Just landed in the office! And only 10 days until deadline for Call For Papers. Head to https://t.co/1cMKPniWee for submission info. pic.twitter.com/A7wv6OMMo0— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) January 21, 2020
To celebrate this day we made a song and a simple video of Anne's poem "My Soul Is Awakened". This song is still in preproduction but we wanted to share it anyway. The drawing you see in this video is one of the very few surviving images of Anne, drawn by her sister Charlotte. Thank you Anne, Emily and Charlotte for all the inspiration you still bring.
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went on to illustrate dozens of book covers for British and American publishers, titles including Dickens' Oliver Twist and Charlotte Brontë's Wuthering Heights [sic] as well as Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina – the latter recognised as two of the finest examples of 20th-century book design. (Andy Mallalieu)Shame about the blunder, but his artwork for Wuthering Heights can be seen on the British Library website.
Classics and Conversation Book Club(Via Newton Daily News)
Newton Public Library
Newton, IA 50208
Tuesday, Jan. 21 — 10 a.m.
The Classics & Conversation Book Club is a library sponsored discussion group that reads a different selection of classic novels every winter. The group meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 10:00 am, October - March. Meetings are held in the library meeting room, and new members are always welcome! If you would like to request the current month's book, please contact the Library Information Desk at 641-792-4108. October - "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott November - "Little Men" by Louisa May Alcott December - "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë January - "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë February - "A Tale of Two Cities" (first half) by Charles Dickens March - "A Tale of Two Cities" (second half) by Charles Dickens
Anne Brontë wanted to write the truth, about people and society. It was a risky thing to do in the 1840s, especially for a woman, when Victorian-era respectability established a strict code of social conduct. Anything which challenged the morality and respectability of the times (or the appearance of it) was regarded with disapproval. And Anne – whose birth bicentenary was on January 17 – was determined to look beyond appearances. She paid dearly for it, often lost under the shadow of the literary genius of her better known sisters – Charlotte and Emily – whose works ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’, are regarded as classics. But Anne, unlike her sisters, couldn’t, or wouldn’t, look at life and people through the prism of romance. Take for example, ‘The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall’, her second novel, published in 1848. [...]The Times reviews Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride.
Unlike Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre’ and Heathcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights’, Anne doesn’t give Arthur Huntingdon the excuse of a mad wife or an all-consuming passion to explain his fall. Neither does she allow Helen to break down in tears or resign to her fate. Helen not only does nothing to hide her contempt of her husband, but, once she becomes aware of his cheating, tries to leave him. When she can’t, for her husband “wasn’t going to be made the talk of the country for your fastidious caprices”, Helen makes it clear that no real conjugal relationship will exist between them anymore. (Poulomi Banerjee)
I admired the visceral energy of [A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing (2013)], but preferred McBride’s 2016 novel The Lesser Bohemians, a love story about an 18-year-old Irish drama student and an older English actor set in mid-1990s London. It read like a sexy, neomodernist Jane Eyre, and the moment I finished it I wanted to start reading it again.The Courier deems Patrick Brontë pretentious for changing the spelling of his surname.
I can’t say the same about McBride’s third novel. (Johanna Thomas-Corr)
But let me point to the celebrated, and very English, Charlotte Brontë (and her sisters) who have a two-syllable name with the double dot above their e. The story goes that their father’s birth name was Brunty, but he pretentiously adopted a more exotic name. You’d have to agree that “the Brunty sisters” doesn’t sound so classic author-like.According to Daily Mail, 'Experts reveal EVERYONE has an 'inner madwoman' who questions their actions and leaves them feeling unworthy'.
And that is the way I regard people who use these diacritical marks: their umlauts, circumflexes, macrons and cedillas. They are being pretentious. (Steve Finan)
The concept was born from the literary character of Bertha Mason, Mr Rochester's insane wife in the Charlotte Brontë''s class Jane Eyre, who he moved to Thornfield Hall and locked in a room.Random Jottings celebrated Anne Brontë's bicentenary.
[Twin sisters Dr Emily and Amelia Nagoski] argue the best way to prevent this inner voice from becoming destructive - as Bertha Mason becomes in the novel - is to 'befriend' her as a way to relive the daily internal battle and better cope with stress that comes your way. [...]
Who is 'the madwoman in the attic'?
Bertha Mason is a fictional character in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre.
In the novel, she is described as the violently insane first wife of Edward Rochester, who moved her to Thornfield Hall and locked her in a room on the third floor.
Rochester travels abroad to forget his horrible marriage.
However, Bertha manages to escape, causing havoc in the house: starting a fire in Mr Rochester's bed and biting and stabbing her visiting brother.
Rochester's marriage to Bertha eventually stands in the way of his marrying Jane, who is unaware of Bertha's existence and whom he truly loves.
Bertha dies after throwing herself off the roof, leaving her husband free to marry Jane. (Claire Toureille)
MEET THE AUTHOR: This month's Gothic Book Club has a special guest in the form of author Sharon Wright. She discusses her new book, The Mother Of The Brontës, a biography of the Cornish gentlewoman Maria Branwell, and her unlikely romance which resulted in the births of the Brontë sisters. Strawberry Hill House (Twickenham), free, book ahead, 7.30pm-9pm
Anne Brontë Bicentenary: Anne Brontë, the Forgotten Sister
20 January 2020
Stanton Library, Conference Room
234 Miller Street
North Sydney
New South Wales 2060
Monday 20 Jan 2020 at 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
2020 is a very special year for fans of the great Anne Brontë because it marks the 200th anniversary of her birth. To commemorate her bicentenary Anne Brontë enthusiast and playwright Cate Whittaker will be bringing Anne Brontë’s stories alive. Cate's talk will recognize Anne Bronte in her bicentennial year as the first whistleblower on wife abuse, to uncover her life and her dreams through her diaries, drawings, letters, prayers, poems and novels in the surroundings she worked in, lived in and visited.
Cate Whittaker was a born and brought up 15 km from the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth the birthplace of the Brontë sisters. She wrote her Masters thesis on 19th Century History at the University of Sydney and has thirty years of experience teaching and lecturing. Cate has written a play on the female convict rebellion at the Parramatta Factory Prison called Forgotten which was performed at the Riverside Theatre in July 2019 to a sell-out audience.
Pity poor Anne Brontë, the youngest, overshadowed and least read of the Brontë sisters. Regarded rather as the runt of the literary litter, Anne, like the last born in many large families, has always needed to elbow her siblings aside for the attention that is her due. It is her fate that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, one of the first great feminist novels, is inevitably shelved alongside Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, two of the greatest novels ever written. [...]
Anne’s death at the age of 29 deprived the world of an interesting voice. She wasn’t the meek and mild creature Charlotte would have us believe – the passionate honesty and liveliness of her writing and convictions make this youngest Brontë sister
a fascinating character in her own right. Happy 200th birthday, Anne.
If Gerwig were going to change something about Bhaer, I wish she’d changed how Jo falls for him when he says her stories are rubbish. (It is amazing how many novels feature a woman getting turned on by a man telling her off, from Emma to Jane Eyre to Fifty Shades. As messages go, I’d like this to go in the bin, alongside girls being told that, when a boy pulls their hair, it means he likes them.)
What books/authors would you recommend to anyone seeking to inspire transformation in their own lives or in the way they view and/or produce their art?CL: I have read hundreds of books but here are a few that left a lasting impression on me: The Power of Myth, Fahrenheit 451, The Fellowship of the Ring, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Cannery Row, The Moonflower Vine, Jungle Cowboy, Les Miserables, Naked Came I and Heart of Darkness.
"Es cierto, todas mis obsesiones están presentes en esta obra. Aparecen los santos paganos, leyendas, Lovecraft, Emily Brontë, Sábato y su Sobre héroes y tumbas, los primeros años noventa de la Argentina. Son muchas las referencias, y la búsqueda era un poco que estuvieran todas", reconoce Mariana acerca de las inquietudes que comenzó a plasmar ya en su primera novela, Bajar es lo peor (1995). (Fabiana Scherer) (Translation)
-¿Es posible rastrear ese primer momento en que empezás a escribir historias?- Me acuerdo de escribir varios principios de intentos de novelas, a los once años o algo así, en una computadora de mis viejos. En ese momento, empezaba a leer libros de Jane Austen y las Brontë, aunque rara vez los terminaba. Quería hacer novelas que pasaran en el siglo XIX, con protagonistas mujeres que usaran vestidos difíciles y anduvieran en carruajes. Y que sufrieran. Me trababa escribiendo unas descripciones larguísimas y los dejaba por la mitad. Más adelante, en el colegio, tuve una profesora de Lengua que nos hacía escribir todos los viernes un cuento. Esa obligación me ayudó. (Victoria Pérez Zabala) (Translation)
Una de las más grandes novelas de la historia, Jane Eyre, fue firmada al principio por un tal Currer Bell, y solo cuando esta fue aclamada por los lectores se empezó a reeditar con la verdadera identidad de su autora: Charlotte Brontë. (Héctor Abad Faciolince) (Translation)
A couple of songs in the latest album of the 'spirit-rock' band Siberian Traps have obvious Brontë echoes:Infinite JestVia En la Calle On The Street
by Siberian Traps
Includes:
3. Unquiet Slumbers 05:41
4. Heathcliff 05:43
