Tidbits

Reading the news today we have come across a few tidbits. Nothing to do with one another, they make for an interesting insight into how the Brontës have been incorporated into different aspects of our lives:

IcHuddersfield has an article recommending books for Christmas presents suiting everybody's taste. We adore the final recommendation:

Finally there's Christmas Please! a collection of Christmas verse edited by Douglas Brooks-Davies (Orion £7.99).

There's a full house of notable poets, from Shakespeare to Sir Walter Scott, Blake to Bridges, Anne Brontë to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Chatterton to Chesterton to Coleridge.

Yay for Anne!! It's not every day (or week for that matter) that she gets a mention. Here's the link to the publisher's website with further info on that book, published in September 2003. We suppose the poem that won Anne's entry was this beautiful one.

Then the Indianapolis Star gives advice on how to write a paper and make it original.

Whitney Walton, Keller's modern European history professor at Purdue, a few years ago discovered the same phrase in seven term papers that analyzed Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" within the context of British women's history.

Walton plugged the phrase into the Google search engine, which traced it back to an online essay. The cheaters failed her assignment.

"A couple of them said they knew they shouldn't have done it," said Walton, who has taught at Purdue for 11 years. "But they did it anyway because they didn't have time or they didn't have any original ideas."

Tut-tut, children!

And a final touch of fashion, courtesy of the NY Newsday:

The soft and supple fabric [velvet], once relegated to the prissy dressy category, has completely broken out of its traditional stereotype. "Somewhere along the line, Laura Ashley captured velvet and held it hostage in the form of a burgundy holiday skirt," says Hal Rubenstein, fashion director of In Style Magazine. "Now, instead of it being reminiscent of a Bronte heroine or some matador, designers have freed it and are using it in a much more modern way."

Good to know now that the holidays are fast approaching, don't you think? Thought it must be quite charming to momentarily imagine yourself a Brontë heroine - only in their good moments!

So there you are, the Brontë news of the day served on a platter to you :)

Categories: In_the_News, Anne_Brontë, Poetry, Charlotte_Brontë, Jane_Eyre