Emily's penetralium
Los Angeles Times publishes an article about good bad books. The author, Stephen Bayley, explains his views about such books that you could be amused or excited by what the intellect despises. Reading this interesting article is worthwhile. The Brontë reference that brings it to this blog appears at the end:
Alberto Manguel, Jorge Luis Borges' amanuensis, explained how the writer used to treasure terrible lines from literature. One was a character in John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" who says, "We are merely the stars' tennis balls." Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" contains this shocker: "I had no desire to aggravate his impatience, previous to inspecting his penetralium." (The quote is from Chapter 1)
Well, even Emily has her bad days...
Note: Penetralia: 1. The innermost parts of a building, especially the sanctuary of a temple. 2. The most private or secret parts; recesses: the penetralia of the soul.
Categories: In_the_News, Wuthering_Heights, Emily_Brontë
Alberto Manguel, Jorge Luis Borges' amanuensis, explained how the writer used to treasure terrible lines from literature. One was a character in John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" who says, "We are merely the stars' tennis balls." Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" contains this shocker: "I had no desire to aggravate his impatience, previous to inspecting his penetralium." (The quote is from Chapter 1)
Well, even Emily has her bad days...
Note: Penetralia: 1. The innermost parts of a building, especially the sanctuary of a temple. 2. The most private or secret parts; recesses: the penetralia of the soul.
Categories: In_the_News, Wuthering_Heights, Emily_Brontë
Posted by M. on Friday, March 03, 2006 at 10:33 AM 
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Yes, true, the MISquote is from Chapter 1....but it's 'penetrate THE penitralium' NOT 'his'.
By such cheap methods do authors aggrandise themselves and poke fun at extracts more innocent than they would have us believe.
Disgraceful!
;-)
Yep, it's true... it's a THE. I'm sure Borges is laughing out loud wherever he is.
M.
The interesting thing here is that Bronte's may be one of only two uses in English of the word "penetralium." The only other I know is from John Keats, in his Negative Capability letter. I've blogged about Keats' use here.
I'd love to hear what you know about "penetralium" and what it means (it has no direct antecedent; as far as I can tell in Latin only the singular "penetralia" was used). Keats and Bronte used the word in very different, but perhaps parallel, senses. Thoughts?
More info here.
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