Brontë Studies Abstracts and a Talk

Several Brontë-scholar related news:

Some days ago we published the index of the most recent issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 32. Issue 1 March 2007). Now we can add the abstracts:

EDITORIAL By Adams, Amber M.
(iii)

ARTICLES
Reading Books and Looking at Pictures in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë. By Alison Hoddinott (1-10)
Abstract
In their novels, Charlotte Brontë and, to a lesser extent, her sister Anne, refer to books and paintings as a way of establishing important aspects of character and clarifying thematic concerns. In her extensive references to specific writers and artists, Charlotte repeatedly demonstrates her love of English, French and German Romanticism and her correspondingly cool response to the English Augustans and European classical writers. Her characters are frequently placed morally and temperamentally by reference to their taste in literature and art. This article traces these references and their significance from The Professor to Villette and concludes that, by the time she wrote her final novel, Charlotte Brontë had developed a subtle and, indeed, innovative technique of giving depth and subtlety to her fiction by the use of such references.

Between Nowhere and Home: the Odyssey of Lucy Snowe. By Shanyn Fiske (11-20)
Abstract
Extended comparisons of Villette and the Odyssey have been hindered first by Charlotte's lack of classical training and second by the discrepancy between Lucy's ambiguous motives and Odysseus's clear goal of returning to Ithaca. This paper argues for Charlotte's access to Homeric sources and suggests that the Odyssey's construction of 'homesickness' would have had particular appeal to her during the conception and writing of Villette. Read through the framework of Homer's epic, it can be seen that Lucy's journey, like that of Odysseus, is propelled by her desire for an ideal of human intimacy and understanding that becomes ever more alluring in its inaccessibility.

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, the Female Detective and the 'Crime' of Female Selfhood. By Sandro Jung (21-30)
Abstract
Critics have read Jane Eyre as a plea for gender equality and independent femininity, but have not contextualized Jane as a detective who, through her curiosity, succeeds in questioning the patriarchal authority of Mr Rochester and fashioning herself as a whose rationalizing of life at Thornfield puts into perspective man's supposed prerogative to control truth. Jane not only traces male criminality, but her curiosity leads her to realize her own selfhood. Her growing individuality is articulated through a public, expressive and inquisitive self that to Victorian middle-class notions of propriety appeared transgressive and 'criminal'. Her ideas of individuality are in clear contrast with those of traditional servant figures such as Mrs Fairfax who, through her silence, endorses her master's crime. Constructing Jane as a detective, Charlotte Brontë succeeded in creating a version of the female self that was revolutionary and attempted to overcome her state of dependence through curiosity and inquiry.

'It has Devoured My Existence': the Power of the Will and Illness in The Bride of
Lammermoor and Wuthering Heights. By Lakshmi Krishnan (31-40)
Abstract
Many Victorian medical theorists shared the notion that the will functions as an intermediary, holding the mind and body in tension. Psychosomatic illnesses, physiological ailments rooted in mental distress, fifure prominently in both Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Where Scott regards sickness as the product of a weakened will, Emily Brontë's characters exercise their wills to facilitate illness, thereby exerting power over their circumstances. Scott depicts a society breaking its members, forcing them to lapse into illness and madness, troublesome and tragic symbols of disorder. Emily Brontë, in contrast, interprets illness not as a collapse, but rather an exertion of the will's strength.

The Role of Religion in Wuthering Heights. By Graeme Tytler (41-55)
Abstract
Among several scholarly studies concerned with the treatment of religion in Wuthering Heights one may find assertions to the effect that Emily's novel is an anti-Christian book. This argument tends to be supported by reference to the glaring limitations of Joseph and Nelly Dean as Christians or, more particularly, by the perception that the 'transcendental' thinking of Heathcliff and Catherine is worthier than the Christian teachings on which they have been painfully brought up and which, as adults, they have come to repudiate. But a careful examination of the attitudes and behaviour of the main characters, especially in relation to the biblical quotations and allusions incorporated in the narrative, would suggest that, in Emily's eyes, the Gospel is none the less relevant to modern man, and that any shortcomings within the Protestant Church in the late eighteenth century and beyond are due, not to Christianity but, rather, to Christians themselves.

J. B. Leyland: Sculptor and Friend of Branwell Brontë. By Michael Walker (57-70)
Abstract
At the age of twenty-one, J.B. Leyland modelled a statue of great size. It was of Spartacus, the Thracian hero. The statue was displayed at the Manchester Exhibition of 1832. It was said to be the most striking work of art on display, and a work far beyond the sculptor's age. This praise heralded the arrival of a yound genius. This youthful sculptor and poet was one of a group of young Yorkshire artists and writers who had emerged in the late Georgian and early Victorian period. They met regularly at the George Hotel, Bradford, where they would discuss and criticize each other's literary and artistic offerings in a convivial atmosphere. Branwell Brontë was a member of this group. This article looks at the life and work of J. B. Leyland--'flawed genius'.

REVIEWS
(71-89)

Finally we highlight the following talks: The first one was presented yesterday, February 7, in the Victorian Beginnings Conference- AVSA 2007 (7-11 February 2007 University Club, University of Western Australia):

Screen Voyages: Wuthering Heights and Adaptation as ‘Travel’ and ‘Translation by Hila Shachar

The second one will be given next February 10, as a part of the Australian Brontë Association activities for 2007:

Saturday 10th FEBRUARY 10:30am at the Sidney Mechanics' School of Arts (including a brief AGM)
Susannah Fullerton: Daphne du Maurier and the Brontës
Daphne du Maurier was a life-long reader of the Brontës. Her novel Rebecca was strongly influenced by Jane Eyre, but her true sympathy lay with Branwell Brontë and she wrote a book about his short and tragic life. Susannah Fullerton will discuss the Brontë influence on this popular novelist.

Categories: Brontë Society, Journals, Scholar, Talks