Haunted passions and Chocolove

If a few days ago we complained about how unfair - and empty - the Brontë vs Austen debate is, today we must complain about how unfair and harsh some columnists are. The following is from The Times.

Two generations later, when Charlotte Brontë had the nerve to send a manuscript to the Poet Laureate of the day, Robert Southey, he told her that women ought not to be serious about literature as it would distract them from their domestic duties. Unfortunately for women in general and authors in particular, the dainty, circumscribed world of Jane Austen made it possible for a woman writer to succeed without rejecting those duties. If she wrote domestic satires, a lady author could have it all. Result: Austen became the archetypal woman writer. (Celia Brayfield)

We really don't see it like that. The way we see it is that if anything Jane Austen paved the way for it. And each writer will write what they feel like writing anyway.

Cybils - a blog on children and young adults' literature - interviews Laura Amy Schlitz, author of A Drowned Maiden’s Hair.

Q. Who are some of your favorite authors?
A. I'm nuts for the Victorians. Dickens, of course, and the Bronte sisters and George Eliot and Wilkie Collins (I have a large collection of Wilkie Collins) and Mrs. Gaskell and Trollope. I also adore Robertson Davies. I love Eva Ibbotson, Kate DiCamillo, and Monica Furlong.

Lovely!

And great news from Scarborough. As Scarborough Today reports, from April 16 to April 22 (coinciding with Charlotte Brontë's birthday) Scarborough will celebrate its very first Literature Festival. Anne Brontës is, as you know, buried there, so it was almost compulsory to have a Brontë talk.

Also on that day [Tuesday 17 April] Claire Nally, from the University of Hull, Scarborough Campus will give a talk on 'Haunted Passions: the Brontes in Yorkshire' at Scarborough Library Concert Hall, where Roger Osborne will interview Jack Binns, Kate Evans and Ken Hayton for 'Local Heroes'.

Sounds great indeed.

And we have another - more immediate - literary event to report from the other side of the pond. El Comercio - a newspaper from Ecuador - informs of the events that will take place today to celebrate La Fiesta de la Poesía (related to the French Printemps des Poètes). At 8:30, at Bénédict School (in Quito) texts by Emerson and the Brontë sisters will be read.

But for all these alerts we must report something else that slipped through our hands. A month ago, The Telegraph and Argus said:

A Walk in Search of the Brontes is the title of an illustrated talk to be given at the next meeting of the National Trust West Yorkshire Centre. Anyone is welcome to attend the talk by Robert Whitehead at 2.30pm on February 24 at Baildon Parish Church Hall. Tickets are £3 at the door for visitors, or £2.50 for trust members if pre-booked.

Well, it must have been interesting!

But to end on a delicious note. Tanya's World Domination Notebook reviews different types of chocolate! The best thing is,

Chocolove Raspberries in Dark Chocolate (55% cocoa solids; made in Boulder, CO from Belgian chocolate, which came from African beans)
Just as wonderful as it sounds. The chocolate is smooth and semisweet, just like I like it, and the raspberries are freeze-dried. They have a great crunchy texture and just the right level of tartness. Yum!
Packaging: very cute. The love poem inside the wrapper is Watching and Wishing by Charlotte Bronte. The gold foil inner wrapper is easy to re-fold.

Here's more info on this more than complete chocolate. Poetry and chocolate, is there a better combination?

Categories: Alert, Brontëites, Poetry, Talks, Weirdo