Women's History

Scout About reports that March is Women's History month, and her first post to celebrate it is a short commentary on Charlotte Brontë. Very aptly, since on the very last day of March we will be commemorating Charlotte's death anniversary.

One of the best gifts any friend has ever given me: a first American edition copy of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Copyrighted 1847 and signed “Currer Bell” (Charlotte Bronte’s pen name), I nearly had a heart attack over the book and my friend, poor guy, didn’t really know how to act. He could never have known what that meant to me.

Lucky girl!

Meanwhile, The Spiced Tea Party states:

Such as Pride & Prejudice. I'm sorry, I just can't imagine touching any Austen novel with anything remotely like an erotic brush. (However, the Bronte sisters are a different story!) (Colette Gale)

She doesn't elaborate, but it's not something we haven't heard before.

The Aberdeen News carries an endearing article by a father who writes about his daughter, Brenna. Apparently Brenna has always been fond of puzzling statements. And she likes the Brontës.

Brenna loves "Jane Eyre," "Wuthering Heights" and "Pride and Prejudice." Her favorite authors are Charlotte and Emily Bronte and Jane Austen. She says her heart belongs "on the British moors." (Jeff Bahr)

Brenna is not alone, and this blog proves it. K-Mass is currently reading Shirley by Charlotte Brontë and writes very encouragingly about it.

Through chapter 12, I am amazed by Charlotte Bronte's Shirley. It's not even remotely the same kind of novel as Jane Eyre... I think it might be better, which I really wasn't expecting, but it's hard to compare the two. Everything about Shirley is so mature, the characters are so real... and Bronte's writing style is so remarkably tender and contemplative... this is an extraordinary novel.

The Professor aside, Shirley is perhaps Charlotte's less read novel. Perhaps March is a good month to (re) read it and (re)discover it!

Amanda has just attended a stage version of Jane Eyre at the University of Washington. Her review too is encouraging.

I saw Jane Eyre just a few hours ago and I sobbed silently through half of it. When it was over, I rushed out of the theatre so no one could see that my entire face was wet with tears. I'm really attached to Jane Eyre because it was one of the first big chapter books I read in elementary school. The play's adaption of it was a bit different, but nonetheless brilliant! The leads were great, but I was most interested in the PATP student who played Mrs. Reed/Mrs. Fairfax. She was really just excellent (comedic timing, accent and "character" were all very well established). I won't say much about the brief moments of musicality because, well, there isn't much to be said about it. Whatever singing or dancing there was in the play was something next to "dreadful." And it was worse because the actors seemed rather aware of it.
Anyway, all I know is that I loved it to death and you should all try to catch it if you can because it closes this Sunday! This is a must for those who love the novel.

Now you know what to do this weekend if you're in the area!

Is it your mind that creates this world copies a few fragments from Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction and we find this gem in it.

Darren Blardsall said, ‘I reckon that George Bush is sort of like Mr Rochester and that Jane Eyre is a bit like Tony Blair.’‘So who is Saddam?’ said Mr Carlton-Hayes.‘Saddam is the mad wife in the attic’, said Darren.

Politics and the madwoman in the attic seems to have always gone hand in hand.

And now for a Brontë-inspired poem published in the Telegraph and Argus and written by Tina Watkin.

Poetry!.. You say you couldn't care.
Not for you this love affair with books.
The name of Brontë's wuthering thought the air
advertisementbut you are not a visitor who looks
for hidden meaning laced into rhyme;
you seek out the antiquities in shops.
You say you haven't really got the time
to experience the wind howl round the tops'.
The driver said to meet at five o'clock;
the next stop visiting Aire River.
You slowly amble to the churchyard gate;
an apparition in the doorway makes you shiver.
A crinoline dress is swirling past your ear;
it rustles with the leaves, which almost talk.
You catch your breath and half begin to speak
then lengthen up the striding of your walk.
Glancing back, there's nothing to be seen.
What it was, you haven't got a notion.
Perhaps the thoughts were all within your mind?
Some say it could be poetry in motion.

And to conclude, why don't you take a quiz and find out which classic heroine you are? :)

Categories: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Poetry, References, Shirley, Theatre, Websites