Penetralium and floods in Wuthering Heights

The Los Angeles Times publishes an obituary on Alice Borchardt, writer of historical romance novels and elder sister of Anne Rice's. Over a decade ago Anne Rice apparently joked about aiming to be the new Brontë sisters.

"We want to be the Bronte sisters," Rice said in a 1995 interview with the Houston Chronicle, referring to the sisters who wrote the gothic novels "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights." "We want to go down in history." (Mary Rourke)

Jeanette Winterson wonders in The Times, ‘What books could I find where floods and rain played a part?’. Sure enough here is one of the (many) answers.

In Wuthering Heights, rain and storm are as necessary as the landscape itself, perhaps they are the landscape. Cathy’s death turns beginning-summer into downpour. Heathcliff is flood and tempest in human form.

Brian from Puck recently left a comment on an old post of ours concerning Emily's use of the word 'penetralium' in the first chapter of Wuthering Heights.

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?

We have been researching among our Brontë books and though we already knew the Brontës had read Keats, we don't know when his Negative Capability letter was published or whether the Brontës might have read it at all. So this remains a mystery for now. However, for more information on this curous word we suggest you head over to Puck and read up on it.

Los Libros de Fausto writes - in Spanish - about Wuthering Heights.

Thanks to You Ain't No Picasso you have another chance of downloading The Decemberists' take on Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Music, Wuthering Heights