I welcome thee, Benignant Power

As they say: better late than never. Today we rescue an article published a couple of weeks ago in the Todmorden News on Ian Emberson, who was set to appear at this year's Ilkley Literature Festival, which began on September 28 and ran until October 14.

[T]his Saturday, September 29, he presents one of the fringe events held at the town’s St Margaret’s Church Hall at 6 pm.
He gives a talk called The Likeness of a Kingly Crown: John Milton’s Influence on Charlotte Bronte. Ian has a life-long interest in the work of the Brontes and is the author of many articles on the subject.
This talk develops themes from his 2005 Bronte Society publication Pilgrims From Loneliness: An Interpretation of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Vilette - the strong influence of John Milton’s writing on Charlotte Bronte.

Indeed, his talk could be the same one he gave at last year's Brontë Conference and which can now be read in the latest issue of Brontë Studies as it has the same title.

Returning to the present, The Age has a column on imagination.

Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us haven't pondered the concept of infinity or imagined the possibility of time travel? In one of her poems Emily Bronte likens imagination to a constant companion, but I prefer to think of it as a built-in entertainment system. (Alexandra Adornetto)

The full poem can be read here.

Open Writing has published a very complete article on Jane Eyre together with some very useful background information on the Brontë family.

Shared Darkness reviews the Brontë Collection.

Presented in full-screen, both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre come housed in individual slimline snap cases, and are in turn jointly housed in an attractive, single cardboard slipcase. Jane Eyre’s bonus features include interviews with the cast and crew, a small collection of deleted scenes, hour-long audio commentaries for two of the episodes, and trailers from the program’s original British broadcast on BBC. [...] B+ (Movies) B- (Disc)

This answers the questions BrontëBlog readers had regarding the Brontë Collection, though we had already been told by the WGBH Customer Care Center that Jane Eyre did indeed include the deleted scenes as well as the rest of the extras included on the original British DVD (unlike on the PBS DVD)

Book Addicts reviews Wide Sargasso Sea (the novel).

On a final note, BrontëBlog has now listened to PJ Harvey's so-called 'Brontë album', White Chalk, and while we think it's a very good album we wonder whether music critics would have come up with the Brontë connection had PJ Harvey wore another dress on the CD cover. These could indeed be the songs sung by a woman locked in the attic or a woman rambling on the moors.... just like they could be the songs sung by a woman lost at sea. Highly recommended but just goes to show how fond of flashing their 'knowledge' critics are.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Poetry, Talks, Wide Sargasso Sea