Jane Eyre, a Disney heroine?

The new book by Bruce Mayer, Heroes: The Champions of Our Literary Imagination, is presented on the CBC Radio website (Words at Large). One of the heroines is our Jane:

English literature academic and broadcaster Bruce Meyer gives new insights into the heroes who inspire us in his new book Heroes: The Champions of Our Literary Imagination (HarperCollins Canada). Meyer is best known to CBC Radio listeners for his frequent contributions on book-related subjects. In his latest work, he gives readers a new perspective on their favourite literary heroes, ranging from Superman to Dante. (...)

Here are the top ten heroes from some key works of the Western literary imagination. I hope this list will spark some thoughts about who you consider to be heroes and what constitutes that honorable title.

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte’s great 19th-century heroine is a do-it-yourself individual who rises from the ashes of her meagre, miserable life to become the mistress of a great estate. She is a Disney movie waiting to happen, a true-to-life Cinderella.

The PJ Harvey Brontë frenzy with her new new album White Chalk still lingers on. Based, as far as we can read in the articles, basically on her white frock dress. From the New York Magazine:

"It seems like so long I played in New York — ages, really," PJ Harvey remarked to a sold-out crowd at the Beacon Theatre last night. Looking like one of the Brontë sisters in a white frock dress, the indie rocker, now almost 40 (!), performed a motley mix of songs to a reverential crowd at her only scheduled show on the East Coast. (Sadia Latifi)

The Mystery of Irma Vep is another well-known usual suspect in the Brontë news. The Tacoma News Tribune reviews the current performances of Charles Ludlam's play at the Centerstage’s Knutzen Family Theater in Tacoma:

Written by the incomparable Charles Ludlam, founder of The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York, the play is patterned after Alfred Hitchcock’s gothic horror film “Rebecca” and is liberally sprinkled with literary references ranging from Poe to Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde, with further reference to films such as “Wuthering Heights” and “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

The Sioux City Journal provides the funny/surrealist quote of the day:

The Coors site features a closeup of a beer next to a book on the bar. Why these people aren’t swilling, they’re taking a study break. I can’t see the title of the book but I’m sure it’s either “Wuthering Heights” or microbiology. Or both. “Look, Heathcliff, mitochondria. I shall never love you.” (Dave Yoder)

Finally, we would like to congratulate Doris Lessing on receiving the Literature Nobel Prize and remind our readers that there's a book connecting her to the Brontës: Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing, published in 1998.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Music, Theatre, Wuthering Heights