A pig and a Poet Laureate

Some curious, weird (or both) Brontë news.

The Christian Science Monitor reviews The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell:

Declan, a tinker by trade, may have been the lover of both Aunt Kitty, who supports herself by writing "corrections" to 19th-century novels, and the owner of the misbehaving porker, Lolly McKeever. (...)
Aunt Kitty's revisions are a hoot. In her version of "Jane Eyre," Rochester is the one who flings himself from the roof of Thornfield Hall, and Jane nurses Bertha, the madwoman in the attic, back to sanity. Her new and improved "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" would delight the many high-schoolers who find Clair something of a pompous jerk. (Yvonne Zipp)

Today, we have one of those news items that have to be read to be believed. This is how Newstrack India classifies possible types of boys in a classroom: the gentle type, the meek and coward and the...

Some, on other hand, are aggressive like Heathcliff, the hero of Emily Bronte’s novel of the same name, who likes to have his girl by hook or by crook. He shows macho mania to scare other competitors in the classroom for he knows beauty has thousand followers. He is bitter, bully and bad. And if there two such over sentimental suitors in a classroom, there are likely chances that fight between them is inevitable, which can be bloody at times. This breed needs urgent attention. (M Shamsur Rabb Khan)

And finally... Emily Brontë, the Poet Laureate, according to The Eastbourne Herald Gazette :

I don't mind people being stupid – it's their prerogative – but I draw the line at those who insist on parading their vast ignorance when I'm trying to watch television.
During a recent edition of The Weakest Link a cocky little fellow (a university student apparently) was asked who succeeded John Betjeman and preceded Andrew Motion as Poet Laureate.
He produced one of those expressions (half sneer, half sigh) intended to convey his astonishment at being asked such a ridiculous question and his confidence that nobody else would either know or care.
"Emily Bronte?" he eventually suggested, and one's mind immediately sped back to all those wonderful A level passes and assurances from politicians that our children have never been better educated. (Keith Newbery)

Well, Ted Hughes (the correct answer) did write poems devoted to Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, References, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights