Neoliberal and Byronic

PopMatters has an intriguing proposal for a new 'critical' approach of Jane Eyre:

I’ve wondered for a while now whether conservative theory could ever experience a vogue in the soft humanities (literature, cultural studies), not because of any intrinsic merit in the material but because it would supply a new niche for graduate students to exploit, fresh territory on which to stake a claim. Maybe this is already happening, or already happened: First, a tentative survey of the literature from a critical perspective: an examination of the tropes of conservative discourse, say, and how they have evolved—something like Hofstedter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Then, a deconstruction that shows conservative thought (something like [Friedrich] Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom or Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy) is actually liberal thought. Then, an actual embrace of the reimagined or rehabilitated conservative works, and their use to explicate the raw material of humanities courses—Bronte novels and the like. I want to see the Hayekian reading of Jane Eyre, dammit! (Rob Horning)

Well, we have a Marxist reading of the Brontës (Terry Eagleton's Brontë scholar classic Myths of Power). A Hayekian one would be quite a contrast.

The Yale Daily News lists Heathcliff in the Byronic hero category:

I am also drawing accidental inspiration from all my Victorian lit novels. I’m all hot to find a Byronic hero. In case you didn’t have Axel Liimitta as your 12th grade English teacher, a Byronic hero is a man so dark and tortured and strong, but he just needs the right feisty, pale woman to rescue him, and he will be nice to no one but her just like abused dogs from the shelter. Anyway some common Byronic heros are Satan in “Paradise Lost” and Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights” and of course Aragorn and Wolverine. (Molly Green)

We don't really see Aragorn among the Byronic ranks.

Briefer news: The Lubbock Avalanche Journal highlights the presence of Jane Eyre in the local high schools curriculum. The Argentinian newspaper La Nación presents the Roberto Pieri's adaptation of Wuthering Heights, now on stage in Buenos Aires each Friday (more information on these previous posts).

Categories: Jane Eyre, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights