Why Charlotte Brontë didn't fall in love with the Mannekin Pis

The Guardian chooses Judith Adams's I Believe I Have Genius as the radio pick of today (check this previous post for more detailed information):

In 1842, Charlotte Brontë, as poor, plain and obscure as the heroines of her novels, arrived at a girls' school in Brussels with her sister Emily. The women planned simply to complete their studies in return for giving English and music lessons, so they could return to Britain to start a school of their own. But Charlotte fell in love - not with waffles, moules frites or the Mannekin Pis, but her charismatic (and married) teacher Constantin Heger.
This much is well known, and the fact that Elizabeth Gaskell airbrushed the affair out of her biography has given it extra spice. But what is less well known is that Heger used Charlotte's devotion to him to encourage her writing. That's the story of Judith Adams's play I Believe I Have Genius (2.15pm, Radio 4), which draws on Brontë's own letters. (Phil Daoust)

The Times presents this radio production like this:

In 1842 Emily and Charlotte Brontë travelled to Brussels, where they enrolled in a school run by Constantin Heger and his wife Claire. Here the “poor, plain and obscure” Charlotte – to borrow a description she was to use for her most famous thinly veiled autobiographical character, Jane Eyre – developed a serious passion for the charismatic M. Heger. Whether things got seriously physical is lost in the mists of time – Elizabeth Gaskell politely expunged the “affair” from her biography of the author – but Judith Adams’s play draws on Charlotte’s letters and novels to show how love, however unrequited, spurred her to change her life through writing, as well as providing her with a hero – Constantin – and a heroine – herself. Rosie Cavaliero and Laura Molyneux star as Charlotte, with Julian Rhind-Tutt as Constantin. (Chris Campling)

And The Telegraph:

Charlotte Brontë’s passionate attachment to a married Belgian teacher has, over the years, attracted speculation. Judith Adams’s play sets it in context and argues that it proved to be the spur to her creative genius. Charlotte and Emily were sent to learn French and teach English at a girls’ school in Brussels run by Constantin Heger and his wife. His teaching ignited her creative flame, captured her heart. When he rejected her, she transmuted experience into fiction. Julian Rhind-Tutt plays Heger, Charlotte’s self is divided between Laura Molyneaux (Reason) and Rosie Cavallero (Passion). (Gillian Reynolds)

The New York Times Home & Garden section has an article about David and Gina Giffels, proud owners of an exquisitely renovated 1913 Tudor house which they have rehabilitated. There is a Wuthering Heights connection in all of it:

Gina Giffels, who is 43 and whose father worked two jobs to take care of his wife and seven children, also has a favorite movie with a distinctive house. Hers is “Wuthering Heights,” not when things are going well with the inhabitants, but in its fabulous decline. Ms. Giffels identifies with the heroine, Cathy.
“Cathy loved the finer things and I did, too,” she says, sitting with her husband in the now-spotless solarium, “My parents struggled. We shared bath water and never got anything new. My mom is completely frugal to this day. ” (Joyce Wadler)

The Miry Wilds has a very brief comment about Justine Picardie's Daphne:

The book was a lovely combination of Possession, The Hours, and Rebecca -- not really new or groundbreaking, but right up my alley and hard to put down.

By the way, Justine Picardie has published recently on her blog a series of interesting posts about Branwell Brontë, Virginia Woolf's visit to Haworth in 1904 and her own previous visit in the summer of 2006. Check them out (and their comments).

The Jane Eyre vs Wide Sargasso Sea comparison gets two posts today on the blogosphere: Asuntos Propios (in Spanish) and Christine's British Lit. Blog

Categories: Audio-Radio, Branwell Brontë, Brussels, Haworth, Jane Eyre, References, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights