Scholar Brontës (II)

More recent papers Brontë-related:

Linda Freedman
Reflection and The Aesthetics of Grace in Villette
Literature and Theology, doi:10.1093/litthe/frn011 (published online on April 15, 2008)

Abstract
This article is a reading of the aesthetics of grace through the Pauline theology in Villette. Divine grace is given as a gift and is fulfilled only in death. I discuss the Pauline theology which underlies the novel and argue that the structures of giving and withholding are central to Lucy's sense of her own salvation. I explore the connection between surveillance and the Pauline idea of ‘seeing through a glass darkly’ and argue that the aesthetics of grace are ultimately tied to the book's status as a reflected narrative.

Kathleen Williams Renk
Jane Eyre as Hunger Artist
Women's Writing, Volume 15, Issue 1 May 2008 , pages 1 - 12

Abstract
In this essay, the author applies Mikhail Bakhtin's carnivalesque theory and Mary Russo's concepts of the female grotesque to a reading of Jane Eyre which situates Jane's hunger within a mid-nineteenth-century context of self-imposed female hunger, which was largely religious in nature. Drawing on the work of Caroline Bynum, whose Holy Feast and Holy Fast examines the lives of female starving saints, the author argues that Jane Eyre, whose hunger has often been equated by critics with anorexia nervosa, exhibits the motivations of the starving saints, or what the author terms 'female hunger artists', who often rebel against injustice while paradoxically displaying temporary female spiritual power by attracting attention through spectacle. Unlike most of the earlier hunger artists who point out their intense personal relationship with a God who sustains them, Jane's hunger artistry denotes a need for earthly justice, sustenance through books and female community, all of which, if realized, would make earth a heavenly home.

Bob Duckett
New landmarks in Brontë bibliography
Library Review 57 (1) 67 - 73 (2008)

Smith, Chistopher
Review of Villette by Charlotte Brontë. Ed. by Kate Lawson. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press. 2006. 647 pp. £7.99. ISBN 978-1-55111-461-3.
The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 2, 1 April 2008 , pp. 519-522(4)

You can also check BrontëBlog's review of the same edition here.


Categories: Journals, Scholar