Heart-stopping, passionate moments

We wonder what a Brontë-like clerical circle is exactly as it appears in this article on EDP 24 concerning the autumn season of the Aldeburgh Theatre in Snape, Suffolk:

English Touring Opera make their annual visit to Snape while at the same time honouring George Frideric Handel on the 250th anniversary of his death. They open on Friday November 13 (7.30pm) with Ariodante, an opera that starts and ends with celebration but, in between, characters confront their worst fears and the darkest side of their natures. Some are broken by suffering, others redeemed, but all are transformed in the course of a day. ETO's celebrated production, directed by Robin Norton-Hale and conducted by Benjamin Bayl, keeps the action of this powerful drama on the Scottish coast but translates it to Brontë-like clerical circles. (Tony Cooper)

Catholic schools teaching Wuthering Heights on The Catholic Spirit.

Vulpes Libris interviews Trevor Byrne:

LG: How did you get into teaching Creative Writing, and is it something you’d consider doing again in the future?
TB: (...)Joyce and Maupassant and Borges and the Bronte sisters will always be around. It’s important to read those writers and appreciate them, to understand what they do and how they do it, but you can make some room for other, less vaunted stuff too, especially if it engages your class, which is ultra important.

BlogCritics interviews author Joanne Sundell:

Joanne grew up reading romance, falling in love with heroes and heroines from Regency England to the American West, from London’s pubs to Colorado’s ski slopes, loving that moment when the hero and heroine meet and fall in love. That moment to Joanne is the moment when Jane Eyre meets Edward Rochester, when Elizabeth Bennett meets Mr. Darcy — that’s the heart-stopping, passionate moment for Joanne in romance. (...)
*Here’s a fun question. You’ve met an old friend from high school and you want to pitch your book to him/her in five minutes or less. What would you say?
Joanne: Do you remember in English lit, when we studied the Bronte` sisters? I loved Emily’s Wuthering Heights, but Charlotte’s Jane Eyre stole my heart, immediately pulling me into Jane and Edward’s impossible, suspenseful love story. The themes in Jane Eyre are timeless and powerful. It’s the first romance I read where I couldn’t put the book down. I wrote Meggie’s Remains in homage to Jane Eyre, but with a twist. I brought Jane’s story and character to nineteenth century America, wondering what might happen if Jane’s situation went from bad to worse … to worse! (Dorothy Thompson)

And the Boston Literature Examiner does the same with Ceridwen Dovey:

Peter Franklin: Are there any authors, living or dead, that have had a major influence on your style? What are a few of your favorite books?
CD: Coetzee (see above), and other South African authors like Damon Galgut and Andre Brink. South African literature - for obvious reasons - has a tendency to be bleak, pared down, bare and I was conscious of that tradition while writing Blood Kin. A few of my favorite books: Wide Sargasso Sea; Dusklands; Villette; A Bend in the River.

Curiously enough, two reviews of Robert Schwentke's film adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife coincide in bringing Wuthering Heights references:

The line between "romantic" and "creepy" is often pretty wriggly: You need look no further than "Wuthering Heights" or "Vertigo" to see what's compelling about destructive romantic obsession. But those works are effective because they own the courage of their convictions; they don't tiptoe around their subject in candy-ass half measures. (Stephanie Zacharek on Salon.com)

There's nothing that jerks a tear like two people head over heels who can't be together -- Catherine and Heathcliff because of death; Rick and Ilsa because of Hitler; Will and Grace because of . . . well, you know what we mean. (John Anderson in The Washington Post)

Reading with twilightgecko is confused about Wuthering Heights, Tea and Paperbacks is concerned about the romantic labeling of Emily Brontë's novel, knittering posts several nice pictures of Haworth's heather, The Scrapper Poet and Fiction Addiction briefly review Denise Giardina's Emily's Ghost, Period Drama Экранизации и костюмированное кино talks about Wuthering Heights 2009 (in Russian), alita.reads. is in the middle of reading Jane Eyre, Mr. Rostan's Thoughts About Things reviews Charlotte Brontë's novel (highlighting in particular the fascinating undercurrent of lesbianism in the novel). The Devil's Advocate is reading Villette and compares the Brontës' writings with modern chick-lit authors.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights