Number one literary hero: Mr Rochester

Though not yet published on their website, the results for the joint survey carried out by Mills & Boon and the Cheltenham Literary Festival on literary heroes are already public. Our very own (well, wishful thinking and all that) Mr Edward Fairfax Rochester is the winner, as reported by The Telegraph:

Rochester, the lead male character in Jane Eyre, published in 1847, topped the Mills & Boon survey despite his moodiness and lack of good looks.
Brontë described Rochester, who in the novel marries Jane Eyre despite her lowly position as a former governess, as "very grim" to look at.
Richard Sharpe, Bernard Cornwell's soldier, who was brought to the screen by Sean Bean in an ITV drama series, was voted second in the Literary Hero survey and Fitzwilliam Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, was relegated to a surprisingly lowly third.
The results were announced at an event at the Cheltenham Literary Festival on Tuesday afternoon, where guests were served pink champagne by scantily-clad waiters.

The Times connects this subject to the topic of authors revising their own books.

One could argue, too, that the great works don’t need rewriting: Mr Rochester, unsurprisingly, has recently been voted the nation’s favourite literary romantic hero (despite that pesky wife in the attic: will we women never learn?): Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre stands the test of time; no substantial revisions required. Though she did scatter minor corrections through the first three editions, so we may allow ourselves to wonder if Charlotte ever chewed her pen, thinking: There was no possibility of going for a stroll that day . . ? (Erica Wagner and Chloe Lambert)

Until the full results are disclosed we won't know how Heathcliff has fared in the survey but he's also been breaking hearts for decades, sometimes helped by the actors playing him. The Los Angeles Times interviews Oscar-winning editor Anne V. Coates.

[S]he had discovered the magical power of cinema when she saw William Wyler's 1939 classic version of "Wuthering Heights."
"I fell madly in love with Laurence Olivier like everybody else did," Coates recalls. (Susan King)

Another adaptation, the recently-released Wuthering Heights 1967, is briefly described in the Dallas News as follows:

Wuthering Heights– 1967 BBC version starring Deadwood's Ian McShane. Dude, watch your language. (Chris Vognar)

The Leighton Buzzard Observer interviews Northern Ballet's artistic director David Nixon, who speaks of the enduring relevance of Wuthering Heights.

Why is Wuthering Heights, which came to Milton Keynes Theatre in May, still relevant to audiences today?
The story represents the best and the worst of us, and what could have been. It could have been the most fulfilled relationship in history if Cathy and Heathcliff had followed the path of knowing that they were meant for each other. It explores all the range of love, the wildness of our nature.
I created this theme of the young children that runs the whole way through the ballet because to me they represent the time when there is absolute harmony and joy, these two young people who are so fulfilled with one another. Real love is when you don't need anything else and they represent that.
But then as we grow up we change. Or, as in the case of Heathcliff, we don't.
Heathcliff stays true to his feelings for Cathy, but she enters into this whole concept of "what else can I have in life?" She becomes class sensitive and is hungry for position and gain once she has been up to the Grange and has this experience of the grander life.
Do we marry the one we love or do we marry for what we will have in life? And if it is the latter what do we ultimately achieve? Heathcliff thinks that by recreating himself, by having money and position, he will win Cathy back.
But there is a huge shift in his character through that process, and he becomes dark and evil. This is evident in his treatment of Isabella.
The story deals with the wildness of love, and the ruling power of love and our human capacity to struggle. From an emotional and a class point of view I think it is still relevant today.
I chose to bring back Wuthering Heights because it has not been done since I first created it and now is the time for the company to revisit it. I think it symbolises what I was trying to do when I first came which was continue Christopher's narrative mission and yet it has a different element to it and it introduced a stronger level of dancing for the Company as a whole.

The Telegraph and Argus reminds the people in or around Haworth of the Brontë Society's appeal for unknown Brontëana.

Categories: Brontëana, Dance, Haworth, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights