Mrs Rochester becomes Heathcliff becomes Mr Rochester...

After being degraded to Dobby the house-elf it looks as if Gordon Brown has now left his Heathcliff/Mrs Rochester past in order to impersonate Mr Rochester himself, at least according to the London Evening Standard.

The image of Brown struggling with his failing eyesight to compose a letter to a soldier's mother will further bring out the Jane Eyre in female voters. Oh to feel Mr Rochester's bitten fingers outline the contours of one's face. (Sarah Sands)

Now, how many Brontë characters has the Prime Minister left to be compared to? Politics is not our thing but if the elections turn out badly for him we might expect to see some Cathy and her "let me in" mentions ;)

Another comparison with Wuthering Heights is that made by Watch with Kristin - and E! Online blog - in anticipation of Lost's sixth and final season.

So What Is Lost's One True Pairing? We find that a lot of good literature follows the same tropes and arcs, so in hopes of getting a teeny-tiny bit of clarity on the final-season direction of some of Lost's major romantic storylines, we asked Lost boss Lindelof to compare Sawyer's love life on Lost to the love story in any other fictional work. "Wow," said Lindelof, "Sawyer's love life compared to any..." (He looked a little dazed at all the possible options, so we threw The Notebook, Jane Eyre and Gilligan's Island at him as totally random starting points for thinking about the question.) "All way off so far!" Lindelof said, "Perhaps the relationship between Gilligan and the Skipper, because there's a lot of hitting on the head with hats...OK. Serious...I think Wuthering Heights is probably a good one then. We've got a little Heathcliff action going on."
Putting aside our memories of the wacky cartoon alley cat, we find Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights an incredibly intriguing answer to this question. Literary scholars: Compare the stories of Emily Brontë's Heathcliff and and Lost's Sawyer so far. Senior shipper analysts, please convene a white-paper committee in the comments section to debate and report on these and other questions: In a metaphor where Heathcliff is equivalent to Sawyer, which Lost character is Catherine Earnshaw? Who stands for Edgar and Isabella? Is there a young Cathy or a Hareton figure in Lost? Can Heathcliff/Sawyer ever overcome his basic wildness? And does this presage a tragic and perhaps lonely end for James Ford? (So much to discuss!) (Jennifer Godwin)

See, new generations? You have to read the classics in order to find clues on your favourite TV shows.

Also a classic: alluding to the Brontës' noms de plume whenever pseudonyms are disccused. As is the case today in the Guardian.

In the shadows of anonymity, Dr Magnanti [real name of blogger and call girl Belle de Jour] certainly had a career that many more recognised writers might have envied: huge sales, bestseller status and television spin-offs. Take away the contemporary spin, and not much here is new. Literary history, especially in the 18th century, is littered with writers who chose to write anonymously. At the low end they are all forgotten; at the high end they range from Jonathan Swift and Walter Scott to Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë. As so often in the past, something, in the end, persuaded Dr Magnanti to come clean. (Robert McCrum)

The Stanly News and Press (North Carolina) has an article on local theatre and reminisces about the origins of the current state of things:

In 1963, “Jane Eyre” was the first play to be performed at West Stanly, which opened its doors in 1962. At that time, the plays were reserved for seniors, and Judy Coble played the first ever leading role.

And speaking of theatre, Broadway World reviews The Mystery of Irma Vep, with its compulsory reference to Wuthering Heights.

Today's Leeds Daily Photo is that of the plaque at the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton. Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings reviews Jane Eyre and Project Bibliophile posts about Wide Sargasso Sea. Finally, YouTube user pillyliu has uploaded a video of John Woods Duke's musical setting of Emily Brontë's poem The Old Stoic (included in Six Songs on Poems by Emily Brontë, published in 1977). The performers are Jillian Baker, Soprano and Peter Liu, Piano.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Music, Poetry, References, Theatre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights