"The Brontës are the reason I am doing what I am doing"

The Lancaster New Era has an article on the current Brontë-related exhibition organised by the Lancaster (PA) Literary Guild.

The Lancaster Literary Guild has put the Brontës in the spotlight with their new exhibit, "A Portrait of the Family as Artists," which runs through Dec. 17. (Call for hours.)
A year in the making, the exhibit features reproductions of family letters, poems and numerous sketches and paintings of and by the family, as well as a narrative of their all-too-brief lives.
The exhibit has been a labor of love for Betsy Hurley, the executive director of the Lancaster Literary Guild, who put it together with the help of interns Constance Renfrow and Hillary Flynn.
"The Brontes are the reason I am doing what I am doing," Hurley says.
She became fascinated by them when she was attending the Nightingale-Bamford School, a girl's prep school in New York City. One of her teachers was a Bronte scholar who introduced her to their story and their work.
"They led such short lives, yet they accomplished so much, " Hurley says. "When you know the story of the Brontës you just can't believe the tragedy."[...]
Hurley notes that their work has remained so popular because of their amazing gifts as writers.
"They developed these beautiful, down-to-earth, complex love stories. I think the relationships they develop were more moving than the Austen books. And there is a desperation to them too," she says. [...]
It's a bleak story," Hurley says. "But there is a strong strand of hope in this. This enormous amount of creativity. They left behind so much."
Their isolation informed their work a great deal.
"They had no distractions," Hurley notes. "They counted on each other. They had to be good company for one another. And it really affected their writing. The settings (in the novels) are close to home and they have a depth you might not find in another kind of life."
Certainly, the great novels and the intense tragedy and brilliance of the family has captivated generations of literature lovers.
Hurley says the exhibit will travel to libraries and schools after it ends its run at the guild. (Jane Holahan)

On the other side of the pond, the Yorkshire Post mentions the Brontë Parsonage Museum as one of the literary links of Yorkshire.

This journalist from the Camden New Journal might do well to visit either venue (Haworth is closer to where he is) to get things straight:

Gordon Brown is now ready to give his tormented Heathcliff in Jane Eyre, whilst splendidly dressed Cherie Blair should be snapped up to play the evil housekeeper in Daphne Du Maurier’s thriller Rebecca. (Dan Carrier)

While it is true that Gordon Brown has been likened to more Brontë characters than we can remember, including both heathcliff and the first Mrs Rochester, that is no reason why Heathcliff should now be transplanted into Jane Eyre.

On the blogosphere, My Side of the Story posts about Shirley in French. And both Bloggin' 'bout Books and Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books review April Lindner's Jane.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Jane Eyre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights