The most famous ladies of letters

Film.com wonders whether Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre will be the 'spookiest ever', judging by its trailer.

Arguably, it could be the darkest Jane Eyre ever -- a shuddersome thriller romance. Fukunaga reportedly spent a lot of time rereading Brontë's book so he could fathom what she "was feeling when she was writing it. That sort of spookiness that plagues the entire story ... there's been something like 24 adaptations, and it's very rare that you see those sorts of darker sides. They treat it like it's just a period romance, and I think it's much more than that."
A spookier Jane Eyre by the formidable talent behind Sin Nombre? How can that not send shivers of anticipation down our thriller-loving spines? (Christine Champ)

And The Herald (Scotland) reports that the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, will include Polly Teale's Brontë in its 2011 season (June 1-4).

Shared Experience further deconstructs the greats in Brontë. Written by Polly Teale, who directed Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie at the Citz this year, Brontë looks beyond fiction to the private lives of what are probably the most famous ladies of letters. (Neil Cooper)

And now the appalling news that a village in India has apparently forbidden single women from using mobile phones 'after at least 23 couples ran off to be secretly married in inter-caste marriages without their parents' approval in the past year'. Lemondrop echoes the news and adds a Wuthering Heights mention:

Even though caste discrimination is banned in India, it still pervades the countryside, so many parents were upset to see their children run off with others they did not think were worthy. So romantic, in a "Wuthering Heights" kind of way. Minus the ghosts. And the moors. Never mind. (Emerald Catron)

The Book Fairy's Heaven picks Jane Eyre among her top ten fiction heroines and Flickr user Tommimc has uploaded an atmospheric image inspired by Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

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Theology in a Bildungsroman

More scholar books with Brontë content:

Literary Theology by Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century
Rebecca Styler, University of Lincoln, UK

* Series : The Nineteenth Century Series
* Imprint: Ashgate
* Published: November 2010
* ISBN: 978-0-7546-6735-3* Rebecca Styler
Examining popular fiction, life writing, poetry and political works, Rebecca Styler explores women's contributions to theology in the nineteenth century. Female writers, Styler argues, acted as amateur theologians by use of a range of literary genres. Through these, they questioned the Christian tradition relative to contemporary concerns about political ethics, gender identity, and personal meaning. Among Styler's subjects are novels by Emma Worboise; writers of collective biography, including Anna Jameson and Clara Balfour, who study Bible women in order to address contemporary concerns about 'The Woman Question'; poetry by Anne Brontë; and political writing by Harriet Martineau and Josephine Butler.
As Styler considers the ways in which each writer negotiates the gender constraints and opportunities that are available to her religious setting and literary genre, she shows the varying degrees of frustration which these writers express with the inadequacy of received religion to meet their personal and ethical needs. All find resources within that tradition, and within their experience, to reconfigure Christianity in creative, and more earth-oriented ways.

"Romance, reason and reality in Anne Brontë's poetry" is the name of the chapter devoted to the Brontës.

New Perspectives on the European Bildungsroman
by Giovanna Summerfield
by Lisa Downward

* Imprint: Continuum
* Pub. date: 14 Oct 2010
* ISBN: 9780826434302

New Perspectives on the European Bildungsroman reflects the change in direction of research on the Bildungsroman, focusing on more psychological, authorial and feminist contents.
Departing from the father of the prototype of the genre, Goethe, the authors trace imperative pathways to its French, British, and Italian counterparts, examining spiritual and female Bildungsromane. A wide-ranging analysis provides fresh insights into the genre through comparative analyses of Bildungsromane both diatopically and diachronically, while critical analysis of novels such as Voltaire’s Candide, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, Collodi’s Pinocchio, Aleramo’s Una donna present new readings of the characters, plots and purposes of the most famous European novels.

Including: Female Developments in the Nineteenth Century: Neera’s Teresa, Lydia and L’indomani, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre by Lisa Downward.

Categories: Books, Scholar

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A wuthering routine

The Telegraph features Irish writer Edna O'Brien and shares her morning routine:

She works every morning at the arbutus wood desk that stands beside the fireplace, presided over by her two literary heroes, Joyce and Beckett. Before she begins she says a prayer, using rosary beads given to her by a priest at Westminster Cathedral, 'not always forgiving my enemies, but hoping that the bit of work to be written will get written'. Then she reads something – a passage from the Bible or Shakespeare, a poem by Ted Hughes, pages of Wuthering Heights – before settling down to write in longhand using the distinctive violet pens she bulk-buys in New York. (Matthew Dennison)

These travel tips from the Dover Post might have been compiled by a Brontëite as well:

Reading materials.On this latest trip I had Jonathan’s Franzen’s Freedom, Susan Cheever's Louisa May Alcott, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Michael Patrick MacDonald's All Souls, four old New Yorkers, two Times and a Newsweek. (Terry Marotta)

The Huddersfield Daily Examiner lists some of the Brontë-themed events taking place in Mirfield. And the Brontë Parsonage Blog highlights particularly the upcoming Full Brontë Night taking place this Friday (December 3rd)

Eidetic Traces discusses a few aspects of Wuthering Heights in depth. fashionEphemera posts about several adaptations of Jane Eyre. The Squee reviews Reader, I Married Him by Janet Mullany. And finally, Sadie & Gen posts several illustrations inspired by the Brontës' works.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Illustrations, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights

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Brontë in Wood Green

A new amateur production of Polly Teale's Brontë opens today in Wood Green, London:

Mountview Acting Programme presents
Brontë by Polly Teale
29 November to 11 December 2010.
Karamel Club

Brontë explores the real and imagined worlds of Charlotte, Emily and Anne as the fictional characters come to haunt their creators and shows how they are affected by their overbearing father and their brother Branwell’s descent into alcoholism and insanity.

This inspirational play is an ingenious and fascinating glimpse into the lives of an extraordinary family.

This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Nick Hern Books Ltd.

DIARY:
Monday 29 Nov 7.30
Tuesday 30 Nov 7.30
Wednesday 1 Dec 7.30
Thursday 2 Dec 7.30
Friday 3 Dec Tour: City of Westminster College*
Saturday 4 Dec 7.30
Sunday 5 Dec No Performance
Monday 6 Dec Tour: NESCOT, Epsom*
Tuesday 7 Dec Tour: Haringey 6th Form College*
Wednesday 8 Dec No Performance
Thursday 9 Dec Tour: Sussex Down College*
Friday 10 Dec 7.30
Saturday 11 Dec 3.00 7.30
*Tour dates are NOT open to public bookings  

Categories: Theatre

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Literature in Context

Alerts from the Literature in Context initiative with a Brontë twist:

Literature in Context is a national initiative that provides teacher CPD and student education programmes all over the country. Using a combination of British Library and local heritage collections and expertise we have developed workshops, resources and CPD activities for English teachers and students that will better meet the needs of visiting English Literature groups. Between now and the end of the March visit your local heritage collection, museum or archive to participate in a CPD event or workshop that will explore 19th century literary themes and suggest ways of critically engaging with challenging material. Some CPD events will also include a creative writing element being run in conjunction with the National Association for Writers in Education (NAWE) and generously funded by the British Library and the MLA.

Commissioned writer: Aoife Mannix


29 November 2010 - West Lane Baptist Chapel (Brontë Parsonage Museum)
17.30-19.00
‘Heaven did not seem to be my home’: hearth and home in two Brontë novels, contrasted with Jane Austen
Contact: Sue Newby: susan.newby@bronte.org.uk 01535 640 185

17 February 2011 - West Lane Baptist Chapel (Brontë Parsonage Museum)
17.30-19.00
The Gothic: exploring the uncanny with the Brontës and Dickens
In partnership with Charles Dickens Museum
Contact: Sue Newby: susan.newby@bronte.org.uk 01535 640 185

22 February 2011 - West Lane Baptist Chapel (Brontë Parsonage Museum)
17.30-19.00
NAWE creative writing workshop
Contact: Sue Newby: susan.newby@bronte.org.uk 01535 640 185

Categories: Alert, Brontë Parsonage Museum

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Charlotte in Sleep Mode

The Albany Times Union reminds us that one of the Kindle screensavers is the Evert A. Duyckinick 1873 portrait of Charlotte Brontë based on the George Richmond's:

I like that when it's not in use -- sleep mode -- various images appear on the screen. There are old prints from fish and bird books, portraits of Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, Agatha Christie and Emily Dickinson (although not a very flattering image). (Donna Liquori)

Picture Source:  E-könyv olvasók.

It seems that contemplation of the Wisconsin River in winter causes contradictory feelings. In the Warsau Daily Herald:

She pointed to the black forms bobbing ever so slightly in the distance.
"It's just great," she said. "It makes me want to read 'Wuthering Heights.'"
I did take a second look at the sky, and the trees and geese. And she was right. It really was beautiful in a looming sort of way, the kind of scene that requires a heavy orchestral score. It was dramatic, exciting.
But I did not feel the slightest urge to read "Wuthering Heights." (Keith Uhlig)

In The Sunday Times Houses of the Week section there is a Wuthering Heights mention:

Co Clare €950,000 Cherry House on Woodcock Hill, near Cratloe, could have come from the pages of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

Associated Content lists possible chick flicks for next year and Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre is included (a film that  midnatt till sju, in Swedish, awaits eagerly); Iris on Books posts about Wuthering Heights; The Powell Blog reviews Jane Eyre 1997; Amor, Mistério e Sangue English Version reviews April Lindner's Jane and ScribbleManiac shares some additional pictures of the North Lees Hall outbuildings.

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

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From the Coat to the Confetti

Some days ago we read on The Stir about a Wuthering Heights Coat:

If you invest in anything this fall and winter, Sarah Jessica Parker may convince you with this photo that it should be a really great Little Black Coat.
I know it's tough to spend money on a fabulous coat- They can be so expensive, even on sale.But I've never regretted the pretty ones I've splurged on over the years.
After all, you'll be wearing a coat almost every day once the cold weather sets in- A well-cut coat can make even your gym clothes look swellegant.
Or in Sarah Jessica's case, it can serve to "winterize" a lighter weight dress. Get Sarah Jessica's exact look on a budget with this divine Wuthering Heights Coat. 

As a matter of fact, the coat's name isWuthering Delights and it's available from ModCloth:

Though the wind may be blustery, this delightful coat has got you covered. Soft lines on the rounded collar, decorative bows on the cuffs and in back, and a flared, pleated skirt, all make for a flirty, feminine coat. Details like hidden pockets, secret functional buttons in the skirt, three heart-shaped buttons in front, subtle shoulder pads, and an adorable red and white polka dot liner will make this one coat you won’t let blow away from you. Wear this midnight black coat over a retro dress while the breeze billows, and you’ll make it down the fashion avenue with ease.

Wear it with a Wuthering Heights brass cuff (from JezebelCharms):

'Whatever our souls are made of his and mine are the same.' Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights.
Tempestuous and Gothic novel by British author Emily Brontë, first published in 1847. Lose yourself in the unrequited and dangerous love of Heathcliff and Cathy. The scripted quotation by Cathy is set upon 19th century imagery of the chapter that particular quote is from. Finished in weathered burgundy red.

And what about a Wuthering Heights Lavender flowered crown amid heather and lilacs (from ButterfliesWing):

A green framed lavander flowered crown accented with lilacs and heather. In my fevered imagination I pictured Heathcliff might have fashioned one of these for Cathy on the moors, lifetimes ago, imaginary worlds away.

If you wear it at a wedding you can throw Wuthering Heights confetti (from the etsy shop ddeforest) to the happy couple:

These hearts have been very popular for weddings! Scatter as table decoration,use instead of flower petals or have your guests toss them as you exit the chapel!
These little heart punches are so cute and so useful! They are taken from a vintage Wuthering Heights book. SO cool! use them in your scrapbooks, journals, on cards, lots of things to do with these!
You get 50 hearts. Measure about one inch.

Categories: Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

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Finding your Biographical Parents

The Huddersfield Daily Examiner adds another good reason to enjoy Christmas activities in Haworth (besides the ones we already posted about):

It is the start of their countdown to Christmas and you suspect one that provides an unforgettable memory for visitors to Haworth.
Marsh Ladies Choir will be making their now annual pilgrimage to the Brontë village to sing carols in its cobbled streets on December 5.
The ladies will wear Victorian costume including bonnets and shawls made by two choir members.
It is a chilly, annual trip to Haworth and one that delights tourists who love the special atmosphere that it creates. (Val Jabin)

And also an update from Imelda Marsden on the Brontë-themed events taking place at Mirfield.

The start to Mirfield's Brontë-themed charity events yesterday went well with a superb talk with slides by Helga Hughes, curator of the Red House Museum, Gomersal. A Writers' Friendship with a Brontë descendant present at Whiteley's garden centre restaurant across from the former Roe Head school where the Brontë sisters attended. After that, at 2.30pm, we went down to St Mary's church to open the church exhibition with the connection to the Brontës which they attended while they were at school in Mirfield. Today, Saturday 27th November, down at Eastthorpe, Mirfield, the Kirklees Brontë Group and the shops are going to be in costume. There is a  Brontë word clue competition up to Monday 6th December 12pm - the clue sheet can be picked up from the Mirfield library. Tomorrow, Sunday 28th November, a walk in the footsteps of the Brontë on the route they took from Roe Head school to St Mary's church, Church Lane, Mirfield. The walk starts at 1pm from the top end of Whiteley's Garden centre, Leeds Road, across from Holly Bank School (formerly Roe Head school), Mirfield. The walk ends at St Mary's Church with a chance to view the church/Brontë exhibition .On the walk some of us are to have collection tins for Help the Heroes. Warm refreshments and food will be served at the church after the walk. All are welcome on the walk.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about the page 69 test:

I picked a few books at random from my shelves and looked up page 69. The results varied wildly.
In Jane Eyre, I found a wonderful scene about the poor little girls at Lowood school, enduring hunger and cold and a grim pecking order where the biggest girls took over the space in front of the fire "and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores". (Jane Sullivan)

The Times asks singer, songwriter and DJ Sophie Ellis-Bextor about her party top ten playlist:

10 Wuthering Heights, by Kate Bush. An unexpectedly nice moment. 

Warren Clements's column in The Globe and Mail is particularly funny today:

Readers Jackie Norris-Dean and Christopher Dean pass along a WonderTypo from The Globe, the sort that sets the mind coursing. The author of an article on Michael Nyqvist, star of the Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, intended to say that the orphaned Nyqvist had been searching for information on his biological parents. Instead, the line emerged as, “So at age 30 he set out to find his biographical parents.”
Norris-Dean and Dean, playing with the notion of rewriting one’s biography to taste, comment: “This opens up possibilities of the most delightful parlour game to while away the long Canadian winters: Who would be your biographical parents? I immediately claimed descent from Anna Karenina and Heathcliff, ensuring a brief but thrilling life. My husband's considered choice of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy seemed at first unimaginative, until he pointed out that he was assured of the inheritance of the Pemberley estates at [£]10,000 a year!”

The Knoxville News Sentinel reviews Jamie Cox Robertson's An Uncommon Heroine:

Jami Cox Robertson's new book, "An Uncommon Heroine" (Adams Media), takes us up the family tree of such women, women we know on a first-name basis: Scarlett; Tess; Hester; Sula; Antonia.
There's Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, whose goodness shines through dark events; industrious, pragmatic Amy Dorrit from Charles Dickens' tale of how sudden riches don't necessarily bring happiness; Catherine Earnshaw from Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights," who, self-centered and vengeful though she is, softens our hearts with her love for Heathcliff. (Ina Hughs)

ABC (Spain) publishes the welcome speech given by José María Merino to celebrate the entrance tothe Royal Spanish Academy of Language (RAE) of writer Soledad Puértolas:

El universo de los escritores admirados por Soledad Puértolas abarca muchísimos más autores y autoras, pues es una lectora incansable y reflexiva, capaz de distinguir claramente los valores más significativos de cada uno. Entre otros, citaré de pasada a Tolstói, a Chéjov, a Baroja –sobre quien escribió una memorable tesis doctoral, El Madrid de La lucha por la vida—; a Chordelos de Laclos, a Emily Brönte (sic), a Stendahl (sic), a Zorrilla, a Flaubert, a Virginia Wolf (sic), a Thomas Mann, a Proust, a Kafka, a Raymond Chandler, a Cesare Pavese, así como a los poetas Fernando Pessoa y Carlos Drumond de Andrade. Soledad Puértolas es también buena aficionada al cine, por lo que no es raro que algunos críticos hayan encontrado en ella ciertas concomitancias con la estética de realizadores como Eric Rohmer, Louis Malle o François Truffaut. (Microsoft translation)

We hope that the typos come from the transcription. Otherwise it is unforgivable, taking into the account the scholarly context of the speech.

Ñ (from Clarín) (Argentina) mentions the broadcast of In Search of the Brontës in the Canal Encuentro (see sidebar for details):

Biopic sobre Charlotte Brontë. Una historia devastadora: cuatro muy jóvenes hermanos vencidos por la tuberculosis (entre ellos la célebre Emily), a quienes apenas sobrevive unos años. Fallece un mes antes de cumplir los 39. (Rafael Cippolini) (Microsoft translation)

Diario de Cádiz (Spain) covers the presentation of the book Cámara Oscura by Pilar Vera:

Sacado de contexto todo esto, podríamos pensar que estamos ante la habitante del ático de una mansión construida por las hermanas Brontë, pero [Óscar] Lobato nos situó: "Es una alquimista de las letras, con un vocabulario limpio, claro y rápido. Una mujer que ha leído mucho y ha viajado mucho. Con este libro reirán, sonreirán y hasta se carcajearán. Contentará al adolescente y al paladar del lector más exigente". (Pedro Ingelmo) (Microsoft translation)

La Ventana (Cuba) publishes another interview to Guadeloupean writer Maryse Condé, author of La Migration des Coeurs (Windward Heights):

Cuando leyó Cumbres Borrascosas, sintió que “Emily Brontë podía hablar a Maryse Condé más de un siglo después, porque su historia era similar”. Como escritora, ¿su sustrato es el ser humano, más que su tiempo?
—Como suelo decir, la literatura existe para decir la verdad. Y si la verdad de un ser humano dice también alguna verdad sobre su tiempo, pues el provecho es doble. La literatura no existe para inventar mundos mágicos: existe, acaso, para sacar lo mágico de nuestro propio mundo. Ese le pertenece a cada persona, por separado. (Marianela González) (Microsoft translation)

Rodrigo Fresán makes a passing reference to the Brontës on Página 12 (Argentina):

Y –cambiemos de tema, por favor– de un tiempo a esta parte cada vez pienso más en las góticas hermanas Brontë. Encerradas en su casa, a solas pero juntas, leyendo y escribiendo, el mundo entero como patio de atrás. (Microsoft translation)

Sud-Ouest (France) interviews Henri Courtade, author of Loup, Y est-tu?:

Doué pour l'écrit, grand amateur de livres classiques - Bernanos, Giraudoux, Chateaubriand, Brontë - Henri Courtade a des connaissances à revendre. (Microsoft translation)

Futurezone (Austria) talks about pseudonyms:

Ein Grund dafür, ein Pseudonym zu nutzen war beispielsweise der Wunsch, als weiblicher Literat ernstgenommen zu werden. Zu den Zeiten als die Brontë-Schwestern ihre Werke schrieben, war es für Frauen unschicklich, literarisch tätig zu werden, weshalb die Schwestern männliche Pseudonyme wie Ellis Bell wählten um zwar ihre Ideen zu veröffentlichen, darunter jedoch nicht gesellschaftlich leiden zu müssen.  (Bettina Winsemann) (Microsoft translation)

The New York Times mentions the 'Wuthering Heights anecdote' in Mark Twain's Autobiography; daydreaming posts about Jane Eyre 2006 and De rerum natura, desu does the same with Jane Eyre 1996 (in Russian) ; Small Review reviews positively Clare B. Dunkle's The House of Dead Maids; an also positive review of April Lindner's Jane is published on All-Consuming Books;  La Collezionista di Dettagli (in Italian) talks about a curious initiative called Ring di Lettura which will feature Charlotte Brontë's Henry Hastings in the Italian translation by Maddalena De Leo; come_daylight publishes more icons inspired by the trailer of Jane Eyre 2011; The Squeee has her own Jane Eyre sequels/derivatives/retellings list; Jayne's Books loves Jane Eyre.

Categories: Alert, Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Juvenilia, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Translations, Wuthering Heights

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Feeling a Postmodern Name

More Brontë-related scholar papers:

Barry, Herbert III
First Names of Fictional Characters in Novels by Charlotte Brontë
Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, 2009

The first name is a distinctive personal label. It usually distinguishes oneself from other family members and from most other people. In common with other novelists, Charlotte Brontë chose for many fictional characters the first name of an actual person who was important to her. Attributes of the fictional character might provide useful information on feelings of the author toward the actual namesake. An unusual attribute of the four novels by Charlotte Brontë is that the author revealed an actual person who was the model for more than two dozen fictional characters. Experiences of the author are reproduced by some of the fictional characters and by other aspects of the four successive novels The Professor, Jane Eyre, Shirley, and Villette. In each novel, one of the most important characters partially resembles Charlotte Brontë. A very minor character named Charlotte, in Villette, is the only fictional namesake of the author. Most of the actions and events in The Professor and in Villette are in Brussels, Belgium. In that foreign city, Charlotte Brontë was a student and then teacher at a school for young ladies. She fell in love with a teacher who was the husband of the school’s director.

Mead-Willis, S.
"Negotiating with the Dead": Jane Eyre in the Postmodern
Literature Film Quarterly, 2010, Vol 38; Numb 1, pp 29-38
The secret war of feeling: Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Villette

Millhouse, J.
The secret war of feeling: Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Villette
English Review, 2010, Vol 20; Numb 3, pp 32-34

Varley, Raymond
Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and the Real Wuthering Heights
Yorkshire History Quarterly, 2010, Vol 14; Numb 3, pp 9-23

Categories: Journals, Scholar

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The mad beetle in the attic

In The Telegraph, Antony Woodward brings up one of the greatest things about winter for us bookworms:

You ‘curl up’ or ‘settle down’ with a good book - it’s the language of hibernation, not of summer. You can heighten the effect by choosing your book well: Wuthering Heights is good. Apsley Cherrard’s The Worst Journey in the World is better.

Well, the selection is up to you. This being BrontëBlog we'd say that Wuthering Heights is better.

And if curling up with a good book can be topped, then that is by adding a steaming cup of tea to the picture. The New Yorker's Book Bench goes on a literary tour of tea and wonders,

Do you have favorite tea scenes in the novels by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, or the Brontë sisters? We started to make a list, only to find that tea is everywhere. Which important plot twists don’t involve tea? At teatime, would-be lovers exchange longing glances; mothers choose suitors for their daughters; and rivals trade veiled insults in polite, singsong tones. (Eileen Reynolds)

The Wall Street Journal reports that there's a poll on the 'most depressing book of all time' on Goodreads.

At Goodreads there's also a poll of the "Most depressing book of all time"; No. 1 is Anne Frank's "The Diary of a Young Girl." Wally Lamb's "I Know This Much Is True" and "She's Come Undone" are on both the light and depressing lists, as is "Jane Eyre." (Cynthia Crossen)

And so is Wuthering Heights, which is currently number 19 while Jane Eyre is way below on number 89.

The Wall Street Journal also takes a look at the world's most expensive books and mentions the recently-auctioned first edition of Wuthering Heights which, despite being so 'depressing', fetched £163,250.

We don't know which Brontë character - if any - the Future of the Left singer Andy Falkous has in mind when he says on The Vine,

Generally, I've been out on the streets like a man who occasionally buys a baguette from the shops, walks to work, meets someone at a train station, goes to the cinema if I can be arsed... these are my general street-wise enterprises. I don't stay in the house like a character in a Brontë novel, thinking what it would be like in the French countryside... (Everett True)

There's certainly a house where we wouldn't have wanted to stay, though. The Yorkshire Post reports that there's been a deathwatch beetle infestation at Norton Conyers - one of the supposed models for Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre - which is now over.

The infestation was first discovered in a 16th century Tudor hall table in the refectory, and was later found to have spread to the floorboards, roof, and many rooms – including an attic which was visited by Charlotte Brontë in 1839 and proved the inspiration for the mad woman in Jane Eyre. (Joe Shute)

The good news is that the house will reopen to the public in 2012.

The Yorkshire Post is also proud to be able to include Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights in the ever-growing number of films shot in Yorkshire.

As for blogs, Chachic's Book Nook discusses Jane Eyre, Un libro al giorno reviews - in Italian - Elizabeth Newark's Jane Eyre's Daughter and Iris on Books has compiled a Brontë reading list.

Categories: Books, Brontëana, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights

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Juliet Barker in Halifax, Auditions and Christmas

Alerts for today and tomorrow (November 26 and 27)
1. Juliet Barker presents The Brontës in Halifax:

26 November 2010
Calderdale Readers’ and Writers’ Festival
‘The Brontës Revisited’
7.30pm at The Central Library, Northgate, Halifax, HX1 1UN

Tickets can be reserved on 01422 392606 and are available from the venue and all Calderdale libraries.

Juliet says: "It’s not well known but the Brontë family had many connections with Halifax and the wider Calder Valley, so it’s excellent news that the Central Library is hosting this evening. I’ll be talking mainly about the new edition but I’ve no doubt that there’ll also be plenty of references to those connections. If not – ask me in the Q&A session afterwards! "

2. Auditions for a Jane Eyre-based drama play in Epping, New Hampshire:

Director Elaine Gatchell announces auditions for Leddy Center's production of the straight drama, Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre", Saturday, November 27, from 9am to 5am.  Please call our office at 679-2781, Monday through Friday, to set up an audition appointment.  Women, children, and men are needed.  There are 30 in the cast.  Rehearsals begin Feb. 5, and are on Sunday afternoons at 1:00pm and Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00pm.  Shows are two weekends, April 1-10, 2011.

3.  Haworth Christmas Festival:

Sat 27, Sun 28 Nov 2010
Pipes, Bows and Bells at Main Street, Haworth
Santa Specials at Keighley and Worth Valley Railway
Sat 4, Sun 5 Dec 2010
Pantomime Weekend at Main Street, Haworth
Santa Specials at Keighley and Worth Valley Railway
Sat 11, Sun 12 Dec 2010
Santa Specials at Keighley and Worth Valley Railway
Torchlight Procession Weekend at Main Street, Haworth
Sat 18, Sun 19 Dec 2010
Nativity Weekend at Main Street, Haworth
Santa Specials at Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

Categories: Haworth, Jane Eyre, Theatre, Talks

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Emily: 'femme dreamer'

It's definitely one of the topics of the moment, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights. Indie Movies Online has a nice recap on the history of the project, not even forgetting the canary. The Times also comments on James Howson playing Heathcliff.

The Quietus interviews R Loren about new album from Sailors With Wax Wings.

There's a romanticism (in the classical sense) to the album's tonality, but it almost seems like a writerly romanticism rather than the kind of romanticism metal standardly employs, as found in black metal or ambient doom for example. Do you feel this is a writerly record?
RL: That is an intriguing thought and a refreshing question. [Long pause] I suppose the term writerly is a bit subjective going across media, but I gather what you are saying, and I would say I agree completely. For a moment I am driven to think of the Brontë sisters. The aggressive density and grit that something like Wuthering Heights employs, all from the hand of a woman which at the time was both controversial and brought the steady beauty of the femme dreamer to the work...encompassing that fragile balance of beauty and aggression with an overarching melancholy... I definitely feel that coming from this record.
That's so weird. That phrase - 'the femme dreamer' - is the same phrase I use in my mind to discuss that aesthetic in Kate Bush's work. How strange that you'd put your work together with the Brontës and use that precise phrase.
RL: Wow. That is a trip! It is amazing to me that we both chose those words! I have always appreciated Kate's work, but it wasn't until last year that one of my students shared 'Wuthering Heights' with me. Intense stuff. (Petra Davis)

The Orlando Sentinel dares readers to 'name at least 10 famous people named Jane, Jayne or Janie'. The list they then provide includes 'Eyre'.

On the blogosphere, Serendipity posts about Wuthering Heights and Things Mean a Lot reviews Jude Morgan's The Taste of Sorrow.

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Wuthering Heights

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More Vampires

Another vanity-published Brontë mash-up just out:

Heathcliff, Vampire of Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë and Amanda Paris
November 23, 2010
Ebook

Something evil stalks Yorkshire. Traveling into the misty moors to investigate the dangerous vampire prowling for victims, the hunter, Lockwood, finds the strange owner of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, and becomes trapped in the evil enveloping all of Yorkshire. Driven nearly to madness by his unrequited love for Cathy, Heathcliff relates the horrors of the Heights. But will Lockwood survive it?

Categories: Books, Sequels, Wuthering Heights

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Heathcliff's skin colour: the debate

James Howson's role as Heathcliff is being much talked about even if all we know about it is the colour of the young actor's skin. The Guardian makes a good case for a dark-skinned Heathcliff:

Age: 163.
Appearance: Handsome, brooding and dark-skinned, like Laurence Olivier.
Laurence Olivier wasn't dark-skinned. Maybe more like Ralph Fiennes – you know, swarthy.
Sorry, but they're both white guys, and both quite pasty with it. OK, but they both played Heathcliff in adaptations of Wuthering Heights. And Heathcliff was basically a black guy.
You have evidence for this? As a child, Heathcliff was plucked from the streets of Liverpool and taken in by Mr Earnshaw. His actual provenance is unknown, but in Brontë's 1847 novel the boy is variously described as being "dusky" or "a gipsy". One character says he looks like "a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway".
Fascinating. What's a Lascar? It's a 19th-century term for an East Indian sailor.
Right. So he's dark-skinned but he has never been played by a dark-skinned actor. Until now, that is: a new adaptation directed by Andrea Arnold (who won an Oscar for Fish Tank) will star an unknown black actor called James Howson.
And about time, too. More to the point, Howson, in his early 20s, is about the right age for the young Heathcliff. Olivier, on the other hand, was 32 when he played the part. Timothy Dalton was 36[sic; that was when he played Mr Rochester. He would have been 25-26 when he played Heathcliff], and Cliff Richard was 56.
[...]
Do say: "I'm sure James Howson is a fine actor, as well as being the right colour."
Don't say: "At last someone is making an adaptation that is faithful to the spirit of this boring book for girls."

The collective image of Heathcliff, though, is erroneously white, such as this description of actor John Waters in the Wentworth Courier:

His Heathcliff good looks, both rugged and gentle, have helped give him the range to present Play School for nearly 20 years, play the cruel Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar and appear as the hero in countless musicals and dramas since his first Australian performance in 1969. (Margaret Rice)

As for the other Brontë film to come, Jane Eyre, IndieWire wishes for a Sundance release:

Jane Eyre, directed by Cary Fukunaga. Two years ago, Cary Fukunaga took Sundance by storm with his very well-received feature debut “Sin Nombre.” Given his anticipated follow-up - an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë “Jane Eyre” - already had an April release date [last we heard the official release date was March 11], a return to Sundance seems like an inevitable place to launch it. Featuring an impressively drool-worthy cast including Mia Wasikowska (as Jane Eyre), Michael Fassbender (as Edward Rochester), Sally Hawkins (as Mrs. Reed), Jamie Bell (as St. John) and Judi Dench (as Mrs. Fairfax), “Eyre” is a far cry from the entirely unknown cast that filled “Sin Nombre.” But one can hope that the films will have in common their use of Fukunaga’s clear talent and further suggest he’s a filmmaker to pay attention to. (Peter Knegt)

The New Straits Times arguably defends that no other classic can hold a candle to Moby Dick:

What would be their crowning glory in an otherwise successful life of reading.
It is something picked up and put down again. And far too quickly. A novel that is read five to six pages at a time. A book that forces us instead, to read The Waverly Novels, or Wuthering Heights, or The Brothers Karamazov. As if they were some kind of consolation. Unfortunately, no matter how long the literary resume, it would always feel incomplete. It would be lacking Ishmael’s lonely voice. Something that no amount of Scott could ever make up for.

Also arguable is this argument made by The Awl:

If it were up to J.K. Rowling, I think Jean Rhys would have been thrown in jail for daring to write Wide Sargasso Sea. Which is fanfic, too, come to that. (Maria Bustillos)

Arguable of course because of the huge difference in the situation: J.K. Rowling is still alive and well while by the time Wide Sargasso Sea was published in 1966 Charlotte Brontë had been dead and buried for 111 years.

And definitely not arguable but decidedly wrong is this statement from Jaunted:

Entrance fees are a hefty 15 GBP ($24) per person, which seems a lot until you realize that you're hanging out with the graves of Chaucer, Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin and a slew of other cultural and royal figures from ages past.

There's a Brontë sisters memorial in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner, but the Brontë sisters, as we all know, are buried in Haworth (Charlotte and Emily) and in Scarborough (Anne). So those are the places to go in case anyone does want to 'hang out' with their graves.

The Brontë Parsonage Blog has a very interesting account of Juliet Barker's recent talk. Inspired with Elegance and Creativity and La canción de Arcadia (in Spanish) both post about Jane Eyre. ScribbleManiac writes about a trip to York and wonders what sort of 'old-fashioned' dress Emily would have worn.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Talks, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights

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Sanctuaries and the Victorian Novel

New scholar books with Brontë-related content:

Sanctuaries of Light in Nineteenth-Century European Literature
Walter, Hugo G.
Series: Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature - Volume 102
Peter Lang Publishers, 2010
ISBN 978-1-4331-0913-3

This collection of insightful and provocative essays explores the theme of sanctuaries of light in nineteenth-century European literature, especially in selected works by William Wordsworth, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Joseph von Eichendorff, and Charlotte Brontë. These sanctuaries of light, natural beauty, and serenity comfort, nurture, and revitalize the heart, mind, and soul of the individual and inspire creative expression.
This book will be of interest to professors, teachers, and scholars in the fields of English literature, German literature, European literature, comparative literature, and cultural studies.

Chapter 4 is devoted to Charlotte Brontë.

The American Slave Narrative and the Victorian Novel
Julia Sun-Joo Lee
ISBN13: 9780195390322
Hardback, 202 pages
March 2010


Conceived as a literary form to aggressively publicize the abolitionist cause in the United States, the African American slave narrative remains a powerful and illuminating demonstration of America's dark history. Yet the genre's impact extended far beyond the borders of the U.S. In a period when few books sold more than five hundred copies, slave narratives sold in the tens of thousands, providing British readers vivid accounts of the violence and privation experienced by American slaves. Eloquent, bracing narratives by Frederick Douglass, William Box Brown, Solomon Northrop, and others enjoyed unprecedented popularity, captivating audiences that included activists, journalists, and some of the era's greatest novelists.
The American Slave Narrative and the Victorian Novel investigates the shaping influence of the American slave narrative on the Victorian novel in the years between the British Abolition Act and the American Emancipation Proclamation. The book argues that Charlotte Brontë, W. M. Thackeray, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, and Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson integrated into their works generic elements of the slave narrative-from the emphasis on literacy as a tool of liberation, to the teleological journey from slavery to freedom, to the ethics of resistance over submission. It contends that Victorian novelists used these tropes in an attempt to access the slave narrative's paradigm of resistance, illuminate the transnational dimension of slavery, and articulate Britain's role in the global community. Through a deft use of disparate sources, Lee reveals how the slave narrative becomes part of the textual network of the English novel, making visible how black literary, as well as economic, production contributed to English culture.
Lucidly written, richly researched, and cogently argued, Julia Sun-Joo Lee's insightful monograph makes an invaluable contribution to scholars of American literary history, African American literature, and the Victorian novel, in addition to highlighting the vibrant transatlantic exchange of ideas that illuminated literatures on both sides of the Atlantic during the nineteenth century. 

Chapter One: The Slave Narrative of Jane Eyre.  

Categories: Books, Scholar

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Andrea Arnold's Edgar

A new name in the cast of Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights. Edgar Linton is played by James Northcote:

Picture credits: Shambhala

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights

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Apocryphal Emily

Andrea Arnold may have wished to keep it secret, but her choice of Heathcliff is causing quite a stir. Lots of news outlets are talking about him: the Guardian, the Yorkshire Evening Post, Digital Spy, Film Shaft, Empire, Chud.com, Up and Comers, Indie Wire...

Apparently according to writer Alan Bennett's partner, he's a sort of walking Heathcliff. From the Guardian:

There's a story, possibly apocryphal, about Bennett in which he says: "It's funny that people think I'm so nice, I'm actually a bit of a cunt." He laughs when I mention it. Oh no, he says, you've got it all wrong. "It was Rupert, my partner, who said it. He'd been watching Wuthering Heights and he said 'You're a bit like Heathcliff. I said: 'Oh!' He said: 'Yeah, difficult, northern and a cunt.' So he said it, not me." Is that a fair assessment? "Yes, that's all right, that's fine. I'm quite happy with that." (Simon Hattenstone)

If someone is looking for the perfect background music for curling up on the sofa with Wuthering Heights, Straight.com may have the answer:

[Alexander Scriabin]'s Sonata No. 3 has a movement (double-dotted) that is one of the hardest in the book to play, but that Glenn Gould described as perhaps best enjoyed while reading Wuthering Heights. I quite agree and couldn’t see that [pianist Jane] Coop had the slightest difficulty with it. (Lloyd Dykk)

The Hindustan Times has advice on how to react if you happen to come across a valuable copy of Wuthering Heights at the Daryaganj Book Bazaar.

The best trick: if you are an Emily Brontë fan, pretend to be totally bored on spotting a weather-beaten 1877 edition of Wuthering Heights.

Funny they should mention - randomly, we expect - that particular 1877 edition, as it is the one that the Yorkshire tourism board gave to the National Library of Singapore earlier this year.

And The Hindu locates yet another Brontëite: writer Ruskin Bond.

Bond also talks about the authors who have influenced his writing. “I loved reading Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters as a child. Authors like P.G. Wodehouse, Somerset Maugham and H.E. Bates also inspired and influenced me.” (Swati Daftuar)

With the new Wuthering Heights as well as the new Jane Eyre, it seems quite unlikely in the short term that Home and Away star Lisa Gormley's wish comes true. The Press Association quotes her as exclaiming the following in an interview for Inside Soap:

Give me a sweeping garden and a corset, and I'm happy. Brontë me up! Austen me!

Now for a bit of apocryphal Emily Brontë. First from The Telegraph and Argus:

Also going strong is the custom involving a group of people gathering on Ilkley Moor on New Year’s Eve to sing the Yorkshire anthem Ilkley Moor Baht ’At – which translates as ‘without a hat’.
But they don’t sing the song as we know it. They believe it was written in 1834 by Emily Brontë when she lost her cat Bart. Using the words ‘Bart Cat’, and adapting the rest of the song to match the tale, they sing the song at midnight, the moment they believe the moggy was lost. (Helen Mead)

And also from Al Coombs's blog:

I’ll bet you a dollar per poem written that Emily Brontë read a trashy novel every now and then.

The Telegraph and Argus regrets having recently written about “the late Peggy Hewitt”, author, among others, of Brontë Country. Now that she's been mercifully brought back to life she speaks to the newspaper about life at 'Oldfield House, that lovely old building on the edge of the ‘Brontë Moors’.'

The Santa Barbara Independent has an article on a local production of The Mystery of Irma Vep, with the suitable Brontë references.

Evelyn Tiffany-Castiglioni has uploaded to her YouTube account Emily Brontë's poem 'Yes, holy be thy resting place' set to the old Scottish tune "Hey, Tutti, Taeti". Cindy's Almanac of Good Tales reviews April Lindner's Jane. And finally, Joy daisies and cartwheeling posts her thoughts on Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage.

Categories: Brontëites, Emily Brontë, Haworth, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Poetry, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

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Festive Candlelit Tours at Brontë Parsonage

A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Festive Candlelit Tours at Brontë Parsonage

The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth is opening its doors for two very special tours on Tuesday 30 November and Tuesday 7 December. The museum is inviting members of the public to come along and enjoy a festive guided tour of the museum by candlelight. The evenings will include mulled wine and other festive treats, as well as the tour of the candlelit museum. There will also be an opportunity to visit the museum library, which is not normally open to members of the public, to see various Brontë treasures at close quarters.

The Parsonage is always decorated for advent with traditional holly and ivy, which looks wonderful, but it will be a very special experience to see the period rooms of the house also lit by candles. It’s very atmospheric and gives an even greater sense of the house as a home. In the Brontës’ time Christmas was of course a religious festival, without all the commercial emphasis we have now. We like to think that these evenings will capture something of Christmas past and we hope that people will come along and enjoy that.
Andrew McCarthy
Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

The special tours will take place on Tuesday 30 November and Tuesday 7 December at 7.00pm. Places cost £14 and MUST be booked in advance. For further details and bookings contact bronte@bronte.org.uk/ 01535 640194

EDIT: Also on Keighley News.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum

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Charlotte Brontë, life-saver

BlogHer user Marinagraphy writes about the six writers who saved her life. One of them is Charlotte Brontë:

Charlotte Bronte: Without the friends that my son relies on for his social development, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre became my childhood friend. She and I suffered parallel lives, and the first time I met her, when I was around twelve, I couldn't believe someone had imagined my childhood. Jane Eyre and I were both orphaned at a young age; while her parents had died, mine had separated and agreed on giving me away. She and I both ended up being taken in by our rich uncles, whose spoiled children ostracized and openly rejected us. Feeling burdened by our presence, they placed us in orphanages. Even though Jane remained in her orphanage until her eighteenth birthday and I only stayed in mine for one year, we still shared the conflicts of abandonment and seclusion in living in one. And of course, we both became teachers, found love, and discovered madwomen in our attics -- hers was the wife of the man she loved, and mine was the mother that had given me birth and the precarious life I was forced to maneuver without adult aid. Jane showed me courage in the face of abandonment and hypocrisy. She taught me about the kind of determination that is needed to survive loneliness, childhood, toxic people and their selfish vices. She educated me on the necessity of knowing who I was and holding onto my identity even when others fought to change me. She balanced strength and vulnerability, kindness and willfulness, and she became the guardian of my childhood.

The daughter of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle's columnist might share her opinion about the power of books:

My daughter was not raised on television, and I think it's the reason why, at 15 years old, Ariel takes weekly trips to the library and picks up book titles by the likes of Tolstoy and Brontë. (Susan Ashline)

The Yorkshire Post has a brief article on our newest Heathliff, though nothing new is said. And Empire seems to find Wuthering Heights vibes in the trailer of the forthcoming film Brighton Rock.

We'd slightly question the trailer's focus on the actually very un-lovely love story though, which seems to promise a Wuthering Heights vibe we're sure won't actually be there. (Owen Williams)

On the blogosphere, Chrisbookarama reviews Villette, Life according to Lizzy Lizzard posts about Jane Eyre's Daughter by Elizabeth Newark and Literary Legacies Blog has a post - with pictures - on the Brontë moors.

Categories: Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Villette, Wuthering Heights

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Recent Scholarship (II)

More recent scholar Brontë-related papers:

Borie, C.
De la petite chanson aux rafales du vent : le parcours de la ritournelle dans l'oeuvre poetique d'Emily Brontë
Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens 2010 Issue 71, pp. 255-264
Abstract:
According to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the ritornello's first formulation is the little song a child sings to himself to find comfort when alone in the dark. It is a sound that repeats itself, forms a centre, becomes a motif, ends up coming in a rhythmic contact with what surrounds the territory it has created, until it vibrates in harmony with the Cosmos. This little song is to be found in Emily Brontë's poetry, repeating itself, evolving, up until its essence is finally endorsed by the voice of the wind which woos the poet into a poetic transe. The incantatory resurgence of the ritornello punctuates the poetic mind's trip from fancy to imagination, along which the idea of return applies less to the memory than to the repressed.

Morrison, K.A. 

``Whose Injury Is Like Mine?'' Emily Brontë, George Eliot, and the Sincere Postures of Suffering Men
Novel - 2010 Vol 43; Number 2, pp. 271-29, Brown University

Hagan, Edward A.
Transforming Nostalgia for the Victorian: Clare Boylan’s Charlotte Brontë Novel, Emma Brown
Costerus, Goodbye Yeats and O’Neill. Farce in Contemporary Irish and Irish-American Narratives. 2010, Numb 183, pp. 149-164

Stevie Davies
Growing Up and Zoning Out: Charlotte and Emily Brontë
Essays and Studies, 2009, Vol 62 pp. 107-124  107-124

Categories: Journals, Scholar

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Nothing on the Brontës

Kathy Lette passed the Life in the UK Test and complains about the absence of great British names in the Daily Mail:

But a quick flick through the handbook had me sweating like Paris Hilton attempting a sudoku. Nothing on the Brontës or Blake, Coleridge or Chaucer, Wodehouse or Wordsworth. Britain’s greatest claim to global fame, William Shakespeare, was also completely absent.

The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reviews Peril at Somner House by Joanna Challis:

Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca" has been a favorite of mine since childhood, which made Joanna Challis' mystery "Peril at Somner House" (Minotaur, $25.99), featuring du Maurier as an amateur sleuth, all the more appealing. A winter storm strands du Maurier at Somner House, off the coast of Cornwall. Since du Maurier can't "resist a mystery . . . so beguilingly set on an island," when the lord of the manor is murdered, she investigates. With its ornamental facades, closed rooms, and inhabitants whose "hidden tensions lurked behind their display of affection," Somner House looms large in the story. Parallels to Anne Brontë's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" abound in this charming mystery with enough melodrama and suspense to please any lover of the gothic romance. (Carole E. Barrowman)

The New Yorker interviews Janie Bryant, author of The Fashion File: Advice, Tips, and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men:

She loved them, too, and always took us to the Tivoli theatre in Chattanooga (I grew up in Tennessee), where we’d watch movies like “Wuthering Heights” and “On the Town.” (Kate Bittman)

The Mid-Willamette Valley Statesman Journal interviews Teresa Lucas, Common Sense For Oregon's Community Outreach Coordinator:

In college, she said, her professors would tease her before starting on a certain book — "Madame Bovary", say, or "Wuthering Heights" — because they knew she wouldn't like it.
"I loved the storytelling," she said. "But I would always get frustrated, because I would think, 'These are bad people.'" (K. Williams Brown)

The Miami Herald reviews You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin:

Although You Lost Me There is moving and genuine, it’s not always enjoyable. Baldwin is not writing about the sort of sadness that can sweep us away, the Heathcliff-banging-his-forehead-on-a-tree kind of grief. The sadness in these pages is about the emotional inadequacy that everyone feels, that total loneliness that overtakes us despite love and family, and the ultimate fear of losing our faculties, losing what makes us who we are.  (Fiona Zublin)

The Guardian has an interesting article about women scientists in the Royal Society where the Brontës are mentioned:

Certainly compared with their literary sisters, the scientific women of the 19th century still appear invisible, if not actually non-existent. What female scientific names can be cited to compare with Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, the three Brontë sisters, George Eliot or Harriet Martineau? (Richard Holmes)

Pet naming is the subject of thsi article in Fort-Wayne Journal Gazette:

When I was in my 20s, I had a lot of friends who had pets with cool-sounding names – ones that were designed to show how effortlessly hip or intellectual they were. Hemingway, for instance. Or something stark and awesome, like “X.” I knew a girl back then who had a cat named Bronte for God’s sake. (Emma Downs)

naybob posts on titkketyboo some icons from the trailer of Jane Eyre 2011 and songstressicons does the same on citadel_icons with Jane Eyre 2006.

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

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Andrea Arnold's Heathcliff

According to the Daily Mail, we finally  know who plays Heathcliff in Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, which recently finished shooting: James Howson. The article also mentions some of the locations: Moor Close (some scenes at Wuthering Heights) and Cotescue Park (which is Thrushcross Grange).
Picture Credits: David O'Neill / D K Images

An unknown black actor has landed the role of Heathcliff in a big-screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
James Howson is believed to be the first non-white actor to star in the role in any screen adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic 1847 novel.
Howson, who is in his early 20s and from Leeds, will follow in the footsteps of Hollywood legends Laurence Olivier, Ralph Fiennes and Timothy Dalton.
And by casting him for the pivotal role the production team may have fulfilled Bronte’s wishes – because some academics believe Heathcliff was not meant to be white.
In the novel, the young Heathcliff is found abandoned at the former slave port of Liverpool by the kindly Mr Earnshaw, who adopts him.
The boy is described as a ‘dark-skinned gypsy in aspect and a little lascar’ – a 19th Century reference to sailors from India.
Film insiders say the production team felt other adaptations relied too heavily on established actors.
In an attempt to return to the ­novel’s roots – which centre around doomed teenage lovers – they looked to cast unknowns.
An insider said they even wandered around the streets of Leeds looking for likely ‘Heathcliffs’ and held auditions for young actors with no previous experience.
They initially wanted a member of the Romany community, but no suitable candidate could be found.Kaya Scodelario, 18, who plays Effy Stonem in the Channel 4 series Skins, is playing the beautiful but doomed Cathy opposite Howson.
One source close to the film said: ‘Previous versions have had people in their mid-30s running up and down the moors and that is not what the novel is about at all. This is all about going back to basics.
Andrea Arnold, the Film4 movie’s Oscar-winning director, has been filming key scenes at Moor Close – a desolate farmhouse in the North Yorkshire Moors which has no ­electricity or running water.
Cotescue Park in Coverham, also North Yorkshire, is being used as Thrushcross Grange, the home of the wealthy Linton family.
Arnold went to great lengths to conceal the identity of her male lead. Howson has no social networking sites and cannot be traced through the internet.
The cast have all been staying at the £85-a-night Kings Head in Richmond, North Yorkshire. Much of the filming, which ended on Tuesday, was shot under conditions of strict secrecy in and around the village of Thwaite.
But Miss Scodelario hinted on Twitter about gruelling 6am starts in freezing conditions.The party to mark the end of filming was held at The Old Board Inn, a small pub in the village of Hawes, close to the film set.
The following morning Howson, looking somewhat worse for wear, confirmed that he was playing Heathcliff.
He said: ‘The filming went really well. Yeah, I’m from Leeds. I don’t really know if I’m ­supposed to be doing this. I should really speak to someone first – not my agent – someone else.’
It is believed the new production has cost around £5 million. (Chris Hastings)

Picture: Cotescue Park
A rather fine country house of 1666 [according to Pevsner]with a five bay 18th century front.
  © Copyright Gordon Hatton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights

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Recent Scholarhip (I)

Recent Brontë-related scholar articles:

Ashly Bennett
Shameful Signification: Narrative and Feeling in Jane Eyre
Narrative - Volume 18, Number 3, October 2010, pp. 300-323
"For shame! for shame! … What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre." —Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Is Jane Eyre the heroine of shame? Would such a reframing of the character famously dubbed the "heroine of fulfillment" constitute its own shamefully "shocking conduct"? Widely understood as a model of engaging and empowered female voice, Jane Eyre's distinctive "I" has often seemed bolstered, especially, by the emotional display and pull of that voice. Not just feeling, but specific feelings have captured critical attention, with anger and sympathy attaining pride of place in feminist assessments of Brontë's novel and of novelistic feeling in both Victorian and contemporary culture. From Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's influential reading of Jane Eyre's anger as exemplary of "rebellious feminism" to more recent critiques of the normalizing "triumph of sympathy" staged by the novel's end, the fraught yet potent agency, self-assertion, and emotional invitation of Jane Eyre's autobiographical narrative, and especially her voice, have been understood to thrive on anger... 

Gillett, R.
Emily Brontë Religious radical?
English Review, 2010, Vol 20; Numb 3, pp. 38-41

Crow, A.
Romanticism and Jane Eyre
English Review, 2010, Vol 21; Numb 1, pp. 26-28  Ian Brinton

Emily Brontë and Sir Walter Scott
The Use of English, 2009 Vol 60; Numb 2, pp. 111-116

P. Fletcher
Wuthering Heights and Lord David Cecil
The Use of English, 2009 Vol 60; Numb 2, pp.105-110

Categories: Journals, Scholar

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