V-Day stuff

Today being the day it is, you know what today's newsround is mostly going to be like, don't you?

OpEdNews puts the day in context:

Valentine's Day is billed as a day of romance, but did you know that romantic love blossomed during the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine's Courts of Love, where one of their judgments about love was that it could not be found in marriage. That began a long line of stories about tragic romantic lovers from Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Lancelot and Guinevere to Heathcliff and Cathy, Gatsby and Daisy, Jane Eyre and Rochester, Scarlett and Rhett to Elizabeth and Richard and Vivian and Lawrence. (Cathy Lynn Pagano)

The Suffolk Times looks at what they call 'romance novels':

The sheer number of romance novels is mind-boggling. They can range from Harlequin romances to “Jane Eyre.” Love poems and sonnets are in abundance. King Solomon wrote the “Song of Songs,” found in the Old Testament, which extols the virtues of love. Even Shakespeare got into the act and wrote 154 love sonnets. (Celia Iannelli)

In a similar vein, writer Daisy Cummins, a nominee for ‘Love Story of the Year’, writes about Mills&Boon stories in The Irish Times.

The central theme of a Mills & Boon is no different from books like Wuthering Heights (what is Heathcliff if not the ultimate alpha male?), Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. Their scale is just more epic and melodramatic. The essential ingredients are the same: man meets woman, they fall in love and live happily ever after. It’s as simple as that. With a bit of blood sweat and tears thrown in.

Sure, everyone in Wuthering Heights lives happily ever after.

The Irish Times also mentions Heathcliff in a column about an anonymous Valentine's day card:

Could the anonymous writer be an imperious Mr Darcy-type? Wow. Did he look like Colin Firth? Or was the sender of the card more of a Heathcliff? Either way, Darcy or Heathcliff, highly acceptable, a romantic in need of a challenge could cope. (Eileen Battersby)

Books Orbit, via AddPR suggests a few books for today. Wuthering Heights is listed in a rather more realistic way:

Wuthering Heights: Sick of uplifting novels? Tired of feel good films? Still think that love is important and too complex to be called either uplifting or comfy? Read Wuthering Heights.
Few books match the morose, dark atmosphere of Wuthering Heights, which, though described as Gothic, has little to do with the horror novels associated with that genre (like Dracula or Frankenstein). Wuthering Heights is about Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by a family part of the landed English gentry, and Catherine, the daughter of the house. Heathcliff is a ruthless, dark character, almost fanatical in his love for Catherine, but his status as a foundling, and his lack of any status, prevent Catherine from marrying him, though she nevertheless reciprocates his love. She marries a respectable suitor, spurring Heathcliff to flee Wuthering Heights heartbroken, only to return bent on revenge. The story, set in the oppressive moors of Northern England, still strikes a chord for its frank depiction of emotional and physical cruelty.

The Bangalore Mirror also advocates for a more realistic view:

It is time, men and women, both, went beyond romance to reclaim lost meanings of passion, of love that is darker and more demanding. Heathcliff and Heloise should be our respective models, not Clooney and Hathaway. Happy Valentine’s Day. (Anil Nair)

The Daily Telegraph (Australia) unveils the romantic side of Capricorn by quoting Anne Brontë:

'Was it the smile of early spring, / That made my bosom glow?
'Twas sweet, but neither sun nor wind. / Could raise my spirit so. Was it some feeling of delight, / All vague and undefined? / No, 'twas a rapture deep and strong, / Expanding in the mind!' Anne Brontë wrote this and she, like you, was born under the sign of the goat. Now, who says Capricorns are not romantic? And consider Kate Middleton. She's now embodying the romantic aspirations of an entire nation! Something soon, will set your own heart aflame too! (Jonathan Cainer)

The actual poem is In Memory of a Happy Day in February.

And speaking of Kate Middleton - here's an excerpt from one of The Spoof's made-up news stories:

"Nothing I do is ever enough," said Kate. "When we dine together, I must wait until Camilla has been seated first. When Will and I are making out in the grand ballroom, I am chastised as a commoner, and when I want to play my Sex Pistols CD in the library, while miss high and mighty Camilla is reading Wuthering Heights for the hundredth time, I am all but banished to my quarters where I'm not allowed to have my own CD player." (Charpa93)

Actress Jodie Whittaker reveals her favourite book to the Yorkshire Post:

Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artist/CD/performer.Am I being predictable here by revealing that my favourite book is Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, which I actually read when I was in Thailand, and which I found quite randomly. Someone had left it there, I picked it up, and I was totally hooked.

In an article about the musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, The Telegraph makes the following (very funny) comparison:

As a distinguished man of musical theatre said to me the other day, Spider-Man is so bad that it makes Cliff Richard’s desperate Heathcliff musical look like West Side Story. (Charles Spencer)

The Batavian reviews the recent local production of Love Lines and includes a picture of 'the Emily Brontë girl'.

The Lauren Daily Experiment posts about Shirley and Love Letters to the Library reviews Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Music, Poetry, Theatre, Wuthering Heights