Brontë knew exactly what she was doing

Julia Keller writes in the Chicago Tribune about the power of Jane Eyre, the novel. A nice, highly-recommendable article:

For one thing, I realized that "Jane Eyre" isn't really a love story. That is, it's not a conventional love story between consenting adults. It's about the relationship between a woman and her own voice, her own perspective and desires. Jane decides that her self-respect is more important to her than being with Rochester, the man she loves and hoped to marry. She leaves him — temporarily, that is — and suffers through another round of hunger and hardship, an echo of her childhood, before things work out. As Lucasta Miller puts it in "The Brontë Myth" (2003), the book "offered access, unheard of in the novel at the time, into the depths of the individual psyche," as well as "a new and specifically female form of self-expression."
Brontë's nuts-and-bolts narrative skill, too, was an aspect I missed in my initial hunger to find out if Jane ends up with Rochester or with that annoying prig of a preacher. The novel shifts constantly between past and present tense, but it's never confusing. Brontë knew exactly what she was doing.

The New York Times suggests a visit to the Morgan Library:

The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives,’ through May 22. You don’t get to fully read the journals and diaries of Charlotte Brontë, Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams or any of the others on display here from the Morgan’s incredible collection. But these riches are propped open in display cases for viewing, each revealing more than a tweet’s worth of tantalizing self-revelation or self-concealment. The museum provides transcriptions for those who can’t readily decipher 18th-century script, 19th-century microscopic penmanship and 20th-century scrawls. (Edward Rothstein)

The New Jersey Star-Ledger discusses some of the changes made to the Martha Graham choreography Death and Entrances upcoming production (next week at the Lincoln Center in New York):

Yet the season’s second major focus, and a likely source of controversy, will be the revival of Graham’s “Deaths and Entrances,” a study of Victorian propriety and sexual longing in the lives of the Brontë sisters. Created in 1943, “Deaths and Entrances” was among Graham’s earliest psychological works, armed with symbolic props and dealing in recovered memories.
What promises to inspire arguments today, however, is not its psychoanalytical underpinnings, but Eilber’s decision to cut 10 minutes from the original 40-minute production. In Eilber’s view, the complete “Deaths and Entrances” is less compelling than it might be because Graham refused to trim the dance’s musical score by Hunter Johnson, and because Graham was indifferent to what happened during an interlude when she was offstage.
“When she was off the stage, there were women with chiffon just sort of running around,” Eilber says.
Eilber edited the choreography with Linda Hodes, with advice from other former company stars, not only removing material but also recombining it. “There was a fight for two men at one point; later on, there was a quartet for four men. We took material from the fight and put it into the quartet,” Eilber says, citing an example.
“I hope people don’t think I just went in and slashed and burned, because we were really careful,” she says. “It is a brilliant ballet, and I want people to be able to connect with it.” (Robert Johnson)

Jewish Exponent interviews the playwright and screenwriter Mark Medoff:

Long story short: Biggest influences? "Tom Wolf, William Faulkner and Emily Brontë." (Michael Elkin)

A curious initiative from the Staffordshire University:

Staffordshire University’s Thompson Library is hosting a six-hour performance by Performing Arts students. Entitled “Second to the right and, straight on till morning”, the performance will begin at midnight on Friday (March 12, 2011) and will carry on until 6am Saturday.
Throughout the course of the night, audience members will be able to experience a wide range of performances including having ‘tea’ with the Mad Hatter and listening to Gothic readings from Wuthering Heights and Dracula. (Luke Powell)

Singer Spark recalls for The Independent (Ireland) an anecdote related to Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights:

She launches into an another anecdote without hesitation, barely pausing for breath. "I got asked to sing Wuthering Heights, and I said 'no'. And my class were like, 'please, please try it'. And I went home at the weekend, and I tried it, and it worked. I did the whole thing -- it was a massive success. (Aibhe Malone)

Coincidentally NME lists Kate Bush's song on the top ten of best albums inspired by books:

Alright, it’s a song rather than an album, but even the most talented of voice actors couldn’t hope to do the windswept, desperate romance of Emily Brontë’s only novel the wide-eyed manic justice that Kate Bush does it. (Laura Snapes)

Fodor's Travel Blog explores Brontë country and Haworth:

England’s Yorkshire inspired the Brontë sisters’ classic novels including Jane Eyre, released March 11 in a new film version. Here are the best places around Haworth to explore the dramatic landscapes and quiet corners of Brontë Country.
Few writers and their works are linked as closely to a landscape as Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë are to the moors and the village of Haworth in Yorkshire. Despite family sorrows and restricted lives, they produced powerful novels that shocked Victorian critics but became enduring favorites on and off the printed page. Charlotte's Jane Eyre has been on screen in more than a dozen versions; Emily's Wuthering Heights has also captured film attention. Whether you're a Brontë fan or not, the town and stark landscape offer satisfying discoveries.(Read more) (Linda Cabasin)

The Telegraph & Argus looks into energy-savingt and environmentally-friendly improvements at the West Lane Baptist Church in Haworth. A 258-year-old building known by the Brontës and still in use today by, among others, the Brontë Society; Delaware Online reports that Delaware's Poetry Out Loud finals are tonight and one of the students, Laura Engel, will be reading Emily Brontë's No Coward Soul is Mine. Alexandra Singer vindicates Villette as the best Charlotte Brontë novel. The Sleepless Reader posts about the same book in the Unputdownables Read-along; All-Consuming Books reviews Jane Eyre. Finally, the Brontë Parsonage Blog publishes a review of the recent compilation of Brontë poetry The Brontës and their Poetry by Anne Crow.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontëana, Brontëites, Dance, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Juvenilia, Music, Wuthering Heights