Brontë Studies. Volume 36, Issue 2

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 36, Issue 2, April 2011) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:

Editorial
pp. iii-iv(2) Author: Adams, Amber


'Pray don't forget me my sweet little thing': Charlotte Brontë's Relationship with Ann Cook
Abstract:
This article describes newly discovered evidence regarding the relationship between Charlotte Brontë and her student and friend Ann Cook, based upon recently ascertained inscriptions made by Miss Cook in Charlotte's copy of the Book of Common Prayer, including the statement, 'Pray don't forget me my sweet little thing'. These inscriptions, along with other historical matter, suggest that their relationship was more complicated and intense than otherwise thought or known.


Containing Emotional Distress: the Elusive Letter Novel in Villette
pp. 131-140(10) Author: Wagner, Tamara S.
Abstract:
In reassessing the representation of emotional distress in Charlotte Brontë's Villette, this article analyses the novel's reworking of epistolary elements. The seemingly 'preternatural' suspension of communication in the attic scene therein pinpoints three central elements: firstly, the nun's apparition embodies the invocation of outmoded literary forms. Secondly, the letter's displacement in a seemingly supernatural theft dramatizes the letter form's 'containment' in nineteenth-century fiction. As perhaps the most emotionally charged scene in the novel, Lucy Snowe's temporary loss of this letter simultaneously draws attention to a series of contrasting exchanges of letters that structure the novel. Their triangulation links the novel's plotlines together. That Paul Emmanuel's fulfilling correspondence is ultimately held in suspense constitutes the third element and final twist in the novel's thematization of a communication breakdown. Villette, I seek to argue, forms a particularly revealing example of Victorian fiction's experimentation with changing literary forms.


'The track of reverie': Vision and Pathology in Shirley and Villette
pp. 141-151(11) Author: Ford, Natalie Mera
Abstract:
Reverie for Charlotte Brontë was a loaded, ambiguous term. Invoking a Romantic sense of liberated imagination but also Victorian medico-cultural suspicion of unrestrained daydreaming, Charlotte uses the configuration of intense inwardness at key moments in her fiction. This essay explores how 'reverie' marks both the sensibility and potential pathology of female characters in Shirley and Villette. Charlotte Brontë's portrayals of profound reverie, it argues, reflect mid-nineteenth-century preoccupation with the rewards and risks of unguided trancelike states. Providing further evidence of Charlotte's engagement with contemporary psychology, her ambivalent handling of reverie additionally suggests transitional generic tensions between romance and realism.

The Madwoman in Contemporary Adaptations: Depictions of Rochester and Bertha in Recent Jane Eyre Film and Television Adaptations
pp. 38-43(6) Author: Mann, Paisley
Abstract:
This paper examines how three recent Jane Eyre adaptations — Zeffirelli's 1996 film, Young's 1997 film and White's 2006 television miniseries — attempt to construct a Rochester who is faithful to the original character, yet appealing to modern audiences. It shows how Jean Rhys's revisionist text Wide Sargasso Sea, contemporary views of mental illness and shifting concerns in the feminist romance genre (since Janice Radway's Reading the Romance) necessitate a change in Rochester's character. It suggests that the portrayals of Rochester and Bertha are inextricably linked; the degree to which an adaptation emphasizes the roughness of Rochester's character in the initial meeting influences its later portrayals of his treatment of Bertha as well as how Bertha is characterized. Ultimately, the differences in the adaptations' portrayals suggest the limitations of adapting a Victorian romance in an era after feminism and with a scientific understanding of mental illness.

Charlotte's 'Unwarrantable Liberty': Publication and Emily's Loss of the 'World Within'
pp. 163-175(13) Author: Southgate, Beverley
Abstract:
From childhood onwards, Emily Brontë drew creative and emotional life from her inner fantasy world of Gondal. This paper examines the effect which Charlotte Brontë's determination that they become published authors had upon Emily's sense of containment by the fantasy world which she held inside. Drawing upon biographical sources, Wuthering Heights, and Emily's poems, and using the psychoanalytic theory formulated by Melanie Klein, it argues for a view of the novel as Emily Brontë's pledge of commitment to the inner world of her imagination, and a register of her deep suspicion of published authorship.

The Critics, the Brontës and the North
pp.176-183(8)  Author: Mansfield, Jane
Abstract:
This article discusses the influence of contemporary criticism upon the works of the Brontës. Accusations of provincialism and vulgarity published in reviews of the Brontë works prompted written responses from Charlotte. Her responses, focusing upon the geographically located attacks, strengthened the concept of the north of England in the national imagination. This north-south socio-geographic divide, prominent in novels such as Wuthering Heights and Shirley, was evident in criticism of their works and in Charlotte's reactions to that criticism. This article assesses this interplay between the critics, the Brontës and the north.

A Note on the Search for the Publication Date of Wuthering Heights , Boston, Coolidge Wiley, 1848
pp. 184-191(8)  Author: Lindseth, Jon A.
Abstract:
he order of publication of the first two American editions of Wuthering Heights has previously been uncertain. The New York, Harper & Brothers publication date is known to be 21 April 1848. The Boston, Coolidge & Wiley publication date had not been previously established. This note determines the likely publication date as 28 April 1848 based on advertisements for the book on that date. Further confirmation that the Harper & Brothers was the first American edition is based on textual analysis of the 1847 first London edition and the 1848 New York and Boston editions.

Brontë Studies and the Brontë Society Transactions, 1895-2010: a Brief History
pp. 192-194(3) Author: Duckett, Bob

Reviews
pp. 195-212(18)  

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