No corner of their lives left uncovered

The Telegraph and Argus reviews Anne Crow's The Brontës And Their Poetry.

It seems that hardly a week goes by without a book about the Brontës landing on my desk, leading me to wonder if there could be any corner of their lives left uncovered.
The word ‘poetry’ in the title of Anne Crow’s book about Haworth’s literary giants led me to read on. [...]
This is a rich collection of Brontë poetry, containing a good selection of poems from each writer. The book begins with a chronology of historic events – national, international and Bronte-related – from 1777 to 1861, the years of Patrick’s birth and death, and the poems are set out in the context of the Brontës’ lives.
The pages are illustrated with photographs of buildings and landscapes that inspired the Brontës and pencil drawings depicting rural life at the time. “As far as I know, there is no similar book that concentrates on the poetry written by the four siblings and their father,” says Anne Crow.
“I have tried to make it interesting to those who already love the novels written by the three famous sisters, as well as to tourists who may know very little about the family.”
The book is a fascinating introduction to the Brontës’ poetry, particularly the poems by Patrick which are now out of print.
It was while at Dewsbury Parish Church that Patrick started sending his poetry off for publication. A long poem, Winter Night Meditations, was published anonymously in 1810, and he later adapted it and included it in Cottage Poems, a volume of poetry aimed at ordinary people. Patrick’s religious beliefs and compassion for the poor is reflected in his poetry, although some of it reads like a sermon in which he attempts to offer poverty-stricken parishioners consolation that they will find glory after death.
In Epistle To The Labouring Poor, part of the Cottage Poems collection, he writes: “All you who turn the sturdy soil, Or ply the loom with daily toil, And lowly on through life turmoil for scanty fare … kindly read what I impart; ’tis meant to ward off Satan’s dart.”
One of Branwell’s poems, written after the death of his older sister Elizabeth, is particularly moving. Using a narrator called Harriet, who is mourning the death of a sister, he writes: “They came – they pressed the coffin lid above my Caroline, And then I felt forever hid my sister’s face from mine! There was one moment’s wildered start – one pang remembered well – When first from my unhardened heart the tears of anguish fell.”
You’d need a heart of stone not to be moved by the verse that must have come from his own grief.
A gem of a book for anyone interested in the Brontës, poetry or our social history. (Emma Clayton)

PopMatters reviews the 1958 film Home Before Dark and wonders whether it might have a Brontë reference:

(Can the name Charlotte Bron be intended as a play on Brontë, perhaps a comment of what Jane Eyre’s marriage to Rochester might be like?) (Michael Barrett)

Creative Loafing doesn't agree with Gone with the Wind winning the best picture category in the 1939 Oscars ceremony:

But the sad fact is that the film is out of its league when viewed against its competition for best picture: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, and Ninotchka are enduring classics in their genres, and masterpieces by renowned directors, while literary adaptations Of Mice and Men and Wuthering Heights feel fresher than the pre-determined cyclorama craft of GWTW. (Gabe Wardell)

The Independent has an article on the London Fashion Week entitled 'Breath of fresh Eyre at London Fashion Week'. More is said about Giles Deacon's collection and the governess theme:

"I suppose I just like the innocent but feisty Brontë governess and the mad woman in the attic as well," the designer Giles Deacon said of his autumn collection, the high point of last week's London season.
"Austere, not austerity. I thought about the 19th-century obsession with female hysteria: buttoned up but at the same time with something completely wild lurking underneath."
In their ultra-strict, black tailoring – waists were cinched to evoke the Belle Epoque line – worn with high-collared white shirts and styled to resemble nothing more than consumptive Victorian maidens, models may indeed have stepped straight out of Jane Eyre were it not for an opulence, and even outright decadence, very much in evidence alongside. Acid-stripped peacock feathers, inky black goat fur, fine Swiss lace, crystal embroideries, and print inspired by Delaroche's unashamedly romanticised painting, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, and European Art Nouveau were all the stuff of the haute couture atelier, handled by this designer with both imagination and the perfect degree of restraint. [...]
It was therefore not entirely surprising that Meadham Kirchhoff's show was played out to a soundtrack straight out of Psycho. If Giles Deacon's uptight governess is sexually wanton at heart, then here were the young protégés she would most like to teach. (Susannah Frankel)

The Irish Times comments on the election 2011:

No doubt Enda Kenny’s apparent coldness was only a stratagem. The temporary estrangement between the two parties looked less like Heathcliff and Cathy – doomed by their different social backgrounds – and more like Napoleon and Josephine. If it didn’t happen last night, they’ll probably get it together it today. (Frank McNally)

Les Soeurs Brontë posts in French about Emily Brontë's 'inner landscapes'. Askeladden posts about Jane Eyre 1997 in Norwegian. And Wuthering Heights is discussed by Noughts and Crosses and Me and My Dream of Doing Nothing (on the 1939 adaptation). The YouTube channel poetryanimations has a couple of non-Emily Brontë images reading two of her poems: The Prisoner and In the earth—the earth—thou shalt be laid.

Finally, on the subject of Web 2.0. we would like to bring our readers' attention to the lower part of our sidebar, where you can now find a DeviantArt widget, displaying the latest Jane Eyre- and Wuthering Heights-inspired creations to be found there. Worth taking a look.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Messages from BB, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry, References, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

Read More

Rosamund Oliver

The first album of the St Louis band Prairie Rehab, Philology, contains a very unexpected song about ... Rosamund Oliver, St John Rivers's hopeless inamorata in Jane Eyre.

The RiverFront Times gives more information:

The band is aided by a few local hired guns — Grace Basement's Kevin Buckley (fiddle) and the Feed's Dave Grelle (keys) add some color and depth, as does the Funky Butt Brass Band's horn section. The guest musicians step up on the standout closing track "Rosamond Oliver," a saxophone and Hammond B3-fueled slow-burner that suggests a whole host of other possibilities for the band. Not bad for a tune based on a minor character from Jane Eyre. (Christian Schaeffer)

Categories: Jane Eyre, Music

Read More

"Now, I understand"

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune recommends a trip to Brontë country. The journalist has been at Haworth and shares his experience with the readers:

I'm standing on the doorstep of the 300-year-old Old White Lion Inn, trying to decide where to walk first. Straight in front of me is Haworth's cobbled Main Street, which snakes down a steep hill. Off to my right is the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which was home to the world's most famous family of writers from 1820 to 1861. And just behind me is the start of a country hike called "Walk to Wuthering Heights."
It's an easy choice. Even though it's starting to rain, I'm eager to work off my steak, along with three foam-topped pints of Black Sheep ale, from last night. With a group of tourists and a guide named Steven Wood, I march out of town and onto the heather-edged paths of Penistone Hill Country Park. (...)
Is that Top Withens in the distance? It is. Was it once a house? It was. When we make it, we collapse for a rest next to walls without roofs and collections of old stones.
Just when I'm wondering how this made Brontë think of romance, there is a blast of wind. A fat cloud retreats and we get a sword-thrust of sun. The moors we've stumbled over light up in sections as if in a play. Over here is luminescent green. Here is violet. And there is the brown and white of a stream. Deep in the distance are the steeples and houses of Haworth.
Now, I understand. I pull out my pen and some paper to see if I can do some writing myself. Or maybe a sketch. But Wood is waving his cane. It is time to begin the long hike home. (Peter Mandel)

A visit to the Parsonage is also recommended by The Telegraph: fun things to do with kids in Yorkshire:

Misunderstood teens and romantic souls reading the Brontës get a fascinating insight into one of the world’s most literary families who lived here in Haworth amidst the brooding moors. Don’t take small ones, though – Charlie played havoc running into roped off areas. We took solace in Branwell Brontë’s local pub The Black Bull, where we pretended to Phoebe that we hadn’t heard the barman mention the pub was haunted. (Ben and Dinah Hatch)

The New York Post asks Patti Smith about some of her favourite books. As we know, Villette is one of them:

My sister Linda, whom I’m very close to, begged me to read this about 15, 20 years ago. It’s very autobiographical. Charlotte was a governess in Belgium for a while, and I believe she fell in love with her employer, a married professor. She did nothing improper, but she dreamed of him. I think this begat the story of Lucy Snowe and her long, complex and tragic romance. (Barbara Hoffman)

Buffalo News reviews Morning, Noon and Night: Finding The Meaning of Life’s Stages Through Books by Arnold Weinstein:

To give a sample of Weinstein’s richly connective humanism, here he is on Jean Rhys’ 20th century “Jane Eyre” prequel, “Wide Sargasso Sea”: “I have come to see it as the saddest book in my teaching experience . . . It hits me —the professor of comparative literature who lives in three countries, speaks a batch of languages and routinely teaches literature from all across the Western canon—where it hurts: it explodes the myth of cross-cultural understanding.” Weinstein’s, I think, is a critical acquaintaince to be treasured. (Jeff Simon)

The Telegraph talkes a look at the BBC South Riding:

The cast were uniformly good, the social realism is unlikely to have put anyone off their supper and there was even a Jane Eyre-like climax with the revelation that Carne’s hysterical fruitcake of a wife was not dead, as we’d been led to suppose. Instead, she’s still with us in some yet-to-be-revealed demented, disfigured or otherwise undivorceable state. (John Preston)

The Edmonton Journal reviews Daniel Vann's Caribou Island:

David Vann’s second novel is a sort of Lord of the Flies meets A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, but as if it had been written by Tennessee Williams in collaboration with Jack London, both drunk and on downers, and set in the rain forests of Alaska (yes, there are such things). The claustrophobic gulag imagery starts right away. Instead of the infinitude most people believe Alaska to be, in the rainforest of Caribou Island the horizon is three feet in front of your face — you are hemmed in on every side and a savage animal (kind of like London’s White Fang) could pass you by so close you could touch it. Dark imagery, kind of like Wuthering Heights, only not. (Richard Sherbaniuk)

Several news outlets seem fascinated with Noel Fielding's Kate Bush impersonation (à la Wuthering Heights) in Let's Dance for Comic Relief: Unreality Primetime, Chortle, What's on TV, Digital Spy or Metro.

Daily Kos talks about the Gothic genre:

No, not Goths.  Gothics.  You know, Gothics.  Those bastard offspring of early 19th century potboilers by “Monk” Lewis and E.T.A. Hoffman and the Brontë sisters that feature a lovely, naïve young woman comes to a remote house/castle/abbey/ranch/mansion to tutor the children/catalogue the library/restore the tapestries/train the horses in Devon/Wales/Maine/the Loire Valley, meets a brooding, devilishly handsome dark-haired man, falls in love despite warnings from every other person in spitting distance, and faces unimaginable torments before she defeats a ghost/previous wife who’s gone mad/family curse/lack of Internet access before she finally marries her beloved and gets the deed to the house/castle/abbey/ranch/mansion as a wedding present.  It’s a formula that’s been around ever since a clever publisher figured out that stripping Jane Eyre of the feminism and political commentary was a dandy idea.  The heroine is always virginal and somewhat stupid, the hero is always handsome and somewhat cloddish, there are always Dark Secrets and Mysterious Passageways, and the supernatural trappings turn out to be as menacing as the rubber masks worn by the villain in the most recent Scooby-Doo cartoon. (Ellid)

The Scotsman interviews Jasper Fforde, author of The Eyre Affair; The Worcester Telegram & Gazette informs that the Sutton’s Full Court Press book group will read Jane Eyre; Grama's Space Bubble publishes the article "A Brief Examination of Moral Realism in Brontë’s Jane Eyre" by Trudy A. Martinez; Love Letters to the Library posts about Charlotte Brontë's book; Pasión por el teatro musical (in Spanish) briefly talks about Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre musical; Katherine's Journal is reading Wuthering Heights; YouTube user Dougandthefunnies comments on several recent reads and gives a C to Sarah Gray's Wuthering Bites. And another YouTube user, DinaDobrou, has uploaded a video taken around the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Abigail's Ateliers has been posting lately about her Brontë presentations and extensive research. About her Charlotte Brontë presentation, her Emily Brontë research and her impressive writing slope desk replica, her Charlotte Brontë gown and another very interesting one about Emily Brontë including her dress style of course. All of them worthwhile.
Picture credits: © Lyn Marie Cunliffe - www.abigailsateliers.com.

Precisely Les Soeurs Brontë uses pictures of her designs in beautiful snowy Brontë country landscapes to discuss the harshness of the winters in the Brontës' days. The Brontë Sisters is exploring Mary Taylor's story in New Zealand in these two fascinating posts (1 and 2).

Categories: Books, Brontëana, Emily Brontë, Haworth,Jane Eyre, References, Villette, Wuthering Heights

Read More

12 days until Jane Eyre 2011

On the Jane Eyre imdb thread, SwingBatta gives the following information.

It seems that Focus Features will be taking out full-page ads like these for advance screenings of JE in (perhaps) major metropolitan areas.
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/862/img3735n.jpg
Top is the New York Times (in color, naturally) and below, my hometown San Francisco Chronicle.

Check out for ads in the NYT or other newspapers for details.

Hollywood Movie Costumes & Props posts several pictures of the wedding outfits of Rochester and Jane Eyre designed by Michael O'Connor. They are on on display at ArcLight Hollywood cinema in Los Angeles.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV

Read More

Jane Eyre (and more) in Stone Soup

The comic strip Stone Soup, written and illustrated by Jan Elliot has featured Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights in a few consecutive strips.

You can read them on GoComics:

February 1
February 2
February 3
February 4

Categories: Comics, References

Read More

Petition, Remonstrate, and Resist

History repeats itself. When Patrick Brontë opposed the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act little could he imagine that more than 170 years later his words would be so adequate for the current economical situation of his native Ireland. He wrote in 1837 to the Leeds Intelligencer:

Liberty or Bondage
To the Labourers, Mechanics, and Paupers or Slaves of England

(...) A law has lately been passed called the Poor Law Amendment Bill - a great misnomer I never read nor heard. It is a monster if iniquity, a horrid and cruel deformity, even in regard to what before was no very shapely or symmetrical representation. I know a comittee is sitting to amend the bill - but let me tell you, my dear friends, that it cannot be amended; it must be repealed altogether. (...)
We are told in the five books of Moses that the poor shall never cease from the land, and are exhorted to open our hands wide to relieve them. And the eternal God says multiply and replenish the earth. The blessed Saviour, also, follows up these injunctions with still more forcible admonitions. But a set of unfeeling, antiscriptural men, have lately arisen, who, being themselves only paupers on a larger scale, (as they are, in mnay instances supported by the country, and in a great measure, by the very men whom they wish to oppress) - who, nevertheless, teach doctrines in direct opposition to the law and to the gospel. What, then, my friends, are we to do under these circumstances? Why, verily, I see no plan better for us than that adopted by the Apostles, namely, to obey God, rather than man. (...) Then let me request you to do your duty - petition, remonstrate, and resist powerfully but legally, and God, the father and friend of the poor, will crown all your efforts with success.  (Patrick Brontë to the Editor of the Leeds Intelligencer, 22 April 1837)

Yesterday, David Quinn wrote in The Independent advocating for a reform of the Welfare State in a way that sounds strangely familiar:

Welfare state robs poor of incentive to work (...)
But the welfare state has also created huge pockets of morale-sapping dependency, chiefly in the form of deep poverty traps that have robbed many people of both the incentive and the ability to work.
In today's version of the Shacks, a great many people would be on welfare rather than in jobs, no matter how well or how badly the economy in general was doing.(...)
I will be voting for Fine Gael today because I believe it has the best policies to help the economy.
But I also believe it has the best policies to help the poor -- contrary to what the Left would have us believe.
For one thing, if you boost the economy you help poor people into jobs, but another reason is because Fine Gael has in it individuals like Leo Varadkar who would have the steel to reform the welfare state so that it will help its recipients far better than the present version.

A reader of the newspaper noted also that tune sounds familiar but he associated it with yet another Brontë character:

David Quinn’s article ‘Welfare state robs poor of incentive to work’ (Irish Independent, February 25) could have been written by Mr Brocklehurst in ‘Jane Eyre’ and was, for a man who seems to pride himself on his religious beliefs, as unchristian a piece as I have ever encountered.
He depicts the poor as lazy, feckless scroungers, continually on the make, whose only ambition in life is to get something for nothing. (...)
Fixing inequality takes money and time, sometimes several generations and requires a genuine commitment. Instead of citing ‘South Riding’ as an example, perhaps Mr Quinn should read Dickens, The Brontës or Victor Hugo. Better still, for such a religious man, maybe he should refer himse lf to the Bible. (G Harrison)

The Week asks actor Brian Cox (who some years ago was attached to Angela Workman's Brontë biopic project as Patrick Brontë) about his favourite books:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (Bantam, $5). One of the great stories. The quintessential obsessive love story. Truly amazing.

And the Financial Times interviews the writer Joseph O'Connor: 

Who are your literary influences?
James Joyce, Peter Carey, Dickens, the Brontës, Toni Morrison, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, the Irish and English ballad tradition, the Blues. (Anna Metcalfe)

The Ilkey Gazette talks about Sanjida O’Connell latest novel Sugar Island and once again, the author mentions Wuthering Heights:

 O’Connell, who also presents wildlife films on TV, says she does her best thinking while walking on the moors and lists her favourite book as Wuthering Heights.(Suzy Poole)

The Ottawa Citizen has a very loose way of marking time periods in history:

The cards tell us that bluebells are charged with superstition (or at least, they were in the days of Boleyn and Brontë). Some believed that if you wore a wreath made of the flowers, you'd be compelled to speak the truth. Others thought that the bells rang out to summon fairies to their gatherings. (Reb Stevenson)

Michael Goldfarb calls Wuthering Heights the ultimate Victorian novel (?) in BBC News:

Not that passion disappeared from British life. It was just that a passionate nature was seen as a breeding flaw. Read the ultimate Victorian novel, Wuthering Heights - or rent the movie with Laurence Olivier. The hero, Heathcliff, is passionate all right, but he is a foundling, a street-urchin not from proper society.

The Cumberland News & Star reviews the BBC South Riding:

[David] Morrissey plays Robert Carne. He’s gentry – or as near as they got to gentry in Yorkshire backwaters between the wars. He’s broody, bad tempered and clearly bottling up a passionate inner-self – kind of like Heathcliff. (Anne Pickles)

On the Cape Breton Post the wonders of e-reading are discovered:

Speaking of Janes, I decided to start with “Jane Eyre” and once I got past her dark, depressing early days I could hardly put the thing down. Now I want to see how many more classics I can finish. (Jen Gouthro)

Flavorwire recommends an entertaining and addictive online game:

So, you love the Brontës and can’t resist a good 19th-century costume drama. But do you have the manners to survive in the Victorian era? Now you can find out, in a delightful video game from the McCord Museum in Montreal, which sends you on four different period-appropriate adventures and tests whether you dress and behave appropriately for your sex. (Judy Berman via Novaya Zemlya)

Bookreporter reviews Separate Beds by Elizabeth Buchan and makes a Wuthering reference:

The eventful plot, alternating among the principal characters' points of view, finds Tom sunk in depression from the loss of his beloved career; Jake fighting for custody of his child; and Emily, whining all the while, looking for a job instead of writing a Wuthering Heights for the 21st century. (Kathy Weissman)

The San Francisco Chronicle asked for a top ten of  poets. Dean Rader lists several of the selections made:

Spicy Reads of Allegan, MI offered a list that is heavily contemporary and female: Emily Dickinson, Audre Lorde, HD, Sylvia Plath, Gwendolyn Brooks, Marianne Moore, Phillis Wheatley, Edna St Vincent Millay, Emily Brontë, Denise Levertov.

Persinsala (Italy) publishes an article about Merle Oberon. Concerning her Catherine in Wuthering Heights 1939:

Il film era tratto dallo straordinario romanzo-poema di notevole forza fantastica, scritto dalla grande scrittrice inglese Emily Brontë e caratterizzato da un’immaginazione tesa al sovrannaturale. Libro e film narrano l’amore romantico e tragico tra Catherine e Heathcliff (si tratta, in effetti, di un triangolo perché Catherine nutre anche affetto, seppur di natura molto diversa, per il marito Edgard Linton). Il film seppe rendere a meraviglia quest’amore cupo e allucinato, fatale e distruttivo, che spezza i cuori di tutti non lasciando spazio a nessuno, tutto distruggendo e calpestando intorno a sé con ferocia e disperazione, compresi gli stessi protagonisti. Merle Oberon interpretò alla grande una sensibile giovane donna in crisi con l’ordine stabilito, devastata da un amore violento, e armonizzò in modo intenso con la natura selvaggia e la brughiera solitaria (battuta dal vento, verdeggiante di muschio e fiorita di erica) che furono filmate in modo superbo, creando uno scenario e un’atmosfera dal fascino irrepetibile.
(Translation)

Come4News (France) has a long article about Emily Brontë's original novel:

Wuthering Heights, en français "Les hauts de Hurlevent", est une histoire d'amour tragique, et a été même appelé " le grand roman de haine d'Emily Bronte." Et d'une certaine manière, c'est vrai. Presque tous les personnages expérimentent des relations amour/haine et ne sont pas effrayés d'afficher cette haine. Une haine qui n'est pas normale chez une personne. Heathcliff est brisé après la mort de son amour, et la haine qu'il montre envers certaines personnes dans le livre n'est pas normale, et dérange plutôt qu'autre chose. (Read more) (sheli) (Translation)

Nachrichten (Austria) interviews Andrea Arnold now that Fish Tank is premiered in Austria. Talking about her next project she says:

OÖN: Ihre Pläne?
Arnold: Die Verfilmung des Romans „Wuthering Heights“ von Emily Brontë.
OÖN: Welches Bild hatten Sie dabei vor den Augen?
Arnold: Ein riesiges, kletterndes Ungeheuer. Wenn man näher kommt, stellt man fest, dass es ein Mann ist.
OÖN: Die Hauptfigur?
Arnold: Wieder ein Laie. Ein 22-jähriger Bursche aus Leeds. (Translation)

Noticias de Gipuzkoa (Spain) talks about the Spanish edition of Fabrice Gaignault's Dictionnaire de littérature à l'usage des snobs : Et (surtout) de ceux qui ne le sont pas (published in 2007):

Para entender el espíritu del libro, es revelador saber que de los hermanos Brontë, ignora a Charlotte y Emily, y recupera a Patrick Branwell, modelo para el Heathcliff de Cumbres borrascosas. (Ruth Pérez de Anucita) (Translation)

In La Opinión de Málaga (Spain) a mention to the Hermanas Brontë Street (google maps calls it Hermanos Bronte though):

Las calles hay que dedicarlas al homenajeado en vida, a no ser que se trate de creaciones de la mente humana como La Flauta Mágica o Robinson Crusoe, sin olvidar a personas de carne y hueso como las Hermanas Brontë, que difícilmente habrían podido asistir al evento.(Alfonso Vázquez) (Translation)

Chelsea's Blog'o Fun! discusses Wuthering Heights and quotes several critical classical approaches; Scribblemaniac visits Whitby and thinks it must still look like Scarborough must have looked back when the Brontës visited; Fervent Reader reviews Juliet Gael's Romancing Miss Brontë; Papeles Perdidos (El País) describes Wuthering Heights 1939 as an average movie inspired by a good book; Les Soeurs Brontë posts the third part of her analysis of the so-called new Brontë portrait, relaying James Gorin von Grozni's arguments. In her opinion, the sitters are the Brontë sisters (about which we remain sceptical) but the portrait is not by Edwin Landseer.

Finally, Syrie James's The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë audiobook has been nominated for an Audie 2011 in the Romance category:

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, by Syrie James, Narrated by Bianca Amato, Recorded Books

Winners will be announced at the Audies Gala on May 24, 2011, at The TimesCenter in New York City.

Categories: Books, Brontëana, Brontëites, In the News, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights

Read More

Jane Eyre 2011. Featurettes, Music and More

Lots of new things about Jane Eyre 2011:

A couple of new featurettes, behind the scenes stuff and brief glimpses at some new scenes on Fandango. Another one addressed to reading groups can be seen on YouTube.

On the Focus Features website: To Score Jane Eyre: Cary Fukunaga and Dario Marianelli Team Up

And a couple of very interesting slideshows:

Jane Eyre, Superstar: From Brontë to Fukunaga
Since Charlotte Brontë brought her heroine to life in 1847, everyone––filmmakers, artists, playwrights, cartoonists––have wanted to recreate her in their own imagination.

Through Superman (and the young-woman-of-spirit-but-no-means-who-captures-and-tames-the-heart-of-a-wealthy-man), the 1934 version, the 1973 one, Karl Marx, theatre, comics and Jane Slayre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre on Deviantart, stamps and many things more!

Jane Eyre and 10 Other Scary Houses Movies:

While not an overt ghost story, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, influenced by the haunted house tales of its own era, casts a shadow over a subsequent century of them. Throughout the novel, there is much talk of ghosts as when the housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane about a part of the mysterious manse, “if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt.” A modern revival of gothic storytelling has meant that some of today’s cinema is very much in keeping with the issues dramatized by Brontë within Thornfield Hall. But as technology has marched forward, new inflections have been placed on the haunted house. “I often say that haunted house novels are a near-universally overlooked form of architectural writing,” quipped speculative architecture critic Geoff Manaugh in an interview.

Including Corrine May Botz’ Haunted Houses photography book where the author "[read] ghost stories by the female authors Edith Wharton, Charlotte Brontë, Ellen Glasgow and Toni Morrison.", Jack Clayton's The Innocents, adaptation of the Jane Eyre-inspired The Turn of The Screw by Henry James, The Shining from where Adriano Goldman, the director of photography took inspiration for Jane Eyre 2011 ("Thornfield put us in mind of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining") and Dario Argento's Suspiria from where the much-commented music from the trailer of this new film was taken.

Imogen Poots on Teen Vogue:

In 2011, Imogen tackles both: This month she'll play socialite Blanche Ingram alongside Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender in a big-screen adaptation of Jane Eyre, which "offers a new light on the gothic novel," she says. "Films should be relatable, and not many of the classics are made to be so." (Danielle Nussbaum)

Mia Wasikowska on WalletPop:

In Jane Eyre, she uses what she called "not a completely polished" English accent. (...)
Wasikowska also couldn't put a monetary benefit on working with actors such as Oscar winner Judi Dench, who plays a housekeeper in Jane Eyre. Might it be a better payoff than shelling out big bucks for drama school?
"I've learned much from everyone I've worked with," she said, "and it's an accelerated education. A lot of people ask me what's the best advice I've gotten and it's not that people go around giving me advice. It's just watching how people carry themselves in situations. That's really cool." (Ron Dicker)

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV

Read More

Brief Lives: Charlotte Brontë by Jessica Cox - A review

We are very thankful to Hesperus Press for sending us review copies of these books

Tales of the Islanders Charlotte Brontë Hesperus Press February 25, 2011 ISBN: 9781843912019 Format: Paperback

Brief Lives: Charlotte Brontë Jessica Cox Hesperus Press February 25, 2011 ISBN: 9781843919209 Format: Paperback

The Hesperus collection of Brief Lives, to which Jessica Cox's biography belongs, is described as follows:

Brief Lives offers short, authoritative biographies of the world's best-known literary figures. Both informative and entertaining, each title introduces the modern reader to the early life, writing career and literary legacy of the author.

Jessica Cox's task wasn't an easy one. To non-Brontëites, the lives of the Brontës may seem to boil down to a family living in the middle of nowhere and penning a few books. But those of us who have read a few biographies - particularly if one of those is Juliet Barker's - know that condensing the life of Charlotte Brontë into 112 pages is quite a feat. One of the reasons why many readers of the Brontës' fiction get trapped in their biographies is that their lives were much more interesting than initially thought and also that details do matter in the story.

Jessica Cox's biography, despite its size, addresses readers with at least a basic knowledge of Brontë facts. She doesn't always follow a linear narrative and, knowing well the above-mentioned importance of details, she doesn't hesitate to 'join the dots' when they need to be joined (relating actual events to plot twists in the novels, etc.)⁽¹⁾ rather than when they would follow chronologically speaking. It's this approach that makes it an interesting read for Brontëites with a good knowledge of the Brontës as well. Some of her viewpoints are both refreshing for their newness and also arguable sometimes because of their very freshness⁽²⁾. For instance, rather than going for the much-emphasised theory of Charlotte's debt to M. Heger for his writing 'workshops', she opts for a much less-travelled road:

[H]er infatuation with Heger exerted a huge influence on her fiction: her portrayal of Rochester's unfortunate marriage to Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre, Bertha's subsequent death and Rochester's union with Jane may well have been rooted in her romantic fantasies of Heger and her jealousy of his wife. . .

Despite the short length of the biography, Ms Cox is not oblivious to details. She finds a running theme in the subject of Patrick Brontë's questions to his children while this hid behind a mask and joins this to Charlotte's later efforts to remain unknown to the public. This need for privacy and making her voice heard but herself not seen runs smoothly throughout most of the biography, with the exception of ignoring Emily's firm demand of remaining anonymous.

Much of Ms Cox's opinion of Charlotte seems to be based on Juliet Barker's description of her⁽³⁾. The matter of sibling rivalry is a little too emphasised⁽⁴⁾ - and wholly speculative - for our taste as is the subject of Charlotte's 'ruthless ambition' to become a published author. We don't quite know what new readers will make of this Charlotte Brontë, but for well-read Brontëites this will certainly be food for thought - it will get them to re-examine what they know and think of Charlotte and her motives.

Feminism is also on Jessica Cox's agenda. Sometimes her conclusions on the subject seem a bit forced, such as when she wonders whether,

Charlotte's alliance with her brother was perhaps, even at this young age, in part a strategic move. . .

In spite of that, Ms Cox, as usual, doesn't follow the 'suggested' route and vindicates Charlotte's wedding and marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls.

Jessica Cox's Brief Lives: Charlotte Brontë is often like that: unexpected, refreshing and wholly noncommittal.

Together with their Brief Lives: Charlotte Brontë, Hesperus are also releasing an edition of Charlotte's juvenile Tales of the Islanders (written 1829-1830), based on a 'reworked transcription' according to the Note on the Text and also introduced by Jessica Cox. The edition includes all four volumes of Tales of the Islanders, as well as a few explanatory notes which, overall, focus more on general knowledge than in the actual comings and goings and particular who's-who of the juvenilia.

Both covers deserve special attention as well. Piero Pierini's cover design and illustration of the biography seems vibrant and modern enough to appeal to 21st century readers, much like the contents, actually. While the cover of Tales of the Islanders matches previous Hesperus editions of the juvenilia, such as The Green Dwarf or The Foundling.

In her introduction, Jessica Cox highlights the value of the juvenilia, if not just per se, for the practice it provided for a young Charlotte Brontë and for its sometimes surprising echoes in the more mature works. To this we would add that, regardless of this kind of value, which is obviously highly important, reading the juvenilia is also worth it for their unashamed flippancy and just plain fun.

Notes
(1) Despite of this intelligent approach, Jessica Cox's style is, at times, on the repetitive side, such as when in the introduction she comments time and time again on how Charlotte's literary input is limited and how her literary position even today is surprising because of this. (A connection with which we don't agree at all, by the way. We wonder what Jessica Cox's makes of Emily Brontë's literary position given the fact she published but one novel).
(2) Brontë fans are only too willing to take Charlotte's word for the conditions at Cowan Bridge (or Cowan Gate, as Ms Cox mistakenly calls it a couple of times) and Carus Wilson's part on it, so it's a bit shocking to read her questioning 'the extent to which Carus Wilson can be held directly responsible'.
(3) However, she doesn't agree with Barker's view of Haworth as a not isolated place and rather trusts Charlotte's descriptions of the place, partly, we understand, because that's how Charlotte felt it to be anyway, regardless of the actual facts.
(4) Apart from several comments starting in the juvenilia and reaching into their actual literary careers, Jessica Cox seems too ready to read Charlotte's 'Editor's Preface' to her sisters' works as well as he Biographical Notice of them at face-value and take them for actual criticism of her sisters' works rather than, like most biographers, considering that Charlotte was doing nothing but what Mrs Gaskell would do to her later on, criticising her 'coarse' works in order to be able to highlight their pure, if unpolished, Victorian values.

Categories: Biography, Charlotte Brontë, Juvenilia, Review

Read More

"Jane Eyre is the most wonderful character study"

The New Yorker talks about novels which

feature characters—mostly first-person narrators, telling of their childhoods—who need to understand, account for, defend, reconcile, or otherwise deal with something difficult in their past, and storytelling is their recourse. (Flora Armetta)

Jane Eyre could certainly be on that list but Flora Armetta chooses Villette:

Harder to love than “Jane Eyre,” maybe, but brilliant on many of the same points (loneliness, self-awareness, the potential costs of telling the truth), and this one has a satisfyingly ambiguous ending.

The Millions looks at gender-crossing novels, that is novels written by men/women which give voice to women/men. Again Charlotte's The Professor could fall into this category but Sonya Chung goes for Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea:

What about Jean Rhys’s Mr. Rochester in Wide Sargasso Sea? He is a decidedly revised Rochester, less victim than Charlotte Brontë’s – proud, racist, ultimately vicious; misdirecting his emasculation rage (meant for his father) at Antoinette, Rhys’s woman in the attic. Is there a sense in which Rhys is always there, behind and inside Rochester? Look how a man can drive a woman to insanity, can destroy her life. Look at what goes through his mind, how he does it, let me show you. Rochester’s point-of-view – the majority of the book – is in this sense on some level Antoinette’s point-of-view; Woman’s point-of-view.

NPR makes a list of the upcoming books-made-into-films. Including of course Jane Eyre 2011:

But as the Oscars are almost here and will soon be over, and we have a long year ahead of us, I've decided to focus on (and give you a little preview of) the bumper crop of upcoming films based on books coming out in 2011. Some of them are based on masterpieces (I never met a Brontë sister I didn't like), and some, well...some are based on Something Borrowed. (...)
The Book: You read it in seventh grade, if you'll recall. But to jog your memory: Charlotte Brontë wrote her most famous work in 1847, inventing the original plain Jane. "Poor and little" Jane works in a drafty old house for the semi-handsome (if not abjectly creepy) Mr. Rochester, who definitely keeps his crazy wife in the attic. It's a Gothic thriller with strong female characters, and if you haven't read it yet, do get on that.
The Film: It actually looks good! Director Cary Fukunaga's debut, Sin Nombre, was a gorgeous film, and his remake of Eyre has the blessing of BBC Films behind it. Mia Wasikowska is earning a name for herself in the literary movie genre (she played Alice in last year's Burton adaptation of the Lewis Carroll story), and looks as if she can hold her own against Michael Fassbender's imposing Rochester.
See It With: Your period-drama (and possibly collectible doll?) loving aunt. (Rachel Syme)

The soprano Kate Royal (which has been a regular of this blog thanks to her performance of Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights aria: I have dreamt in her latest CD: Midsummer Night) is a true Brontëite as this interview on PlaybillArts reveals:

A book (or two) that is important to you (and why):
Delia Smith’s How to Cook Book 1, because I can never remember how many minutes it takes to boil an egg. Jane Eyre because it is the most wonderful character study and template for many of my operatic roles. (Albert Imperato)

The New York Times recommends the Morgan Library's exhibition The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives

You don’t get to fully read the journals and diaries of John Steinbeck, Bob Dylan, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Brontë, Albert Einstein, 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 Telegraph (India) interviews Ruskin Bond (writer) and Victor Banerjee (actor). The latter reveals the name of his house:

Ruskin: When did you buy Parsonage and come to live here?
Victor: 1982.
Telegraph: That’s the name of your cottage?
Victor: Yes, Parsonage. It was Emily Brontë’s cottage and we share our birthdays as well. (Samhita Chakraborty Lahiri)

Emily Brontë's cottage is certainly a peculiar description for the Haworth Parsonage .

Returning to the actual Brontë country, The Guardian talks about the recently-released Bradford Visitor Guide 2011 which of courses features Haworth and the Brontë legacy:

Bradford, which was ridiculed last year in a survey of hotel-users is fighting back with a showcase of everything from the Bronte moors to curry. (...)
The district's other charms, which include Ilkley Moor, the Brontes' home at Haworth, the Dales Way and Bingley five-rise locks on the Leeds-Liverpool canal, escaped the notice of last year's Travelodge poll, which ranked Bradford as the place respondents least wanted to visit. (Martin Wainwright)

BBC News talks about Cleopatra, the new ballet by choreographer David Nixon with music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, authors of the Wuthering Heights 2002 ballet:

This will be Schonberg's second ballet, after his 2002 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, also co-written with Nixon.
The composer has learnt a lot about ballet since then, not least because he married ballerina Charlotte Talbot, who was Cathy in Wuthering Heights.

The bankruptcy of the Borders Group and the liquidation process (the closing of the bookstores can be followed from the employees point of view here or here) is discussed by The Voice of San Diego:

Consumerist reports that Borders stores nationally are getting mobbed (including ones that aren't closing, due to confusion about whether they are), and some customers are going bonkers: at one location, "customers were fighting over books, literally throwing them."
I'm ready to jump into the melee. Step away from the "Jane Eyre," madam. Mine mine mine! (Randy Dotinga)

The Australian Literary Review interviews author Sophie Masson:

Who is one of your favourite fictional characters and what makes them stand out for you?
One of my favourite fictional characters is Jane Eyre. I loved her, and as a self-sufficient and quiet but defiant sort of little girl, really identified with her! I loved how spirited and strong-willed she was but never arrogant or overbearing. However unlike her I would probably have been silly enough to jump straight into that gorgeous brooding Mr Rochester’s arms before it was wise to do so–the world well lost for love was something I really responded to as a teenager, which is also why I loved Russian novels–that mix of passion and intellectual ferment, lightness and profundity, of the Russian novel I found very heady. Strangely enough though I did not at all like Wuthering Heights–I found it morbid, Cathy hysterical and Heathcliff repellent!

Bookworm - Sumy Window on America Center, Desventuras Ironicas and Bibliólatras - e outros vícios (both in Portuguese) post about Wuthering Heights; We'll Always Have Books posts about Jane Eyre's chapters 1 to 10 on her own Jane Eyre Read-along; the book has also been read by Becky's Babbles and JessMadeThis; Mandelhjärta posts about Agnes Grey in Swedish; Crashing Waves compares briefly Mr Rochester and Mr Darcy; Leoise reviews briefly April Lindner's Jane in Portuguese; The Unpotdownables Villette Read-Along has new contributions: The Sleepless Reader and Fleur Fisher in her World. Finally, Off the Shelf reviews Juliet Gael's Romancing Miss Brontë.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Books, Brontëites, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Villette, Wuthering Heights

Read More

Written on the Body in Beloit

A new chance to see the Dance COLEctive's production of Written on the Body, the choreography inspired by the Brontës which was premiered in 2005. In Beloit, WI:

Beloit College
Dance COLEctive
February 25th, 2011 to February 26th, 2011.
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Studio 1, Hendricks Center for the Arts

The Dance COLEctive (TDC) is a modern dance company that aspires to challenge assumptions about how dance is presented, through the use of cutting-edge choreography, innovative collaborations, and inspired creative site-specific-works. Now in its 15th year, TDC conducts an annual season which includes residencies with universities, high schools and other dance organizations in two geographic regions of the USA; multiple master classes, workshops and lecture demonstrations in the greater Chicago area; an annual week-long summer intensive of classes; an annual concert and residency in Chicago proper; performances in traditional venues and site-specific choreography.  Artistic Director Margi Cole has been recognized with many choreographic awards.  TDC uses modern dance as a vehicle to introduce, challenge and engage its audience in a number of topics.  Through carefully designed residency activities the viewer has gained the knowledge and the desire to interpret our work in a meaningful way.
While at Beloit TDC will conduct a series of residency activities both at the college and in the community.

Many of those activities will be geared around the companies work Written on the Body.  A work for six dancers which uses the lives of the Brontë sisters as a point of departure in its exploration of gender roles and stereotypes.  The hidden identities of authors, as well as the hardships they endured throughout their lives in Victorian England, provide the framework.  Cole interprets the Brontës' masculine and feminine personae, using movement images of power, strength, vulnerability and intimacy.  Music for the piece is by Kevin O'Donnell, costumes are by Atalee Judy and videoscape is by Michael Cole.

Categories: Dance

Read More

“Dark clouds, metal flowers and the Brontë sisters”

Investors has a press release on the forthcoming release of the Jane Eyre 2011 soundtrack:

Sony Classical is delighted to announce the release of the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of Focus Features' new film Jane Eyre, available March 8, 2011. Academy Award-winning composer Dario Marianelli (Atonement) has created a romantic and moving score, performed by violinist Jack Liebeck, as the perfect complement to the new movie version of the celebrated story. Jane Eyre opens in New York and Los Angeles on March 11, and expands to additional cities throughout March.
Dario Marianelli's Jane Eyre score heavily features a solo violin, recorded for the film by the 2010 Classical Brit Award-winning violinist Jack Liebeck. Marianelli is known for the gift of capturing the emotional and poignant elements of a story in his music. His score for Atonement earned him Golden Globe and Academy Awards, and his work on Pride & Prejudice was also Oscar-nominated. His other film credits as composer include Eat Pray Love, Agora, The Brave One, The Soloist, Everybody's Fine, and V for Vendetta.
In the bold new feature version of Jane Eyre, director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Focus' Sin Nombre) and screenwriter Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe) infuse a contemporary immediacy into Charlotte Brontë's timeless, classic story. Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) star in the iconic lead roles of the romantic drama, the heroine of which continues to inspire new generations of devoted readers and viewers.
In the 19th Century-set story, Jane Eyre (played by Ms. Wasikowska) suddenly flees Thornfield Hall, the vast and isolated estate where she works as a governess for Adèle Varens, a child under the custody of Thornfield's brooding master, Edward Rochester (Mr. Fassbender). The imposing residence - and Rochester's own imposing nature - have sorely tested her resilience. With nowhere else to go, she is extended a helping hand by clergyman St. John Rivers (Jamie Bell of Focus' The Eagle) and his family. As she recuperates in the Rivers' Moor House and looks back upon the tumultuous events that led to her escape, Jane wonders if the past is ever truly past...For more information on the film, please visit www.JaneEyreTheMovie.com.

As for the other forthcoming Brontë movie, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, the Guardian echoes the rumour that it may be seen at Cannes.

The National Post discusses mashups and brings up another Brontë movie:

The thing is, too, that the mash-up can produce enduring art. As evidence, I submit the very first mash-up of zombies and literature: I Walked with a Zombie. One of Val Lewton’s legendary productions, this 1943 picture is not only one of the best, most poetic horror movies of the era, it’s also Jane Eyre transplanted to the West Indies, and the madwoman in the attic is now a zombie. One of those pre-Night of the Living Dead, non-flesh-eating zombies, mind you, but still, I think it counts. (David Annandale)

A columnist from The Rotunda defends the value of the classics in our day and age:

It's crazy how much our culture is defined by words. But not just any plain words- famous words. Take, for example, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and Mark Twain. Each a superior writer in their own right, but also timeless in an amazing way. [...]
Perhaps I owe my high school English teachers some credit. I was forced to read all of Shakespeare's works over the course of my four years at high school. I was pushed through "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë, picked up "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen at the urging of my 11th grade teacher, had the pleasure of listening to my 10th grade teacher read "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens to the class (and thoroughly enjoyed the novel as well), and sped through "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain my sophomore year. So in my own small way, I've been blessed by great teachers who wanted to educate me out of ignorance. But what about the rest of people my age who weren't blessed (or cursed?) by the English teachers who forced me not just to read, but to read classics that define, in their own way, the English world? [...]
The craziest part? Our world is still very much referenced to these old classics. I can't believe how many storylines in movies and shows and books today follow the same plotline of "Romeo and Juliet." (Katie Reilly)

For one thing, this blog and its contents serve to prove she has a point. And PopMatters, discussing the series Downton Abbey, seems to make a similar point as well:

Much has been made of his family background in and around grand houses such as the fictional Downton which informing his writing, but as with Gosford Park, it is the strong cast of characters which lift the tale above the realm of yet another crack at Wuthering Heights. (Maysa Hattab)

How many writers are mentioned in connection to the London Fashion Week? From Pimlico People:

The final SW1 showing was yesterday, 22 February. Roksanda Ilincic, who graduated from Central St Martins where she studied Womenswear, took up a lunchtime slot. When asked for the LFW website to name three things that inspired her for her autumn/winter collection she replied: “Dark clouds, metal flowers and the Brontë sisters.” (James Mass)

And Sports columnists also love their literary references. See the Guardian, for instance:

The greatest, saddest love story ever told is not Romeo and Juliet. It's not Heathcliff and Cathy. It's not Logan and Veronica. It's not even Alfie and Kat. It's South Africa and the cricket World Cup, and today we begin another chapter. When will they get it on? When will South Africa's upright, uptight underachievers finally find true love? (Rob Smyth)

So when The Atlantic Wire wonders on the subject of ebooks and their possibilities,

but is Wuthering Heights ready to go interactive? (Caitlin Dickson)

We must say that we totally think it is - Wuthering Heights can take on anything, can't it?

Well-known Brontëite Joyce Carol Oates tells the following anecdote to MacLeans:

Advice Oates didn’t include in the book, but wishes she had, is to say “yes” to invitations. That’s how she met neuroscientist and fellow Princeton professor Charles Gross in August 2008 at a dinner party. “A friend thought it would be nice for these two lonely people to get together,” she says, recalling their meeting fondly: “It wasn’t a Heathcliff, wild kind of thing. He brought the pizza.” (Anne Kingston)

The Spectator Book Blog reviews Thinking on Thresholds: The Poetics of Transitive Spaces, edited by Subha Mukherji.

The first essay of the book is by Gillian Beer who restricts her analysis to a physical threshold – the window. She plucks examples out of multiple sources, from the elegant verse of Herbert’s ‘The Elixir’, to the wild fury of Wuthering Heights and the restless tension of Mrs Dalloway. (Isabel Sutton)

Passion Drops posts about Jane Eyre, The Squeee discusses Jane Rochester by Kimberly A Bennett and Bookstains reviews Branwell Brontë’s Barber’s tale by Chris Firth

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

Read More

Jane Eyre on stage and Wuthering Heights on screen

A couple of alerts for today, February 24.

Thanks to David and Imelda Marsden for bringing the following to our attention:

On February 24-26 Ebenezer Methodist Drama Group presents Jane Eyre dramatised by Helen Jerome. Ebenezer Methodist church, Hanging Heaton, Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Starts 7.30pm Tickets £5, children £4.50 including refreshments. Tel 01924 473538.

And on the other side of the pond a screening of Wuthering Heights 1939. From the NCLAC (North Central Louisiana Arts Council) blog, in Ruston LA:

Classic romance courtesy of Emily Brontë comes to your local library. Join Lincoln Parish Library and NCLAC (North Central Louisiana Arts Council) at the screening of Wuthering Heights starring Sir Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, and David Niven for the series The Art of Film on Thursday, February 24 at 6pm in the Lincoln Parish Library Meeting Room. Oscar-nominated for Best Leading Actor, Actress, Art Direction, Director, Music, Writing and Picture, the film won for Cinematography. The film is also honored in the National Film Registry. Enjoy the movie trailer and details available on www.imdb.com. English treats including cucumber sandwiches will be served. The Art of Film series is presented monthly and features trivia, themed treats, and popcorn. For more information or to make suggestions for the series, call Megan Davenport at 513-6410 or visit www.mylpl.org. This program is free and open to the public.

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

Read More

The uneducated, self-educated woman

Jamie Bell continues speaking about Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre. From NewsOK:

With “Jane Eyre,” he took on the role of St. John Rivers, a missionary who takes in Jane (Mia Wasikowska) when she flees a haunting experience in the home of her employer, Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender) after his manager encouraged him to watch the first film from director Cary Fukunaga, the celebrated 2009 immigration tale “Sin Nombre.”
“That energy coming into something like that makes it fresh. And I think a gothic ‘Jane Eyre’ is much more interesting,” he said. “We kind of understand this time period in a very aesthetic value. But we don’t know what it feels like really, to really be there, to be an uneducated woman, who’s kind of self-educated, doesn’t come from any money in a time when all that matters — where you were educated and how much money you have,” he said. (Brandy McDonnell)

We find the bit about the 'uneducated woman, who’s kind of self-educated' quite amusing.

The film itsef is one of the most-anticipated ones of The Film Stage:

Synopsis: A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he’s hiding a terrible secret.
Why You Should See It: A classic gothic romance from a hot, young director (Cary Fukunaga) starring two of the hottest, most talented actors around town (Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender) makes promises one prays it can keep. (Dan M.)

What clothes you wear seems to matter too, but you can always wear Brontë-inspired clothes. The Guardian takes a look at the London Fashion Week:

Let's start with Giles, because it was brilliant. Sinuous silk cocktail dresses were printed with closeups from Delaroche's famous portrait of Lady Jane Grey, blindfolded at the scaffold; high white collars and pure lines were inspired by "the innocent, but feisty Brontë governess, and the madwoman in the attic as well". (Jess Cartner-Morley)

Artist Peter Brook is also influenced by the Brontës (or Brontë country anyway) as the Brighouse Echo highlights:

One of Peter’s best-loved paintings, ‘Wuthering Heights’, is on show at the Piece Hall Art Gallery, Halifax, until March 27 and will later be exhibited at the Smith Art Gallery, Brighouse, alongside another of the artist’s paintings, ‘Elland’.
‘Wuthering Heights’, which was donated to Calderdale Council after Peter’s death, is also part of a search to find Yorkshire’s favourite painting.
Galleries across the region have put together a selection of most popular artworks which can be voted for online.

You can vote for Peter Brook's painting (or any of the others) here.

The South Florida Gay News finds the following at playwright Tony Finstrom’s home:

The walls of his sunny Fort Lauderdale condo are filled with mostly original posters and memorabilia from Broadway shows. There’s a poster from Jane Eyre, inscribed by Cherry Jones: “To Tony, the great love of my life. Always, Cherry.” (Mary Damiano)

A columnist from the Tri-Town News seems to think that you either date or read the Brontës, not both:

If I had not been involved with younger men all this time, I wonder if I’d have had any dates at all. I figure this could have gone one of two ways: I may have had more time to devote to looking for someone my own age, or I could have just hung out in my apartment with Ben and Jerry reading Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” and her sister Emily’s “Wuthering Heights,” pining for what I didn’t have. (Marie Celano)

No Perfect Words discusses Jane Eyre and The Squeee lists the forthcoming Jane Eyre-related novels.

EDIT: An alert from the University of Texas, Austin:

The Masterpiece Society
The Madwoman in the Attic: Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea
February 23 · 5:00pm - 6:00pm 
Location: Mezes 1.118  

You won't want to miss this amazing opportunity to talk about two classics---Jane Eyre and the novel it later inspired, Wide Sargasso Sea! The amazing Dr. Mackay will be hosting and helping us to explore the multi-faceted ways in which these novels discuss Imperialism, Feminism and Individuality.  

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Talks, Theatre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

Read More

German audiobook

An abridged audiobook in German just released:

Emily Brontë
Sturmhöhe
Read by Wolfram Koch , Eva Mattes
Abridged Version
Silberfisch (February 2011)
ISBN 978-3-86742-680-0
4 CD (AudioCD)

Wild und leidenschaftlich, unangepasst und kompromisslos: Heathcliff und Catherine ähneln sich charakterlich wie ein Ei dem anderen. Gesellschaftlich aber trennen Welten das Findelkind aus den Liverpooler Slums und die Tochter eines wohlhabenden Gutsherrn. Gemeinsam aufgezogen und in tiefer, bedingungsloser Liebe zueinander entflammt, führen das Schicksal und Heathcliffs Temperament das Paar in einen Strudel, der nicht nur sie selbst, sondern auch ihre Familien mit sich reißt.

Categories: Audio-Radio, Wuthering Heights

Read More

None of our Brontës is missing

Given that Jasper Fforde's sixth installment of the Thursday Next series - One of Our Thursdays is Missing - has just been released in the UK (and will be available in the US on March 8th), The Tamarind has a recap of previous books, with special attention to the one that started it all: The Eyre Affair. If you haven't read the series, beware of spoilers in that article. And do yourself a favour and start reading the books.

A couple of students are featured in their local press. The Marin Independent Journal's student of the week:

Nominator Linda Kislingbury's comments: "Stephen has embraced drama and music since his freshman year. He has continued to improve and become one of our finest character actors. He has big parts in both the fall musical and play. As a senior honors drama student, Stephen will help student-direct our spring play, 'Jane Eyre.'"

And the Beauregard Daily News focuses on a local high school senior whose favourite book is Jane Eyre.

On the blogosphere, The Brontë Sisters has uploaded several pictures of old Haworth. Cousins Read and The House of the Seven Tails both post about Villette as part of the Unputdownables Read-along. Kate's Library and Walking on Sunshine write about Jane Eyre (and the latter is not very enthusiastic about it). Anima Libri discusses Wuthering Heights in German while Flickr user Red Heart Studio has uploaded a Wuthering Heights-inspired collage. Finally, Thoughts from sonie has written a poem on seeing Charlotte Brontë's Roe Head Journal at the Morgan Library.

Categories: Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Villette, Wuthering Heights

Read More

Theses time

Recent Brontë-related theses:

"The Events of My Insignificant Existence": Traumatic Testimony in Charlotte Brontë's Fictional Autobiographies
by Haller, Elizabeth Kari, Kent State University, August 2009
Abstract
A significant gap in current criticism surrounding Charlotte Brontë's novels has led to a superficial rendering of her primary characters, situating them as mere autobiographical products of a certain place and a certain time. My study, "'The Events of My Insignificant Existence': Traumatic Testimony in Charlotte Brontë's Fictional Autobiographies,' fills this gap by establishing Brontë's primary characters as complex individuals who cannot be oversimplified and defined by their gender or their historical moment and who are not limited by their creator's frame of reference. To provide a deservedly deeper and more illuminating explication of her work, this study furthers a critical understanding of Brontë's narrative structures in her fictional autobiographies – The Professor (1857), Jane Eyre (1847), Villette (1853) – through the application of trauma theory, a theoretical stance that has yet to be utilized in analyzing any of her novels. Bronte's primary characters are each defined by a traumatic event that took root on a sub-conscious level, causing their moral and psychological growth to decline, if not cease, as evidenced by repetitive patterns of behavior that occur throughout the novels. These patterns are indicative of an originary trauma and reveal that not only are the narrators discontented in their life choices but they are writing their autobiographies as a means of providing testimony to their continued struggle with trauma in an attempt to master that trauma and experience a true revelation of self. This study covers each novel, looking at the narrator's autobiographic representation of life events as traumatic testimony with the public forum of the novel allowing the reader to serve as witness. Approaching Brontë's novels in this manner (through trauma theory) sheds insight into the traumatic stimulus of these works, mirrored in the characters who, as individuals, reveal the truth of their lives that is not entirely represented in their fictional autobiographies and that is completely overlooked in previous critical studies.

Comparison of Jane Eyre and "Cinderella" with the help of Vladimir Propp's thesis
by Öhlander, Cecilia, Växjö universitet, 2009

This is an analysis of Jane Eyre's structure and plot in comparison with Vladimir Propp's thesis the Morphology of the Folktale, which shows resemblance with the Grimm brothers' "Cinderella".

Race, Gender and Colonialism in Victorian Representations of North Africa: The Writings of Charlotte Brontë, Guida and Grant Allen
by Aimillia Mohd Ramli, University of Manchester, 2008
Abstract
Charlotte Brontë, Guida and Grant Allen are known for their novels that engage with the issue of gender, race and Empire within the context of nineteenth-century representations of French-colonised North Africa and Algeria. An analysis of colonial discourse, engaging specifically with Edward Said's Orientalism, is helpful in understanding the underlying anxieties and ambivalences regarding these issues that are present in these writers' works, and in particular Brontë's Villette, Guida's Under Two Flags and Allen's The Tents of Shem. Not only do the novels provide a chronological analysis of the gradual transformations underwent by representations of Arabs in English literature from their portrait as courageous freedom fighters, in the middle of the nineteenth century, to a mass of blood-thirsty savages less than fifty years later, they also demonstrate shifts in the types of anxieties that colonial discourse underwent during this period; from fears regarding possible contaminative effect that the East was said to assert on the treatment of women in the West in Brontë's novel, through a more ambivalent attitude towards sexual practices in the region in Guida's work and, finally, the tension that results from racial encounters and the fear surrounding degeneration in Britain in Allen's novel. While novels by Brontë and Guida imply the sources of these anxieties as coming from outside Britain, Allen's writings reflect his fear that the future of the English race was being threatened by a surplus of childless and unmarried women within the metropolitan centre. In fact, the narratives studied here deeply imbricate the race and character of the English with gendered representations of North Africans during that period. Even though colonialism is perceived as consolidating the superiority of the English race in comparison to other races, increasing encounters between it and these 'others' at the periphery, in particular North Africa, inevitably expose anxieties to be a significant part of the English colonial identity.

Categories: Scholar

Read More