Brontë Studies.Volume 37, Issue 1

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 37, Issue 1, January 2012) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:

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

Patrick Brontë, the Burders and the Wethersfield of 1808
pp. pp. 1-9(9) Author: Woollard, John
Abstract:
From October 1806 to January 1809, Patrick Brontë was curate of the parish church of St Mary’s, Wethersfield, in Essex. This account is of the village of Wethersfield in 1808. Attention is drawn to the violence of the times, the role of the Parish Vestry, and of Patrick’s relationship with Mary Burder. This account is based on a talk given by John Woollard to the Wethersfield Local History Group in 2008, augmented with research by Carol Cook, and edited by Bob Duckett.


The Workings of Memory in Wuthering Heights
pp. 11-18(8) Author: Tytler, Graeme
Abstract:
As a novel much concerned with the vagaries of the human mind, Wuthering Heights gives appropriate scope to the workings of memory. For example, it may be assumed that excessive nostalgia is one of the principal reasons why Catherine and Heathcliff each eventually succumb to mental illness. The harmfulness of nostalgia can even be sensed in Edgar Linton’s retreat from normal life after Catherine’s death. But if remembering too well may have baneful consequences, so, too, in some measure, may forgetfulness, especially as an expression of thoughtlessness. Yet forgetfulness may also be a good thing where, as in Hareton Earnshaw’s case, it means declining to bear against others the kinds of grudge that, say, Heathcliff harbours for years on end. That a retentive memory may, nevertheless, be the sign of a wholesome humanity is amply illustrated by the younger Catherine, notably through her relations with some of the main characters.


Exile and the Reconciling Power of the Natural Affections in Jane Eyre
pp. 19-29(11) Author:  Bennett, Kelsey L
Abstract:
The critical resolution to Jane’s and St John’s mutual problem of exile in Morton consists in the way in which each reconciles conflicting propensities and principles by way of the natural affections. This article revisits influential eighteenth-century understandings of this concept in order to show how on the one hand St John proves himself to be very much a student of the eighteenth century in his rigid equivocation between the natural affections and public duty, but falls short of fulfilling the ‘self-affections’. Jane, on the other hand, overcomes exile by exceeding the eighteenth-century models through a superlative and compassionate form of the natural affections that is uniquely Charlotte Brontë’s own.

The Brontës at Work on Novels by Eugène Sue
pp.  30-43(14)  Author:  Heywood, Christopher
Abstract:
In addition to Charlotte Brontë’s use of Eugène Sue’s Mathilde and Le Morne- au-diable as models for her early fiction, outlined in my earlier article,1 both these novels are proposed here as contributions to the formation of Emily’s Wuthering Heights, Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Branwell’s And the Weary Are at Rest. Emily’s incisive recasting of both novels by Sue suggests that she took advantage of Charlotte’s absence in Brussels during 1843 to introduce these works to her brother and sister in the course of that year. This article proposes that all the Brontës, Patrick’s Irish brother Hugh included, recognized Emily’s leadership in handling story materials she found in Yorkshire history and literature, and novels by Eugène Sue.

Russian Translations of the Novels of Charlotte Brontë in the Nineteenth Century
pp. 44-48(5) Author:  Syskina, Anna A.
Abstract:
The article investigates the question of the Russian translations of Charlotte Brontë’s works. The reasons for so many translations and rewritings of her novels in the second half of the nineteenth century and the author’s great popularity are also covered. Several causes of this phenomenon are identified and briefly described.

A Tale
pp. 49-62(14)  Author:  Taylor, Mary
Abstract:
This story was published in The Victoria Magazine, vol. XXI, September 1873. The Editor wishes to thank Joan Bellamy and Robert Barnard for the submission.

Aesthetic Attitudes in Wuthering Heights
pp. 63-74(12) Author:  Tytler, Graeme
Abstract:
One aspect of Wuthering Heights that deserves critical attention is the presence of various aesthetic attitudes permeating the narrative. Manifest in references not only to the arts, but to the beauty or physical interest of human beings, nature or inanimate objects, aesthetic attitudes, displayed as they are by several characters in the novel, are especially conspicuous in Lockwood and Nelly Dean. Although such attitudes may be thought gener- ally commendable, the reader is, nevertheless, also made forcibly aware of their limitations, notably when they serve as means of ignoring one’s sense of moral responsibility or of taking flight from the more important demands of ordinary life. And if, as the author suggests, the arts, too, are not without certain limitations of their own, she makes it abundantly clear, not least perhaps through the literary merits of her masterpiece, that no aesthetic attitude is worthier than a wholesome love of books.

Reviews
pp 75-79(5)

The Daphne Carrick Memorial Scholarship, 2012
pp. 80-81(2)