Team Brontë in the Penguin English Library

Penguin English Library asked us to contribute with a small post (engaging and exaggerated were the indications) to a sort of Battle of Authors they have started on their Facebook wall. Therefore, BrontëBlog made the opening speech for Team Brontë and Jane Austen's World did the same for Team Austen. These are the entries (you can check the unedited Austen one here).

And by the way... do comment on the Facebook wall (if possible in the right post). Team Brontë is right now clearly outnumbered and beaten:

Let’s settle this once and for all: Team Austen or Team Brontë? The battle starts here.
We want to know which of the two scribes you prefer and why – so go forth, fight for your literary love and win round the naysayers!
The best comments will be rewarded with our limited edition Penguin English Library canvas bags.

The opening speech for Charlotte Brontë, by BrontëBlog

‘In Austen, sex is just a kiss on the hand. In the Brontës, everything happens’. So says a newspaper clipping kept at the Brontë Parsonage Museum Library. After hearing that, the Brontës would get a twinkle in their eyes that would belie their quieter, Northern-lasses-from-a-parsonage appearance.

Charlotte herself, after reading Emma pronounced ''the passions are perfectly unknown to her, she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress."

Which she corroborated after reading Pride and Prejudice: "An accurate daguerrotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses".

It's an easy choice: either you like opening a book and gazing at a quiet and ever-green meadow, nice and lovely but always nice and lovely, sometimes too nice and too lovely or you like opening a book and looking at an ever-changing moor, sometimes bleak, sometimes radiantly in bloom, never predictable, always engaging. If you choose the latter, remember that being Team Brontë is more than a mere liking. As another newspaper said (as early as 1916): "Miss Austen and Thackeray have admirers; Charlotte Brontë has worshippers".

The opening speech for Jane Austen, by Vic of Jane Austen's World (http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/):

I’ve been asked to participate in a smackdown, pitting Jane Austen, whose best-selling novel starts with the most memorable opening line in literature - “It is a truth universally acknowledged...” - against Charlotte Brontë, who begins Jane Eyre with a sentence that barely qualifies as a decent Facebook entry: “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day”. Good lord. GO Team Austen!

I love smart and funny women who are quick with their tongues. A number of Brontë fans have accused Austen of writing sterile romance novel claptrap, which means that those poor souls don't get Austen's ironic take on life with its underlying passions at all. Can you imagine one of Brontë's overwrought characters coming up with the cool line that Mary Crawford uttered in Mansfield Park? ”Certainly, my home at my uncle's brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears, and Vices, I saw enough. Now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat.” I had been of legal drinking age for a number of years before I understood exactly what rears and vices meant!

Brontë supporters think Jane's novels lack passion and give us no sense of the greater society in which she lived. Let's debunk that myth, shall we? Willoughby got a girl pregnant, enticed Marianne to behave like a hoyden, then cynically married an heiress for money. Wickham attempted to seduce an underage heiress, then ran off with a lusty, empty-headed 16-year-old virgin with no intention of marrying her. Lucy Steele was a sadistic, mean, and spiteful little thing. Mrs. Norris was a verbal abuser who could have taught Lucy a thing or two in the nasty department. Fanny Price's mother married for love, and look where that got her – barefoot, too many times pregnant, and living like a slattern in a hovel. John Thorpe was a douche-bag, plain and simple, as was William Elliott. Then there were the silly ministers, and the neglectful husbands, like Mr. Bennet and Mr. Palmer. Last but not least, Jane handed the dreaded specter of poverty to Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Smith, whose cheerful demeanor belied her desperate state.

Interwoven through Austen's novels are her sparkling wit and clear observations of the human character. We are treated to strong heroines like Lizzie Bennet and Anne Elliot, and to alpha males like Mr. Darcy and Colonel Brandon, who, as men of few words, sprang into selfless action when heroism was required. Brontë offers no such relief.

And for the record... this is just a game. As a matter of fact, we at BrontëBlog like (and enjoy) Jane Austen.