Romanticism, Le Fanu and Humour

Some other recent (but not mentioned before on this blog) Brontë-related scholar works:

The Oxford History of the Novel in English
Volume 3: The Nineteenth-Century Novel 1820-1880
Edited by John Kucich and Jenny Bourne Taylor
Oxford History of the Novel in English
978-0-19-956061-5 | Hardback | 03 November 2011
Oxford University Press

Volume 3, The Nineteenth-Century Novel 1820-1800 charts one of the most significant and exciting periods in the history of the genre. Beginning with the decade in which Scott's work helped inaugurate the three-volume novel, and in which many narrative genres, conventions, and preoccupations associated with Victorian fiction first emerged, it traces how these forms developed and changed in the mid nineteenth century, as the novel became established at the centre of British national culture. The volume includes sections on book history, on major authors, and on the varieties of fiction and range of narrative modes during the period. It also features essays on theories of the novel, and on the novel's relationship to other aesthetic forms. Volume 3 also emphasizes the wider cultural role and significance of the novel during the period, including its impact on ideas of place and nation, as well as its intervention in political, scientific, and intellectual contexts.

Chapter 13 is The Brontës and the Transformations of Romanticism by John Bowen.

Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Edited by Gary William Crawford, Jim Rockhill and Brian J. Showers
Hippocampus Press
ISBN 978-1-61498-005-6
December 2011

Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873) is one of the leading weird writers of the nineteenth century, the author of “Green Tea,” “Carmilla,” Uncle Silas, and other classic works. In this volume, the first collection of essays about Le Fanu, three distinguished scholars have amassed a wealth of material on every aspect of the author’s life, work, and influence. A biographical section features memoirs of Le Fanu along with reproductions of many portraits of the author. Early reviews of his many books are reprinted, as is important early criticism by M. R. James, E. F. Benson, V. S. Pritchett, and others. Recent essays by Jack Sullivan, John Langan, Victor Sage, and many others discuss a wide array of topics relating to Le Fanu’s writing. Nine of these essays are printed here for the first time. All in all, this book provides a definitive guide to the weird fiction of Le Fanu.

Contains: Forgotten Creator of Ghosts—Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Possible Inspirer of the Brontës by Edna Kenton.

“Frank and unconscious humor and narrative structure in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”
Lorene M. Birden, Institut Universitaire de Technologie de Dijon
Humor - International Journal of Humor Research. Volume 24, Issue 3, Pages 263–286 (2011)

This study presents two aspects of the novel in question, its humor and its structure. It shows that both have been misunderstood and misinterpreted, and begins by reminding us that the author herself was long misunderstood because of early critical misreadings and presuppositions. It then continues to demonstrate that the two aspects studied are in fact interrelated; the so-called flawed structure, actually a framing structure, is in fact a firm form that is carefully underpinned by the instances of humor. It proceeds by presenting and dispelling the basic myths about the author and the novel, then presents the structure and the reasons for misconceptions of it before proceeding to map the humor using Attardo's system of humor rhythm mapping. Chlopicki's character frames also contribute to a demonstration of parallel characterization which contradicts another, minor myth, that of the unsuitability of the hero for the heroine. The study as a whole attacks the ideas of humorlessness in Brontë fiction, the inferiority of Anne's work and the feebleness of the structure of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.