Recent Research (II)

A couple of Brontë-related chapters in recent scholar publications:

Gender/genre. Saggi in onore di Maria Teresa ChialantMarina Lops, Eleonora Rao
Liguori, 2014
Volume 118 of Critica e letteratura,
Editors Marina Lops, Eleonora Rao
ISBN 9788820764418

Il volume, concepito in onore dell'anglista Maria Teresa Chialant, raccoglie 29 saggi che offrono un variegato itinerario interpretativo attraverso le forme del narrare, della rappresentazione scenica e della parola poetica, sia nel contesto della letteratura inglese e nordamericana che in quello delle letterature anglofone. A fare da filo rosso fra i diversi contributi è l'attenzione per i generi della enunciazione letteraria, sui quali viene svolta una riflessione prevalentemente, ma non esclusivamente, orientata a indagare la complessa relazione che il "sistema dei generi" istituisce con la nozione di gender, intesa come categoria di analisi e interpretazione del fatto letterario. Pur nella varietà delle metodologie adottate, la cornice di riferimento per la gran parte dei contributi è l'orizzonte teorico inaugurato dalla critica femminista e dagli studi di genere negli ultimi trent'anni del Novecento. I saggi, distribuiti in quattro sezioni, disegnano una fitta trama di percorsi letterari e intrecci culturali che spaziano dall'età di Shakespeare alla contemporaneità, ma investono anche l'esperienza del tradurre, esplorata alla luce del rapporto fra gender e traduzione.

Includes “Emily Brontë and the Poetry of Vagueness” by Francesco Marroni.

Identities in Metamorphosis. Literature, Discourse and Multicultural DialogueIulian Boldea (Coordinator)
Publisher: Arhipelag XXI Press
ISBN: 978-606-93691-9-7

includes

Jane Eyre: A Feminist Psychoanalytic Perspective on the Social Status of the Victorian WomanMaria-Viorica Arnăutu, PhD Student, ”Al. Ioan Cuza” University of Iași

In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë addresses feminist issues that reflect the social background of nineteenth-century British society. This paper analyses the novel from a feminist psychoanalytic perspective, revealing the manner in which Victorian women were supposed to display themselves in order to please the ones watching: men – the gender oppressors – who established chauvinistic rules by which they judged women’s selfpresentation.
Moreover, the analysis is also based on the reading of Jane Eyre as a woman who fears motherhood and whose nightmares reflect the anxieties that most Victorian women experienced in relation to this issue. The protagonist’s dream accounts take the form of expression and, alternatively, that of repression. As the novel is widely considered fundamentally confessional in nature, the heroine’s maternity-related fears are meant to be read as ‘journeys’ into the unconscious of the Victorian authoress herself. In addition, the description of Jane’s sketches can also be regarded as valuable material for psychoanalysis because it suggests her desire to have a powerful visual impact on the man she loves with the esthetic beauty of her paintings which compensates for her plain-looking physical aspect. To a certain extent, the need to be admired points to Brontë’s own frustration with herself falling short of the Victorian version of feminine ideal. The protagonist paints sublime images that reflect her innate qualities and unique inner life. Nevertheless, they are also indicative of her lower middle-class social status that sets her culturally apart from inferior classes (that
cannot create or appreciate art). All in all, dream accounts, art description and relevant
scenes in the novel are insightful not only in terms of dissecting the writer’s repressed wishes, but also regarding the main characteristics of the class membership of the average white.