Brontë Studies. Volume 41. Issue 4

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 41, Issue 3, November 2016) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:       

Editorial
pp. 281-282 Author: Amber A. Adams & Josephine Smith

Jane Eyre Revisited
pp. 283-299 Author:  Wilks, Brian
Abstract:

In 1847 Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë’s first published novel, at once captivated readers and to this day commands the admiration of the world’s reading public. Understandably one of the world’s great love stories, it is much more besides. It is the purpose of this article to explore implicit themes in the novel that, together with the pseudo-biography, lift the love story to a work of a much wider significance, a significance that may well help us understand the novel holding its high place in the world’s esteem. Consideration of the social context of Jane Eyre in no way diminishes the great love story; on the contrary, it illuminates the rich ‘embroidered’ cultural tapestry before which that story is displayed. The central concern of the novel, finding a voice and validity for the ‘ordinary’ or common person, is still with us and ensures the continuing fascination that accompanies the orphan’s progress and the great romantic tale of Jane’s and Edward’s tortured paths. The theme of inheritance will further be explored and finally the overall artistic confidence with which the whole novel is imbued will be considered.

Physiognomy and the Treatment of Beauty in Jane Eyre
pp. 300-311  Author:  Tytler, Graeme
Abstract:
Like much nineteenth-century English fiction, Jane Eyre is conspicuous for reflecting the influence of physiognomy on everyday life and culture during that period. This is evident enough from the heroine’s presentation as an observer with a remarkable capacity for interpreting the facial and bodily features of her fellow creatures. It is, nevertheless, curious to note, more especially through her portrait of Rochester, that, where beauty is concerned, Jane is not only uncomfortable with the standards thereof generally upheld by the society of her day, but seems to flout a central principle as asserted by well-known physiognomists down the ages. All this raises the question of how far Jane’s standpoint in such respects is due among other things to her character and her social circumstances. Be that as it may, there can be little doubt that Charlotte Brontë’s treatment of beauty here is one of the most important aspects of her art as a novelist.

The Two Janes: Jane Eyre and the Narrative Problem in Chapter 23
pp. 312-321  Author:  Fiehn, Charlotte
Abstract:
Throughout Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë distinguishes between Jane Eyre as a first-person narrator who lends her voice to the narrative, and Jane’s remembered self, whose actions, thoughts and feelings are the narrative focus. Although Charlotte Brontë’s distinction between these two Janes affects the narrative structure and representation of character throughout the novel, in Chapter 23 Charlotte Brontë exploits the knowledge gap between her narrator-Jane and the remembered self. Examining Charlotte Brontë’s manipulation of this gap, this paper considers Charlotte Brontë’s deliberate development of a dubious narrative authority and its implications for the interpretation of the novel.

Charlotte Brontë in her Letters
pp. 322-333 Author:  Curtis, Myra
Abstract:
While the letters of Charlotte Brontë are a major source for our knowledge of the events and personalities in the Brontë story, it is worthwhile to look at them as one her achievements in authorship and what they reveal of her character. Compared to her contemporaries, her letters exhibit a stiffness and heaviness of style, probably due to the nature of her early reading and lack of social intercourse. As she grew older her style lightened, but she never lost her fervour, a feature that make her letters so interesting. Being a shy person, Charlotte enjoyed writing letters and revealed more of herself in them than she did in company. She was a good observer of human nature and a shrewd commentator on life. She wrote with certainty and assurance on matters right and wrong, and could be censorious and didactic, yet at times showed great understanding. She had a spartan self-repressive attitude to life; of submission to fate, fortitude, control of excessive feeling, and a sacrifice of self-interest. But this was not how she saw herself and is in contrast to her novels where there is more passion and intensity of experience. Charlotte was uncomfortable with dealing with public questions and came to recognize her limited experience, evidenced in the change of tone from Shirley to Villette. The appeal of her letters is in her openness, her truthfulness and in her personal feelings.

Rinsen Nakazawa’s Interest in Emily Brontë
pp. 334-339 Author:  Uhara, Miwa
Abstract:
Rinsen Nakazawa (1878–1920) was a Japanese engineer who was also actively engaged in literary activities in the early twentieth century. Two of his short essays mention Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights: ‘Hakaba Kankai’ and ‘Ai wa, Chikara wa Tsuchi yori’. Nakazawa also contributed an article about her to a Japanese women’s magazine named Fujingaho. In that article, he introduced readers to Emily’s tragic life and praised her novel and poetry. He was one of the first Japanese intellectuals who fully appreciated her works and described her in a published work as a great writer and poet.

The Matter of Souls: Philosophical Aspects of Wuthering Heights
pp. 340-349 Author:  Schakenrad, Johanna
Abstract:
Many interpretations of Wuthering Heights have focused on the love of Catherine and Heathcliff and neglected Catherine’s love for Edgar Linton. Both Edgar and Heathcliff represent values in human life. Catherine’s unwillingness or inability to choose between material pursuits and her true self gives the novel its tragic import. In the second part of the novel Heathcliff faces the same dilemma. For both the only way out is death, when they will be reunited. The world view that underlies the novel is a platonic philosophy, which can also be recognized in Emily Brontë’s poetry and in her life (and death).

Anne Brontë’s Realist ‘Bluebeard’
pp. 350-360 Author:  Campbell, Jessica
Abstract:
Despite scholarly attention to the role of fairy tales in the novels of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, no one has discussed the possibility that ‘realist’ sister Anne deployed fairy tales as well. But the core plot of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall strikingly resembles ‘Bluebeard’. The heroine of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall shares the essential predicament of Bluebeard’s wife: marriage to a man whose past threatens her in the present. This essay argues that Anne Brontë’s adult fiction, too, reflects the Brontës’ childhood engagement with fairy-tale and fantasy literature — but in a subtle way that works in concert with her unflinchingly realist aims.

Reviews

Winifred Gérin: Biographer of the Brontës
pp. 361-363 Author:  Duckett, Bob

Charlotte Brontë. A Life
pp. 363-365 Author:  Duckett, Bob

Memorializing Animals During the Romantic Period
pp. 366-367 Author: Mullis, Aileen

The Art of Adapting Victorian Literature, 1848–1920: Dramatizing Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, and The Woman in White
p. 367-369 Author: Braxton, Kimberley

The Real Wuthering Heights: The Story of the Withins Farms
p. 369-370 Author: Rayner, Catherine

Book review The World Within: A Novel of Emily Brontë. By Jane Eagland
p. 370 Author: Powell. Sarah

Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre
p. 371 Author: Powell, Sarah