A new Emily Brontë essay published as an ebook in Italian:
Emily Brontë. Natura e Religione
Simona Scarfogliero
November 14, 2016
Media & Books
Nell’età vittoriana la donna costituiva per l’immaginario maschile, anche intellettuale, un oggetto di tentazione del tutto passivo, un puro e semplice riflesso dei suoi desideri, fonte di ispirazione ma in sé priva di autentiche capacità creative. In margine alla Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, (i cultori del mito della femme fatale), le poetesse vittoriane perseguivano tenacemente un tema comune: l’affermazione della loro libertà. L’arma era la scrittura, utilizzata ora per descrivere ora per indagare l’esistenza individuale, ma sempre intrisa di sensibilità femminile.
Data la non lunga tradizione della letteratura femminile, poche voci si sono levate abbastanza in alto da soddisfare questa disperata ricerca di affermazione, ma quelle poche, per il silenzio che le aveva precedute, hanno avuto la possibilità di acquistare valore di modello: Jane Austen, George Sand, George Eliot, le sorelle Brontë ed altre.
La voce di queste figure gigantesche della letteratura ha echeggiato per decenni oltre la loro morte, ma forse nessuna si è impressa nell’immaginario femminile quanto quella di Emily Brontë e delle sue sorelle, Charlotte ed Anne.
Questo libro analizza la poetica di Emily Brontë e dà una chiave di lettura interessante e particolarmente originale.
EDIT: The author herself has
summarized the book in the comments.
A new Emily Brontë essay published as an ebook in Italian:
Dear all,
ReplyDeleteI am Simona Scarfogliero from Napoli, Italy. I am the writer of the book you can find on Google Play Store.
I would like to summarise my work as following:
- the 1st chapter is about the problem of the relationship between Identity and Creativity. In the Post-Romantic age, the female poetic voice strongly showed the problem of the relationship between identity and creativity. Women poets, facing the existing poetic canon, broke the main literary tradition which, historically, was a man privilege. It is an element that had a particular importance in the process of the self-definition by which the female writers of the XIX century tried, little by little, to specify their own identity and role.
The Romantic concept stated that the centrality of the self and the creative power was an exclusive male field. The identity of the poet was expressed according to the masculinity of the ‘I’ creator; the female figures, muses and objects of the representation, had a marginal position, ideal accessory of man's mind. The woman was the favourite subject of the Victorian poetry in fact the poets were inspired by the poem The Angel in the House (1858) by Coventry Patmore where Honoria embodied the myth of the ''angel of the hearth": a woman isolated in her own world, locked in the domestic sphere where she could and should preserve the national moral values. Many XIX century women poets tried to fight against the false ideal of the submissive woman and bring out an ‘I’ that deeply claimed their dignity both as women and as artists;
- the 2nd chapter deals with the life of Emily and her siblings. I describe how the kingdoms of Angria and Gondal were born and why Haworth, the moors and the parsonage have a main role in her life. I also explain why her stay in Brussels, Law Hill, Roe Head, the Clergy's Daughters' School in Cowan Bridge is decisive: Charlotte's official biographer, Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell, talks about 'Emily's homesickness'. I even underline the difference between 'to be a governess', 'to be a teacher' and 'to be a writer, a woman writer'. In the last case, they were forced to use the 'camouflage' to face up the 'Victorian double standard'. For this reasons not only the Brontes but also others used nomes de plume.
- the 3rd and last chapter is dedicated to the 'Gondal Poems': I consider a huge group of her poems and I analyse them according to the point of view of the philosophy, religion, nature, Romantic poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats), visionary poets (Blake), mysticism.
Even though the book is written into Italian and so reserved to people who can understand it, the book can be considered a good contribution to the literary criticism about Emily Bronte.
Thanx for your attention.
Simona
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