Brontë Studies. Volume 43, Issue 4

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 43 Issue 4, September 2018) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:

Editorial
pp. 271-272 Author: Amber A. Adams

An Anne Brontë Whodunit
pp. 273-283  Author: Lonoff, Sue
Abstract:
Only a few of Anne Brontë’s writings with her signature survive. Among them is a first edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall that also includes pencilled notes. At some point this three-volume edition became not one but two ‘author’s own copies’, although neither owner was aware that the volumes Anne signed had been separated and sold as sets with other unsigned volumes. This article examines questions that arise from the discovery of their division: whether all of the signatures are genuine, how the signed volumes came to be split up, and above all why Anne’s putting her name to this copy of Tenant matters.

The Several Stages of Gondal
pp.284-299  Author: Chitham, Edward
Abstract: 
The poetic fragments relating to Gondal and Gaaldine, the imaginary countries of Emily and Anne Brontë, have been considered to imply a coherent whole, and efforts have been made to construct a possible narrative round these fragments, with a few other names of places and characters. This article will assert that there were three or more distinguishable phases in the creation of Gondal, reminding readers that the queen of Gondal, ‘A. G. A.’, lasted only four years of the eleven or more of its existence.

Rooms in Wuthering Heights
pp. 300-310 Author: Tytler, Graeme
Abstract: 
One striking aspect of Wuthering Heights is the use of rooms as settings for, or backgrounds to, most of the actions or situations described by its various narrators. Thus, as well as being made aware of the social difference between the two principal domiciles through references to particular rooms and buildings, we note, for example, the thematic role played by the oak-panelled closet at the Heights and by the drawing room at the Grange, just as we see frequent mention of chambers or bedrooms, usually with ominous implications. The rooms most often referred to, however, are the Heights sitting room and parlour, the Grange library and parlour, and, above all, the kitchen, which, though the humblest room in both households, is undoubtedly the most interesting for being the space in which all kinds of human behaviour, ranging from the near tragic to the utterly comical, take place.

Blurring Boundaries and a Generic Matrix in Jane Eyre’s ‘Political Unconscious’
pp. 311-322  Author: Robab Khosravi
Abstract: 
In The Political Unconscious, Fredric Jameson regards genres as ‘literary institutions’, arguing that genres are political and a reflection of the socio-historical circumstances. Earlier in Marxism and Form, Jameson had proposed that the key aspect of a text is its form and that content is only secondary to form. In this sense, interpretation is inseparable from literary form — and all interpretation is historical. This paper attempts to map Jane Eyre’s ‘political unconscious’ to suggest that the novel’s generic elasticity — its elaborate fusion of Gothic transgression, romance dialectics and echoes of autobiography and Bildungsroman — is the hidden and coded manifestation of a utopian imagination. In effect, Jane Eyre incorporates a technique of montage and a (subsequent) collapse of generic boundaries, because the text’s political unconscious dreams of a disintegration of class boundaries. It is often argued that the concept of genre is no longer relevant in our postmodern context, as postmodern texts are characterized by a tendency to transgress generic boundaries. This paper considers the theoretical implications of such transgression for an interpretation of Jane Eyre’s generic affiliations.

‘A brilliancy of their own’: Female Art, Beauty and Sexuality in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
pp. 323-334  Author: Ioannou, Maria
Abstract: 
This article studies the portraits of Rosamond Oliver and Blanche Ingram in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, to argue that, first, the portraits participate in the nineteenth-century dialogue about women in art and, second, capture Jane’s convictions on the theme of sexual love. This is especially so in the case of Rosamond’s miniature, which comes at a point where Jane has resolved to choose a sexual union rather than a loveless marriage. In an important sense, Jane is Rosamond; the subject (artist) identifies with the object (model) in an equation of female beauty with agency and capacity for sexual feeling.

Candles at the Time of the Brontë Novels
pp. 335-340 Author: Clifford Jones, J.
Abstract:
Candle usage in the Brontë novels is examined. Factors in the interpretation include the types of candles in use at the period, especially beeswax candles and tallow candles. Scientific principles are invoked in descriptions of the burning behaviour of the respective candle types. The practice of candle ‘snuffing’, which features several times in the novels, is explained. The need for economy in the use of candles is evident in two of the novels, and this is linked to the Candle Tax.

Miscellany
A Brontë Reading List: Part 9
pp. 341-355 Author:  James Ogden, Peter Cook & Sara L. Pearson
Abstract:
This list is part of an annotated bibliography of scholarly and critical work. The earlier parts were published in Brontë Studies, 32.2 (July 2007), 33.3 (November 2008), 34.3 (November 2009), 36.4 (November 2011), 37.3 (September 2012), 39.1 (January 2014), 41.3 (2016) and 42.4 (November 2017). The present part covers work published in 2015.

Reviews
Brontë Transformations: The Cultural Dissemination of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights
pp. 356-357  Author: Cook, Peter

Emily Jane Brontë and her Music
pp. 357-360 Author: Duckett, Bob

Ill Will: The Untold Story of Heathcliff
pp. 360-362  Author: Duckett, Bob

Elmet
pp.362-364 Author: Cook, Peter

In the Footsteps of Emily Brontë: A Catalogue of the Art Work of Percy J. Smith, Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights.
pp.365-367 Author:  Van Der Meer, Carolyne