Il 31 marzo 1855 moriva Charlotte Brontë. Per celebrare una delle più grandi scrittrici inglesi di tutti i tempi oggi vi proponiamo i libri da leggere dedicati a colei che ha scritto un capolavoro come Jane Eyre.Libreriamo (Italy) lists several of Charlotte Brontë's most well-known quotes.
Se siete degli appassionati di letteratura inglese avrete di sicuro letto le opere delle sorelle Brontë. Oggi ricorre l’anniversario di morte di Charlotte Brontë, la maggiore e forse la più famosa delle tre autrici dello Yorkshire. Charlotte Brontë ci ha lasciato in eredità il suo più grande capolavoro, Jane Eyre, ma anche altri romanzi: Il professore, Shirley, Villette. Ma quali sono i libri che possiamo leggere invece se vogliamo approfondire meglio la vita e il pensiero dell’autrice? Quali sono i più bei libri a lei dedicati? Scopriamoli insieme, oggi ve ne consigliamo alcuni. (Translation)
With a passionate interest in the English authors, the Brontë Sisters, Catherine served as president of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Brontë Society for several years. Catherine's hobby was painting and she was particularly skilled in Chinese Brush painting. She was also an avid knitter.Los Angeles Review of Books reveals how the author Kerry Madden-Lunsford is preparing a new novel with Brontë references:
They wanted me to write plays and “drop the grotty trade school occupation of journalism,” and I was very happy to oblige. I’m now writing a novel inspired by that time called Hop the Pond, which also has themes of addiction and features the Brontë sisters and their brother, Branwell. (Tim Cummings)Jacobin Magazine reviews the new film by Jordan Peele, Us:
Scissors could be in there too, but just ordinary household ones that you’d find lying around anywhere, not fancy shears that look like the Brontë sisters once used them for dressmaking and they’ve been in a museum ever since. (Eileen Jones)Manilla Bulletin discusses a literary dinner around André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name:
In our conversation about Call Me By Your Name, I would have had much more to say if I called to mind what little I learned about life from Dante or Virgil or Homer or Ovid, all of whom and more, such as Monet, Heraclitus, Shakespeare, Emily Brontë, Friedrich Nietszche, Anton Chekov, etc., made this love story more like a meditation on the human condition. (AA Patawaran)Manchester Evening News discovers lakes around Manchester:
Walshaw Dean Reservoirs (...)A Muslim girl celebrating Sabbath amidst a Jewish family... in Germany. The News on Sunday (Pakistan) reports:
These three reservoirs are also located near to Hebden Bridge and take just over an hour to get to from Manchester city centre.
Nearby is Top Withins, a ruined farmhouse near Haworth, which is thought to be the inspiration behind Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. (Alexandra Rucki)
By sundown, Rebecca and I had traded our puffer jackets and faux fur-lined boots for full skirts and petticoats in preparation for Shabbat. Dressed like maidens from an Emily Brontë novel we joined Rebecca’s Rabi uncle for a candle-lit dinner. Bread breaking rituals and Kiddush, blessing over wine, were soon superseded by an open-hearted and honest discussion on the shared Abrahamic origin of Islam and Judaism. (Fatima Bakhtawar)Le Monde interviews the writer Guillaume Musso:
Dans leur petite bibliothèque étaient rangés les Mémoires du général de Gaulle et Les Hauts de Hurlevent. A l'intérieur du livre d'Emily Brontë était inscrit à la plume le nom de ma mère. J'ai commencé à lire. Cela m'a fait l'effet d'un électrochoc. J'ai eu l'impression de pénétrer dans un monde interdit. En plein passage entre enfance et adolescence, j'accédais aux tourments et passions d'êtres torturés, machiavéliques, à la complexité de l'âme humaine. J'avais l'impression de lire des des pensées secrètes et pas toujours convenables. D'être en connexion avec une jeune Anglaise née un siècle et demi plus tôt. Fascinant ! A partir de là, je me suis lancé dans un marathon de lectures. (Pascale Krémer) (Translation)
Rock'n'roll Rochester just for your pleasure:Mr. R: A Rock & Roll Romance
by Tracy Neis
Mischievous Muse Publishing Arts Alliance
ISBN-13: 978-1938208409
November 7, 2018
'70s rock star Eddie Rochester thought he'd met his soul mate in the passionate Roberta Mason, who inspired him to write a best-selling album of love songs. But Roberta's beauty masked a dark secret that would haunt Eddie for years to come.
Jenny Ayr, the free-spirited daughter of hippies, seemed an unlikely muse to rekindle Eddie's passion for life. But as Eddie fell more deeply in love with the innocent Jenny, his own dark secret threatened to keep him from finding true happiness at last.
This rock-and-roll remix of Jane Eyre retells one of England's most famous tales with a British-invasion-era twist, combining classic rock with classic literature to create an unforgettable mash-up of a love story that will make your heart sing.
Before True Detective and Beasts of No Nation, Cary Fukanaga (sic) offered up his own take on Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel — a period-set but still bracingly fresh reimaging of one of literature’s most enduring feminist heroes (a fierce, luminous Mia Wasakowski (sic)) and a pretty damn dashing Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender). (Leah Greenblatt)The Laconia Daily Sun informs of the upcoming events at the Belmont Library:
The Friday Fiction book group will read “The Eyre Affair” by Jasper Fforde on Friday, April 19, at 10:30 a.m. It takes place in an alternative 1985, where literary detective Thursday Next pursues a master criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.”
The Hollywood Reporter republishes the original 1985 review of the film Desperately Seeking Susan:The movie borrows its title from a set of personal ads that attract the attention of a bored Jersey housewife (Rosanna Arquette) — a frustrated romantic whose kitchen TV screen seems perpetually tuned to repeats of Wuthering Heights. (Kirk Ellis)Regrettably nobody in these 34 years seems to have noticed that the film on TV is, as a matter of fact, Rebecca.
Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley dramatises protests in the early 19th century when “certain inventions in machinery were introduced into the staple manufactures of the north, which, greatly reducing the number of hands necessary to be employed, threw thousands out of work, and left them without legitimate means of sustaining life”.The St Louis Post-Dispatch announces the performances of the Gordon & Caird musical Daddy Long-Legs:
It’s no coincidence that Jerusha is fond of the novel “Jane Eyre,” as her relationship with Pendleton is at once poignant and a bit creepy. It’s a measure of Barber’s skills as an actor that the manipulative Pendleton comes across as a sympathetic character. (Calvin Wilson)Literary Hub publishes an excerpt of Outsiders by Lyndall Gordon:
Olive Schreiner: Charlotte Brontë Of South Africa, 19th-century celebrity (...)Los Angeles Times talks about Ruth Wilson:
Native ground was, at first, a mission station, Wittebergen, on the border of Basutoland. Like Emily Brontë, Olive Schreiner was a creature of her terrain and also the daughter of an evangelical preacher who was a stranger in a strange land.
Wilson, who plays doomed Cordelia and The Fool in “Lear,” has also depicted a psychopathic genius in the BBC series “Luther,” a woman clouded by grief in Showtime’s “The Affair,” a 19th-century governess who falls for her brooding master in the BBC’s “Jane Eyre,” and a submissive wife torn between her brutish husband and neurotic sister in a London production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” (Meredith Blake)The Reykjavík Grapevine (Iceland) discusses a local exhibition:
Nectar & AmbrosiaJohn Polidori's The Vampyre is analyzed on The Conversation:
Nordic House, Sæmundargata 11
Though the title might reference ‘Jane Eyre’, this exhibit is fully inspired by Japanese zen gardens. (Hannah Jane Coen)
Lord Ruthven spawned a series of saturnine or demonic lovers in turn, from the Brontës’ Mr Rochester to the more sexy incarnations of Dracula and the contemporary paranormal romances of mortal women seduced by brooding bad and dangerous vampires. (Sam George)Veja (Brazil) recalls how
O sucesso do longa alavancou as vendas do diário — assim como, anos antes, a saga vampiresca Crepúsculo fizera crescer o interesse pelo clássico O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes, de Emily Brontë. (Raquel Carneiro) (Translation)Gazzetta di Parma (Italy) reviews the Italian translation of Elizabeth Strout's Abide With Me:
Conservare accanto ai classici d’ampio respiro. In particolare, di fianco ai libri di Jane Austen e delle sorelle Brontë. (Marilù Oliva) (Translation)Lakáskultúra (Hungary) interviews the photographer Vasali Katalin:
Rajongója vagyok…Periodistas en Español (Spain) and the Madrid Balthus exhibition:
…a Brontë nővérek regényeinek. (Translation)
Se pintó a sí mismo también en “La toilette de Cathy”, identificándose con Heatcliff (sic), el protagonista de “Cumbres borrascosas”. (Francisco R. Pastoriza) (Translation)Panorama (Italy) interviews the musician Enrico Ruggeri on his new album Alma:
Gianni Poglio: Nel disco ci sono le tue due anime, quella rock and roll e quella dello chansonnier...The Sisters' Room adds a new 'Brontë Parsonage treasure': Emily Brontë's Keeper watercolour and Keeper's collar. Write on Ejaleigh! posts some new gifts for Brontë lovers.
Sono fatto così, chi mi segue sa esattamente che cosa aspettarsi. In questo caso da un brano post punk come Supereroi alle atmosfere jazz di Cime tempestose. (Translation)
Jane EyreFurther information on Jane Eyre's Library and a couple of illustrations can be seen on her Instagram account.
Charlotte Brontë
Translated by Alejandro Pareja (revised)
Illustrated by Holly Jolley
Ediciones Alma - Clásicos Ilustrados
ISBN: 9788417430320
March 2019
Nos hallamos ante una novela adelantada a su tiempo, tanto en lo narrativo como en lo temático, una obra que trasciende el romanticismo al uso para adentrarse en los terrenos autobiográfico e ideológico. El personaje de Jane Eyre es el retrato de una mujer que lucha por su reconocimiento como persona tan válida como cualquier otra. El mensaje está más vigente que nunca.
7. Hathersage to Stanage EdgeOptions (Malaysia) pairs five classics novels with 'the perfect cocktails'.
Here’s one for Jane Eyre fans. This 9 mile walk, starting in the village of Hathersage, will take you to the cliffs of Stanage Edge via North Lees Hall, the 16th century manor that is thought to have been the inspiration behind Mr Rochester’s home in the novel.
The path to Stanage Edge is sprinkled with old millstones and grindstones from the mills that once flourished here. Abandoned in the 1860s, these remnants have become an iconic symbol of the district.
The literary associations continue upon reaching Stanage Edge. It was here that Keira Knightley stood looking windswept and pensive in the film adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. And who can blame her? It is arguably the most impressive gritstone escarpment in the Peak District, with superb views of the Derwent & Hope Valleys, Mam Tor and Kinder Scout.
Book: Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëThe Patriot Ledger features a local 15-year-old girl who has qualified for a national poetry competition.
Cocktail: Hazelnut at Vertigo
Brontë’s story follows the troubled life of Jane Eyre, an orphan and outcast who maintains her kindness and courage. The narrative starts with her childhood and rough school life right through to her time as a governess and her love affair with Mr Rochester. Things start to unravel when Rochester’s secret, the madwoman in the attic, is discovered.
For a love story such as this, the romantic view of Kuala Lumpur’s colourful sunset from Vertigo would do the trick. Combine that endless skyline with the Hazelnut, a mixture of Kraken spiced rum, Frangelico, Monin coco, gula melaka and fresh lime. It is a balanced cocktail with a clean mouthfeel and nutty aftertaste that goes well with this gothic adventure.
Vertigo, Level 59, Banyan Tree Kuala Lumpur, 2 Jalan Conlay, KL. Daily, 6pm-1am. Call 03 2113 1822 for more info. (Lakshmi Sekhar)
Every competitor must choose three from the list, and [Rose] Hanson plans to recycle the poems she recited for the qualifying rounds: "Art vs. Trade" by James Weldon Johnson, "Undivided Attention," by Taylor Mali and "Often Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning" by Emily Brontë. [...]Welt (Germany) tells the story of the bog burst experienced by the young Brontës in 1824. Wonderland Magazine has a 'fashion editorial' worthy of Wuthering Heights in their opinion. All Things Gee posts about Wuthering Heights.
Of the three, Bronte's is her favorite, Hanson said.
"It's not overtly empowering, the message doesn't jump out at you. But it's such a big step in the gap between past and present," she said. (Kate Coiro)
Animal VisionsThe Brontë chapter is Ghosts: Of Writing, at Windows, in Mirrors, on Moors.
Posthumanist Dream Writing
Susan Mary Pyke
Palgrave MacMillan
Presents a theoretical framework that considers posthuman dream writing as a conduit to politically charged affective reading, through the vantage of literary animal studies
Argues that posthuman dream writing can resist exclusionary assumptions of human stewardship over nonhuman animals through an analysis that firstly intersects with radical feminist insights that consider the depiction of dreams and visions as an avenue to imagine different social orderings
Concludes that the progressions offered by posthuman dream writing allow empathetic readers the opportunity to imagine less masterful human relations with nonhuman animals and their habitats
And so, to Part Three, commissioned by the Brontë estate, based on a series of poems written by Emily Brontë and recorded in The Parsonage at Haworth, with McNally (somewhat nervously, I imagine) playing the actual Brontë family piano. It’s probably the headline act in terms of mainstream appeal and Rachel and Becky are in characteristically fine voice, but the arrangements, ironically enough, are a bit too polite to be completely convincing. At least no pianos were harmed in the course of this recording. (Kevin Bourke)About Manchester announces that The Unthanks will take part in Manchester Folk Festival (16 – 20 October 2019).
The Unthanks join the line-up on Saturday for a rare performance of their new Emily Brontë project. Commissioned by the Brontë Society to mark Emily Brontë’s 200th Birthday, Yorkshire-born Unthanks pianist and composer Adrian McNally has turned a selection of her poems into song, performed with bandmates Rachel and Becky Unthank. (Nigel Barlow)The National Student features a report on the gender gap for authors.
Rowan Coleman, who has been a bestselling female author for the past twenty years, and has yet to be reviewed in a broadsheet newspaper, says: "For a man, writing is a career. For a woman, so often her writing is treated like it's a hobby, it is a nice thing to do on the side. That attitude is deeply embedded in our culture.”So Charlotte Brontë's words on the subject are still valid enough.
An additional issue according to Coleman is not only the review of work but also the initial marketing process of the book and how much of it is gender-based, adding: “If they published Jane Eyre today, it would be published with a cute little cover in pink.” (Daniella Theis)
To you I am neither man nor woman. I come before you as an author only. It is the sole standard by which you have a right to judge me--the sole ground on which I accept your judgment.Coincidentally, Vogue wonders, '2000s or 1800s?', which is something we have pondered on a lot lately. Vogue, however, applies it only to fashion.
Victorian style has also appeared on the streets. During fashion month, we saw billowy coats out in London and high-necked dresses in Paris that unfolded in waves of shimmering lace. This spring, why not try a midi-length cream-colored crochet dress to create a moment worthy of a Brontë novel? Or perhaps a pair of two-toned leather boots, paired with black driving gloves for a chic update on steampunk? Ultimately, this trend is all about dreaminess and looking dramatically comfortable. Don’t forget the fainting couch. (Sophie Kemp)More questions. A contributor to The Millions used to wonder,
Why was bitch a swear word when Bruce Willis said it in Die Hard and not when Brontë wrote it in Wuthering Heights? When were these words bad words, and when were they good? (Katie Prout)The Chronicle of Higher Education claims that 'Advances in computing will benefit traditional scholarship — not compete with it.'
When social scientists offer general laws of human behavior, we will always be in a position to point to exceptions. It is also part of the humanities’ mission to appreciate exceptions: it would be tragic if literary scholars became so infatuated with charts and graphs that they forgot to mention that Wuthering Heights is rather unlike other novels of its time. (Ted Underwood)Daily Record features artist Christine Dunlap:
“I’ve pulled inspiration from the literary works of the Brontë Sisters, Emily Dickinson, and Mary Shelley. Smaller intimate details are often derived from The Victorian Language of Flowers, as well as heavily researched historical cultural norms of the 19th century,” Dunlap said. “When composing my work, each blossom and/or jewelry are carefully selected for their meaning. I enjoy creating layers of hidden contexts for the viewer to discover.”The Mercury News recommends San Francisco’s Lamplighters Music Theatre's take on Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury and their own original addition, Trial by Jury Duty.
This time it’s accompanied by an original work created as one the signature pop culture parodies the company cooks up for its annual galas. “Trial by Jury Duty” is a spoof sequel with bits of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and Daphne du Maurier thrown into the mix, set to Sullivan’s sprightly music. (Sam Hurwitt)London Review of Books comments on the work of Gerald Murnane.
If that were the case, however fine Tamarisk Row and its successor are (and they are), it’s unlikely you’d be reading this essay. Murnane’s international reputation, which has grown to speculations of a Nobel, rests on his novels and stories of the 1980s and 1990s, especially his 1982 masterpiece, The Plains. These are the works that have drawn comparisons to Borges and Calvino, two among the five authors (the others are Emily Brontë, Halldór Laxness and Proust) whose books Murnane said in a 2001 lecture were the only ones the then 62-year-old wanted to reread before he died. (Christian Lorentzen)Rutland Herald recommends a few 'books that play with time', including
The Eyre AffairRepubblica (Italy) interviews Speaker of the House John Bercow, who seems to be both a Brontëite and a Janeite.
Jasper Fforde
The first of what is now a series of light-hearted adventure books about intrepid literary sleuth Thursday Next. In her world, it’s possible to go back in time and change books — and reality. More fantasy than sci-fi, despite some very SF trappings (time travel, plasma rifles, alternate universes), mostly because there’s no science behind the sci-fi. It’s all as made-up as magic.
This is a fun read — adventure, romance, humor. You don’t have to have read Jane Eyre to read The Eyre Affair, but it helps. The more you know that book, the more you’ll get out of this one in terms of foreshadowing and inside jokes. It definitely helps to have some background in English literature.
My favorite moment: Richard III as a Rocky Horror-style audience response piece (ie, “When is the winter of our discontent? Now is the winter of our discontent ...”). (Randal Smathers)
Ma più invecchio, più rinuncio alle Jane Austen e alle Brontë per passare a romanzi più moderni, come quelli del sensazionale Philip Roth. (Antonello Guerrera) (Translation)According to The Times of India, the Reeds of Jane Eyre are one of several 'Terribly toxic families in literature'.
Parsonage Unwrapped: Breaking the Mould
A unique after-hours event
Friday 29 March 2019
19:30h
When the Brontë novels were first published, their work was viewed as accomplished, ground-breaking and, quite frequently, controversial. Whether it was the rage of a young Jane Eyre, the irreligiosity of Catherine and Heathcliff or the unconventional choices of Helen Graham, their characters tended to break the mould. Find out more about how this unconventional streak also manifested in the lives of Patrick, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne.
Unlike many of my friends, the curriculum at my all-girls school made ample room for stories written by a diverse list of women. There were some of the usual suspects like Jane Austen and Emily Brontë, but we also read Toni Morrison, Julia Alvarez, Danzy Senna, Esmeralda Santiago, Zadie Smith, Sandra Cisneros, and more. (Kerri Jarema)The Sun Daily (Malaysia) reviews the book The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins.
British lawyer-turned-author Sarah Collins creates an interesting Gothic romance, with a former Jamaican slave as the protagonist, inspired by the classic books written by the legendary Brontë sisters and Jane Austen.Forward tells the story of writer Grace Aguilar, who
During her short life in 19th-century Britain, around the same time the Brontë sisters found they could only publish their masterly novels under male pseudonyms, Grace Aguilar wrote books with unabashedly feminine titles under her own name. And she gained real literary recognition for them. (Talya Zax)The Vision (in Italian) discusses Madame Bovary.
È arrivata a questo punto – senza entrare nel merito di come, tra relazioni extra-coniugali e debiti su debiti, Emma finisca vittima del suo stesso gioco pur di avere intorno a sé “cose belle” – che comincio a dissociarmi dalla sua rappresentazione. Un’evoluzione positiva del suo personaggio, infatti, non è solo possibile, ma già presente, in un gioco di specchi narrativi. La figura di una donna che ha comportamenti particolari che rifiuta di occuparsi solo di casa e cucito, che ha l’esigenza di trovare affinità e intimità nella relazione sentimentale al di là della convenzione sociale del matrimonio, ha una declinazione diversa quando a raccontarne è un’autrice. Succede, ad esempio, in un romanzo uscito solo pochi anni prima di quello di Flaubert, Jane Eyre di Charlotte Brontë e ancora accade ottant’anni dopo con Via col vento di Margareth Mitchell. È da tenere presente che proprio dalla constatazione che gli ideali e le aspirazioni sono distanti dalla realtà che Jane muove il suo percorso di indipendenza protofemminista e che Rossella ‘O Hara, un personaggio contemporaneo di Emma Bovary, ha le sue stesse infelicità sentimentali, ma non si cristallizza nel ruolo di moglie, madre e amante insoddisfatta e fallimentare. (Raffaella R. Ferré) (Translation)The Telegraph and Argus reports that the application to have surveillance cameras at the Black Bull has been withdrawn and the cameras will be removed. Hooked on Houses has an article on Ponden Hall being for sale. Libri (Italy) recommends the Italian translation of Catherine Lowell's The Madwoman Upstairs, I segreti del college. Esquire likens the United States Government's plan for dealing with the climate crises to 'the semaphore version of Wuthering Heights' by Monty Python.
Nos Désirs Sans Limites
La mise en récit de désirs féminins interdits dans Angéline de Montbrun à la lumière de Jane Eyre
by Virginie Fournier
Voix et Images, Volume 44, Issue 1, Automne 2018, p. 77–91
Contemporanéités d’Angéline de Montbrun et de Laure Conan
Our Boundless Desires
How Forbidden Female Desires Become Narrative in Angéline de Montbrun Viewed in Relation to Jane Eyre
An original and innovative female speech emerges from the narrative shaping of female desires, and the taboos broken by the protagonists, in Jane Eyre and Angéline de Montbrun: adultery in Charlotte Brontë’s novel and incestuous fantasy in Laure Conan’s. Often symbolized by the flames of a hearth fire reflected on the hero’s body, the woman’s gaze rests on the patriarchs. Men in positions of authority, located in the framework of a female focalization, are objectified, integrated into representations that are set in a mise en abyme of the act of writing. Through a study of the issues involved in the narrative shaping of forbidden female desires, Conan’s work is incorporated into a wider, older women’s literary history, one that includes areas yet to be defined by thought. The purpose is to counteract the discriminatory effect of geographical boundaries and national identities so that we can better understand the coherence of the female literary imagination.
The Brontës' writing community: family, partnership and creative collaboration
Braxton, Kimberley Jayne (2019)
Doctoral thesis, Keele University.
In 1846 Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë published Poems under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. An immediate interest regarding the identity of these mysterious Bells emerged. With the publication of their novels the following year the Brontës established themselves not only as writers, but as a family of writers. The publication of Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë presents three sisters pacing around a table as they share their novels with each other. This scene became firmly embedded in the Brontë mythology. However, from their earliest reviews the interest in the Brontës as a family has threatened to eclipse their work. This thesis argues that by exploring the Brontës’ works critically we are better able to understand their collaborative group, and explore how they imaginatively interpreted the issues of family, community, partnership, and isolation. From within their writing community, two sets of partnerships emerge in the collaborative pairing of Charlotte and Branwell, and Emily and Anne. Partnership, rather than family, becomes the Brontës’ central focus as they use their work to process the dynamics of their own collaborative relationships. Throughout the thesis, I analyse critically overlooked resources by all four Brontë siblings, including their juvenilia, letters, diaries, devoirs, in addition to their poetry and novels, in order to demonstrate how their community affected every method of writing they adopted. In addition, this thesis applies collaborative structures to the Brontës in order to present and explore the evolution of their group. In this thesis, I present the Brontës’ writing community as integral to their development, but from within their community they each step forward as four unique, individual writers.
“Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work,” the exhibition housed within the room and the adjacent Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room and Stone Family Gallery. The exhibition displays works from the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, a set of thousands of manuscripts and artifacts related to the history of working women. [...]
Other notable items include a letter from Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, a display of books bound or illustrated by women and the memoir of the Chevalière d’Eon, an eighteenth-century French noble who was born a man but lived as a woman for over thirty years. (Matthew Griffin)
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CREATOR(S):And part of a sampler.
Brontë, Charlotte
TITLE:
Letter to Ellen Nussey
PUBLICATION/ORIGIN:
[Haworth Parsonage, Yorkshire]: 12 November 1840
DESCRIPTION:
Charlotte Brontë begins this letter to her lifelong friend with an update on her efforts to secure work as a governess. She goes on to relate a visit from the wife of a curate whose husband ruined their family through his drinking and “treated her and her child savagely.” Brontë attests to her own distaste for the curate even before she knew about his abusive character. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell quotes this section of the letter in her biography of Brontë, noting that it “shows her instinctive aversion to a particular class of men, whose vices some have supposed she looked upon with indulgence.”
CITATION:
Brontë, Charlotte, Letter to Ellen Nussey, [Haworth Parsonage, Yorkshire]: 12 November 1840, Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Accessed March 26, 2019, https://exhibits2.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/baskin/item/4133
CREATOR(S):The Telegraph and Argus features Branwell Brontë's artistic endeavours.
Brontë, Charlotte
TITLE:
[Flowers]
PUBLICATION/ORIGIN:
[ca. 1840s]
DESCRIPTION:
The collection contains a significant gathering of materials written by and relating to Charlotte, Ann, and Emily Brontë. Charlotte used the newly fashionable style of embroidery known as “Berlin woolwork” to create this needlework in wool yarn on canvas. The style was being promoted at a time when a greater number of women had leisure time that might be devoted to decorative needlework. The single sheet patterns were inexpensive and easy to translate to the canvas. The design relates to a watercolor by Charlotte Brontë, circa 1831–1832, now in the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
CITATION:
Brontë, Charlotte, [Flowers], [ca. 1840s], Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Accessed March 26, 2019, https://exhibits2.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/baskin/item/4131
He's often known as the ‘forgotten Brontë’, outshadowed by his famous literary sisters. But had Branwell Brontë’s work as an artist been recognised, would he have been so self-destructive?The Times reviews the Van Gogh and Britain exhibition at Tate Britain.
Colin Neville is the founder and curator of website Not Just Hockney, showcasing 375 artists, past and present, with a Bradford connection.
Here Colin pays tribute to Branwell, whose work is exhibited at Haworth’s Brontë Parsonage Museum and now [for many years now] also at the National Portrait Gallery in London:
If he could have anticipated this honour in his lifetime, it may have extended his life - which became more aimless, desolate and self-destructive with every passing year until his early death.
As the only son of the family, the ‘bright star’, there was pressure on him to succeed in life. But at what? He did not possess the strength of faith to follow his father as a curate. His talents, in common with his sisters, inclined him in a literary and artistic direction.
His father paid for him and his sisters to have drawing lessons, in 1829-30 from John Bradley, a Keighley artist, then, in 1834, from William Robinson, a society portrait painter.
Rev Brontë paid Robinson two guineas per lesson - an enormous sum then - which may have (according to Brontë biographer Dr Juliet Barker) caused the penurious Robinson to encourage Branwell beyond his talents to aspire to be a professional artist.
In 1835, aged 18, convinced that art was the career direction to take, Branwell drafted a letter of application to the Royal Academy. However, there is no evidence the letter was sent, and no record of such a letter received by the Royal Academy.
It is likely that the Rev Brontë would have found it financially difficult to support Branwell in London.
Between 1835 and 1838, Branwell pursued a literary career but in 1838 came back to his artistic ambitions and established a studio at Fountain Street, Bradford.
He painted portraits of his landlord and landlady and other Bradford worthies introduced by the Rev William Morgan, a family friend.
However, after less than a year, Branwell had given up the studio, and any hopes of making a living from portrait painting.
He enjoyed alcohol-fuelled social encounters with other artists and writers in Bradford, but it seems he did not have the persistence or temperament to succeed as an artist.
It is likely that more affluent clients would have gone to Leeds, or London, to find a professional artist. It is also likely that Branwell’s network of friends dried up as a source of work and that he lacked the drive to pursue new commissions.
Branwell’s art was often at its most engaging when he worked spontaneously, responding to his emotions, rather than to order.
His life after his retreat from portrait painting was a downward spiral, with spells of short-lived work as a clerk and tutor punctuated by bouts of drunkeness and addiction to opiates.
He died at Haworth Parsonage in 1848, most likely of tuberculosis, his body weakened by alcoholism and drug addiction.
One of his final sketches presents a self-summary of his life: Our Lady of Greif [sic]. (Emma Clayton)
The exhibition is in two halves. In the first, a visitor will discover a Van Gogh who spoke four languages fluently; who loved literature, especially the “quivering” mysteries of Shakespeare, the emotion of Brontë, the social realism of Dickens; who immersed himself in London’s cultural life — the four paintings that had the most impact on him, including Constable’s Valley Farm and Millais’s Chill October — are among several of the now gathered; who, while in London, discovered the value of prints and would eventually build up a collection of more than 2,000, using their images as models from which he would develop his own style. (Rachel Campbell-Johnston)And so does The Independent.
What’s perhaps surprising is that it was the literary, rather than artistic, culture that excited van Gogh most. His letters make 100 (usually very positive) mentions of British novels and poems – by Dickens, Tennyson, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë and others. (Alastair Smart)A contributor to The Epoch Times thinks about the books she would and wouldn't like to be in.
Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë (1816–1855, 1818–1848, 1820–1849, English)Aimee Johnston, a ‘barefoot bookseller’ in the Maldives, writes in The Irish Times about her experience.
👎 I would always rather be happy than be in their books.
These gals can write! But they can write me out of their novels. Gothic romance and melodrama is not for everyone. The damp English weather may not have been conducive to good health and cheerfulness for these young ladies, but it did wonders for their creative imagination. As a potential character in their books, I opt for less of the moors. (Susannah Pearce)
In school, I had incredibly passionate English teachers. They spoke about fiction with such fervour, they spoke about made-up places and made-up people as if they were real, as if they mattered. They taught me that they did. They introduced me to Wide Sargasso Sea and the writing of Jean Rhys. It was the first time I considered the importance of writing, of voices and landscapes and lives different to my own. Rhys was writing in response, writing to tell the world they couldn’t define who she was. At 17, nothing had struck me as more powerful, and I wanted to tell as many people about it as I could. Evidently, I still do.The Herald (Scotland) has an obituary on the singer and songwriter Scott Walker.
There was always something slightly different, something slightly mysterious about the Walker Brothers and their songs, which sound as fresh, as edgy, as poignant today as the day they were cut. Scott and John laid down some great harmonies.
It was not just that this was good pop music - these guys were young, darkly handsome (no Ringo in this group), and with a real sense of drama both in the music, which combined melody and a pounding beat, and in the presentation. It went beyond drama to tragedy. This was Heathcliff and Byron reincarnated as pop.
A new biography of the Brontës has been published in France:Les BrontëEDIT: Les Soeurs Brontë compiles some reviews: a good one by a reader on Babelio and a very (very) negative one on Boojum.
Jean-Pierre Ohl
Gallimard - Folio biographies No150
ISBN : 9782072693977
February 2019
«Une si dévorante soif de voir, de connaître, d’apprendre.»
Les sœurs Brontë… Ce pluriel, depuis un siècle et demi, fascine. Quand Emily écrit Les Hauts de Hurlevent, Anne publie La Reclusede Wildfell Hall, et Charlotte Jane Eyre. La première meurt à trente ans, en 1848 ; la deuxième à vingt-neuf, un an plus tard ; la troisième à trente-neuf, en 1855. Sans oublier Branwell, le frère écrivain maudit, qui disparaît lui aussi prématurément, miné par l’alcool et la tuberculose. Tous quatre étaient orphelins de mère. Quelle probabilité y avait-il pour que tous ces talents si originaux poussent ainsi à l’ombre du presbytère de Haworth? Faute de pouvoir éclaircir totalement ce mystère, Jean-Pierre Ohl tente d’en dessiner les contours, et de comprendre ce qui, aujourd’hui encore, rend si proches de nous les enfants du pasteur Patrick Brontë.
As a new exhibition at Tate Britain will reveal, Van Gogh’s passion for Dickens, along with other British writers such as Shakespeare, John Bunyan, John Keats, Thomas Carlyle, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, not only gave Van Gogh spiritual comfort but set light to his imagination and invigorated his social conscience.Many years ago we highlighted the Brontë mentions in his letters.
“His interest in literature gives us a view of Van Gogh that goes beyond the figure of the tormented artist,” says curator Carol Jacobi. “Instead, he seems intellectually curious, connected to the things going on around him, synthesising books, images and real life in a way that would become key to his art. There was no line in his head between looking and reading.” (Lucy Davies)
The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 44 Issue 2, April 2019) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:Introduction: The Coarseness of the Brontës Reconsidered
pp. 149-151 Author: Amber M. Adams & Josephine Smith
What do we know about Emily Jane? Some Well-known ‘Facts’ Reconsidered
pp. 152-161 Author: Fermi, Sarah
Abstract:
It is generally acknowledged that information throwing light on the life of Emily Jane Brontë is very scarce and unreliable. What little there is, besides her own writings, is mainly filtered through the writings of her sister, Charlotte. Most of the ‘facts’ of Emily’s life come to us from Charlotte’s published comments, all of which are coloured by Charlotte’s passionate desire to protect Emily’s reputation, to make her a heroine, and yet to portray her as inexperienced and innocent. However, some peculiarities in these comments may lead one to suspect that there was more to Emily’s life story than Charlotte was willing to reveal. The object of this paper is to suggest that the reason so little is known about Emily’s life is that it was deliberately concealed by her family, and by Charlotte in particular, at Emily’s fervent request.
Devoted Sister or Cynical Saboteur? The Two Faces of Charlotte Brontë
pp. 162-174 Author: Blowfield, Christine
Abstract:
Many critics, including Juliet Barker, Edward Chitham, Christopher Heywood and Janet Gezari, have made reference to Charlotte Brontë’s meddling in her sisters’ work following their deaths. This article offers a detailed examination of the many interventions Charlotte made to the sixteen, arguably seventeen, poems by Emily that she selected for publication in 1850. Whilst some of these might be considered as editorially valid (such as changing explicit Gondal references and a minority of punctuation alterations), most, this article will argue, are not. Worse, the nature of Charlotte’s interventions impact negatively on Emily’s original vision and words. Through her 420 punctuation changes, 103 individual word changes, thirty-five whole-line or part-line substitutions, six instances of stanza deletions and additions, rewriting of the last two lines of ‘No coward soul is mine’ and the possible inclusion of one of her own poems, Charlotte effectively reframed Emily’s poetry as more orthodox and conventional than it was. In addition to a comprehensive analysis of all these interventions, this article will also consider the motivations behind the image of Emily that Charlotte sought to put forward through her editorial changes and in the ‘Biographical Notice’ and ‘Preface’ that accompanied the publication of the poems.
‘How well you read me, you witch!’: semantic drift of ‘witch’ and the choice of Jane Eyre
pp. 175-185 Author: Gouker, Michael
Abstract:
One signifier whose meaning has drifted since Jane Eyre’s time is ‘witch’, a word Rochester applies to Jane during his courtship. Witch was once a label of considerable darkness, casting shadows of terror over the original audience of Jane Eyre, whereas for modern readers it is less threatening. Through a feminist and new historicist lens, ‘witch’ deconstructs to reveal vital aspects about the relationship between Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester, and provides clues to her eventual choice of Rochester over St John. Charlotte Brontë’s juvenilia (specifically ‘The Fairy Gift’), Sir Walter Scott’s novels and his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, and the witch-hunters’ manual, Malleus Maleficarum, are all mined for clues to discern a meaning lost to modern readers by the evolution of English and the march of time.
Some Common Features in the Brontë Sisters’ Novels
pp. 186-203 Author: Newman, Hilary
Abstract:
This article identifies similarities among the first-person narratives of the Brontë sisters’ mature fiction. It is suggested that the sisters had very close relationships with each other both within the family and in their professional lives as novelists. The latter reveal themselves in the shared types of images taken from the natural world, which draw on observation of the landscape around Haworth. These include the recurrence of animal, bird, plant and weather imagery. There are also other very different patterns of imagery, including that of slavery. Peculiar to the Brontë sisters’ novels are the recurrence of physiognomic detail and their shared love of home.
William Smith Williams: Charlotte Brontë’s First Devotee
pp. 204-217 Author: Hamlyn Williams, Philip
Abstract:
This article explores some of what is known of William Smith Williams, the reader at Smith, Elder and Company, who discovered and mentored Charlotte Brontë. It traces his childhood, education and early career. His interest in art was perhaps as great as that in literature, and the article explores a number of his writings on the subject. His correspondence with Charlotte Brontë is well known; less familiar is his relationship with John Ruskin on which this article seeks to shed some light. It will show that William Smith Williams was very much a Renaissance man who attracted both friendship and respect from many of the nineteenth-century’s leading writers, artists and thinkers.
‘Cut from life’: The Many Sources of Branwell Brontë’s ‘Caroline’
pp. 218-231 Author: Moorhouse Marr, Edwin John
Abstract:
This essay argues that, far from just being morbid, Branwell Brontë’s poem ‘Caroline’ (1845) engages with a wide body of contemporaneous death writing. The first part of my argument contextualizes ‘Caroline’ within the wider body of Branwell’s poetry, before I argue that one of his sources for ‘Caroline’ can be found in an 1828 edition of Blackwood’s Magazine. I then compare ‘Caroline’ to the graveyard poets, with Branwell identifying the grave as the locus for unravelling the mysteries of the future-life. Finally, I place ‘Caroline’ in the historical moment of nineteenth-century death culture.
SHORT NOTICE
A Clue from Gas Lighting to the Timeline of Jane Eyre
pp. 232-233 Author: Clifford Jones, J.
REVIEWS
An Edition of Branwell Brontë’s Translation into English Verse of the First Book of Horace’s Odes
pp. 234-235 Author: Tytler, Graeme
On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights in Japan
pp. 235-237 Author: Stoneman, Patsy
The Return of the Stranger
pp. 237-238 Author: Duckett, Bob
Wuthering Heights on Film and Television: A Journey Across Time and Cultures
pp. 238-240 Author: Cook, Peter
Charlotte Brontë from the Beginnings. New Essays from the Juvenilia to the Major Works
pp. 240-241 Author: Duckett, Bob
CORRESPONDENCE
Responses to Christopher Heywood’s Article, ‘Charlotte’s Copies of Emily Brontë’s “Bonnet Portrait”’, Brontë Studies, 43.3 (July 2018), 222–47
pp. 242-247 Author: Chitham, Edward, Stoneman, Patsy and Fermi, Sarah
Reply to Correspondence Relating to Responses to Christopher Heywood’s Article, ‘Charlotte’s Copies of Emily Brontë’s “Bonnet Portrait”’, Brontë Studies, 43.3 (July 2018), 222–47
pp. 247-248 Author: Heywood, Christopher
OBITUARY
Margaret Smith. In Memoriam
pp. 249-251 Author: Del Estal, Manuel
EULOGY
Margaret Smith: An Outstanding Brontë Scholar
pp. 252-254 Author: Stoneman, Patsy
[Sara] Collins uses history as a way to talk about the hypocrisy of English society at that time. With an eye on Charlotte Brontë, she casts Frannie in a 19th-century gothic romance and murder mystery, asking us to imagine a world in which “Jane Eyre [now a black maid] had been given as a gift ‘to the finest mind in all of England’, and then accused of cuckolding and murdering him”. Collins’s real interest, though, lies in exposing the constraints on black characters in historical fiction, who are usually denied a love story. (Colin Grant)The Sunday Times reviews the latest Cathy Marston choreography, Victoria:
This is Marston’s moment: Jane Eyre, her previous show for Northern Ballet, has been picked up in New York and she has just won a National Dance Award for The Suit, with Ballet Black. (David Jays)The Mirror talks about the upcoming BBC drama Gentleman Jack:
They were written during the age of the Brontës. By a woman living in the same county.The Eastern Daily Press asks why writers love Britain and quotes from Wuthering Heights:
But while the sisters’ novels would achieve literary fame, the four million words in Anne Lister’s secret diaries were so explosive many had to be written in code.
And unlike the passions unveiled in the likes of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, these writings – hidden away for more than 100 years and including clandestine signs for sex sessions and orgasms – were of a love that dared not speak its name in 19th century Yorkshire and beyond. (Janine Yaqoob)
Writers have been inspired by its mountains and moors, cities and seas. From William Wordsworth’s Lake District to Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, and from Emily Brontë’s wild moors to Charles Dickens’ seething London or Jane Austen’s sedate Bath, authors have claimed some of the most striking scenery of Britain and used it as setting, atmosphere, metaphor and more. (Rowan Mantell)Clarín (Argentina) talks about asexual people and guess what?... Emily Brontë is hinted to be asexual (and also lesbian, incestuous, anorexic, Asperger... wow, that's an interesting personality, indeed):
Existe en la página un “AVENwiki”, donde se desarrolla una genealogía de famosos asexuales de la historia y personajes de ficción. Aunque los autores de la página aclaran que no podrían probar la falta de sexualidad de muchos, incluyen a Isaac Newton, Emily Brontë, Immanuel Kant y a... nuestro Jorge Luis Borges. (Ayelén Íñigo) (Translation)Sempione News (Italy) talks about a recent exhibition in Milan devote to Romanticism. One of the exhibition rooms had a Brontë name:
Tra le tappe più suggestive di “Romanticismo” meritano una menzione le stanze: “Una finestra sull’infinito” e “Cime tempestose, emozione del sublime”.(...)Pseudonyms in literature in El Universal (Colombia):
La nuova sensibilità romantica fa la sua comparsa nella pittura di paesaggio agli inizi del secolo ‘800, vent’anni prima rispetto alla pittura con soggetto storico. In questa fase che viene definita “preromantica” protagonisti sono i paesaggi incontaminati “dove la voce del vento, come nel famoso romanzo di Emily Brontë, mette in sintonia l’uomo con la natura”.
Artisti che hanno saputo interpretare questo sentimento sono stati i paesaggisti piemontesi: Giovanni Battista De Gubernatis e Giuseppe Pietro Bagetti, i primi ad accorgersi della bellezza sublime e terribile delle Alpi. (Agnese Giardini) (Translation)
"La historia occidental es principalmente de autoridad masculina, por lo que las mujeres empezaron a usar nombres ambiguos o directamente masculinos. Eso hicieron las hermanas británicas Charlotte, Emily y Anne Brontë (Emily es la autora de "Cumbres borrascosas" y Charlotte, de "Jane Eyre"), quienes publicaron sus libros con los nombres de Currer, Ellis y Acton Bell, respectivamente”. (C.J. Torres) (Translation)The Ponden Hall selling is also discussed on Die Welt and Süddedeutsche Zeitung (Germany).
Save the Date!
Here's an early heads-up for 2020 for “A Fine and Subtle Spirit” - an event to commemorate the bicentenary of Anne Brontë.
A major celebration of Anne Brontë will take place in Manchester, UK, on Saturday March 28th 2020 at 7:30pm. Cross Street Unitarian Chapel in the heart of the city will host this unique concert experience, featuring heavenly choral music and new poetry inspired by Anne's example. The programme includes first performances of choral settings of Anne's words, including “A Fine and Subtle Spirit” by rising star composer Lucy Pankhurst, alongside music by John Rutter, Paul Vowles, David Fanshawe and others, and performances of their own poetry will be given by Edwin Stockdale,
Liliana Pasterska and Philip Watts - as well as Anne Brontë's own work of course!
Full details of the event will be posted here nearer the time.
The Artistic Director, Pamela Nash, can be contacted via email: nashhpschdnew@aol.com
One of the many measuring sticks we use to compare writers (and compare ourselves to them) is age. We celebrate the women who started late. We gawk at, envy, and revile wunderkinds. Regardless of when they appeared, we love to marvel at famous writers’ early efforts, because of the careers they portend. But recently I’ve been thinking not about way (or the age) a literary career begins, but about its scope. Like any job, a writing career can last a lifetime—or less than a year.Onirik (France) reviews the novel Marie-Claire by Marguerite Audoux.
In compiling these figures, I found it interesting to see how the length of a writer’s publishing career didn’t necessarily have any bearing on their current level of fame. Just look at the ten writers with the shortest number of years spent publishing: Shirley Jackson, Zora Neale Hurston, J.D. Salinger, Flannery O’Connor, Roberto Bolaño, Toni Cade Bambara, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Sylvia Plath, Nella Larsen. You wouldn’t exactly call any of these people “minor” or “forgotten.” [...]
Age at First Publication
The average age of first publication for men was 27; the average for women was 31. The overall average was 28.84. [...]
Charlotte Brontë – 31 (Jane Eyre) [...]
Age at Last Publication
The average age for final publication for men was 65; the average for women was 64. The combined average was 64.6. [...]
Charlotte Brontë – 37 (Villette) [...]
Length of Career
The average career length for men was 37 years; the average for women was 32 years. The average length overall was 34.8 years. [...]
Charlotte Brontë – 6 years
C’est beau, c’est rustique, c’est sincère. C’est la vraie vie de Marguerite Audoux (1863-1937), racontée un peu à la manière de Charlotte Brontë dans Jane Eyre, lorsqu’elle narre son expérience douloureuse du pensionnat. Très tôt, comme la célèbre romancière anglaise, Marguerite a eu le goût des mots, elle explique avoir lu tout ce qui passait à sa portée, des livres de contes en passant par les almanachs, si précieux à la campagne. (Claire) (Translation)Le Soir (Belgium) has an article on the Festival Passa Porta and mentions the Brontës among the reasons why Brussels is a literary city. Philip Hamlyn Williams has written a post about William Smith Williams and John Ruskin.
Tomorrow, April 24, in Palermo, Italy:Un viaggio alla scoperta delle grandi eroine letterarie, da Madame Bovary a Jane Eyre. È il tema della rassegna “Donne in amore”, che porterà a Palermo scrittori e traduttori a parlare di letteratura attraverso il racconto delle protagoniste femminili, architravi del romanzo. L’idea è della giornalista Sara Scarafia ed ha visto il suo esordio in anteprima l’anno scorso durante il festival “Una Marina di Libri”.(Via Le Vie del Tesori)
24 Marzo Elena Stancanelli racconterà “Jane Eyre” di Charlotte Brontë.
Publishing’s latest passion is for redemptive, feel-good fiction, known as “up-lit”, and this also reinterprets existing tropes. Gail Honeyman’s lonely Eleanor Oliphant hits the vodka behind closed doors and attempts to conceal her dysfunctionality and traumatic childhood from the world, but is stronger and more able to grow than we first realise. One of the reasons for Eleanor’s wide appeal may be that she springs from a line of literary heroines – that of the spirited outsider.Much as we love Bridget Jones, we truly don't think she's the 'direct descendant' of Elizabeth Bennet. Nor does she need to be.
Honeyman draws parallels between Eleanor and Jane Eyre, another abandoned child who finds her own path. Readers are engaged not only by Eleanor’s predicament, but by her determination to transcend disaster. Her most recent antecedent is Helen Fielding’s Chardonnay-swilling Bridget Jones, who is herself the direct descendant of Jane Austen’s best-loved heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. (Sally O'Reilly)
OUTSIDERS: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World, by Lyndall Gordon. (Johns Hopkins University, $29.95.) Gordon links five visionaries who made literary history — George Eliot, Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, Olive Schreiner and Virginia Woolf — through their shared understanding of death and violence. “Gordon is best known for her brilliant studies of Woolf, Charlotte Brontë and Emily Dickinson,” our reviewer, Lara Feigel, writes. “As a biographer, she’s been a visionary herself, mind-reading her way into these figures’ creative processes. She displays the same insight here.” (Gregory Cowles)Publishers' Weekly has a Q & A with writer Lucy Strange:
What are you working now? I’m working on a book set in the north of England in the Lake District in 1899. It’s going to be a bit more gothic and a bit more ghostly than my previous two books, so I’m getting to revisit some old favorites like Rebecca and Wuthering Heights. (Ingrid Roper)The Times looks into why 'villages in the Peak District are on a property market high'.
“There is so much history here,” says Chris Charlton of Savills’s Nottingham office. “As well as the tourist attractions such as Chatsworth and traditions such as county shows, there’s also a degree of privacy — with some of the most beautiful large country houses and small stately homes — that is difficult to replicate in other parts of the country.”A contributor to La opinión de Zamora (Spain) thinks Charlotte Brontë is right in her approach to happiness in Jane Eyre.
Moorseats Hall, an imposing mansion dating from the 14th century and believed to be the inspiration for Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, is one such property. On the outskirts of Hathersage, it has six bedrooms, more than 25 acres, a swimming pool and tennis court, and is on the market for a guide price of £3 million to £3.5 million with Eadon Lockwood & Riddle. (Jayne Dowle)
Por cierto, la felicidad si no es compartida, no merece el nombre de felicidad; es insípida. La reflexión es de Charlotte Brönte [sic]. Y no le falta razón a la autora de 'Jane Eyre'. No hay que guardarse la felicidad para uno mismo olvidándose de los que nos rodean, vivirla a tope es compartirla con los demás. (Carmen Ferreras) (Translation)The Yorkshire Post has an article on what caused the Brontë siblings to die so young.
Literature students have long been familiar with the premature deaths of the Bronte sisters, who were all cut down before the age of 40.U Discover Music lists Kate Bush (and her take on Wuthering Heights among others) as one of 11 'Musicians Who Are Poets'. The Must Reads discusses why Jane Eyre is 'More Than Just a “Boring” Classic'.
Despite living in relative comfort, by 19th-century standards, in a rural parsonage in Haworth, Charlotte, Emily and Anne - as well as their less famous siblings - succumbed to some of the infectious diseases that characterised the Victorian age.
The Brontë siblings were mainly raised by their father Patrick, a clergyman who outlived all of his children and who seemed to enjoy the robust health that his family did not. His wife, Marie, died of uterine cancer at the age of 38.
Charlotte Brontë's profession is listed as 'wife' on her death certificate
Two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died of tuberculosis in 1825, when they were boarding, along with Charlotte and Emily, at a school for the daughters of clergymen in Cowan Bridge.The damp conditions at the school were said to have played a role in their susceptibility to the illness (...) (Grace Newton)
Tomorrow, March 23, in Haworth:Elly Griffiths
The crime writer in conversation
Brontë Parsonage Museum
March 23, 14.00 h
Novelist Elly Griffiths, the mind behind the Ruth Galloway series of crime novels, visits Haworth to discuss her latest book, The Stone Circle.
Elly Griffiths was born in London and worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer. Her bestselling series of Dr Ruth Galloway novels, featuring a forensic archaeologist, are set in Norfolk. The series has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, and has been shortlisted three times for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Her Stephens and Mephisto series is based in 1950s Brighton. She lives near Brighton with her husband, an archaeologist, and their two children.
Helen Graham in The Tenant of Wildfell HallForward features Italian author Natalia Ginzburg and wonders,
Anne Brontë’s utterly gorgeous novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, is widely considered to be one of the very first feminist books. Helen Graham escapes an abusive marriage to an alcoholic husband, arriving at Wildfell Hall with her young son to pursue a career as an artist. In 1848 such actions were unheard of, and indeed Helen soon falls prey to rumour, becoming a social outcast for the unconventional choices she has made to protect her son.
‘And why should I take it for granted that my son will be one in a thousand? – and not rather prepare for the worst, and suppose he will be like his – like the rest of mankind, unless I take care to prevent it?’
It was 1991, and Ginzburg, born to a Jewish father and Catholic mother in Palermo, Sicily, in 1916, was seen as one of the great Italian authors of the 20th century. That recognition had been long in coming, William H. Honan wrote, because Ginzburg had initially been “dismissed as a minor writer because of her preoccupation with family life.”Stylist recommends '20 unmissable audiobooks narrated by incredible women':
Among the women novelists who preceded Ginzburg, who might not have been similarly dismissed? Jane Austen; the Brontë sisters; George Eliot; history was full of writers who had shaped the canon, often publishing anonymously or under masculine pen names, precisely through their focus on the domestic circles to which women were often constrained. Rejecting the idea that such material could make for interesting fiction was a way of denying the possibility that an ordinary life — let alone an ordinary woman’s life — might hold cultural value. (Talya Zax)
Want to be able to read and cook at the same time? Considering getting your literary fix whilst doing a spot of gardening? Exercise and Emily Brontë? We have the solution: pop in your earphones, get that audiobook on, and hey presto, you have a completely free set of hands! [...]Florida Weekly Fort Myers reports that,
Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (Narrated by Thandie Newton)
In terms of badass classic female writers, they don’t often get better than the Brontë sisters. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is still a cultural favourite, with numerous film versions made over the years. The audiobook allows you to follow the story of Jane and Mr Rochester to the dulcet tones of Thandie Newton. Thandie herself says that we love Jane Eyre because of Brontë’s capacity to “relate, expertly, what it means to be a human being…”
If you are yet to try the novel, the audiobook is the perfect opportunity to get involved, or if you’d like to revisit the classic, why not give it a listen this time? (Rachel Brown)
The Online Computer Library Center in Ohio recently released “The Library 100: Top Novels of All Time,” a listing of the top 100 novels found in libraries around the world. The list was culled from data from WorldCat, the world’s largest database of library materials. [...]L'indépendant (France) recommends Aline Brosh McKenna and Ramon K. Perez's Jane.
The top 10 read like a list off of a high school or college syllabus — or off of what would have been required reading when my parents attended school.
In descending order, they are: “Don Quixote” by Miguel Cervantes, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain, “Treasure Island” by Robert Lewis Stevenson,” “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austin, “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë, “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë, “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville and “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathanial [sic] Hawthorne. (Nancy Stetson)
Chef-d’œuvre de la littérature anglo-saxonne, Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë sert de base à un roman graphique passionnant. A l’adaptation, la scénariste du film « Le diable s’habille en Prada » et de la série TV Crazy ex-Girlfriend, Aline Brosh McKenna. Au dessin, Ramon K. Perez, lauréat de multiples Eisner Award. Jane, jeune orpheline, à sa majorité, tente sa chance à New York. Elle s’inscrit dans une école de dessin. Mais il lui faut décrocher un petit boulot. Là voilà nounou d’Adèle, une fillette délaissée par son père, Rochester, riche magnat de la finance.Keighley News recalls the fact that 1987 film
On est séduit par la lente complicité qui s’instaure entre Jane et la petite fille qui a un parcours si semblable au sien. Une romance sympa, palpitante à la fin, bénéficiant du dessin virtuose de Perez. Il est autant à l’aise dans les ambiances douces et romantiques que dans les scènes du quotidien ou quand la violence s’invite. (Michel Litout) (Translation)
Rita, Sue and Bob Too was filmed at locations including Bradford’s Buttershaw estate and the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. (David Knights)El mundo (Spain) tells about Carme Portaceli's next project: after adapting and directing Jane Eyre, she will tackle Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.
«Virginia Woolf fue muy importante para el feminismo», explica Portaceli, «Una habitación propia es uno de mis libros de cabecera. Ahí, con toda su ironía y esa gran cultura, explica que las mujeres necesitamos una habitación para nosotras y nuestro propio dinero para poder ser independientes. Eso es algo que ya había anticipado Charlotte Brontë, que sólo deja que Jane Eyre vuelva con Rochester, cuando recibe una herencia y por tanto no depende de él. Cuando su relación es de igual a igual, regresa junto a él». (José Luis Romo) (Translation)On The Sisters' Room Maddalena De Leo posts about the Brontë Society publication Charlotte Brontë. The Lost Manuscripts.
Review
Reviewed Work: Jane Eyre's Fairy Tale Legacy at Home and Abroad: Constructions and Deconstructions of National Identity by Abigail Heiniger
Review by: Theodora Goss
Marvels & Tales
Vol. 32, No. 2 (2018), pp. 478-480
The Identification of Slurs and Swear Words in Brontë Sisters’ Novels
Citra Suryanovika, Irma Manda Negara
Lingua Cultura, 2019, Vol 13, No 1 (2019)
Abstract
This research aimed at identifying the categories of slurs, presenting how swear words expressed in male or female characters of Bronte sisters’ novels, and examining the social status scale in presenting slurs. The research was a qualitative content analysis of which process was categorizing, comparing, and concluding. The researchers employed MAXQDA 2018.1 (the data analysis tool) for analyzing the samples of five female and male main characters of the novel of Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights), Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre), and Anne Brontë (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). The research has shown three out of nine Thurlow’s pejorative items (social personality, phallocentric, and sexist), the possible formation of social personality slurs, the identification of swear words for showing speakers’ emotional states, and the influence of social status scale on the expression of slurs. It proves that slurs and swear words are used to deliver a derogatory attitude. The sexist slurs are not only delivered from male characters to female characters, but it is also found in Catherine Earnshaw targeting Nelly although they have similar gender background (female). Slurs are found in the characters from both high and low social rank since the plot develops the relationship amongst the characters. One unexpected finding is the different swear words between the characters. Swear words found in the novel are not only dominated by the word devil, damn, or by hell, but also the word deuce and humbug. The varied swear words proves that the male characters do not dominantly produce swear words, but also euphemistic expression.
Antoinette and Rochester’s way down into madness. An analysis of the protagonists' mad behaviour in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea in Hegelian Termsby Janine Evangelista
ResearchGate, March 2019
