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
OBITUARY
EULOGY
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:
With the passing of Margaret Smith, I'm reminded of what Charlotte said about Mary Taylor immigrating to New Zealand, that it was like "a planet falling from the sky." Indeed.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Smith Williams discovered Charlotte and she absolutely depended on his intelligent, discerning and sympathetic ear when her siblings were dying all around her.
ReplyDelete"To papa I must only speak cheeringly, to Anne only encouragingly—to you I may give some hint of the dreary truth."
And
" I have got used to your friendly sympathy, and it comforts me".
Her letters to him during that time are some of the most important we have. But eventually they drew somewhat apart. Basically because CB was a pessimist and WSW, was an optimist. While she was in great grief, they drew close....but there is often an eventual cooling between such contrasting view points.
Here is a long quote of Charlotte's to WSW which illustrates what I mean.
"You and Emerson judge others by yourselves; all mankind are not like you, any more than every Israelite was like Nathaniel.
Is there a human being,” you ask, “so depraved that an act of kindness will not touch—nay, a word melt him?” There are hundreds of human beings who trample on acts of kindness and mock at words of affection. I know this though I have seen but little of the world.
I suppose I have something harsher in my nature than you have, something which every now and then tells me dreary secrets about my race, and I cannot believe the voice of the Optimist, charm he never so wisely. On the other hand, I feel forced to listen when a Thackeray speaks. I know truth is delivering her oracles by his lips."
I have to say, Charlotte sounds a little exasperated with Mr. Williams there....lol