Haunting as Promise of Connection

A new Brontë-related scholar paper:

“The loved shall meet on its hearth again”: Haunting as Promise of Connection in the Writing of Emily Brontë
James Quinnell
Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature
The Ohio State University Press
Number 137, Summer 2020, pp. 58-77

This discussion argues, through a selection of Emily Brontë’s poetry, that her presentation of the ghostly stems from love rather than terror. Taking the famous ghost scene in Wuthering Heights as a starting point, the analysis explores how Brontë’s poetry illuminates differences between Lockwood’s clichéd response to Catherine’s ghost and Heathcliff ’s frantic desire for reunion with her. Brontë eschews the inclusion of the supernatural as sensationalized entertainment, instead viewing the ghost with pre-Reformation eyes—that is, as an expression of obligation and community.