Think like a Brontë

This year's creative partner at the Brontë Parsonage Museum Samira Ahmed writes a diary for New Statesman.

Towards the end of the week I am the latest guest in the Brontë Lounge, a regular online chat event run by the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire, where I’m creative partner for the 200th anniversary year of the youngest Brontë sister – Anne. We’ll schedule physical events when we know we can, but in the meantime I talk about my fascination with Anne’s Christian socialism and her remarkably feminist novels. In Agnes Grey she’s whistle-blowing about the exploitative treatment of governesses based on her own experiences. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall speaks across centuries about a woman escaping an abusive marriage, and counters the enduring myth that a good woman can reform a “bad” man.

I suggest that the Covid-19 months of enforced confinement – appreciating nature on our doorstep, reading, volunteering and helping our elderly neighbours – could be an opportunity to “think like a Brontë”.

Mental Floss lists '7 Best-Selling 19th Century Female Novelists You've Never Heard Of' (but then again you surely have heard of them if you're at all interested in Victorian literature).

When you think of 19th-century women’s literature, it’s likely you automatically think of the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, or George Eliot. You think of Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, or Middlemarch. Few people today know the names Mrs. Henry Wood, Charlotte Riddell, or Maria Edgeworth—yet these women all wrote immensely popular, best-selling Victorian novels that allowed them to command top dollar. To put their work into context, Austen had to pay to publish Mansfield Park herself, while Maria Edgeworth was paid the enormous sum of £2100 for just one of her novels. Here are some of the greatest Victorian female novelists that you’ve never heard of. (Rebecca Batley)

Comics Beat reviews Vision by Julia Gfrörer.

This latest release from New Hampshire-based cartoonist Julia Gfrörer‘s Vision hearkens back to novels of romance and darkness like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, with perhaps a bit of Rebecca mixed in, but it uses a possibly supernatural element for something more mysterious and less corporeal than the obvious, fashioning a tale of repression and desperate desire. (John Seven)

El Independiente de Hidalgo (Mexico) doesn't write about Emily Brontë's life all that accurately:

Cumbres borrascosas. Emily Bronté, segunda de tres hermanas dedicadas a la literatura (1818-1848). Hija de un pastor anglicano irlandés pasó su infancia, al igual que sus hermanas, en un rígido y sombrío colegio. Su corta vida –solo alcanza los 30 años– fue muy parca en vivencias, todo lo que escribió es extraído de su propio espíritu. Su sensibilidad era fina, aguda.

Personajes principales: señor Hearnshaw, quien recoge a Heathcliff; Heathcliff, gitano expósito educado junto a los hijos de Hearnshaw; Hindley, hijo de Hearnshaw que odia a Heathcliff; Catalina, hermana de Hindley de quien se ha enamorado Heathcliff; Edgar Linton, esposo de Catalina.

Del siglo XIX, inglesa, fue publicada en 1847 y es la única novela escrita por Emily. Poderosa y original, la obra consagró a su autora. E Jaloux expresó que es, sin asomo de duda, “la más bella novela de amor que haya sido escrita, en la que el amor adopta su forma más devoradora y absoluta”. (Carlos Sevilla) (Translation)

ScreenRant ranks Andrew Lincoln's best roles according to IMDb.

9/10

Wuthering Heights (2009) – 7.6

This two-part British series based on the Emily Brontë novel of the same name starred Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley as lovers Heathcliff and Catherine. Lincoln played Edgar Linton, another man fighting to win Charlotte's heart who was the exact opposite of Heathcliff: well-educated, wealthy, and refined.

As the story goes, Charlotte's need for social recognition leads her to marry Edgar, even though she is still in love with Heathcliff. (Christine Persaud)

What a strange mixture of actors' real names and characters' names.

The Conversation offers 'some suggestions for how to modernise the UK’s patriotic jamboree' (aka Last Night of the Proms)

One initial problem is that it’s not straightforward to find songs that represent the whole of the UK. For instance, the perennial Proms favourite, Jerusalem, has long been widely regarded as being solely about England.

There are songs based on UK locations such as Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” which have already inspired participatory “flash-mob”-style events with hundreds donning red dresses and copying her choreography. It would be a joy to watch the promenaders – who are surely the proto-flashmobbers – belting out “Heathcliff, It’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home” while recreating the pop star’s expressive dance routine in perfect synchronisation. (Adrian York)

We have absolutely nothing against Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, but we find it rather strange to suggest it as an alternative to Jerusalem to be honest. How is it, as a flashmob opportunity, more representative?

About Manchester reports that Elizabeth Gaskell's House has been 'awarded £50,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Heritage Emergency Fund'. Catholic Herald has an article on Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen. Cantonaut posts about Villette.