Irish Birds

More on the Brontë documentary that will be broadcast next February 1st on BBC One Northern Ireland (10.35pm) and BBC iPlayer. We read in The Irish Post:

In The Brontës: An Irish Tale, presenter Aoife Hinds (Derry Girls, Normal People, The Last Call) explores the many Irish connections that had a lasting impact on the Brontës, their work and their legacy in locations throughout Ireland and Yorkshire.

Aoife visits Patrick Brontë's birthplace in Rathfriland, Co. Down to discover how a rural schoolteacher ended up studying in Cambridge. That was the Reverend Patrick Brontë, father to the illustrious sisters.

There are suggestions that Heathcliff, one of the most famous and celebrated figures in English literature, was modelled on a Co. Down man, perhaps a brother of Patrick Brontë.

The documentary also explores the romance between Charlotte Brontë and Arthur Bell Nicholls, from Co. Antrim.

Charlotte and Arthur Bell Nicholls married after a long courtship and ended up honeymooning in Ireland.

Aoife visits Banagher, Co. Offaly, where Arthur lived after Charlotte's death, and discover that it is thanks to Arthur that much of the Brontë memorabilia survives to this day. (Mai Rogers)

Somehow related, The Sunday Times lists "Ireland's most romantic places":

Romantic landmarks Loop Head Lighthouse is remote, so it’s 6km to Keating’s Bar in Kilbaha, the closest place to eat. Across from the bar is a cast bronze and limestone statue of Diarmuid and Gráinne. Another pair of romantics, the novelist Charlotte Brontë and her husband Arthur Bell Nicholls, also liked to explore Loop Head peninsula’s cliff walks while honeymooning in Kilkee. (Vic O'Sullivan)

The Hindustan Times talks about Emily Brontë's bird imagery:

If Shakespeare was peerless when weaving the imagery of falconry into his plays, the 19th century writer of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë, used the cuckoo’s brood parasitism as the central analogy of her classic, with the lapwing and the Hedge sparrow also intervening in the guise of apt comparisons to illuminate human predicaments.
In her novel, the central characters, Heathcliff and Catherine, are compared to cuckoo chicks who as interlopers displace the rightful progeny from their pride of place in two families of landed gentry. The novel situates a bizarre moment of ornithology when a frenzied Catherine tears open with her teeth her fluffy pillow and precisely identifies species of birds from its stuffing of diverse feathers: turkey, wild duck, pigeon, moorcock, lapwing! She goes on to examine if a lapwing’s feather was red, it meant the bird had been shot.
What is lesser known is Brontë’s startling, life-evoking painting of a Merlin, a smaller species of falcon. In medieval England, a Peregrine / Gyrfalcon was considered worthy of possession by the high nobility while a Merlin was reckoned as ‘a falcon for a lady’. Mary, Queen of Scots and Catherine the Great were eminent female falconers to fly Merlins.
The subject of Brontë’s finely-executed watercolour painting of 1841 was an injured Merlin rescued by her from the moors. She named the Merlin, ‘Nero’, presumably after the tyrannical emperor.
Brontë’s multi-creative sensibilities also sparked poetic effervescence and she was a passionate pianist revelling in the repertoire of George F Handel, J Haydn, WA Mozart and LV Beethoven. Unlike falconers who are paranoid about losing their captive bird, Brontë was empathetic to freedom’s soar,which was so innate to her captive Merlin. Her soul kindled these kind, thoughtful verses: “Ah could my hand unlock its chain, How gladly would I watch it soar, And ne’er regret and ne’er complain, To see its shining eyes no more”. (Vikram Jit Singh)

Yorkshire Bylines talks about the Scarborough Grand Hotel, designed by Cuthbert Broderick in 1867:

Whilst the population of Leeds are largely aware of his work in the city, fewer people know that he was also the architect of the hotel that is synonymous with the Yorkshire coast town of Scarborough: The Grand. The prestigious cliff top site, which was formerly occupied by Wood’s Lodgings where Anne Brontë died on 28 May 1849, was originally bought by the Scarborough Cliff Hotel Company. They employed Brodrick but sadly the company’s funds ran out on the difficult build and the project was finally completed by business owner Archibald Neil. (John Heywood)

Monocle interviews Susan May, artistic director of the White Cube art gallery:

Where do we find you this weekend?
I live between London and Yorkshire so this weekend I am at home with my husband on the Pennine Moors, a windswept and bleakly beautiful landscape. The Brontë sisters lived across the hill.

The Guardian reviews the film Amulet:

Meanwhile, in the destitute present, Tomaz meets Sister Claire (Imelda Staunton), who offers refuge in return for his help repairing a dilapidated house. Here, Magda (Carla Juri) cares for her invalid mother, who dwells “on the top floor”, a groaning figure living in the shadows beneath the roof, evoking the Victorian-gothic spectre of Jane Eyre and the paranoid psychodrama of Andrzej Żuławksi’s unhinged 1981 masterpiece Possession. (Mark Kermode)

More websites eagerly awaiting the Wise Children's production of Wuthering Heights at the National Theatre in London.

 Emma Rice meets Emily Brontë in this epic new adaptation - expect song, dance and puppetry along with a powerful torrent of emotion. The Yorkshire moors become a character in Rice's inventive staging, alongside Ash Hunter as Heathcliff, Lucy McCormick as Cathy, and Sam Archer doubling up as Lockwood and Edgar Linton. (Marianka Swan in Broadway World)

Actualidad Literaria (Spain) interviews the writer Rodrigo Costoya:

Mariola Díaz-Cano Arévalo: ¿Qué personaje de un libro te hubiera gustado conocer y crear? 

RC: Me encantan los personajes poliédricos, contradictorios, aquellos que muestran las debilidades que todos arrastramos, los que manifiestan la luz y las tinieblas que todos llevamos dentro. Tal vez el mejor exponente sea la Scarlett O’Hara de Margaret Mitchell, pero me fascinan también el Heathcliff de Emily Brontë, el Achab de Melville o el Humbert de Nabokov, por ejemplo. Y siempre retratados a través de sus acciones, de cómo se expresan, lo que hacen, cómo reaccionan y cómo tratan a los demás. (Translation)

The writer Valeria Gargiullo says in Il Libraio (Italy): 

Ho cominciato a leggere i classici. Passavo i pomeriggi dopo scuola distesa sul letto, il naso infilato tra le pagine di un libro, respiravo l’odore della carta e dell’inchiostro e non impazzivo. Cercavo gli amici tra le penne di Austen e le sorelle Brontë, certe volte la mia reclusione era simile a quella di Jane, la mia non era una stanza rossa, ma spoglia di mobili, ricca solo di libri e riproduzioni di Van Gogh sul muro. (Translation)

News.de recommends Jane Eyre 2011:

Dieses Historiendrama von Cary Fukunaga mit Mia Wasikowska als Jane Eyre (11:35 p.m. on ARD) , Michael Fassbender als Edward Fairfax Rochester, Jamie Bell als St. John Rivers, Judi Dench als Mrs. Fairfax, Sally Hawkins als Mrs. Reed und Holliday Grainger als Diana Rivers verspricht für 115 Minuten köstlichen Humor, liebevolle Romantik, fordernde Handlung, aufregende Spannung und erotische Szenen. (Translation)

The Daily Mail has a follow-up on more absurd trigger warnings on more classics.  A literary quiz with a  Brontë-related question on Eduline (Hungary). Love quotes, including one from Wuthering Heights, in Parade. Gobookmart lists Jane Eyre as one of the best romantic novels of the 19th century.