Wuthering Heights, Emily BronteWuthering Heights has a reputation for being kind of miserable and like the "poison" Kendall speaks of in Succession season four, episode eight, that misery drips through. Each generation to arrive after Cathy and Heathcliff's torrid love affair is subjected to the same battery and bruising that follows Logan's own reign of terror.
Some might say we are grieving books yet unwritten. Amis was 73, far from elde rly by today’s standards. Hilary Mantel was 70 when she died last year and, it turns out, was working on a novel about Jane Austen, who was only 41 he self when she died. Virginia Woolf was 59, Franz Kafka barely 40, Ernest Hemingway a few days shy of his 62nd birthday. Oscar Wilde and David Foster Wallace were 46. Add together the lifespans of the three Brontë sisters and you still fall short of filling a century.We can only speculate about what might have been, had each been granted a few more years at the writing desk. But were their deaths felt more keenly than PG Wodehouse’s at 93 or Agatha Christie’s at 85? The world held its breath in 1910 for news of the ailing 82-year-old Leo Tolstoy, gravely ill at a rural railway station while staff solemnly telegraphed updates on his terminal decline – but no-one was fretting over the prospects of a sequel to War and Peace. (Charlie Connelly)
Ask a bot about a popular book, and like a college sophomore with a 10-page essay on "Jane Eyre" due tomorrow, it'll just quote you back long passages from the book. It's vomiting up words, not searching for insight. (Adam Rogers)
What is it? Four Italian chillers from 1964 to 1971.Why see it? The Monster of the Opera sees a dance troupe terrorized by a vampire, The Seventh Grave gives Agatha Christie an Italian spin, Scream of the Demon Lover pairs Jane Eyre with Frankenstein, and Lady Frankenstein delivers just what the title promises. (Rob Hunter)
The Brontë sisters would have much to say about the style du jour. (Gladys Lai)
An alert from the Brontë Parsonage Museum for today, May 31:
Family fun this May half term
There is plenty to explore at the Museum this May half term! Play nature bingo in the garden, adventure on the moors with an explorer backpack, dress up like your favourite Brontë in costume corner and explore the Museum with an interactive family guidebook.
Drop-in workshop | Wednesday 31 May, 11am - 3pm
Wild Wednesday Workshop
Create your own pastel bird postcard
Make your own postcard to send, with the help of local artist Julia Ogden. Use pastels to create a beautiful, simple image of a bird of your choice! Suitable for all ages.
Question: “Timothy Dalton, Orson Welles, Toby Stephens and Michael Fassbender are among the actors who have played which romantic figure, the creation of Charlotte Brontë.”Imperial College: “Inspector Clouseau.”Paxman: “I don’t know how you got that. That is completely wrong. It is Mr Rochester. That’s one of the funniest misapprehensions we’ve ever had on this show.” (Matthew Weaver)
To witness someone else’s tears is not necessarily to be moved yourself. But to absorb “Kairos” is — like reading “Wuthering Heights” or “On Chesil Beach,” listening to albums like Lou Reed’s “Berlin” or Tracey Thorn’s “A Distant Shore,” watching the film “Truly, Madly, Deeply” or ingesting an ideal edible — to set yourself on a gentle downward trajectory. (Dwight Garner)
1. HathersageHathersage is a Peak District gem, well-connected with a railway station on the Hope Valley line. Robin Hood's sidekick Little John is reputed to be buried here, it inspired parts of Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, and today is home to the David Mellor cutlery factory, shop, design gallery and café. (Lee Peace)
Cahiers Victoriens et ÉdourdiannesVictorian and Edwardian InteriorsIssue 97, 2023Kate LawsonThis essay analyses the Brontë sisters’ shared writing and walking practices in the Haworth parsonage dining-room in order to explore how communal indoor walking may have influenced the composition and content of the novels that were written there: Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, The Professor, Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Shirley, and Villette. Employing the materialist theories of Thomas Rickert, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, and Karen Barad, the essay explores how the complex web of the sisters’ everyday lived experiences could constitute literary influence. While indoor walking provides only one of many possible routes for such a materialist analysis of influence, the Brontës’ daily evening walks of approximately two hours in length are well documented and can act as a focal point for an investigation of how such experiences intersect with the novels’ composition. Scenes of indoor walking in the Brontë novels foreground affective connections between a subject moved to walk by an intense emotional state and an observer who witnesses and interprets the walk and who may act in response. Communal indoor walking in the novels thus provides a model through which to read materialist influence as, in Barad’s terms, ‘intra-active’ and ‘entangled’.Isabelle HervouetThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Anne Brontë’s second novel, has always been the object of much scholarly attention, particularly as regards what was originally thought to be a structural flaw: the use of a frame narrative within which the story of Helen Huntingdon’s flight from a disastrous marriage is embedded. The frame narrator, Gilbert Markham, tells a traditional courtship tale which abruptly turns into Helen’s metanarrative of domestic horror. Recent scholarship has concerned itself with this split in discourse which suggests that Brontë does not challenge the conventional idea that discursive authority is masculine, making it therefore difficult to read her novel as feminist. Studies alternately focus on Brontë’s bold enterprise (the vindication in the metanarrative of a woman’s right to leave an abusive husband) or on the limitations generated by her decision to resort to a male frame narrator. This paper addresses the implications of the novel’s apparently flawed structure, notably exploring the uncertainty surrounding the improvement of Gilbert’s moral character after his reading of Helen’s diary. It contends that critical disagreement on whether or not The Tenant is a feminist novel and the embedded narrative the instrument of Gilbert’s reformation, originates, at least partially, in the generic tension at work within Brontë’s novel, and the presence of Gothic fault-lines. Anne Brontë appears unwilling to espouse realism and social criticism which, if fully embraced, might imply forgoing valued (and cherished) Gothic modes of storytelling. The uneasy co-existence of social realism and Gothic remnants (prominent in the choice of structure and modes of characterisation) may then lie at the heart of the novel’s multi-faceted ambiguity.
5 Wuthering Heights (1992)Known for marking Ralph Fiennes' film debut, the 1992 adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights features one of Sakamoto's most mystically enchanting and spiritually expressive film scores. The lingering flutes and windswept chimes are sweet and romantic yet hint at a well of darkness underneath to reflect Heathcliff's cruel and unforgiving nature.While this version of Wuthering Heights may not be the absolute best version of the heartbreaking romance movie in terms of faithful adaptations, it has arguably the best and most memorable soundtrack of any cinematic version to date. Sakamoto's mastery of creating ambient moods from one scene to the next is second to none, lending a rollercoaster of emotions that capture the highs and lows of the characters. (Jake Dee)
Paxman was left head in hands by an Imperial College contestant who, when asked which romantic figure, created by Charlotte Brontë, had been played by Timothy Dalton and Michael Fassbender, guessed that it was Inspector Clouseau. (Alex Farber)
Paisajes Literarios
by Nuria Solsona
Zahorí Books
ISBN: 978-84-19532-63-3
March 2023
La mayoría de las historias que suceden en las novelas no podrían ocurrir en cualquier lugar. En toda gran obra, el escenario y el paisaje están tan ligados al relato como cualquiera de sus protagonistas.
Paisajes literarios reúne veinticinco obras maestras de la literatura juvenil y universal en un viaje iniciático por los lugares en los que un día vivieron o soñaron sus autores.
Un hermoso homenaje a la literatura y una invitación a la lectura de los clásicos. Además del protagonismo del paisaje, todos los libros propuestos en este compendio comparten una conexión profunda: el deseo de libertad y el poder de la palabra escrita, que nos impulsan a buscar nuestro propio camino.
This exceptional performance reminds us how hard life was for women in the Brontës’ position while giving us new insight into these talented women living during the first half of the 19th Century. (...)This play delves us further into how these three isolated women created the passionate literature for which they are so famous, and encourages us to speculate upon why they felt compelled to do so. It’s brilliantly accomplished, engaging throughout, and a worthy homage to the legacy of this highly talented trio of women. It’s a must-see. (Lela Tredwell)
While I only live about two hours away from the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and about the same distance from Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage in Grasmere, not many people seemed more excited by that fact than me.Around here however, there are more book nerds than I can count and of course I mean that in the best way! The history Norwich has as a City of Literature is amazing, and it was one of the reasons I picked to study here. (Mar Davenport)
Jalmari Helander’s film is violent in the pulpy, maximalist manner of a Tarantino film — bones snap, bodies fly apart, blood leaps across the screen — but there is nothing messy about the storytelling, which is as tight as a Sergio Leone flick. The devil is in the details. Filmed against a beautifully bleak landscape of moss and heather that might equally serve as backdrop for a Brontë adaptation, our hero is the grizzled, bearded Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) who, like Eastwood’s Man With No Name, speaks only one line of dialogue in the entire film. (Tom Shone)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most attention first focused on the opener, a haunting cover of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” that chimed with a Stranger Things-literate Gen Z audience (a track she only performs live “on special occasions”, in a medley with Bush’s “Breathing”). (Rob Garratt)
Mona Moody, with her platinum blonde hair, baby blue eyes, and the husky, sexy voice that made her famous. After several years starring in popcorn flicks, she was all set to break out in her first serious film as the titular role in Jane Eyre, but tragically fell off the Castle’s side balcony just before filming started.
Recently there has been no shortage of gothic tales in which spirited, Victorian-era governesses confront mysteries in remote settings. Kate Griffin’s Fyneshade (Viper £16.99) finds original ways of presenting well-worn tropes. Rejected by her family and separated from her lover, Marta — Jane Eyre but with an icy heart — is sent to gloomy Fyneshade. (Nick Rennison)
“I really enjoyed ‘Wuthering Heights,’ and I loved reading ‘Hamlet’ for the first time in AP Literature,” said [Frida] Rojo. “The Odyssey” was less to her liking, much less, but she said she enjoyed the class’ review of classic literature and their Socratic discussions. (Julie Bielenberg)
Il mito della cultura e della lingua inglese è maturato assai precocemente nell’esperienza di Beppe Fenoglio, e già al secondo anno del Ginnasio la giovane insegnante di lingua straniera che era destinata ad avere un ruolo decisivo nella vita dello scrittore, Maria Lucia Marchiaro, ci consegna al riguardo una preziosa testimonianza: ella racconta che fu così grande, per il suo allievo prediletto, la passione per Cime tempestose di Emily Brontë che in classe lo aveva soprannominato come il protagonista del romanzo, Heathcliff. (...)Nel “Foglio Notizie” del Corpo volontari delle Libertà, che attesta i servizio di Fenoglio nella lotta partigiana, alla voce “Nome partigiani assunti” troviamo Beppe Heathcliff.Negli Appunti partigiani (rinvenuti e pubblicati postumi, nel 1994, ma risalenti al 1946), a una persona che gli chiede il nome di battaglia, Fenoglio risponde “Heathcliff” e confessa di sentirsi molto “somigliante” al protagonista del romanzo inglese.Infine, un anno dopo, nel febbraio del 1947, Fenoglio scrive a Anna Maria Buoncompagni, una giovane conosciuta a Santo Stefano Belbo durante la lotta partigiana, invitandola a un ballo che si tiene al Circolo sociale di Alba, e le ricorda la condivisone dell’esperienza resistenziale definendosi come un “romantico” Beppe-Heathcliff. (...)Gli eroi fenogliani, Milton e Johnny, si muovono nella natura selvaggia delle Langhe, «nelle selve, tra i fiumi, sulle colline, tra gli anfratti, i rigagnoli, i sentieri del suo Piemonte […], nei cascinali, nei boschi, nel gelo» (Pampaloni), non troppo diversamente dai vagabondaggi tormentati di Heathcliff fra le brughiere, le colline rocciose, le desolate solitudini battute dai venti delle Cime tempestose. (Andrea Pagani) (Translation)
Voditelj Darko Tanasijević nastavio je da čita zadrugarima pitanja iz opšte informisanosti.Pinkići, Herkul Puaro je kreacija Agate Kristi, Emili Brontë ili Žil Verna? - pitao je Darko.Emili - rekla je Ana i pogodila. (S.Z.) (Translation)
Si de por sí ya hay algo de vitalmente resurreccionista en el volver a leer un libro que gustó tanto que en verdad nunca se dejó de leer (¿será algo así como violar amorosamente una tumba, como Heathcliff con la de Cathy, para que vuelva todo lo que en verdad jamás se fue?; no olvidar que ese acto mortífero es lo que detona la segunda parte/remake/reboot/revisita en Cumbres borrascosas); hay algo todavía más perturbador en estar releyendo ese libro de ese autor vivo para, de nuevo en sus perfectas últimas páginas, enterarse de que ese autor ya no está del mismo lado de sus lectores sino, para siempre, del de sus libros. (Rodrigo Fresán) (Translation)
La película está dedicada a otra madre, la naturaleza, que con toda su fuerza, texturas y sonidos tiene una presencia preponderante en el film. “Uno de mis objetivos como cineasta, incluso un reto que me puse a mi misma, era captar los estados de ánimo de la naturaleza y cómo el mar puede mostrar sosiego, furia, desequilibrio...”, reconoce Subirana, que confirma a Andrea Arnold como su principal referencia, especialmente “Cumbres borrascosas” ya que en dicha cinta “hay muy poco diálogo y se explica mucho a través del paisaje, del viento y los colores”. (J. Picatoste Berdejo) (Translation)
La chimera è un film nel più puro stile Rohrwacher. Da tempo, la regista ha trovato la sua voce, unica, e il suo stile. Una sorta di realismo magico, in cui si mescolano il mistero, la meraviglia, l’amore per la terra, la cultura contadina di una volta. Anche se, avverte, Rohrwacher, “io non mi sento nostalgica. Nel senso che non desidero un ritorno al passato. Anzi, sono radicata nel presente e curiosa del futuro. Per questo, anche se potrebbe sembrare una storia seria, romantica, un po’ genere Cime tempestose, il mio sguardo nel film è ironico”. (Translation)
Angela Anconetani: Quali sono le letture che più ti hanno formata e influenzata nella scrittura?E.F.: Non ho avuto un vero e proprio modello, ma sono cresciuta con le storie e con la volontà di comunicare attraverso l’arte, la scrittura e il canto. Di base sono una classicista: il mio libro preferito è Cime tempestose. (Translation)
Especially for the Matrimony Days, we have developed a guided walk in the city center that focuses on the feminist elements in the work of the Brontë sisters. (Pauline Ghyselen)
Rachel GroutBetween 1932 and 1935 Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, known as Balthus (1908-2001) created a series of illustrations of Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights. Diverging from the contemporary Surrealist interpretation of the novel, Balthus developed a very personal reading which focuses on the theme of childhood. His perspective arose from strong beliefs about the human condition which he seems to have held from early youth. This paper provides a detailed analysis of Balthus’ graphic response to Brontë’s novel, broadly comparing it with Luis Buñuel’s Surrealist film version and setting it within the context of Surrealist ideas in general. To help elucidate Balthus’ vision, his artistic sources are examined closely, together with his preparatory studies, and the specific passages he chose to illustrate from Brontë’s novel are analysed, with the aid of his own writings. The main contributions of this paper include new suggested artistic sources for the illustrations and the linking of the Wuthering Heights series with Balthus’ painting of The Guitar Lesson. Overall, this paper hopes to develop our understanding of Balthus’ artistic aims by demonstrating his commitment to the expression of certain themes fundamental to his art, which he recognised in Wuthering Heights. It also focuses upon Balthus’ communion with and heavy reliance upon the art of the past, by observing his constant re-interpretation of poses, facial features and compositional arrangements from the Old Masters to convey meaning within his own work. Finally, Balthus’ creative interpretation of Emily Brontë’s wild and unique masterpiece presents an intriguing lens through which to appreciate the familiar and well-loved story of Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship.
Imagine what we could collect in one place as our own “Hurrah — and also, f*** you!”, to show our country at its best: Magna Carta, the Domesday Book, the lyrics to Yesterday, the Enigma machine, Freddie Mercury’s ermine cape and crown, Jane Austen’s writing desk, Winston Churchill’s bowler, Sybil Fawlty’s wig, Michaela Coel’s wigs, Harry Styles’ and David Bowie’s catsuits. Harry Potter’s wand, Peppa Pig, Princess Diana’s wedding dress, the Crown Jewels, a Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce next to a Mini next to James Bond’s cars. The front door from Notting Hill, Shakespeare’s Folios, Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights nightie next to the manuscript for Wuthering Heights, Stormzy’s black and white Banksy riot vest and Dickens’ top hat and glasses.I know this is just a list, but man, it’s an amazing list — and you could add to it endlessly. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock coat! Mr Darcy’s wet blouse! Museum attendants dressed as hobbits! And the toilets? The toilets should be gold disco-ball toilets, like the ones in the video to George Michael’s Outside.
Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëRegarded as one of the most intense novels ever written, Wuthering Heights will have an impact on readers. Published in 1847, this is the first and only novel written by Emily Brontë.This fascinating story of love and revenge takes place in England’s Yorkshire in the latter half of the 18th century. The plot is about Heathcliff’s love-hate relationship with Catherine Earnshaw and how his vindictive and sadistic behaviour impacts the lives of others around him. [...]Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëCharlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was immediately successful when it was first published in 1847. Considered a classic today, the book discusses a woman’s hardships, addressing both her societal situation and natural desires. Many people think that true events from Brontë’s life served as inspiration for the Victorian fiction book.The story begins with a 10-year-old orphan girl, Jane, who is mistreated by her aunt. Soon, she is sent off to a boarding school, but her miseries don’t end there. After spending eight years in the institution, she takes up a governess position at a manor, where she falls in love with Mr Rochester. However, it’s not all ‘happily ever after’ just yet, as more suffering is on the cards. (Dinal Jain)
To sum it up, it was fan fiction. As I kept at it, the book made me uneasy in various ways (involving cringing and almost giving up on it). For the first time ever, I didn’t highlight anything because I couldn’t find anything worth going back to. Of course, I wasn’t expecting anything Wuthering Heights-level like “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same” but I was also not expecting to be greeted by “There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things”. (Harsh Aditya)
The Splitting of the Self: Catherine’s Crisis of Identity in Wuthering Heights
Olivia Bernard
Denison UniversityArticulāte: Vol. 28, Article 4 (2023)The relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is one of the most striking in Victorian literature. The sheer unbridled passion that the two have for each other goes beyond any kind of romantic lust, or indeed, beyond any kind of separation of the soul to begin with. Catherine’s famous declaration that “I am Heathcliff” (Brontë 64) is not metaphorical. As Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar suggest in their essay “Looking Oppositely: Emile (sic) Brontë’s Bible of Hell,” he is the embodiment of her masculinity. Andç so, because Victorian patriarchy attempts to strip control from women by both removing their access to masculine power and teaching the women themselves to internally spurn and disregard that power as a means of maintaining control, Catherine’s losing Heathcliff is a physical and social rending alike. She loses with him an important piece of herself, her ability to interact with the world, and her ability to seek control, both over herself and her surroundings. Emily Brontë uses the conflict between patriarchal norms and Catherine’s true, undivided self to make the mental fragmentation of Victorian women literal. By placing Catherine’s masculine half into Heathcliff, and then removing him from her as she’s pushed into the role of a proper lady, Brontë catalogues the inevitable destructive descent as her identities—first as an unorthodox but complete person and later as the split, “proper” woman she’s forced to become—collide and ensnare her physically and mentally. As she throws herself against the bars of this cage and gradually deteriorates, Brontë presents a potent warning about the violent damage oppressive structures do to those they trap.
KT: It’s clear that your love of Victorian literature has shaped the narrative style and setting of The Happy Couple, but do you think we’ve moved beyond the necessity for the marriage plot in contemporary fiction?ND: [...] I think as well, though, that Victorian fiction itself doesn’t rely nearly so heavily on the marriage plot as current popular conception assumes. Certainly for the men – Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Hardy – there’s not always a wedding at the end, and when there is, it’s there as a sort of full stop; it’s, for sure, culturally telling that they add it, but the novel wouldn’t suffer if you cut it out. George Eliot does round off even her mature works with marriage, but she extensively probes the institution before that point, and by Villette Charlotte Brontë has dropped the ‘Reader, I married him’ entirely. So I don’t think fiction develops linearly; I think at any given point in the history of letters, there’ll be some writers doing some things and other writers doing other things, and how we characterise that particular moment says more about our own concerns than anything else. (Katie Tobin)
Jane Eyre (2011)A far cry from the brightness of Bridgerton, this adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's famed novel "Jane Eyre" is a gothic and brooding story. Played by Mia Wasikowska, the titular character leaves her abusive childhood in search of independence. She finds herself working as a governess for Mr. Rochester, depicted by Michael Fassbender, a cold and withholding man. As time passes by, their friendship transforms into a deep passion. As they grow closer together, Mr. Rochester's penchant for secrecy puts Jane in a difficult position, forcing her to learn the importance of staying true to herself. (Elizabeth Okosun)
Adapted by Petra Leão, Illustrated by Wanderson Souza, Colour by Dan FreitasPrincipis, Grupo Ciranda CulturalISBN: 9786555528459April 30, 2023Heathcliff era ainda bem jovem quando foi adotado pela família Earnshaw. Enquanto criava laços afetivos com a geniosa Catherine, era malvisto pelo outro filho do casal, Hindley que ao perder o pai passou a humilhar o irmão adotivo. De tanto sofrimento, a brutalidade e o rancor se tornaram características de Heathcliff. Até que o casamento da bela Catherine com o abastado Edgar Linton aflora os mais negativos sentimentos em Heathcliff, que decide dedicar sua vida a vingar-se daqueles que o maltratar
am e o fizeram sofrer. Qual é o limite para uma vingança?
Small charity The Brontë Spirit has spent the past 12 years sourcing sufficient funds to make the Old School Room waterproof again.In 2016 the charity succeeded in getting the two extensions to the building, in Church Street, Haworth, re-roofed.Now work is underway on restoring the original section, thanks to grants from the Government-financed Keighley Towns Fund, the Bernard Sunley Foundation and Pilgrim Trust.It is hoped that the final phase, being carried out by York-based Pinnacle Conservation Ltd, will be completed next month.The latest work is costing around £150,000, which when added to the amounts spent on the extensions takes the total to just over £250,000.The Old School Room was built by the Rev Patrick Brontë, father of the famous literary siblings, as a national school in 1832.The extensions were added to the building in 1851 and 1871.Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne Brontë all taught at the school.And Charlotte's wedding reception was held there in 1854, when she married Arthur Bell Nicholls.Now the Grade II-listed premises, a stone's throw from the parsonage where the children grew up, are considered one of the most important parts of the village's literary heritage.Averil Kenyon, chair of The Brontë Spirit, says: "We are really grateful to the sponsors for enabling us to undertake this major project as well as our architect, Stephen Dixon, of Calls Architecture, who has been so patient and supportive down the years."We hope that Patrick Brontë would be pleased that we've succeeded in re-roofing his national school building, a far-sighted project he undertook to educate the village’s children."The roof restoration will ensure that this historic building will still be available to the people of Haworth for many years to come and that a valuable community space will provide many opportunities for both families and organisations." (Alistair Shand)
An appetite for such drama is stoked everywhere from reality shows like Real Housewives or Below Deck to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, Downton Abbey, Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte.It might also account for why so many novels about the upper echelons are told from the point of view of outsiders: think of Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, Jane Eyre, Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited, the unnamed narrator of Rebecca, Nick Guest in The Line of Beauty, Richard Papen in The Secret History… Such protagonists function as a proxy for the ordinary reader, who can wonder how they'd fare in such situations. Who can see all the allure – but also all the problems. (Holly Williams)
Every art form has its own standard foundational elements — their own Universal Grammars, so to speak. There are certain tropes and ideas in fiction that have existed for centuries. Take the “star-crossed lovers” trope, which can be found in the most famous of romances from “Romeo and Juliet” to Catherine and Healthcliff of “Wuthering Heights.” These classic stories encompass the most quintessential elements of the trope, yet people continue to write about forbidden love, and understandably so. (Talia Belowich)
My sort-of-friends could climb a chain-link fence in nanoseconds. I just fell flat on my back and, after I caught my breath, staggered home to finish reading “Jane Eyre.” (Marla Jo Fisher)
By Emily Brontë“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”When Mr Earnshaw returns to Wuthering Heights with an orphan boy, worlds collide. Amid these wild moors, a bond is formed between this once unloved child Heathcliffe and Earnshaw’s own daughter Catherine, sparking revenge, passion and obsession that will last a lifetime and beyond.A beautiful and haunting adaptation that will make audiences fall in love with Emily Brontë's novel all over again.Running time: approximately 85 minutes.
TOUR:
Danny House, Hurstpierpoint, Wednesday 10th May, 7pm
Preston Old Church, Brighton, Thursday 18th May, 7.30pm
The Medieval Hall, Salisbury, Wednesday 24th May,, 7.30pm
The Castle Grounds, Reigate, Tuesday 6th June, 7pm
Tymperleys, Colchester, Thursday 15th June, 7pm
Church of St Mary, Guilden Morden, Thursday 11th May,, 7.30pm
The Paddock , Upper Beeding, Tuesday 23rd May, 7pm
The Hawth Theatre, Crawley, Thursday 25th May, 7pm
Old Saxon Church, Albury, Thursday 8th June,. 7pm
Southwell Minster. Southwell, Friday 16th June, 7pm
St Mary's Church, Burham .Wednesday 17th May, 7pm
The Medieval Hal, Salisbury, Wednesday 24th May, 5pm
St Mary's Church. Pitston, Thursday 1st June,, 7pm
All Saints Church, Elton, Friday 9th June,, 7.30pm
On BBC Sussex's Joe Talbot programme, the actress Jess Aquilina talks about the show.
Wuthering Heights is on Thursday, May 25 at 7pm: “When Mr Earnshaw returns to Wuthering Heights with an orphan boy, worlds collide. On the wild moors, a bond is formed between this once unloved child Heathcliffe [sic] and Earnshaw’s own daughter Catherine, sparking revenge, passion and obsession that will last a lifetime and beyond. The opening performance in The Hawth’s outdoor amphitheatre summer season is a beautiful and haunting adaptation that will make audiences fall in love with Emily Brontë's novel all over again.” (Phil Hewitt)
Festival Culturissimo -24 May 2023, 20hAu programme :19h30 - Ouverture des portes20h - 1ère partie - Groupe Cachou-cachou20h30 - Lecture musicale "Les Hauts de Hurlevent" d'Emily Brontë - Judith Henry et ses musiciens21h30 - Apéro dînatoire
It follows that the traditional marriage plot will change in art as it has in life. The popular idea is that 19th-century female novelists romanticised marriage – Eliot, the Brontë sisters, and, above all, Austen. A “Jane Austen ending” is supposedly a happily-ever-after. But when we look at post-wedding life in Austen’s novels, the success rate of marriage seems mixed at best.
Bloodline (2015)On sait ce que provoquent les phénomènes d'ostracisation au sein des cellules familiales depuis Les Hauts de Hurlevent de Charlotte Brontë [sic]. Chez les Rayburn, Heathcliff s'appelle Danny. (Maxime Jacob) (Translation)
The Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane EyreBertha Mason is a supporting character in Charlotte Brontë's novel "Jane Eyre" and its numerous film adaptations, as well as a serious threat to the romance between Jane and her employer, the brooding Edward Rochester. Mason was Rochester's first wife, a notable beauty with a fiery temper that eventually drives her to insanity and forces Rochester to lock her in the attic. Rochester can't divorce her due to her mental illness, but also can't marry Jane, no matter how often Bertha breaks out of her confinement, sets fire to Thornfield Hall, and tries to kill him. However, she solves the issue by throwing herself off a roof, which conveniently allows Jane and Rochester to tie the knot.The 1966 novel "The Wide Sargasso Sea" retells "Jane Eyre" from two perspectives: Bertha, who is named Antoinette Cosway in the text, and Rochester. The book and the 1993 Australian film adaptation by John Duigan (the first of several feature and TV versions) posit the idea that her marriage to Rochester is a sham, engineered by the greed of their respective families; once their union is set, Rochester locks her away due to her gender biracial status, which leads to her madness and all it produces. The 1993 "Sargasso Sea" strips away the perspectives in the novel, but clearly sympathizes with Antoinette's tragic fate. (Paul Gaita)
Bel Powley isn’t one of those English actors who is forever starring in period pieces and stuffy literary adaptations.Despite features that practically scream “Brontë heroine” — pale skin, sorrowful blue eyes, dark hair — the 31-year-old has earned a reputation for playing opinionated, fast-talking young women figuring out their path in the world — characters brimming with wit and frantic energy who feel instantly familiar to a modern viewer. (Meredith Blake)
Sade wrote "Paradise" on her first-ever trip to Jamaica after reading the novel 'Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys'. (Edward Tomlin)
The Brighton Little Theatre presentsPolly TealeTuesday, 23 May 2023 19:45 - Saturday, 27 May 2023 22:00Brighton Little Theatre, 9 Clarence Gdns, Brighton BN1 2EG, UKAn exciting, extraordinary imagining of the turbulent lives of the Brontë sisters, their brother, Bramwell (sic) and their father, Patrick. The play evokes the real and imagined world of the sisters as they write furiously, struggling to align their creations with real life whilst their fictional characters appear to haunt them. Weaving back and forth in time focusing on their creation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights respectively, their journeys are a window
into their state of mind at a time when their lives were dreary and uneventful.
CNS: Your works such as The Dust Settles, The Mushroom Circle, and the Story in the Clouds have been translated into many languages for publication overseas. What are the similarities between your reader groups in the East and the West, and what are the differences in their focus on literature?Alai: Poetry is the reflection of emotions, and this poetry refers to some extent to all literary works instead of the poems alone. Literary works arouse people’s feelings by emotions. The simplest example is Jane Eyre, whether as a novel or as a movie. At the beginning, we found different houses of the British people and their different clothes from the classical Chinese costumes, which show some cultural differences, but these do not matter, in the end, what makes you fall into the work and get captivated is their love. This is the same in both the East and the West, and the ups and downs of love is what really grips people in the end.This is why readers in the East and West still focus on the emotions expressed in literature first, which of course does not mean that some other cultural scenes and elements explained in the work are not important. If there is something common in the classics of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign works recorded in the history of literature, there must be the enrichment of human emotions and the construction of a sound mind for people. (He Shaoqing)
3. World of the Brontës 1000 Piece Jigsaw PuzzleWhether it's Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, the Brontë sisters are best known for their incendiary novels that revolutionized literature in the 1800s. For a friend that loves puzzles and the collected works of the sisters, this 1000 piece jigsaw features impressive detail and depicts several scenes from their famous novels. (Hannah Holway)
Lídia Maria Guimarães de Miranda, 2023Our objective in this dissertation is to analyze the process of transposition of the novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë (1847), to the graphic novel Jane, by Aline Brosh McKenna and Ramón K. Pérez (2019), from the perspective of theories of Intermediality and Adaptation. The research also takes into account an important aspect of Brontë’s work, which is the fact that it has, at the same time, characteristics of a feuilleton novel and a Bildungsroman – which makes its adaptation process more complex. Such characteristics were also transposed and found in the graphic novel Jane. To deal with the issue of intermedia transposition, we made use of the following authors: Linda Hutcheon (2013) to approach the issue of adaptation theory; and Claus Clüver (2012), Irina Rajewsky (2020) and Lars Elleström (2017) to approach studies on intermediality. The work, based on bibliographic research and analysis of verbal and non-verbal texts, also takes into account the following authors linked to literary criticism, the history of literature and the analysis of comics: Rocha (2008), Carvalho and Silva (2021), Soares (2007), Hauser (1982), Moisés (1985; 1987), Silveira, Sangaletti and Wagner (2018), Silva (2015), Maas (2000), Carvalho (2010), Aguiar and Silva (1991), Mccloud (1995), Hatfield (2005) and Eisner (2010), among others.
“Jane Eyre has been a project four years in the making,” said PAC Co-Founder/ Producing Artistic Director Damon Bonetti. “We were originally asked by a university to produce a Jane Eyre. We read a number of adaptations but were dissatisfied with them all. The Creative Team just had a hit with The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged. Charlotte being with that cohort and also being tapped to play Jane, it made sense to create our own. The pandemic made us rethink how we wanted to present this play in terms of location and making it an all professional cast. So we decided to make it part of our first full season back.”
It follows that the traditional marriage plot will change in art as it has in life. The popular idea is that 19th-century female novelists romanticised marriage – Eliot, the Brontë sisters, and, above all, Austen. A “Jane Austen ending” is supposedly a happily-ever-after. (Naoise Dolan)
Hmmm... Wuthering Heights, Villette... are they happily-ever-after endings? Really?
Acording to reports, Martin was "pretty illiterate" until around the age of 17, until his stepmother encouraged him to read the Brontë classic 'Jane Eyre' and after completing a degree at Exeter College at Oxford in 1971, began a career in journalism and published his debut novel 'The Rachel Papers' in 1973. (Bang Premier)
Many fans have noted a parallel between "Invisible String" and Charlotte Brontë's Victorian-era novel "Jane Eyre," when Mr. Rochester finally professes his love for the titular heroine."I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you — especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame," Rochester says. (...)The premise of "Mad Woman" can be easily connected to the famous proverb from "The Mourning Bride" by William Congreve: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."However, Swift's use of the word "mad," an adjective that can mean both "angry" and "crazy," feels very intentional. Once again, it calls to mind "Jane Eyre." (Spoilers ahead!)When Jane finally agrees to marry Mr. Rochester in Brontë's novel, it's revealed that he already has a wife named Bertha Antoinette Mason, who's been locked away in his attic."Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family — idiot and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a mad woman and a drunkard!" Rochester tells Jane. "Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points."Rochester claims he imprisoned Bertha because she lost her mind, painting it as a genetic illness — passed down from her mother, specifically.Jean Rhys gives Bertha a more sympathetic backstory in her 1966 novel "Wide Sargasso Sea." The prequel reimagines how Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress, became "Bertha" in her unhappy marriage to Rochester. In short, she was driven to madness by his patriarchal cruelty.At one point in the novel, Antoinette scolds her new husband for believing lies about her family."I know what he told you. That my mother was mad and an infamous woman and that my little brother who died was born a cretin, an idiot, and that I am a mad girl too," she says.She adds: "There is always another side, always."Antoinette's old nurse Christophine also denounces these rumors, accusing Rochester of greed and betrayal: "You want her money but you don't want her. It is in your mind to pretend she is mad."The themes of "Wide Sargasso Sea" are reflected in "Mad Woman," which fans believe was inspired by the sale of Swift's master recordings without her consent."Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy, what about that? And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry," she sings. "And there's nothing like a mad woman / What a shame she went mad / No one likes a mad woman / You made her like that." (Callie Ahigrim)
Hay autores, sobre todo autoras, que escribieron para generaciones posteriores a la suya. O como decía Shelley, hablando de poetas y filósofos, los hay que son “los legisladores no reconocidos del futuro”. Como las hermanas Brönte (sic), Caterina Albert, Virginia Woolf o, incluso, Annie Ernaux, Marguerite Yourcenar sería una. (Translation) (Andreu Gomila)Le Monde (France) publishes an article about the cultural journalist Augustin Trapenard.
Ses deux livres fondateurs restent pour toujours Les Hauts de Hurlevent, d'Emily Brontë (sur laquelle il commencera une thèse, jamais terminée)[.] (Translation) (Emmanuel Poncet)
«Wuthering Heights» (Cover de Kate Bush): Angra ha demostrado su versatilidad musical con este sorprendente cover de la canción de Kate Bush. Incluida en su álbum «Angels Cry» (1993), esta interpretación demuestra la habilidad de la banda para adaptar y poner su sello en canciones de otros géneros. La versión de Angra destaca por su enfoque más pesado y las potentes voces de Andre Matos. (José) (Translation)
Fay Bound Alberti hace en su libro un ejercicio de comparación entre dos novelas icónicas como son Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë, y la reciente saga Crepúsculo, de Stephenie Meyer, dos maneras alejadas en el tiempo pero con un mismo mensaje: el deseo de hallar el amor, pero no solo el amor, sino el “alma gemela”. A estas alturas, entendemos perfectamente el daño que ha causado esa idea contemporánea del amor romántico, pero no nos engañemos, ya hablaban de ello Aristófanes, Platón o Samuel Coleridge. En las dos novelas vemos a figuras femeninas en busca de esa alma gemela, hasta el punto de que Cathy, en Cumbres borrascosas, llega a decir que Heathcliff es ella, “yo soy él, él está siempre en mi mente como mi propio ser…”. (Use Lahoz) (Translation)
Si pudiera invitar a dos personajes literarios para sentarse a tomar una copa o un café con ellos, ¿a quiénes elegiría?A la duquesa de Guermantes (en homenaje a mi padre, que adoraba a Proust) y a Heathcliff de Cumbres borrascosas. (Translation)
Marisu Moreno: Me has comentado que tus referentes son los clásicos, ¿qué libros son los que más relees?A.L.: Cuando te dedicas al mundo de la escritura, encontrar tiempo para leer por placer es un poco complicado. Mis referentes son 'Cumbres borrascosas', que está siempre presente en lo que escribo, las novelas de Sherlock Holmes, y la Barcelona gótica de Zafón. (Translation)
Lala Toutonian: ¿Lo que leía tu mamá de Baudelaire era macabro?M.E.: ”Una carroña”: “Recuerdas el objeto que vimos, mi alma/Aquella hermosa mañana de estío tan apacible/A la vuelta de un sendero, una carroña infame / sobre un lecho sembrado de guijarros”. Las flores del mal fue mi primer encuentro con él. No muy apropiado (risas). Después encontré otro: Mi corazón al desnudo y otros papeles íntimos –tengo muchas cosas de él– donde habla sobre la belleza. Leí esto de muy chica, y entre esto y Heathcliff de Cumbres Borrascosas todo lo que asumo como bello en un personaje está acá. “He encontrado la definición de lo bello, de lo bello para mí. Es algo ardiente y triste, algo un tanto vago que hace lugar a la conjetura”. (Translation)
Eroica Fenice (Italy) lists some poetries about night, including Night by Anne Brontë.
These are guided walks in Brontë country you can book. One took place yesterday, May 20 on the Haworth 1940s Weekend celebrations, but there are new chances on 17 June, 15 July, 26 August, 23 September and 21 October.
Escape to the Moor is a guided walk off the beaten track to all Brontë landmarks and beauty spots. You'll walk in the footsteps of the Brontës and explore the wild Yorkshire Moor.
Discover the landscape that captivated and influenced their work. It's what inspired the famous lines in Emily's Wuthering Heights:
"I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free… I’m sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills."
You can walk with others, possibly from across the world, for just £30 per ticket or there are discounts for multiple tickets!
Or, you can book a private walk for up to 12 people on a date of your choice. These cost £150, so gather your friends and get in touch to check availability.
The dates of our £30 public walks are Saturdays: 20 May (1940's Weekend), 17 June, 15 July, 26 August, 23 September and 21 October. (The Telegraph & Argus)
Brought to you by the team behind Tiny Dynamite's acclaimed The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged, this thrilling version of the beloved novel features a large ensemble and utilizes a chorus of "Janes" to theatricalize the heroine's rich inner life. Jane Eyre runs for 2 hours and 30 minutes, and is recommended for ages 10 and up. [...]"Jane Eyre has been a project four years in the making," said PAC Co-Founder/ Producing Artistic Director Damon Bonetti. "We were originally asked by a university to produce a Jane Eyre. We read a number of adaptations but were dissatisfied with them all. The Creative Team just had a hit with The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged. Charlotte being with that cohort and also being tapped to play Jane, it made sense to create our own. The pandemic made us rethink how we wanted to present this play in terms of location and making it an all professional cast. So we decided to make it part of our first full season back."He added, "PAC produces theatre that is epic, but with a visceral intensity and a focus on the humanity in these stories. This is a new play, but the story is almost 200 years old, and, in my recollection of working in the area since the mid 90's, there has never been a production of Jane Eyre. PAC produces rare classics and this is a story rarely told on stage."To bring an epic story like this to stage PAC turned to longtime fan and friend Kathryn MacMillan, who is also the New Artistic Director of Inis Nua Theatre and the Producing Artistic Director of Tiny Dynamite. MacMillan had directed a PAC reading of A Month in the Country some years ago. Additionally, MacMillan's only professional acting credit was in the ensemble of The Fair Maid of the West, directed by Charlotte Northeast. For Jane Eyre, she would reunite with PAC and swap roles with Northeast - with Northeast acting and MacMillan directing."Of course Jane Eyre begins with Charlotte Northeast," said MacMillan. "The writing team wrote with her voice (and her considerable skills!) in our minds. And this novel means so much to her--she brings so much passion and knowledge to her work. [...]""My name is Charlotte for a reason," said Northeast. "My mother is a Brontë fan and I am named after the writer. When I was little, I was plunked in front of all the great adaptations of the novel and my fifth grade book report was on Jane Eyre. So you could say, I've been building up to this for a while. Jane resonates with me because she is described as 'plain and little' and yet she carves out such a life for herself that, at the time of publication, t was thought scandalous. Not because she does outrageous things but simply because she asks to be treated as she is - a woman of intelligence and curiosity in a world that didn't always embrace that. I've always been little. I don't generally wear makeup. It's not part of who I am. But I take up space. I probably cross more lines than I should and sometimes people don't expect that. I'm hoping to meld my affinity with Jane with the life that Brontë gives her in the novel and come up with something vital and new." (Stephi Wild)
Female novelists seem to be getting a bit of a bashing these days. Some literature courses offer trigger warnings for anyone frightened by the “toxicity” of Jane Eyre or Northanger Abbey. Tom Rachman’s The Imposters doesn’t let them off too lightly either. His first novel, The Imperfectionists, focused on journalists. Here he offers a convoluted study of a different sort of writer, the ageing novelist Dora, in a treatment that is not unfeeling, though needlessly contorted. (Lucy Ellmann)
Lots of lessons can be gleaned from this retelling of Jane Eyre; we see Jeannette speak up for herself, forgive others and live her truth as she seeks love. I recommend Wild Beautiful and Free, an empowering and moving novel. (Jennifer Blankfein)
[Lillia Kaye of Huntley High School] returns to the stage in Jane, a piece she choreographed inspired by the book "Jane Eyre." (Judith Svalander)
Frances O'Connor riesce in qualche maniera a donare alla narrazione un grado di focalizzazione tale da abbattere ogni possibile pietismo, giudizio o opinioni di sorta sul conto della protagonista: Emily ci arriva dritta al cuore nella sua più pura essenza, proprio come lo stream of consciousness ante litteram che lei stessa metterà a punto in Cime Tempestose.Tutto questo non sarebbe però stato possibile senza Emma Mackey, la giovane star di Sex Education ormai lanciata verso i più rosei orizzonti del cinema con la c maiuscola. La performance di Mackey è semplicemente inestimabile: scandisce il ritmo del film come un metronomo settato sulla stabilità emotiva della protagonista, si raggomitola in sé stessa quando il momento è cupo, per poi bucare lo schermo quando è il momento di brillare.Cos'altro dire su Emily, se non che è un film complesso e sfaccettato nella misura in cui riflette l'essenza della sua protagonista? Intimo, delicato, vero, sensuale, letterario, poetico e chissà quante altre cose ancora. Forse, più che un film per gli amanti della letteratura o di Emily Brontë, questo è un film per chi ama le persone. (Translation)
Jane EyreNicole BaniukaitisGrand Valley State University, 2023Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is a complex and, at times, seemingly paradoxical novel. Through Jane’s journey, I argue that Charlotte Brontë offers possibilities that can be explained and understood through Val Plumwood’s ecofeminist lens of dismantling or escaping dualisms in order to make these crucial changes and rewrite the traditional story. Jane’s liminality throughout the novel empowers her, offers her access to alternative modalities, and allows her to notice the oppressive dualistic structures governing all aspects of life. Due to her unique liminal positioning, Jane is aligned with nature and fights against oppressive dualisms to shape her life in a way that suits her. Through the multi-dimensional exertions of nature, Jane can have it all by remaking existing norms and tempering them with what she wants in life: being a complete human in an equal relationship with Rochester, backed by a selective spirituality and unrestrained by dualisms.
The Gothic horror elements of the narrative are heightened by these disembodied voices, spirits that haunt Nelly as she attempts to hold together two dysfunctional households. The play text initially quotes Nelly describing Heathcliff (Ike Bennett) as a ghoul and a vampire although in Eisler and Lewis’s version, his monstrous intentions lie in his ability to become a controlling figure motivated by acquiring through inheritance Wuthering Heights and the larger Thrushcross Grange. However, Nelly and Catherine’s fear of Heathcliff may also reflect their insular white privilege being subjugated by a homeless orphaned black immigrant from the port city of Liverpool made good.The back wall of the set features a family tree on which photographs of the novel’s characters are pinned, somewhat like a police incident board. Each time a character dies, their photo is removed from the wall until only two images remain. Both families are infused with weak characters prone to illness and early death, and more inarticulate, earthy figures whose cruelty hides a desire to be loved. The drama becomes a Darwinian fight for survival among the windswept Yorkshire hills with no sentimentality shown to characters who fall by the wayside.The inescapable truth is that society needs the changeling qualities that Heathcliff brings to Wuthering Heights. The pathetic, reactive characters of Earnshaw, Edgar and Linton (Leander Deeny) who sprawl in their armchairs, have no place in a changing world. It is a bleak vision with limited optimism. (Jon Lewis)
Then I found out why Anne was so underrated, and under-read: although The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was an instant success, Charlotte blocked it from being reprinted after Anne’s death. She disagreed with the topic (spousal abuse, substance abuse, child abuse), and thought that it was incongruent with Anne’s personality. [...]When I first read this, I became angry. I already knew that writing a heroine who wasn’t beautiful, something that wasn’t common at the time and for which Charlotte gets all the innovation points, Anne had done first in Agnes Grey. That was only an irritant: after all, it’s hardly Charlotte’s fault that Anne’s publisher didn’t publish Agnes Grey until after Charlotte had sold and published Jane Eyre. But this? This was Charlotte’s fault. And Anne was considered the lesser Brontë sister for over a century because of it.You might be thinking that I sound overly invested in this. To which I say: I absolutely was. I’m more than a little embarrassed now typing this out. But at the time, I was depressed, lonely, and looking for purpose. This cause gave me that, with the convenient bonus of lacking any and all personal stakes.Soon enough, as I began to heal, the intensity of my feelings abated: I was no longer angry at Charlotte, but I still took any and all opportunity to point out her flaws. For years.For several years, every new thing I learned about Charlotte kept my disdain setting on high: the letter she wrote to Smith Williams saying that, although she had accepted Anne’s death, she couldn’t accept Emily’s; her editing Anne’s poems in her own style, thus changing Anne’s intended words (see Juliet Barker’s The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors); her — by all accounts unwelcome — love letters to a married man, and using his wife as the model for the antagonist in two of her books (the headmistress in The Professor and Madame Beck in Villette); calling her students stupid; and, most crucially, refusing to take a consumptive Anne to Scarborough for months. Oh, and saying that Anne was glad to die and had “laid [her life] down as a burden” when, in fact, Anne wrote herself that she wanted to live.Some of these things are worthy of disdain. But her own feelings about her own sisters and their deaths? Not knowing Anne enough to avoid confusing forbearance with a desire for death? Those are simply Charlotte being her own person with her own feelings, and (like all of us) being closer to some family members than to others.Once I accepted that I was wrong about some of these things, how could I not reexamine the others?Charlotte blocked the reprinting of Tenant. The very controversial Tenant, which Anne herself said had been met by many with unexpected hostility. They had lambasted her for “a love for the coarse and the brutal.” They had lambasted Emily and Charlotte, too, for doing the same thing in their own books.I had to wonder: how would I feel if I were Charlotte? If I had lost my mother and two elder sisters during childhood, and then gone on to lose my three remaining siblings within a year? If I had to do my grieving while knowing that people out there were accusing those dead siblings of enjoying brutality?All of a sudden, Charlotte’s choices started to make a lot more sense. I still didn’t agree with them, but I could no longer find it in me to judge her for it. [...]Looking back, I can’t believe I ever wasted my time resenting Charlotte Brontë. Anne was long dead, so who exactly was I helping by harbouring this grudge? Even if Anne had been alive, I rather suspect she’d resent me for resenting her sister. After all, Anne Brontë’s last words, spoken while holding Charlotte’s hand, were “Take courage, dear Charlotte, take courage.”I talked a big game about empathy — and yet I refused to exercise enough empathy to understand that a) somebody’s personal feelings about their own family are none of my business, b) I was ignoring the debilitating amount of loss and grief in Charlotte’s life, as well as the enormous strength it must have taken to keep going and continue opening her heart to other people, and c) she’s been dead for almost 150 years. This woman didn’t kick puppies or steal from the elderly, she didn’t do anything so terribly wrong that strangers should be judging her even a year after her death, let alone 150.I have since read and enjoyed Shirley. Charlotte really hit her stride as an author in this novel, and I look forward to seeing what she did with Villette. (Carolina Ciucci)
Recently, I re-read Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is a dark, bewitching book, and this time, I hunted for monsters in it.I found four—four specific usages of the word “monster”—amid a glut of spooky things (ghoulish motifs, metaphors and pathetic fallacy, and sinister pet-names, to name a few types). As a seminal Gothic text, which both plays up and subverts stylistic hallmarks of the genre, Charlotte Brontë‘s 1847 novel Jane Eyre is obviously associated with beasts and phantoms—and many such examples are highlighted in a chapter called “A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane’s Progress” from perhaps the most influential work of feminist Victorian scholarship written in the twentieth century, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. (Read more) (Olivia Rutigliano)
The synopsis above, of course, will inevitably conjure reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, but this is no mere rejigging of familiar tropes – Kate, working within territory that we think we know, has a variety of provocative surprises up her sleeve.And the Gothic sensibility that the reader may have detected in her earlier books is given full, sinister rein here. Marta is a protagonist who has had strange gifts given to her by her grandmother, and in her interactions with the duplicitous Pritchard family, she proves to be quite as doughty a fighter as Jane Eyre.“I’m a fan of the Gothic… it’s my happy place,” Kate says. “I studied English literature at university and it was a privilege and pleasure to spend three years in the dark and stormy company of the Brontës, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and a host of others whose tortured souls sent shivers of delight down my spine.“Those familiar with Lady Ginger in the Kitty Peck books will recognise the debt I owe to Miss Havisham, one of the most gloriously Gothic characters in literature.” (Barry Forshaw)
Best of all, there’s Sandy Miller, a writer of pornographic novels such as The Devil’s Panties, “but literary, you know. One minute Sandy’s getting banged by an Arab Negro and the next minute she’s a sixteenth-century pirate on the high seas, or Emily Brontë or something.” (John Self)
