Intensely personal narrative with literary analysis

Does The Guardian ever refer to a book-to-film adaptation without mentioning Wuthering Heights 2026 anymore? It would seem not.

Purists will be pleased to hear that Reid’s adaptation [of Sense and Sensibility] is a fairly faithful one – Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights this is not. (Katie Cunningham)

DNA (France) reviews Lilia Hassaine's JE.

Sélectionnée dans la première liste du prix Goncourt, JE de Lilia Hassaine propose une relecture post Metoo de Jane Eyre.

Comme l’avait fait l’autrice britannique Jean Rhys dans La prisonnière des Sargasses il y a tout juste soixante ans, la journaliste s’intéresse à « la folle » du cultissime roman de Charlotte Brontë, cette première femme que Rochester cache dans son grenier et qui va l’empêcher d’épouser Jane.

Dans ce quatrième roman au style très victorien, elle nous embarque avec elle dans la triste histoire de la belle Jamaïcaine.

Chez Lilia Hassaine, si Antoinette Cosway (rebaptisée par son mari Bertha pour convenir à son nouvel environnement anglais) a perdu la raison, c’est à cause de Rochester, pervers narcissique, prenant plaisir à détruire l’être aimé, à observer son anéantissement, à souffler le chaud et le froid, à sans cesse manipuler.

Le récit explore les rapports de pouvoir. Le rapport homme-femme bien sûr, mais également celui sur lequel reposait l’esclavagisme durant cette première moitié du XIXe  siècle quand se multipliaient les révoltes, mais où le racisme perdurait malgré les fraîches lois abolitionnistes.

Comme cet extrait cité d’un dictionnaire médical de 1812 : « Le Créole a beaucoup de facilité pour tout, mais de génie pour rien »… (A. W.) (Translation)

Harvard Independent has an article on 'Why Anne Carson Won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature'.

One of Carson’s most famous literary works is “The Glass Essay,” a long-form lyric poem that blends a personal narrative of heartbreak with critical commentary on Emily Brontë. Carson intertwines a constructed narrative of a devastating breakup with Emily Brontë’s oeuvre and life. In doing so, Carson incorporates critical analyses of Brontë’s life and observations from her sister, Charlotte, to comment on heartbreak, isolation, and literature as an emotional outlet. [...]

Brontë is intertwined with the speaker’s grief in a way that at first seems out of place—how does this author from the 19th century relate to the speaker’s breakup? Eventually, readers understand that the speaker identifies with Brontë, feeling that her liminality and isolation after being abandoned are turning her into Emily Brontë. At the end of the poem’s second section, “SHE,” the speaker asks: “What meat is it, Emily, that we need?”

The speaker does not just allude to Brontë as a kindred spirit, however. The poem’s unique perspective—what the Nobel committee calls “bold” and “inventive”—comes from Carson’s combination of this intensely personal narrative with literary analysis. The speaker quotes unnamed critics (likely inventions by Carson to represent a general argument within the literary world rather than any one scholar), using interpretations of Brontë and her life to deepen her self-understanding or refute a claim with her own experience. In one stanza, a disparaging critic wonders why Brontë longed for liberty when her home life was satisfactory. The speaker responds that imprisonment takes many forms and describes her own childhood, showing how she reads Brontë’s poetry through her own life. (Eden Bridge-Hayes)

The Brussels Brontë Blog has a post on how the Brontës' Irish links were celebrated at the Irish embassy in Brussels this past weekend.