tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post722111132022169399..comments2024-03-14T07:34:26.650+01:00Comments on BrontëBlog: A Student's Guide to The Brontë Sisters - A ReviewCristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14863082224534612494noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-63312987988999016312009-11-20T18:12:37.806+01:002009-11-20T18:12:37.806+01:00Yes, Arthur Bell Nicholls is another person that I...Yes, Arthur Bell Nicholls is another person that I really like and has often been neglected or even worse abused. Some people still believe that Charlotte didn't love him. There is even an article at the Victorian web that says that Charlotte was so disappointed with her marriage that she chose death over it. This is not only insulting to him but also to Charlotte who definitely was a woman to be admired for her courage and will to live. I wonder haven't those people ever read her letters. And this is serious matter bacause I have even seen some sites that help students with their exams on Jane Eyre to mention in Charlotte's Bronte biography that she wanted to die. At any rate it is a different thing to have an opinion and different to present it as a matter of fact.<br /><br />The article at the victorian web that I am referring to is this: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontbio1.html and while I like very much paragraph that describes Charlotte's complex personality, the end always manages to spoil it for me.ksotikoulahttp://www.youtube.com/user/ksotikoulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-20706144865824823412009-11-19T11:14:53.040+01:002009-11-19T11:14:53.040+01:00I wholeheartedly agree with you. I also think that...I wholeheartedly agree with you. I also think that Charlotte is often treated unfairly and judged on grounds that are simply unsuitable. We all know about the "walk in another man's shoes" thing, but not so much is needed in order to empathise with Charlotte and at least begin to understand her decisions, reactions and actions. Like you, I don't think she edited, or commented on, her sisters' work correctly, but she was a passionate woman and they were her sisters first and foremost. The fact that they were also published authors came afterwards. She couldn't - and wouldn't - act coolly when it came to them.<br /><br />Agreed too about Charlotte being the original creator of the Brontë Myth (TM). Her letters emphasising isolation, lack of refinement, etc. were written way before Mrs Gaskell took over. And Mrs Gaskell only took Charlotte's cue.<br /><br />What happens to Charlotte is also what happens to Arthur Bell Nicholls. People criticise them for their actions concerning what they only know as famous writers, but it should always be borne in mind that to them they were more than just that and - much to our regret - couldn't act as we would have wanted them to. Yo don't need to agree with their actions in order to understand them.Cristinahttp://bronteblog.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-74588231838015579462009-11-18T13:42:53.733+01:002009-11-18T13:42:53.733+01:00I too think that many biographers are very unfair ...I too think that many biographers are very unfair to Charlotte Bronte especially when it comes to Anne. Barker especially seems to dislike her so very much that despite her being a historian, she makes some very one-sided comments about her. For example, about Anne's last wish to go to Scarborough. She presents Charlotte as too controlling, overreacting and scheming to avoid the fulfillment of Anne's last wish. But here we have simply a difference of opinions. In Charlotte's opinion Anne was too week to move, it was too late for the effect of the sea and it would be terribly inconvenient if Anne didn't made it through the journey. She was correct about all three: Anne had to be carried around with a wheelchair and she died far from home. It was nice that she managed to see Scarborough again, but that doesn't justify Barker's account of what happened there. Why should she take sides? And overall her presentation of Charlotte is always as "bossy" and "controlling" and "ambitious", qualities that some would call "determination", "perseverance" and "creativity/hard work". <br /><br /> About Anne I really like her and I think she is underestimated. She must have had genius enough to write these books without the Heger training that the other two sisters had, but the lack of this training sometimes shows (for example I like very much "The tenant of the Wildfell hall", but as some reviewers have commented its structure is not the best possible as the whole diary section kind of distances you from the initial empathy you feel for Gilbert - I at least find the transition back to him as narrator awkward). And then Anne was a realist like Jane Austen (another writer not a favorite with Charlotte). So, I believe that Charlotte's opinion about Anne's second novel was true and not a conscious effort to undermine her (why do this anyway. Charlotte was the famous one not the other way around). Maybe that novel reminded her too forcibly of Branwell's failure of morality and strength or she just preferred the treatment of some issues through more symbolical or poetical way ("Can there be greatness without poetry?" she had wrote and Anne's style is not really noted for it's poetry but for it's reality and simplicity). <br /><br />As for the editing of her sisters' work, I am not very happy about it, but Charlotte was the only recognized genius of her family and clearly her style was more to the taste of her era. So probably she thought that by glossing a little bit some of their work she could made it more appealing to the public. That woman understood some things about advertising (she even stopped her editor from publishing another cheap edition of Jane Eyre because people "would get sick even of the title of this book"). So, thanks to her for many years people admired Emily Bronte for her "last" poem which however was written way before her death. Charlotte knew how to present things and the Bronte Myth is her own creation. And then even if some don't like her, they must be grateful to her because, had she not been "ambitious" and "bossy" enough, we would have missed some of the greater novels ever written.ksotikoulahttp://www.youtube.com/user/ksotikoulanoreply@blogger.com