Ah, gothic romance. It is always a dark and stormy night with sexually repressed spinsters sitting in the parlor of a creaky old mansion with ivy growing inside. The winds howl as the storm rages and a mastiff sits forlornly looking out of the window. A Red Orchid Theatre’s The Moors takes the lid off the staid and murky tales of unrequited passion with a few moments of zen thrown in via Moor Hen and the Mastiff. Yes, there is a governess, a sinister maid, typhus fever, and someone in the attic for the purist. However, The Moors takes DuMaurier, the Brontës, and even Henry James and tells the story behind the tales of our high school reading lists. [...]The Moors is a literate and beautifully staged show. The scenic design by Milo Blue encapsulates decay and madness in the intimate Red Orchid setting. The fog, vines, and cracked portraits form physical boundaries where this strange collection of characters live. The Moors is a show that holds up a mirror into the times in which we live as well. Some accept these limits and others go against restraints to break free no matter the consequence. It is a wickedly funny take on the gothic romance novel where the macabre blends with forbidden desires and suppressed passion. The moral of the story could be that schemers sometimes do prosper and dogs will be dogs. Go see this play and draw your conclusions. I highly recommend The Moors as a refreshing return to true Chicago-style theater—fearless and provocative. (Kathy D. Hey)
a performed reading of Jean Rhys’ novel Wide Sargasso Sea; a post-colonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
“Agnes Grey” può essere considerato a suo modo un romanzo femminista sebbene la protagonista sia all’apparenza una donna mite e meno ribelle dell’eroine di Charlotte ed Emily Brontë. Questo perchè non smette mai di chiedersi come una donna possa sopravvivere in un epoca dura per le donne come quella vittoriana e come possa ottenere la sua emancipazione. Un indipendenza che Agnes Grey riesce a conquistare aprendo una scuola con la madre“La signora di Wildfell Hall” ci porta invece in dote una donna estroversa, ribelle e artista come Helen Graham che fugge da un marito alcolista. Scritto in forma epistolare questo libro per la franchezza del linguaggio e per i temi trattati attirò subito polemiche e l’interesse dei lettori. Proprio da quest’opera si evince come Anne Brontë non sia affatto un’autrice inferiore alle sorelle ma che invece possa essere pienamente considerata un precursore del realismo moderno. (Stefano Delle Cave) (Translation)
Via the Brontë Parsonage's Twitter we have realized that Lily Cole's Balls short film is now being streamed online:
A short fiction film exploring the hypothetical origins of Wuthering Heights Heathcliff - based on true stories of foundlings from 18th and 19th Century England that might have inspired Emily Brontë's character.
Balls was commissioned by the Brontë Parsonage Museum and Foundling Museum, with support from RRU Liverpool and Impossible. It was produced by Fury Films.
Balls exhibited in both museums to celebrate Emily Brontë's 200th birthday on July 30th 2018.
Balls was selected as The Guardian’s Exhibition of the Week; nominated for Best Director, Best Producer and the XX Award at Underwire Festival; and nominated for Best Film in Official Competition, at London Short Film Festival.
Victorians: A Journal of Culture and LiteratureNumber 138, Winter 2020Anne Brontë Bicentenary, Special EditionDeborah Denenholz Morse, Amber Pouliotpp. 105-111Elizabeth Langlandpp. 112-123Anne Brontë's works have yielded fewer critical insights focusing on her representations of space than have her sisters' novels. This essay argues that, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne is equally attentive as her sisters to environment. She echoes, albeit in a different register, their representations of freedom and delight in the natural world, while she explores even more deeply her protagonist's ongoing experiences of enclosure and imprisonment in the middle-class home. In her sensitivity to these constructed spaces—how they are accessed, by whom, and under what circumstances—Anne Brontë shapes her novel's themes. The physical distance and tension between Grassdale Manor (Huntingdon's estate) and Wildfell Hall (Helen Huntingdon's remote retreat) charts the psychological escape and emergence into autonomy and self-government of the novel's protagonist—Helen Graham, the tenant of Wildfell Hall.
"Uncivil Usage": Shifting Forms of Control in The Tenant of Wildfell HallElizabeth King
pp. 124-140The question of how authority is maintained is a major preoccupation in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, where the treatment of animals serves as a significant indicator of different strategies for exerting control. Brontë's mirrored structure of two separate courtships enables a comparison of the different forms of control exhibited by each of Helen Graham's suitors; encoded in their treatment of animals are insights into the alternative manifestations of authority each man represents. Although Arthur Huntingdon and Gilbert Markham use very different methods to assert control, ultimately they are both deeply concerned with maintaining a position of structural privilege. While Arthur embodies an entitled, thoughtless masculine power typical of an upper-class gentleman, Gilbert exemplifies a much more deliberate maintenance of control, indicative of new forms of governance emerging in nineteenth-century England."penance and mortification for ever": or, How Agnes Grey Bucked the Trend and Found True HappinessMargaret Markwick
pp. 141-155The question of how authority is maintained is a major preoccupation in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, where the treatment of animals serves as a significant indicator of different strategies for exerting control. Brontë's mirrored structure of two separate courtships enables a comparison of the different forms of control exhibited by each of Helen Graham's suitors; encoded in their treatment of animals are insights into the alternative manifestations of authority each man represents. Although Arthur Huntingdon and Gilbert Markham use very different methods to assert control, ultimately they are both deeply concerned with maintaining a position of structural privilege. While Arthur embodies an entitled, thoughtless masculine power typical of an upper-class gentleman, Gilbert exemplifies a much more deliberate maintenance of control, indicative of new forms of governance emerging in nineteenth-century England.Lesa Schollpp. 156-168Many scholars connect Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) to Brontë's experience of living with her brother Branwell's alcoholism. There is further scope for understanding this novel in the context of alimentary excess in the nineteenth century, through medical and theological discussions on the relationship between body, soul, and nutrition that are consistent with the Brontës' Anglican ethos. While not dismissing Huntingdon's alcoholism, this essay focuses more on the prevalence of unhealthy alimentary excess in Brontë's novel, and the violence wrought by poor nutrition on the body and soul of self and others. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall engages closely with the 1830s and 1840s medical and theological understandings of nutritional links between physical and mental health. Brontë's novel further shows how neglect of bodily health through poor nutrition not only damages the individual body but compromises the moral health of society.Unlike her sisters Charlotte and Emily, Anne Brontë professed to write for the moral edification of her readers, a duty she saw as God-given and part of her Evangelical calling. This article considers Brontë's literary principles, most clearly communicated in the Preface to the Second Edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by exploring her religious poetry and establishing her sense of authorship as Christian labor. Drawing on the many uses of "labor" in her poetry, this discussion examines the necessary connections Brontë affirms between an inward labor of spiritual self-improvement and the labor she hoped to do in the world "amid the brave and strong." A close reading of Brontë's final poem offers another opportunity to reevaluate Charlotte Brontë's portrayal of Anne, given in letters and published writing after Anne's death, that mischaracterizes her artistic aims and aspirations.
"Thy love to me impart:" The Literary-Theological Legacy of Hymns in Patrick and Anne Brontës' Father-Daughter Relationship
Alisa Clapp-Itnyre
pp. 181-199
Little information survives regarding the theological or the familial relationship between the Reverend Mr. Patrick Brontë and his daughter, Anne. This analysis utilizes an obscure Sunday School hymn book held at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, from which Patrick selected hymns for his annual Sunday School Anniversaries. The hymnal helps clarify his theological beliefs, especially regarding sin and the afterlife, and their influence on Anne's theology. A close-reading of two such hymns and of Anne's poems, "Confidence" and "A Prayer," reveals connections linking the father's beliefs and the daughter's doubts.
"And is that the use you make of your Bible?": Universalism in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Susanna Millsap
pp. 200-211
Although scholars have offered varying interpretations of the "truth" mentioned in Anne Brontë's preface to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, one primary lesson is often overlooked. The importance of universalism—for both Brontë and her narrative—deserves further study, as it is part of the truth the author wished to convey. A close reading of the preface, the novel, and biographical materials demonstrates the savviness with which Brontë incorporated this controversial belief into her narrative. Her choices to argue both sides of the issue and to present a character study in Arthur Huntingdon demonstrate keen rhetorical and audience awareness. Ultimately, Brontë's nuanced portrayal of universalism highlights the importance of other lessons in the novel, suggesting that assured salvation is no excuse for immorality.
Peripheral Voices in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Grace Pregent
pp. 212-230The character system developed in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall offers a case study of characters and characterization through its focus on their "proper place." What is the proper place of major and minor characters? This article argues for a reconceptualization of character landscapes within narratives. Despite the overwhelming presence of rupture in Tenant—bonds broken by death, infidelity, or abuse—from the margins, a host of minor and very minor characters encourages a consideration of how peripheral voices are perceived. Studying minor characters and their interrelationships expands the thematic discourse surrounding the novel, whose characters model a range of bonds between men, between women, and between men and women.Consent and Enclosure in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: "You needn't read it all; but take it home with you"
Catherine Quirk
pp. 231-241
While much recent scholarship situates The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a proto-feminist text, highlighting Helen Huntingdon's status as a working woman and her radicalism in leaving her first husband, this article argues that Anne Brontë's narrative structure in fact limits the character's radical potential. The novel's structure replicates the form of nineteenth-century coverture, which establishes her husband, Gilbert Markham, and not Helen, as the center of narrative power. Markham's framing letters enclose Helen's text within his own; while this has been read as granting authority to the woman's narrative, such framing instead contains it and controls the possibilities of its interpretation.
"It seemed as if they looked on vacancy": Life Writing in Agnes Grey
Maria Frawley
pp. 242-252
This essay reads Anne Brontë's first novel through the lens of life-writing, moving beyond restrictive notions of the autobiographical to encompass a range of narrative strategies deployed by authors exploring selfhood and subjectivity. Agnes Grey reveals Brontë's relatively sophisticated understanding of different dimensions of identity, both her own and that of her eponymous heroine. Brontë explores personhood in order to encourage readers to consider the ways humans come to be understood and treated as persons, and the situations that cause persons to think of themselves as fundamentally human. Further, she deploys a range of rhetorical tools and narrative techniques that foreground the intersubjective nature of her heroine's self-understanding and the dynamics of her interiority, complicating in the process any superficial understanding of the character as quiet and, in turn, unsettling the impression that biographers of Anne Brontë, beginning most influentially with her sister Charlotte, have perpetuated.
The Word of a Woman, Thanks be to God: Women's Writing in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Clara Poteet
pp. 253-267
Anne Brontë's use of Victorian iconography of religious awakening and biblical language in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall highlights the potential for women's writing to facilitate spiritual conversion. Milicent Hargrave's letters and Helen Huntingdon's diary offer powerful explorations for both the legitimacy of women's writing and the role of Scripture in spiritual conversion. Gilbert Markham and Ralph Hattersley, through their conversions, participate in a new egalitarian Christianity, one that is just as much about behavioral reform as spiritual transformation, and one that honors women's words and lived experiences as metaphorical scriptures. For Anne Brontë, the spiritual and earthly planes were inseparable, and her novel of social realism points to a Christianity made of lifelong listening, learning, and relearning.
Disconsolate Tenants of the Metabolic Rift: An Anthropocene Feminist View of Farming in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Shawna Ross
pp. 268-289
This article argues that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an ecofeminist text by showing how maladaptive patterns of land management, which contribute to the decay and depopulation of rural areas, are connected to Anne Brontë's exposure of women's vulnerabilities in the Victorian period. Through a series of material and aesthetic links between land productivity and familial discord, Tenant provides a gendered account of the nineteenth-century energy crisis that Marxist ecologists refer to as the metabolic rift. In doing so, Brontë's narrative constructs a feminist history of the Anthropocene, as well as a critical counter-narrative of the British Agricultural Revolution.
Angel Bright, Infernal Demon: Tracing Parallels between Arthur Huntingdon and John Milton's Satan in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Alexa Kelly
pp. 290-302
Anne Brontë invests the villain of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall—Arthur Huntingdon—with qualities similar to John Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost. Both figures assume false exteriors to tempt others into sin, thereby exerting their corrupting influences on those around them. However, while Satan is punished by an eternity in Hell and doomed by the promise of the conquering Son, Huntingdon's punishment lies not in the afterlife, but in his erasure from the novel and replacement by his son. Huntingdon's Satanic qualities increase the efficacy of Brontë's cautionary tale by revealing the sinful nature inherent in every human being, a nature that can only be overcome with the help of God.
Satisfied With Such a Life
Alexandra Lewis
pp. 303-315
This neo-Victorian short story offers a perspective "from below" on the miserable first marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the eponymous tenant of Wildfell Hall. Presented in the form of a confidential communication from servant Rachel to her co-worker Benson, the story examines the dangers to which women subject themselves when they marry. Despite her loyalty, Rachel is acutely aware of the ways Helen minimizes and underestimates her worth and that of other members of the servant class. It is the unlettered Rachel who better understands what Helen risks in her engagement to Gilbert Markham, and who perceives the dangers, for women, of "want[ing] too little and forget[ting] too much."
Review Essay: New Work on Anne Brontë
Deborah A. Logan
pp. 316-320Robert Butterworth, Anne Brontë and the Trials of Life (Peter Lang, 2017), 165 pages, ISBN 978-1-78707-403-3, $65.00.Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë. Edited by Robin L. Inboden (Broadview Press, 2020), 268 pages, ISBN 978-1-55481-455-8, $16.95.
Contributors
pp. 322-323
Teachers may also make curriculum choices that appeal to girls but are less engaging for boys, such as studying Jane Eyre in GCSE English literature instead of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. (Greg Hurst)
“For the interior of Misselthwaite we wanted a big, empty, latent, haunted space for Mary to step into,” reveals [director Marc] Munden.“That’s something that you see in stories like Jane Eyre and Rebecca.” (Alan Davies)
Desde la agria relación de Laurence Olivier con Joan Fontaine, a quien hubiese querido ver reemplazada por Vivien Leigh -Fontaine fue aislada del resto del elenco por el director para "ayudarla" a componer su primer protagónico- hasta el fundamental cambio en el desenlace del guion para no infringir el código Hays, que no permitía que un homicida como de Winter pudiera vivir el resto de sus días en el exilio junto a su segunda esposa (quien lo ayuda a encubrir el crimen) la historia de Rebeca es bastante más complicada que una reinvención de Jane Eyre invadida por el inconsciente de Thornfield Hall. Como en su contemporánea El ciudadano [Citizen Kane], la historia de sus ocupantes se descubre a través de un inquietante recorrido por sus dominios (Xanadu, en el caso de Kane). Es difícil desentrañar quién posee a quién. (Dolores Graña) (Translation)
A musical pioneer, Kate Bush has inspired many from Julia Holter to FKA Twigs to Lady Gaga. From her eccentric music videos to unusual lyrics, Bush’s art pop persona makes her one of the most interesting performers to emerge from the 1970s. Deriving inspiration from numerous sources, Bush frequently delves into literature for ideas.Bush based her first great hit, “Wuthering Heights,” on the Gothic Emily Brontë novel of the same name. In the song “Wuthering Heights,” Bush embodies the character of Cathy. She sings, “Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy” and explains Cathy’s position with a tragic request, “I’ve come home, I’m so cold / Let me in through your window.”In the novel, Cathy’s tortured soul endlessly wanders the moors even in death, hopelessly searching for a way to make amends. Bush’s ability to convey this narrative through a few chorus lines exemplifies the blend of literature and music; it is the same story with a different presentation.It is also important to acknowledge how Bush sings this song. She does not sing softly but presents high-pitched, screeching vocals. These screeching vocals evoke the same feeling that Brontë’s Gothic writing style does. Both convey the dark desperation of the subject matter.Bush’s lyrics present a clear connection to the novel, while her musical style subtly exposes Cathy’s tortured soul. (Annika Suderburg)
7. “Wuthering Heights” by Kate BushFall is the perfect time to start catching up on all those unread books on your bookshelf, and if you’re a fan of classics like Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, then the song of the same name by Kate Bush will be perfect for you!The British songstress was inspired by the novel, and the track is widely considered one of the best of all time. It’s sung from the perspective of Wuthering Heights character Catherine Earnshaw, pleading at Heathcliff’s window to be let in. It’s Gothic and filled with drama, and of course, Kate Bush is an icon. Do you really need another reason to add this one to the playlist? (Marco Saveriano)
Brontë WaterfallFamous, of course, for its association with the Brontë sisters, the Brontë Waterfall is set among breathtaking countryside. Set in a valley surrounded by moorland and farmland, the area offers some truly beautiful walking and makes for a wonderful spot for photography. (Phoebe Fuller)
Either way, Flanagan has much to be proud of here, as a version of James' classic ghost story. James presented the notion that perhaps the hauntings were merely the imaginings of the governess, who refers directly to Jane Eyre and the character of Bertha, a madwoman confined in Thornfield, the primary location of the story and not entirely unlike Bly Manor itself. While Flanagan's adaptation is primarily a more literal approach to the hauntings, much is made of the mind's ability to conjure apparitions and therefore very much in keeping with the original text, despite never being totally sure which one it's referring to. (Matthew Weller)
Prince Humperdinck's Castle: Haddon Hall - Derbyshire, EnglandThe interior and exterior of this Tudor period country house were used in filming scenes that take place at Prince Humperdinck’s Castle. When Westley is supposedly killed, leaving Buttercup alone, Buttercup is forced into an engagement with Prince Humperdinck. The engagement is announced and the former commoner is introduced as Princess Buttercup at Prince Humperdinck’s castle in Florin City. The exterior of the castle appears again when Buttercup has a nightmare of an old woman berating her for marrying Humperdinck. Haddon Hall has also appeared in film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. (Caroline Fox)
But there is a related concern. Is happiness – such a fugitive state of mind – amenable to detection or logic at all? Charlotte Brontë skewered the notion in her novel Villette: “Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure.” These days, we prefer our happiness gurus to have arrived at their commandments via crappy experiences. Revelations of suffering – akin to religious purification – are prerequisite for telling others how to live. But Hannah’s story seems a little different, her motivation more opaque. (Rhik Samadder)
No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise. (Villette, chapter XXII)
Tens of thousands have been coming to the Brontë Parsonage Museum every year since. But not any longer. Today, I find an orderly queue of six waiting outside the garden door. For that is the maximum allowed in at a time.‘We started off this year in such an optimistic mood,’ sighs Ann Dinsdale, principal curator, who has been here for 31 years (‘Longer than the Brontës!’ she jokes). ‘Now we’re just working out how to survive the winter.’It should, indeed, have been a bumper summer for this handsome if severe hilltop home where the three prolific Bronte sisters produced such classics as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights while their widowed clergyman father tended to his parish.This marks the bicentenary of the youngest, Anne, and the museum had been planning major celebrations. The Brontë Society, which runs the place, had also just acquired a much-prized treasure which it had been pursuing for years — the ‘Little Book’, a matchbox-size compendium of jottings by 14-year-old Charlotte Brontë.It was finally bought, thanks to a £500,000 Lottery grant, and went on show with great fanfare last November. Just four months later, however, it had to be locked away again, along with everything else.Life has been a constant struggle ever since. The museum depends almost entirely on footfall to make ends meet and that stopped overnight. Nearly all of its 40 staff had to be furloughed, while Ann and a skeleton crew worked out how to turn a small Grade I-listed house into a Covid-compliant visitor attraction.It is hard enough to reconfigure a shop or an office or a restaurant to suit the coronavirus rulebook. But what do you do with, say, Emily Bronte’s tiny bedroom, just wide enough for a 5ft bed?It is a situation facing many of our smaller literary museums across the UK and, with every new Covid restriction, the outlook becomes more bleak.At least the Brontë Parsonage is lucky enough to qualify for a £133,000 grant from the Arts Council as a ‘National Portfolio Organisation’ — a core collection. But many other equally well-loved museums do not.Yet all these places, however tiny, are not merely sacred to their supporters but to our entire cultural landscape. Collectively, they shape our national identity. No other nation can claim a literary heritage on this scale. (...)You have to see and feel these places. It’s not until you walk through the graveyard alongside the Brontës’ home — crammed with dismal slabs mourning entire families wiped out in quick succession — that you realise how life in 19th-century Haworth, with its appallingly contaminated water table, was also a death sentence. No wonder the Brontes (who lost their two elder sisters to childhood illness) wrote the way they did —and died long before their time.It explains why museums such as this have such a passionate fan base. After Covid struck, the Brontë Parsonage received an emergency grant from the Arts Council, but things were still desperate. So the trustees launched a public appeal for £100,000.Donations flooded in from all over the world. ‘Then one night it shot up by £20,000 and I thought: “Oh my goodness. What’s this?”,’ says marketing manager Rebecca Yorke. It was a donation from the literary estate of the poet T.S. Eliot. The custodians of one literary giant had simply wanted to help a kindred spirit.What’s more, museums like these keep entire communities afloat. Look at Haworth, with its Brontë trails, its Brontë-themed shops, its Wuthering Arts gallery, even a local ‘Brontëbus’. (Robert Hardman)
BOOKS: What was your most recent toughest read?OFFILL: I just read “Jane Eyre” with my daughter. I found that a slog through 520 pages. It’s sooo long. Jane is getting ready to have people over for Christmas, and then 40 pages later she’s still doing that. (Amy Sutherland)
There was a Labour government when I was in my teens, so the secondary modern kids were given a reading list of working-class literature: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Billy Liar, John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, alongside an occasional Emily Brontë and a Shakespeare. I wrote my essays off the film versions of those books. They were revolutionary because it wasn’t polite society stuff, it was raw and tough. (Dave Simpson)Eclectic and Eccentric discusses 'Agency and Abuse: Comparing the Protagonists of Mansfield Park, Rebecca, and Jane Eyre'.
A documentary presented by the writer, Michael Stewart, who is also the creator of the Brontë Stones project. The Brontë Stones were devised, curated and delivered by Michael Stewart in collaboration with the Bradford Literature Festival. This documentary explains the concept behind the project and takes you on a virtual tour of the Brontë Stones walk, which features all four stones.
The stones have been carved by Pip Hall and feature poems by Carol Ann Duffy, Jeanette Winterson, Kate Bush and Jackie Kay. Michael Stewart has also devised four walks. The maps of these walks are available from the Parsonage Museum in Haworth, the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton, the Book Case in Hebden Bridge, the Book Corner in Halifax, Salts Books in Saltaire, Plenty cafe at South Square Arts Centre, or online. The maps were designed and drawn by cartographer Chris Goddard. This film has been funded by the University of Huddersfield. It was produced by Tim Walker at Voltage Studios. Aerial photography by Dermot Bolton. Musical score by These Men AKA Ian Tothill and Phil Moody. For more information please go to: www.thebrontestones.com
He spoke after visiting the Haworth literary shine two days before it reopened to the public last Saturday following several months of Covid-imposed closure.His comments came this week as the Brontë Society announced jobs at the museum were under threat of redundancy due to lack of revenue.Mr Moore said: “The Bronte Parsonage is a valuable asset for the constituency, and in the literary and historical world puts Haworth on the map.“I’m glad they’ve been able to open up again and I would encourage anyone who is interested in literature or the history of our area to pay them a visit.”The museum, based at the former home of the famous Bronte sisters, is opening five days a week rather its usual seven.Mr Moore said museum bosses insisted they had taken all necessary safety measures, with social distancing enforced, masks available and cleanliness a top priority.He added: “The operators go further, suggesting that visitors now have the opportunity to get a ‘more intimate view’ of the iconic parsonage which are the ‘crown jewels’ of the constituency.”A museum spokesman said: “We have worked hard to make the museum a safe and welcoming environment for our staff, volunteers and visitors and are looking forward to sharing our world class collection with people from near and far.” (David Knights)
The reopening of the museum following the coronavirus lockdown has given literature fans another chance to see the display, entitled Amid The Brave And Strong.The exhibition delves into key elements of Anne’s life, from her childhood at the parsonage, to how her legacy has been shaped by others since her death.A museum spokesman said: “Throughout her life, ‘dear gentle Anne’ was considered the baby of the Brontë family, but she went on to write one of the first sustained feminist novels in English literature.“Although her work bears the familiar stamps of a classic Brontë novel, Anne’s strong moral beliefs led her to write for purpose as well as pleasure, something which shocked and excited her readers at the time.“Anne was not to be deterred by criticism however, and right up to her death she had plans and schemes for the future.”The exhibition tracks the course of her life and gives an insight into Anne’s personality and motivations, which reveal a strong, outspoken and complex genius.Highlights include Anne’s poignant last letter; Charlotte’s first ‘little book’, which was written especially for Anne; a copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall given by Anne to a close friend, which is currently on loan to the Museum; and a portrait of Anne by Charlotte, displayed together with the carnelian necklace worn by her in the picture.A sketching block specifically designed for use in the open air and purchased by her in 1843, has been loaned to the museum and is being displayed for the first time, alongside some of her original drawings and paintings. (David Knights)
Like many readers, I fell in love with the Brontës and their works as a teenager. I longed for forbidden romance, like that between plain Jane Eyre and her brooding Mr Rochester. I thrilled at the Gothic horror of Cathy’s ghost appearing at a Wuthering Heights window. And I sympathised with Agnes Grey (a governess like Jane), as she dealt with her capricious, cruel employers.I was also fascinated by the Brontë sisters themselves – their early deaths, their precocious talent and their elusive brother Branwell, who descended into depression, alcoholism and laudanum addiction.Like the Brontës, I’d grown up writing stories, dreaming up elaborate worlds of play and reading voraciously. Unlike them, however, formal education was open to me, a woman. At 18, I left my home in Northern Ireland to study Classics and English at Oxford, then stayed on another year to complete a master’s in 19th-century literature, including working on Charlotte Brontë. Still, it wasn’t until several years later that I came across my own Brontë story to tell.By then, I was working in advertising in New York City. My interest in Victorian novels was something I pursued in my free time – a quirk I rarely spoke about. I was reading Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë (the first Brontë biography, published in 1857, just two years after Charlotte’s death) when I came across the story of Lydia Robinson, the older married woman who allegedly had an affair with Branwell. (Read more)
But in her enthralling reimagining, Austin rejects the assertion in Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell’s first ever Brontë biography, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, that Lydia Robinson, the woman at the centre of the scandal, was a ‘wretched’ and ‘profligate’ woman who had ‘tempted’ Branwell into sin.In Brontë’s Mistress, it takes two to tango as we meet a restless, unhappy woman, newly bereaved and trapped by social convention and a marriage in which passion has long since been spent, and a handsome, articulate and darkly exciting young man eager for love, life, new experiences, and forbidden sex. [...]Austin’s atmospheric, feminist take on the life and loves of one of the least known members of the remarkable Brontë brood positively crackles with sexual tension as Lydia and Branwell are swept up into a relationship which can only ever end in disillusionment and disgrace.This is Mrs Robinson placed firmly at centre stage, and creatively and carefully rendered as a complex and compelling quasi-feminist heroine… sometimes shrewish and sometimes selfish, but constantly railing against a life constrained by expectation, family duty, and a husband without either understanding or passion.Educated and dutiful, the Lydia we first meet is still raw from the loss of both her youngest daughter and her beloved mother. Lonely, miserable and oppressed, she is ripe for the charms of a young man whose ‘otherness’ and mystery offer a panacea to her fears over ageing and a loss of purpose.But Lydia is also smart and brave, and soon recognises that her young lover is flawed and unstable, and not the romantic, empathetic soulmate she had so desperately desired. And with her fighting spirit ignited, she is determined to emerge with her dignity intact.Emotionally powerful, written with immense sensitivity, and inspired by a mission to finally give a voice to the mysterious and enigmatic Lydia, this is a captivating new chapter from a shadowy corner of the extraordinary Brontë family. (Pam Norfolk)
Sisters echoes Brontë’s Wuthering Heights not only in its gothic elements and sombre descriptions of English landscapes but also in the idea of doomed love, love which becomes an omnipotent, harmful power. “If one of us was going to die and we could choose which it would be, would you die for me?” asks one sister. “Yes, of course”, comes the unsettling response. (Elizaveta Kolesova)
None of this is to say The Last Book Party [by Karen Dukess] is a “bad” book. It is well written, with many characters invoking a wit I can only imagine within someone whose life is centered in writing. Just because a book revolves around an echelon most people can’t relate to does not discount its other merits. Writers have always focused on the rich, out of touch echelons of society, from The Tale of Genji to Wuthering Heights to … Dukess’ novel. (Declan Sander)
Nulla di nuovo, dunque e Amants magari scorre anche rapido, al seguito della sua eroina di stampo romanzesco, che ora pare uscita dal Moll Flanders di Defoe, ora da un romanzo delle sorelle Brontë. (Daria Pomponio) (Translation)
Otro tanto ocurre con ciertas creaciones de Miuccia Prada para Miu Miu, que solo resultan apetecibles a las seguidoras de las hermanas Brontë; o con los románticos patrones de Alexa Chung, que parecen pensados por y para las chicas que pasan el mismo tiempo en una librería que en una pista de baile –el hábitat natural de la diseñadora–. (María Mérida) (Translation)
The future of the Brontë Parsonage is under threat after losing an estimated half a million pounds during lockdown.Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights is one of the '7 daring movie adaptations of literary classics' recommended by Vox.
The pandemic closed the museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire, but it reopened to the public earlier.
An online festival next month called #Brontë2020 hopes to raise enough money to keep the site going.
The parsonage, which was the family home of author sisters Charlotte, Anne and Emily Brontë, usually attracts 70,000 visitors a year.
"The parsonage is a focal point for the global popularity of the Brontës," said Dr Claire O'Callaghan, who is one of the academics behind the fundraising event.
"It is a site of pilgrimage for literary enthusiasts worldwide - the effects of the museum potentially closing permanently would be detrimental for many.
"The knock-on effects for the local community - its business and residents - would also be manifold, especially as Haworth's economy relies chiefly on Brontë Country tourism."
Although it received emergency funding as one of a number of venues described by the culture secretary as the "crown jewels" in the arts sector, the Brontë Society said it was facing an estimated end-of-year deficit of £100,000.
"Being closed since March has resulted in a loss of expected income of over £500,000, an amount that would usually keep us going during the quieter winter months," it said.
"When we reopen, we know that recovery will be slow - a combination of the intimacy of the historic rooms and the measures required to keep staff and visitors safe will limit our ability to welcome visitors back in the numbers required to be sustainable."
The society, which runs the museum, has launched a JustGiving page which has raised £10,000 from about 300 supporters.
Funds raised by #Brontë2020 on 4 September will go towards the crowdfunding appeal, with more than 40 speakers from around the world scheduled to take part.
The 11-hour event, which Dr O'Callaghan, from Loughborough University, is organising with Dr Sarah Fanning from Mount Allison University in Canada, will take place across two time zones, catering for Brontë fans on both sides of the Atlantic.
Wuthering Heights (2012)Andrea Arnold is hardly the first filmmaker to adapt Emily Brontë’s classic novel, but she’s the first to envision Heathcliff as Black, which casts the whole story in a different light. As with David Copperfield, the social divisions of Wuthering Heights spring into even bolder relief onscreen once race enters the picture. (This is also Arnold’s only film with a male protagonist.) The movie is a wild, cold, blistering retelling of the tale, in which orphaned Heathcliff (Solomon Glave) is treated poorly by Hindley, the son of the family that took Heathcliff in, while sustaining a difficult passion for the daughter, Cathy (Shannon Beer). Years after being thrown out, Heathcliff returns (now played by James Howson) to the manor to find Cathy (Kaya Scodelario) married. And revenge is not sweet. (Alissa Wilkinson)
3. O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes, InglaterraO vilarejo de Haworth, em Yorkshire, na Inglaterra, e os pântanos ao redor são famosos por serem o lar das irmãs Brontë. Para Emily Brontë a região foi fonte de inspiração para criar a abor O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes, de 1847. Atualmente, a casa da família se tornou um museu, onde estão expostos itens pessoais, como a mesa onde Emily escrevia. Nas proximidades fica a Cachoeira Brontë, conhecida por ser o local favorito da família. (Translation)
Stefanie Hetze, bookseller and owner of the bookstore Dante Connection, Berlin, Germany: For Lila and Elena, the experience of reading Little Women is extremely important. What (other) literary figures fascinated and profoundly affected you as an adolescent?To answer I would have to make a long and probably boring list. Let’s say that I devoured novels in which the female characters had ill-fated lives in a fierce, unjust world. They committed adultery and other violations, they saw ghosts. Between twelve and sixteen I eagerly looked for any books that had a woman’s name in the title: Moll Flanders, Jane Eyre, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Effi Briest, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina. But the book I read and reread obsessively was Wuthering Heights. Today I still find extraordinary the way it describes love, mixing good and bad feelings without any break. Catherine is someone who should be revisited from time to time: She’s useful, when you write, for avoiding the danger of sickly-sweet female characters.
Institutrice d’origine modeste et orpheline. Elle tombe amoureuse de son employeur M. Rochester. (Translation)
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”.
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)
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)
9/10Wuthering Heights (2009) – 7.6This 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)
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)
The year had begun well. The second of six matchbox-sized volumes written by the author of Jane Eyre had gone on public display for the first time, following its purchase at auction in Paris. And an exhibition marking the 200th birthday of her sister was running alongside.
But what came next – the longest closure for 92 years – was a chapter as dramatic as anything dreamed up inside the old house during the 19th century.
With the summer season lost and the Brontë Society facing an uncertain financial outlook as it prepares to let in visitors, six at a time, from next weekend, the stakes have seldom been higher.
Yet some of the staff were concerned more for the former occupants of the Parsonage than for their own future.“It was really unfair on Anne,” said Rebecca Yorke, the society’s head of communications. “As the forgotten sister, it seemed ironic that we had to close in her anniversary year.”To make amends, the Parsonage Museum has extended the exhibition devoted to her life and work, until the beginning of 2022. And her bicentenary has been marked with a digital “Brontë Lounge”, launched in July.The extent to which social distancing was practiced by the family in a village rife with disease and little sanitation, is not known. [...]In deciding to reopen, the Brontë Society, like many others, had walked a tightrope between safety and sustainability.“It’s a beautiful, intimate house where space is very limited and footfall was always going to have to be reduced,” Ms Yorke said.“At least it will mean that visitors will have more space to themselves. It will become very atmospheric.“We’re hoping that a typical group might be a household of four and another two people. But coach parties don’t work like that, and we’re not expecting international visitors or school groups any time soon.”She added: “Our biggest enemy at the moment is uncertainty. When we opened for the year in February, with Charlotte’s little book on display and with events planned for Anne’s anniversary, we had every reason to believe it would be a really good year.“But missing the summer season has given us a huge hurdle to get over and our financial future is now quite vulnerable.”Earlier in the year, the society secured emergency funding from the Arts Council and is now applying to the organisation’s cultural recovery fund.The first visitor to the reopened Parsonage next Thursday will be the local MP, Robbie Moore. Members of the Brontë Society will be allowed inside from the next day and the public the day after, with admission by pre-booking only. (David Behrens)
A way to avoid trouble is to write about a character created by another author, preferably one who is, a) dead, and, b) safely out of copyright. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys gives us the tale of the first Mrs Rochester, the "madwoman in the attic" from Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre, using it to examine issues of race, feminism and colonialism. (John Connolly)
Enríquez lee historia y mitología, además de literatura y periodismo. De crítica literaria, muy poco. Cuando era chica comenzó leyendo a Dickens, Brontë y a Austen. (María Paula Lizarazo) (Translation)
Title all 5 Brontë sisters. (Mr Josh)
The Brontë Parsonage Museum will reopen to the public on Saturday August 29. Entry to the museum in Haworth will be by pre-booked, timed tickets that will go on sale at midday on Friday August 21.The long-awaited public reopening of the museum and shop will follow a special preview day for Brontë Society members the previous day. Tickets for the August 28 event will also go on sale on August 21, from the website bronte.org.uk.A spokesman said: "The Brontë Parsonage Museum opened at Haworth Parsonage on August 4, 1928. "Ninety-two years later, following the longest period of closure in all our history, we are delighted to announce that we will reopen."Over the past few weeks museum staff have been making major changes so they can provide a Covid-friendly experience, including perspex screens, changes to the shop layout, and timed tickets to ensure social distance between groups of visitors.The museum promises a "very special experience" because visitors will have different parts of the house to themselves as they move through the building.Brontë Lounge, an programme of talks and readings, will return on Thursday August 20 when renowned BBC broadcaster Samir Ahmed will present 'Speaking Up: The Quiet Power of Anne Brontë' at 7.30pm.Samira, presenter of Front Row and Radio 4 and Newswatch on BBC1, is the Brontë Society's Creative Partner for Anne Brontë's bicentenary celebrations this year.Earlier this year, Samira won a landmark equal pay employment tribunal against the BBC for sex discrimination. She said she re-read Anne Bronte's novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall while preparing for the tribunal and "felt Anne's voice and sense of indignation" speak to her across the centuries.Tickets for the Brontë Lounge cost £5. Visit bronte.org.uk for further information about the reopening and upcoming events. (David Knights)
Quali letture le sono state d’ispirazione?“Leggevo molto i classici, la letteratura russa e francese. Mi piacevano i libri profondi, e adoravo James Baldwin. Da bambino mi rinchiudevo a leggere nella biblioteca di casa, ricordo che una volta entrò mia madre con una sua amica e finsi di essermi addormentato per farle andare via. Mentre uscivano l’amica le disse: ‘Ma gli fai leggere Jane Eyre a undici anni, con quelle scene spaventose?’. Che delusione poi: sono andato a cercare le scene di cui parlava e non ho trovato niente di scandaloso. Tra gli italiani invece ho amato moltissimo Va’ dove ti porta il cuore: vorrei essere Susanna Tamaro per poter scrivere un romanzo così”. (Amelia Cartia) (Translation)
Aunque en Inglaterra hubo una tradición importante de mujeres escritoras, como lo pongo en mi libro. Jane Austen, George Eliot, que tuvo que usar un seudónimo masculino para imponerse. O las Brontë, que para publicar firmaron con apodos masculinos. Son como estrellas fugaces en el firmamento de la escritura. Creo que eso se ha terminado en muchos sentidos. Ahora, la proliferación de escritura femenina es impactante. Sin embargo, hay ciertos aspectos que las mujeres no hemos logrado. (Marcela Ayora) (Translation)
3 The sole opera by the film score composer Bernard Herrmann was an adaptation of which Brontë novel? (Olav Bjortomt)
Thorp GreenThe New European has reached its 200th issue and mentions bicentenaries, claiming that,
I sit, this evening, far away,
From all I used to know,
And nought reminds my soul to-day
Of happy long ago.
Unwelcome cares, unthought-of fears,
Around my room arise;
I seek for suns of former years
But clouds o'ercast my skies.
Yes-Memory, wherefore does thy voice
Bring old times back to view,
As thou wouldst bid me not rejoice
In thoughts and prospects new?
I'll thank thee, Memory, in the hour
When troubled thoughts are mine-
For thou, like suns in April's shower,
On shadowy scenes wilt shine.
I'll thank thee when approaching death
Would quench life's feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
With thy sweet word 'Remember'!
Cultural bicentennials, like that of Emily Brontë two years ago, tend to be marked with retrospectives, readings and exhibitions, which are all very nice – but perhaps a bit niche. (Liz Gerard)The Emily Brontë reference is so random. It's Anne's bicentenary this year and it would have sounded less vague.
One such neoformalist is literary scholar Caroline Levine, who defines form as “an arrangement of elements—an ordering, patterning, or shaping.” This broad definition includes “social arrangements,” meaning that forms are “the stuff of politics,” and thus formal devices in a novel such as Jane Eyre can be read in conjunction with the structures of institutions in the fictional world of the novel; Lowood School, with its disciplinary regime and its “semicircles, timed durations, and ladders of achievement” is a matter of form, too. (Sven Lütticken)The News (Pakistan) shares literary recipes such as
Seed cake from Jane EyreNews Letter recommends 'ten of the best shows to watch at home' including:
“Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake.”
Seed cake is a very traditional Victorian recipe. Baked like a normal cake it is infused with caraway seeds, commonly used in British-styled baked goods, but not readily available in grocery stores. But you can still make it with other kinds of seeds. Just use that regular pound cake batter recipe and replace some flour (around 3 tbsp) with flax seeds, crushed pumpkin or sunflower seeds, or sprinkle some black sesame seeds for texture. Play around and make it your own seed cake to eat while you reread Jane Eyre! (SG)
Wasted, Southwark Playhouse, streaming now, freeCrunchyroll recommends the work and anime adaptations of manga artist Takako Shimura.
Through the lens of a rock documentary, Wasted gives an access-all-areas account of the struggles, heartbreaks and triumphs of the three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and their brother Branwell. Brought up in a remote, poverty-stricken town in Yorkshire, without money or opportunity, they fought ill-health, unrequited love and family feuds to write some of the most celebrated literature including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Never afraid to rebel against expectations, the lives behind the pages expose a struggling, squabbling, ferociously driven, drug-fuelled crash and burn trajectory from obscurity to celebrity and ultimately to their untimely deaths. It’s coupled with a rock score from the award-winning Christopher Ash.
Where to watch: southwarkplayhouse.co.uk (Peter Ormerod)
Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is a classic novel all about tragic love. Sweet Blue Flowers is a similar story: sensitive and bookish Fumi Manjōme comes to the world-changing realization she is a girl who likes girls. And her dear childhood friend, Akira "Acchan" Okudaira, who attends the prestige Fujigaya Girls Academy, doesn’t have the slightest clue. Fumi is tall and has a soft voice; Akira is short and can be heard from miles away. Set in historical and beautiful Kamakura, Sweet Blue Flowers has a cozy literary vibe that reminds me of curling up with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women as a kid. Literature itself is a recurring theme throughout the series — with Wuthering Heights and The Little Prince constantly referenced, it’s hard not to feel like this high school puppy love tale has something bigger to say about the world at large. (Blake Planty)The Guardian announces that Aunt Nellie’s Diary, an unfinished story by Louisa May Alcott, is to be published for the first time.
Alcott would write her first novel, The Inheritance, the same year. The story of an Italian orphan who discovers that her inheritance is the English estate on which she is a paid companion, it was not published until 1997. Together with Aunt Nellie’s Diary, it is part of what Alcott described in her journals as her sentimental period. “I fancy ‘lurid things’, if true and strong also,” Alcott wrote of her literary influences at the time – Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte Brontë and Nathaniel Hawthorne. “Aunt Nellie’s Diary shows hints of that love of darker fiction,” writes Shealy in an introduction to the tale. (Alison Flood)The Artifice has an article on 'Wuthering Heights and its Many Genres'. And finally, this month's treasure from the Brontë Parsonage Museum on The Sisters' Room is the 1834 portrait of Anne done by Charlotte.
Two announcements from the Brontë Society:Our Online Shop is open!2. The Bicentenary Conference 2020: 'I wished to tell the truth': Anne Brontë at 200 that was to take place in Scarborough in September has just been postponed to next year:
But dispatch of your order will take longer than usual
Thank you for your support, understanding and patience.
Anne-nouncement! Our #AnneBronte conference will now take place in Scarborough in September 2021. All pre-booked places are secure and we will be contacting all delegates with full details in the days ahead. Until then, thank you for your patience and support #TakeCourage.
A #MuseumFromHome announcement: we don't yet know when we will reopen, but Anne will be waiting when we do! We are delighted to announce that our special bicentenary exhibition 'Anne Brontë: Amid the brave and strong' will run until January 2022. #Anne2020 #TheShowMustGoOn pic.twitter.com/fy5wYGiERx— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) April 30, 2020
South China Morning Post reviews the new retelling of Jane Eyre by Tanya Landman.Today is @bbcarts #MuseumFromHome day. We popped into the Parsonage last week to check on the collection and our Principal Curator put Charlotte's #LittleBook safely to bed until we reopen. Here it is, waiting to be enjoyed by our visitors again soon. 📖 🛌 pic.twitter.com/dO846VhMNX— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) April 30, 2020
It’s a good time to read this story of distance, abandonment and isolation. Brontë herself lived a fairly isolated life with her brother and two sisters in a remote vicarage. Each of the sisters wrote novels which they published under false male names. Jane Eyre is perhaps the best known.Largs & Millport News lists '10 classic novels you always meant to read' such as
However, it’s not the easiest novel for contemporary readers to tackle. It was very much of its time, full of the dense, heavy prose and complex plots that Victorian readers were used to. Tanya Landman’s repackaging is a thoughtful and reader-friendly retelling that retains the heart, plot and passion of the original. But where many simplified versions of classics hack away chunks of the original text, this is a fluid, fluent work in its own right.
Landman is an impeccable writer of no-nonsense English, as her own award-winning YA novels show. She won a Carnegie medal for her 2014 novel Buffalo Soldier, and been shortlisted for awards such as the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Jane’s narration is central to the story, and it is in safe hands: Landman in no way waters down her determination, fierce independence and intelligence.
First-time readers will be quickly caught up in this retelling. The mystery of who or what is causing the commotion in the attic is even more gripping here than it is in the original.
Jane Eyre is also one of the world’s great romances, where the love of a good woman thaws the hard heart of one of literature’s classic brooding male creations. Jane’s unselfish devotion to the dark figure of Mr Rochester might seem a bit out-of-step with modern expectations, but that doesn’t slow the story, as it flies along to its famous final words.
In Landman, Jane has found the perfect translator to introduce her to modern teen readers. (John Millen)
6. Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëThe Daily Mail recommends
You can totally listen to the Kate Bush song, but the book is even better. Wuthering Heights is ostensibly a love story between Cathy and Heathcliff, but don’t expect a romcom.
Instead, it’s a dark tale of obsession, desire and revenge. Heathcliff is adopted into a wealthy family but is soon reduced to the status of servant and runs away when Cathy marries someone else. Years later, he returns to wreak his revenge.
Poems to Fall in Love with, chosen and illustrated by Chris RiddellComic Book interviews writer Laura Marks and artist Kelley Jones about their Daphne Byrne #4.
[...]
His choices range from classic names such as Byron, Shelley, Emily Brontë and Yeats to popular modern voices including Kit Wright, Wendy Cope and Carol Ann Duffy. (Bel Mooney)
ComicBook: I’ve referenced in my reviews that Daphne Byrne embodies some of the literature of its setting and period, featuring some strong Romantic tendencies. Are there any cultural works that you’ve found to be a strong influence or touchstone while crafting the series? Marks: Kelley and I both work really hard to get the period details right. We found early on that we had a shared love of 19th century ghost stories, by M.R. James and the rest. I’ve always loved the uncanny weirdness of the Brontë sisters. And the specific Old New York setting is inspired by Henry James and Edith Wharton — and by a lot of the architecture I see every day in Brooklyn. Arthur Conan Doyle’s History of Spiritualism was a fun resource, too.The American Reporter reviews The Black Butterfly. The theatrical performance, part 1 by Eva Rojano.
Jones: I want it to be a seen as a dark fairy tale. I imagine it as if it had been a Hammer film directed by Terence Fisher, and try to put that to paper. (Chase Magnett)
My verdict is, though, than more than just a copy paste of Pretty woman, the Black Butterfly is reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven’s underrated and mostly dusty Showgirls from 1995, by exposing in a gritty way the problems that women that opt to a life of open sexuality in exchange of money can bring into their already, complicated lives. So no, this book is not really a romantic tale a la Charlotte Brontë and Serena is in no way a Jane Eyre, but a different kind of ‘sex heroine’ that has managed to overcome the scarcities of her own life…well, maybe so a Jane Eyre of these modern sinful times. (Richard Brown)The American Interest discusses the Netflix series Unorthodox and the memoir on which it's based, Unorthodox. The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman.
In the book, Feldman recounts her gradual awakening, beginning with clandestine readings of Anne of Green Gables, Jane Eyre, and Little Women—stories that not only provided her with strong female role models but also helped her understand that there was a world outside the ultra-Orthodox enclave. Feldman also describes how she, like Esty, suffered through painful sex in the early days of her arranged marriage, felt completely stifled not just by her husband but also by his intrusive family, and finally managed to mobilize the resources and wherewithal to leave.Pop Culture Times is looking forward to the second season of Taboo starring Tom Hardy whose
character mirrors the majority of typical male figures from Heathcliff, Oedipus to Hannibal Lecter. (Manya Mehta)BBC Radio 4 suggests listening to 'The classic novels you never got around to reading' such as Wuthering Heights. Deutschlandfunk (Germany) features Jane Eyre.
Charlotte and Emily are self isolating up in Haworth. They raise a glass to Anne whose commemorative year has been rather ruined by a global pandemic!
We were supposed to give a performance in June to honour Anne who is 200 this year. Happy anniversary to her!
A virtual visit to the, now temporarily closed, Anne Brontë exhibition at the Morgan Library (you need to log in with your Instagram account):@cnlibrarian
I invite you on a virtual tour of my exhibition "No Soft Nonsense: Anne Brontë at 200" - on view now in my Story highlights!
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Right now Anne is keeping silent watch over the empty Rotunda of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library at @themorganlibrary. I'm glad she's there, but I wish you could visit. Best wishes to all 💙
Unless explicitly said
