This Dark Night: Emily Bronte, A Life by Deborah LutzThe Brontës are having a bit of a moment again with adaptations and a semi-biographical film about Emily herself, and this book does its best to explain the elusive genius. Since the Brontës were not recognized as genius writers until much later, the historical record of their lives is incomplete. However, Lutz uses the poems, journals, and ephemera Emily left behind in her 30 years to piece together her internal life. Emily wrote about grief and commented regularly on nature and the rising industrialism in faraway cities. (Julia Rittenberg)
But it is William Wyler’s 1939 black and white swoonfest that is still ranked top on film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. The clothes are pure old Hollywood glamour, the moody cinematography is sublime, Merle Oberon’s Cathy is ethereal, Laurence Olivier’s Heathcliff is brooding. Does it matter that they ditched the second half of the story, ending with the lovers’ ghosts walking hand in hand through the snow? Not really. This is Wuthering Heights reimagined as a Thirties weepie and on its own terms, it is genius. (Ruth Leon)
Anna Yates, Khadija Raza and Joseff Harris join the production ahead of its run across England.The creative team has been set for the new production of Jane Eyre, touring across England in autumn 2026. The production will be directed by Lily Dyble as a result of her winning the 2025 Royal Theatrical Support Trust Sir Peter Hall Director Award. It is based on Sally Cookson, Mike Akers and the original company's acclaimed adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's enduring novel. (Stephi Wild)Tour DatesMercury Theatre, Colchester - 26 September – 10 October 2026Rose Theatre, Kingston - 13 – 24 October 2026Northern Stage, Newcastle - 3 – 7 November 2026Storyhouse, Chester - 10 – 21 November 2026
Earlier this year, Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights was an adaptation that gathered some controversy. Some loved it, while others argued it betrayed Emily Brontë's novel completely. Tail between my legs, I was one of the sceptics. While I admired Fennell's creativity, I'd struggled with how dramatically she had strayed from the original story. However, Fennell never pretended it was a true adaptation. She described the film as the version of Wuthering Heights she remembered reading as a 14 year old, a personal interpretation that filled the spaces between Brontë's words with her own imagination. The reviews, however, were a bit brutal. (...) While I did agree with some of these points, it started to unsettle my compliance.Why was I demanding literary fidelity from Wuthering Heights while happily embracing the artistic licence in Tony? The more I thought about it, the more I realised I'd been judging these films by different standards.It's easy to dismiss an adaptation by arguing it isn't faithful to its original text. Accuracy often become the ammunition we reach for once we've already decided we don't like something and want to fire it with criticism. In Wuthering Heights, fidelity suddenly became incredibly important to me. But was it just because I wasn't enjoying the film? (...)I think we've forgotten that truth and fact aren't always the same thing. A film can invent conversations that never happened and still capture something authentic. It can shorten timelines, combine characters to become one or imagine moments between what was recorded as events while remaining truthful to the spirit of the person. (...)If a film can evoke the essence we all knew and loved of (...) Wuthering Heights through a highly stylised memory of reading a book at age 14 – then it has done its job. (Samantha Corry)
El Most Wuthering Heights Day (El día de Cumbres borrascosas) es un evento alegre. Se baila cada julio en decenas de ciudades del mundo, con miles de participantes que emulan la coreografía del videoclip de Kate Bush: brazos que se abren de golpe, giros bruscos, manos que empujan el aire… Su exagerada teatralidad parece contar la historia con el cuerpo y evocar el espíritu de Cathy pidiendo entrar por la ventana. No es un baile bonito ni técnico. Es más bien raro, dramático y un poco fantasmal. Pero da igual bailarlo bien o mal porque nadie ha venido a lucirse, sino a formar parte de la coreografía. (...)La peregrinación a Haworth no es nueva. En noviembre de 1904, una jovencísima Virginia Woolf subió hasta aquí y escribió sobre la visita en un semanario londinense. En el libro de visitas de la casa de las Brontë han firmado, entre otras muchas mujeres, Sylvia Plath y Patti Smith. Durante más de un siglo, hasta aquí han venido sobre todo mujeres que buscaban a otras mujeres. Woolf se preguntaba si esta u otras romerías a las casas de los escritores no serían puro sentimentalismo, y se respondía que solo se justifican cuando el lugar añade algo a los libros. Con las Brontë, concluía, el viaje merecía la pena: Haworth y las hermanas, escribió, encajan “como un caracol en su concha”. Es imposible separar la obra del sitio que la produjo. (...)Siglo y medio después, una de sus colinas está llena de mujeres que no ocultan nada. Se visten todas iguales, de rojo, y en ese uniforme no se borran: se reconocen. Al contemplar la danza, es inevitable pensar en la ironía que produce una obra hecha en el aislamiento más extremo, y cómo sigue generando un mundo propio un siglo y medio después. (...)No es una postal perfecta: es una romería real, con su desorden, su frío, su espera. Y eso es exactamente lo que la salva del kitsch. La gente ha subido a un campo embarrado un día nublado a hacer algo aparentemente ridículo, y lo hace con una entrega absoluta. Ahí está la dignidad del gesto, en que nadie está posando para nadie. Emily, que escribió y describió el páramo como una fuerza anterior a toda ley, sigue convocando a los vivos. Por eso no envejece. (Máriam Martínez-Bascuñán) (Translation)
Other events: Otago Daily News (New Zealand), El Confidencial (Spain), National Post (Canada)...
Despite its spelling, locals pronounce it“GYZ-lee” (rhyming with “guys” and “lee”), and getting it right is often seen as a badge of honour among Yorkshire newcomers. (...)One of Guiseley’s best-known landmarks is St Oswald’s Church, parts of which are centuries old.The church holds special literary significance as the wedding venue of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell, parents of the famous Brontë sisters.Fans of Yorkshire's literary heritage often visit the church as part of their travels.
[Dr. Leonard] Sax advocates for “gender-aware” instructional strategies in K-12 schools.
“The best way to get boys excited about Emily Dickinson is very different from the best way to get girls excited about Emily Dickinson,” he said. “And the best way to get girls excited about computer coding is very different from the best way to get boys excited about computer coding.
“But you put in place gender-aware instructional strategies.”
When educators ignore gender differences, Sax added, they ultimately reinforce gender stereotypes.
“If you understand gender differences, you can break down gender stereotypes. And that same boy who loves football and video games will love ‘Jane Eyre’ and will love Emily Dickinson.” (Jason Swensen)
The Brontë Birthplace in Thornton has been awarded £1,271.92 through a grant from the 2024/2025 Lord Mayor’s Appeal, headed by the then Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Bev Mullaney.The funding comes from a series of fundraising events and donations.Nigel West, fundraising co-ordinator for the Brontë Birthplace, said: "We are entirely self-funded and depend on grants such as the Lord Mayor’s Appeal to help continue our work."We are so grateful for this donation, it will help us to keep the Brontë story alive and ensure it remains an inspiring and welcoming space for generations to come." (Harry Williams)
St Oswald’s Church is one of Guiseley’s key historic buildings, known not only for its medieval fabric but also because the parents of the Brontë sisters, Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell, were married there in 1812.A copy of their marriage certificate is displayed inside. (Claire Lomax)
The more modern “madwoman in the attic” trope emerged in the novels of the early 1800s. In fact, this expression itself alludes to Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre, in which Mr. Rochester’s first wife, Bertha Mason, is kept secretly locked away in the attic of his home, Thornfield Hall, having long ago lost her mind.Inspired by Brontë, the literary critics and feminist writers Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar famously used Madwoman in the Attic as the title of their landmark 1979 work, which explored the portrayal of women in Victorian literature. Authors like Charlotte Brontë—as well as her sister Emily, Jane Austen, and Mary Shelley, the pair argued—typically featured women in their novels that were either idealized ingenues or grotesque monsters, a dichotomy that naturally emerged in response to the distorted literary landscape (long shaped by male writers) into which their work was being taken.Given the understanding of mental illness at the time in the 1800s, consequently, having a female character who had lost her mind was an easy way of providing a story with a dangerous and unpredictable “monster” character—the perfect antagonist for the ingenue heroine, and a literary creation with which the reader was unlikely to sympathize. Charlotte Brontë, for instance, portrays Bertha as little more than a monstrous threat, with little agency nor much in the way of an explanation for her madness, leaving the reader to sympathize with Mr. Rochester instead. (Paul Anthony Jones)
It is true that profound pity ought to be the only sentiment elicited by the view of such degradation, and equally true is it that I have not sufficiently dwelt on that feeling; I have erred in making horror too predominant. Mrs Rochester indeed lived a sinful life before she was insane but sin itself is a kind of insanity; the truly good behold and compassionate it as such.
Emerald Fennell’s new film, Wuthering Heights opens with sounds of moaning and heavy breathing, which are revealed to be emanating from a man being executed by hanging, rather than in the throes of sexual ecstasy. His post-mortem erection causes an outpouring of emotion, including sexual arousal, in the rambunctious crowd. Among the audience witnessing the bizarre spectacle is the young version of the heroine of the film, Catherine Earnshaw.As Fennell explained in an interview: “it was important to acknowledge early on that arousal and danger are kind of the same thing, and it was important that the first thing we see is Cathy, this young girl, seemingly frightened but then actually delighted. It tells us so much about who she is, but so much about Brontë, too…”Notably, this scene is not in Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, but it is uniquely Fennell, and also ensures the film falls squarely into the genre of Gothic Romance. The Oxford-educated Fennell is additionally making an allusion to another novel of Gothic Romance, Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel, which opens with the narrator looking back on a moment as a seven-year-old when he witnessed a man who had just been hung. “See what a moment of passion can bring upon a fellow,” his guardian tells him.The disturbing juxtaposition of sex and death lies at the core of Gothic Romance, and, indeed, Victorian society, as well as our own. In her article “Sex and Death in Wuthering Heights,” Maria Kosikinen observes that both sex and death were perceived as threats to rational Victorian attitudes and thus both were highly regulated and ritualized. Fennell makes her audience as complicit as the onlookers in the perverse opening scene, revealing and shocking our own 2026 sensibilities as well.Arguably, the most important aspect of Gothic Romance, and the Gothic more broadly, explains its lasting appeal, which can be summed up by the great (Gothic) writer, William Faulker: “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” [...]Say what you will about his character, but the only “ghosting” one can imagine Brontë’s Heathcliff doing is the literal kind, which perhaps explains his lasting appeal, even if the Byronic hero is still being blamed for today’s dating woes. In Olivia Petter’s excellent Vogue article from January, “My Love for Wuthering Heights Is Why I Also Love Terrible Men,” she blames Heathcliff, whom she deems “literature’s original fuckboy,” for inspiring her frustrating pursuit of toxic men: “The bar is absurdly low…men will get a round of applause for texting us back or booking a restaurant. Where are the ones who’ll cry for us on the moors and dig up our graves? They might not be healthy, but at least they’re interesting. [...]Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, like the lauded 1939 adaptation, does not feature the second half of the novel, which deals with the aftermath of Cathy and Heathcliff’s toxic love-story. It therefore delves more into the romance, rather than the Gothic aspects of the plot and the repercussions of the first on subsequent generations. Why only adapting the first half of Emily Brontë’s novel was permissible in 1939 but not now is anyone’s guess. [...]Love or hate it, any film that revives public discourse, notably among young people, around a Victorian novel written by a woman two hundred years ago can be seen as a win, especially in a time when Humanities and English departments are at all-time low enrollment.In Gothic fiction, repressed things from the past return to haunt us. In today’s world, amidst new technologies including AI, and a far-reaching digital record, the secrets in our individual and collective pasts have never been more ephemeral, and, paradoxically, more immortal. What could be more Gothic than that? (Joanna Margaret)
I find this all frustrating. Wuthering Heights on a filmic level — the acting, sets, and cinematography — is beautiful. But, much like the story reinterpretation, all the substance stays on the surface. Despite all the pent-up sexual tension, the greatest tease this movie was hinting at complexity. In reality, the beauty on the screen went no further. (Devin Hung)
The most astonishing thing about the first trailer for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is not the extreme closeup of dough being kneaded into submission. It’s not that in the lead roles Margot Robbie is blonde and 35, and Jacob Elordi is white, when Emily Brontë described Cathy as a teen brunette and Heathcliff as “a dark-skinned gypsy”. (...)The most astonishing thing is that the trailer says Wuthering Heights is “the greatest love story of all time”. Which is almost exactly how the 1939 Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon film was trailed – as “the greatest love story of our time … or any time!” Have we learned nothing? I am not talking about the fact that (like Oberon’s!) Robbie’s wedding dress is white, which is not period-correct. This has exercised many people on the internet. I’m more worried about the fact that almost a century since Olivier’s film, we are still calling it a love story – a great one! The greatest! It’s being released the day before Valentine’s Day! – when what actually happens is that Cathy rejects Heathcliff because she’s a snob, and he turns into a psychopath. (...)It’s true it’s low on laughs. It’s no romcom. Instead of a meet-cute there’s Cathy’s father bringing home a ragged orphan he’s found starving on the streets of Liverpool. The boy-loses-girl part is all there, but the boy-gets-girl ending never quite happens. The real question is whether it’s too brutal for the screen – Andrea Arnold’s raw, stripped-down 2011 version is probably the closest to the book’s dark energy, and even she stuck to the first half of the book.There’s so much cruelty. Heathcliff is abused by Cathy’s brother Hindley. He then goads Hindley into drinking himself to death, takes his house and abuses Hindley’s son. He tricks Cathy’s sister-in-law into marriage, beats her, calls her a slut, hangs her dog and gaslights her, insisting this is what she wants. Cathy is too narcissistic to care about any of this. So even ignoring her death and the second half of the novel, it’s a lot. If Fennell continues to the (bittersweet) end she’ll have to deal with Heathcliff abusing his own son and Cathy’s daughter, forcing them to marry, and renting Cathy’s marital home to a middle-aged fop who slashes a ghost girl’s wrists with broken glass. (In a frame narrative. The complexity of the plot is another reason it’s a nightmare to adapt.) (...)Perhaps it’s not the greatest love story of all time, our time or any time, but is the greatest story about what we think love is like when we haven’t experienced it.
The house at Thornton opened to the public for the first time in its 200-year history in March.Contributions from more than 700 individual investors – together with grants from Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, and the Community Ownership, National Lottery Heritage and Rural England Prosperity funds – led to the property being bought and placed under the care of Brontë Birthplace Ltd, a community benefit society.An extensive renovation was carried out ahead of the public launch.And the official opening of the building – as a museum and education centre, with facilities for overnight stays in the historical rooms – was performed in May by Her Majesty Queen Camilla.Whilst the Brontë siblings are inexorably associated with Haworth – where they lived and drew inspiration for their work from the surrounding moorland – Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were all born at the house in Thornton.Brontë Birthplace fundraising co-ordinator, Nigel West, says: "This is an amazing story of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture using its legacy funding and then 770 members contributing – and the formation of a community benefit society – that will protect the Birthplace for the community."This was the most important heritage opening anywhere in the UK in 2025, and it is as significant to this country as Shakespeare's birthplace." (Alistair Shand)
Also in Great British Life.
Haworth is the kind of village that makes you want to slow down and take it all in. Nestled on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, it’s best known as the home of the Brontë sisters, whose novels immortalised the windswept landscape. But the village itself has a story worth exploring, a mix of literary history, industrial heritage, and small-town charm that feels genuine and unpolished.The village grew around the textile industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of its stone houses were built for workers in the local mills, and the streets still echo that past. Cobbled lanes twist between stone cottages and independent shops, and while tourism has increased over the years, Haworth retains an authenticity that makes it feel like a lived-in place rather than a museum. Today, the Brontë Parsonage Museum sits at the top of the main street, a constant reminder of the village’s literary fame, while the moors beyond provide the dramatic backdrop that inspired Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. (...)It’s easy to see why the Brontës found the surrounding landscape so inspiring: dramatic without being forbidding, wild but still inviting. (...)After dinner, I walked uphill toward the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The street narrows as it rises, with stone cottages gradually giving way to more open space.Even without entering the museum, wandering around the gardens and the lane leading up to it is evocative. Low walls, rough grass, and flower beds frame the house, while beyond the gate the moors roll endlessly into the distance.It’s easy to imagine the Brontës pacing these paths, their minds wandering as far as the open land before them. (Aditi Rane)
The Craven Herald & Pioneer coincidentally also has an article about how the Old Post Office in Haworth has been named the cosiest place to eat by The Yorkshireman.
Meanwhile, Irving returns to his signature subjects: circumcision, tattoos, wrestling, and the endless possibilities of sexual attraction and intercourse. He examines works by the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens, Arthur Schnitzler, and Anne Frank, the films High Noon and The Seventh Seal, and songs by Bob Dylan. (Glenn C. Altschuler)
The photographer James Glossop shares his favourite images of 2025 in The Times, including one of a Northern Ballet’s performance of Jane Eyre on March 20, 2025.
„Das Lied von Storch und Dromedar“ ist ein multiperspektivischer Roman, der durch Emily Brontës doppeltes Erzählen im Roman „Sturmhöhe“ inspiriert wurde.Dadurch wirkt Daanjes Erzählen wie ein postmodernes Puzzle und besitzt zugleich die Eleganz eines englischen Gesellschaftsromans.Anjet Daanje sagt: „Man könnte sagen, dass dies das gemeinsame Lied von elf Personen ist. Die elf Kapitel bilden zusammen eine Art Gedicht, also ein Lied. Der ganze Roman ist ein bisschen wie ein Musikstück angelegt. Mit Themen, die variiert werden.“Zum Beispiel Geschwisterbeziehungen. Klavierspiel. Oder der Umgang mit Zeit.„Ich sehe „Das Lied“ aber auch als Ballade. Früher wurden Balladen gesungen, um Geschichten zu erzählen. Und das macht Anjet in diesem Buch sehr stark. Und das nennt sie dann ein „Lied“, sagt Anton Scheepstra.Daanjes Ballade umfasst drei Jahrhunderte. Sie beginnt in England, geht weiter unter Auswanderern in den USA, macht im Ersten Weltkrieg einen Abstecher nach Frankreich, im Zweiten Weltkrieg nach England und kehrt am Ende geradezu heim nach Groningen.„Das letzte Kapitel spielt in den Niederlanden. Das hatte ich zuerst gar nicht vor", berichtet Daanje. „Ich dachte eher an England. Aber dann recherchierte ich zu Glockentürmen und dachte: Die gibt es auch bei uns. Warum den Roman also nicht in den Niederlanden abrunden?“ (Katharina Borchardt) (Translation)
And of course, Wuthering Heights 2026, features in many list of the films to watch next year: The Tab, Evoke, Glamour, Breaking News, The Journal, Soap Central, Elle, Forbes, Euronews, Time Out... The Times of India includes Emily Brontë in a list of haunting lines from books and classics.
AnneBrontë.org posts about the Patrick-Maria wedding preparations in 1812.
Introducing the “almost relationship”, a dynamic that has captured pop culture (Normal People), literature (Wuthering Heights) and delusionally romantic people (hello) for centuries. To be clear, this is not the same thing as a situationship. (Olivia Petter)
"Branwell Brontë was given that name because it was his mother's maiden name."As I am sure you know, Branwell was the brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, but Gareth's comment made me more curious about the people in that famous family about whom we hear much less, such as their mother, Maria.And the more I learn, the more tragedy I discover.Maria Branwell was born in Penzance, Cornwall, in 1783, but lost both parents within a year of each other.In 1812, she decided to go and stay with her Aunt Jane in Yorkshire who had married a chap called John Fennell, headmaster of Woodhouse Grove School in Appleby Bridge near Bradford.Maria hadn't planned to move there permanently but soon after arriving met her Uncle John's friend, Irish clergyman Patrick Brontë.According to the sources I've read, the pair fell instantly in love, and married in December 1812.By then, Maria was 29 and Patrick 35, which was considered a bit long in the tooth to be newly wed, but the pair seemed very happy and their first child, Maria, was born in 1814, swiftly followed by their second, Elizabeth, the following year.Charlotte came along in 1816, followed by Patrick Branwell in 1817.He was given his mother's maiden name as a middle name, but it was the one by which he was known.Maria gave birth to two more children, Emily in 1818, and finally Anne in 1820.Unfortunately, in January 1821 when Anne had just turned one, Maria began to feel unwell.She became gravely ill, and died in the September, likely from some form of cancer.Four years later in 1825, the two eldest children, Maria, aged 11, and Elizabeth, aged 10, also died.Poor Patrick Brontë was destined to outlive his whole family, with Branwell and Emily dying in 1848, Anne in 1849, and finally Charlotte in 1855.The Brontë children were all very intelligent and, as we know, excellent writers.Most would assume their literary prowess was inherited from their learned father, but in fact their mother was talented in that department too, as Charlotte discovered when her father gave her some letters that Maria had written to him during their courtship, 40 years earlier."It was strange now to peruse, for the first time, the records of a mind whence my own sprang," she wrote, "And most strange, and at once sad and sweet, to find that mind of a truly fine, pure, and elevated order…There is a rectitude, a refinement, a constancy, a modesty, a sense, a gentleness about them indescribable I wish she had lived and that I had known her." (Sarah Walker)
Thu 10 Apr, 2:00pmBrontë Space at the Old School RoomIn October 1849 Charlotte’s publishers suggested that revealing her identity would allow her access to literary circles and deserved fame and recognition; she wrote back extolling the virtues of being able to ‘walk invisible’. Within a year she had given way to the lure of these attractive new opportunities to widen her horizons beyond Haworth, but retained an equivocal attitude to her new found celebrity status, torn between the prospect of intellectual excitement and reticence induced by her natural shyness.This talk will explore how she navigated this challenging new scenario, what she made of the famous people she met and their impressions of her, including romantic rumors related to George Smith & James Taylor.
With Sharon WrightThu 10 Apr, 7:30pm (Zoom Only)To mark the anniversary this month of Maria Branwell Brontë’s birth, we explore the life of the mother of genius from her first birthday in Penzance to her last in Haworth. This illustrated Thursday Talk includes how items in the Brontë collection reveal the legacy of this enigmatic lady of letters in the lives and works of her daughters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.This talk will be given by Sharon Wright – award-winning journalist, author of the best-selling Mother of the Brontës: The Life of Maria Branwell and Editor of Brontë Society Gazette. Sharon recently had the misspelled memorial to the Brontë sisters corrected in Westminster Abbey.
The locations chosen for the new film included Arkengarthdale, Swaledale and the village of Low Row. Robbie, 35, stayed at the hotel Simonstone Hall, near Hawes, with other cast members. (...)The hotel is a "historic country lodge" where presenter Jeremy Clarkson famously got into a fight with a Top Gear producer in 2015.A staff member said Robbie was "very lovely" and even enjoyed a Sunday roast and afternoon tea there with her husband and new baby.The employee told the BBC: "The weekend was great fun, where she met lots of other guests and visitors and she introduced her baby to the resident pigs and peacocks here."The film crew's base camp was near Holiday Home Yorkshire in Reeth, whose owner said it was "very exciting" seeing the trailers in the tiny village.One local holiday let owner said he saw Robbie driving a tractor with her co-star - although the agricultural vehicles were not invented until the late 19th Century.He said: "There were four tractors, old-fashioned open-to-the-elements style and they were being escorted by two Range Rovers."Another Dales resident said he had seen filming at Surrender Bridge, which is close to an old lead smelting mill. The landmark also featured in the opening scene of the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small in the 1980s and is on the Coast to Coast path route.The film's base camp was located in rural ArkengarthdaleCrew members also stayed at the Charles Bathurst Inn, in Arkengarthdale, and were described as "very friendly". (Hayley Coyle)
High Sunderland HallAt the time of its demolition in 1950, High Sunderland Hall was a derelict, roofless shell, but its destruction forever robbed us of a slice of Brontë history. The gothic manor house, which had loomed over the Shibden Valley outside Halifax since it was built for the Sunderland family in the 17th century, is believed by many to have been the model for Wuthering Heights, the house at the heart of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel of the same name.For six months from September 1838, Brontë was employed as a schoolmistress at Miss Patchett’s school at Law Hill house, just a mile or two away from the Hall. It’s thought that she could see it from the school’s top windows, passed by it on bracing walks with her pupils and was perhaps even invited inside. What evidence survives shows that it had the same exposed and remote situation as its purported fictional counterpart, the same richly carved grotesque statuary on its façade, and the same air of decayed grandeur. Its floorplan was a close match for the foreboding house where Cathy and Heathcliff grow up in the novel, too.In the late 1940s it was reportedly offered to both the Brontë Society and the Halifax Corporation by its final owner. But its foundations had been dangerously weakened by mining and successive tenants had neglected repairs, so the high cost of bringing the building back from the brink saw it sacrificed to the wrecking ball instead. (Felicity Day)
Brother Brontë is hard to define. But it is full of adventure, profound themes and unforgettable characters. It’s an electric look at a future that is somehow plausible and resonant. (Yvette Benavides)
Mystery and romance abound in A Noise Within’s production of Jane Eyre, the thrilling and heart-wrenching tale of self-determination by Charlotte Brontë, adapted by Elizabeth Williamson and directed by Geoff Elliott. (...)“I read the adaptation first, having never read the novel, and I couldn’t put it down—it set me on fire,” says Elliott. “It’s a deeply affecting love story that’s also a Gothic horror tale, at once stirring, terrifying, with an impending sense of violence, and, in the end, uplifting. Williamson did a remarkable job of distilling the novel, which I’ve since read three times, into a sweeping, fast-moving two hours that moves like a river.”A one-hour INsiders Discussion Group will take place prior to the matinee on Sunday, March 30, beginning at 12:30 p.m. Post-performance conversations with the artists will take place every Friday (except the preview) and on Sunday, April 6. Student matinees are scheduled on select weekdays at 10:30 a.m.; interested educators should email education@anoisewithin.org. (Renee Ronceros)
Last week, images were leaked from the shoot of Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Margot Robbie, who plays Catherine Earnshaw, has been seen in a white wedding dress, which has distressed self-proclaimed historical experts.Has Fennell committed a crime against period dress? Even Vogue felt the need to weigh in.Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has been under fire since it announced lead casting last September. Part of this was inevitable: a female artist such as Fennell, who is both hyper-talented and hyper-privileged, gets two successful films or albums before the envious backlash kicks in.It didn’t help that, in tackling Wuthering Heights, she was taking on one of the few classic novels to touch with nuance on race in 19th-century England – a nuance altogether lacking from the social media chat about ethnicity and casting.Robbie’s co-star is Jacob Elordi, a white, dark-haired actor who plays the adult incarnation of the outcast orphan Heathcliff. Brontë clearly wrote Heathcliff as a character who is ostracised in rural Yorkshire in part because he looks foreign to English eyes.In Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation, Heathcliff was played by James Howson, the first actor of black heritage to take the role.To many racially conscious Brontë fans, including prominent American film critics, Fennell’s choice of a white actor felt like a step backwards. But what form Heathcliff’s “foreignness” takes is deliberately ambiguous in Brontë’s text. In a much-analysed line, one neighbour says Heathcliff could be “a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway”. Arnold herself had originally searched for a Romany actor.All the text tells us for sure is that Heathcliff’s adoptive father claims to have found him on the streets of Liverpool. The city’s associations with the slave trade often suggest to contemporary readers that Heathcliff is the child of an enslaved African. That is entirely possible.But it is also possible he was the child of the seafaring Spanish and Basque community, established in Liverpool during the 19th century. One such prominent family was the Elordietas. They would have looked not unlike a certain Jacob Elordi, whose Basque father emigrated to Australia at the age of eight.When we assume that a dark-haired outsider must be of African origin, we let English racism off the hook. We forget how narrowly beauty standards defined “Englishness” to exclude even a hint of darker colouring. English chroniclers under the Tudors, keen to whip up anti-Spanish prejudice, would routinely accuse the Spanish population of being miscegenated with north African blood, attributing conventional Spanish dark looks to this ancestry. These attitudes were still around in Brontë’s day. (Kate Maltby)
Discover descriptive language in 'Wuthering Heights'Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is famous for its vivid descriptive language.How can you forget the moody landscapes of the Yorkshire moors?From this, you can learn how adjectives are effectively used to evoke atmosphere and emotion.By studying Brontë's use of descriptive language, you can gain insights into crafting more expressive sentences. (Anuji Trehaan)
Romances, in particular, were charged with corrupting women’s virtue as authors like the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen popularised the genre in the 18th century. (Gwendolyn Smith)
Austen had many critics after her death. Charlotte Brontë called her writing “a carefully-fenced, highly-cultivated garden … I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.” (...)The greatest praise for Jane Austen, however, comes from Virginia Woolf. Writing about women writers in A Room Of One’s Own, this is what she says about Jane Austen: “Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching.” Woolf regarded Jane Austen and Emily Brontë as two women who wrote as women write and not as men write and goes on to say, “What genius, what integrity it must have required in face of all that criticism, in the midst of that purely patriarchal society to hold fast to the thing as they saw it without shrinking. Only Jane Austen did it, and Emily Brontë. They wrote out of themselves,” she added. (Shashi Despande)
[Adriana] Trigiani asked Parker and Forste a series of questions about formative books they hold dear, such as the first book they remembered reading and owning, comparing Jane Eyre to Wuthering Heights, and whether it’s important for a main character to have a moral compass. (Maureen Mullarkey)
Leggendo Cime Tempestose ho imparato che a volte vale la pena lottare per certi amori, certe anime speciali. A volte vale la pena assecondare le proprie pulsioni, perché solo così si può essere davvero felici. (Translation)
Festivaltopia shares some beautiful covers including some classical Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Also in Festivaltopia the most misunderstood characters in literature include Heathcliff and Bertha Mason. Shanghai City News Service is excited about Emma Rice's Wuthering Heights production now playing in Shanghai.
Finally, new episodes can be found on both Behind the Glass (Mia Ferrullo, artist, master's student, and part of the team at the Brontë Parsonage Museum) and House of Brontë (a tribute to Maria Branwell Brontë).
Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha aren’t just skaters; they are a force of nature. Brought together as teenagers, their chemistry electrifies audiences, setting them apart from their competitors. They don’t just perform routines—they tell a story on the ice, one laced with passion, defiance, and a hunger for something more. But behind the carefully choreographed moves and press-ready smiles is a tangled web of ambition, betrayal, and heartbreak.Fargo structures the novel around an upcoming documentary investigating the infamous scandal that ended their partnership a decade ago. As the media frenzy reignites, Kat is forced to confront not just the public’s perception of her, but the truth she’s been trying to escape. What really happened between her and Heath? And can a love story that burned so brightly ever truly fade?At its heart, The Favourites is an unflinching look at the price of ambition. The novel explores the sacrifices made in the pursuit of greatness—what is lost, what is taken, and what is willingly given up. Fargo masterfully captures the suffocating world of professional skating, where everything is controlled, from diet and wardrobe to media narratives and personal relationships.Kat is a protagonist who demands attention. She is fiercely talented, ruthlessly determined, and often difficult to love. But that’s what makes her so compelling—she refuses to be reduced to a likeable, palatable heroine. Her relationship with Heath is the novel’s beating heart, messy and destructive yet impossible to look away from. They are drawn together by shared trauma and an understanding that no one else can offer. Their love is the kind that consumes, leaving no survivors. (Jade McGee)
What did you guys talk about? Did you have much in common?We had so much in common – it was slightly weird! Interests, music, hobbies… we even spoke about our ideal number of pets and it was the same! We spoke about literature, and how I bought ‘Wuthering Heights’ because I love Kate Bush’s song, and it turned out that it was her favourite Kate Bush song, too!
Kirklees Council said the demolition of Reverend Patrick Brontë’s former home was “unavoidable.”The council has approved an application for the partial demolition and rebuilding of the former home of the Brontë sisters’ father in Liversedge.The site – located at Thornbush Farm on Miry Lane, Hightown – is in “a derelict state following years of neglect and vandalism” and comprises a single storey agricultural building and two small derelict curtilage listed buildings.The application – submitted by Jan Capital Ltd in May 2024 – proposes a partial demolition and rebuilding of the derelict listed cottages to form two dwellings, and the construction of a two-storey extension on the footprint of the south wing – which was demolished in 2006. It also proposes building a single storey lean-to on the northern gable and converting an outbuilding to be used for storage. (...)A separate application for listed building consent was submitted at the same time.In the same document, the council said: “The almost complete demolition of the listed building leads to substantial harm to this designated heritage asset.“It has been demonstrated that the building is at the point of collapse and is beyond reasonable and viable in-situ repair and therefore it is accepted that the demolition is now unavoidable.“The application proposes to rebuild it to replicate its historic form and architectural detailing, with the use of reclaimed materials from the demolition where possible and the reinstatement of the previously demolished wing.“The submitted justification for demolition is, on balance, reluctantly accepted by KC C&D, with the proposed rebuilding of the cottages going some way towards mitigating the substantial harm.“Once rebuilt, the cottages will be brought back into use with the reconstruction providing some legibility of the historic form and vernacular architecture.” (Catherine Gannon)
User commentsType of comment: An objectionDo you wish your comments to be published on the website anonymously? YesThe original application was for a 'Bronte Centre' due to the links to the Bronte family. However over the last 18 months the company applying for permission have allowed the grade 2 listed building to fall into disrepair. The building was left unprotected & local children have been allowed to demolish the building & set fires. We personally have had to telephone the police & fire brigade to try & protect the building. A security company was employed to protect the building & scaffolding erected & we have even contacted them to advise that the security fencing had been breached. One Sunday the scaffolding company came & removed the roof covering protecting the building & part of the scaffolding. This again was reported to the police as we thought someone was stealing the scaffolding & metal sheets of roof covering. It is my opinion that there was never any intention to build a Bronte Centre & that the applicants have purposely left the building to deteriorate to the extent that it needed demolishing & then would render the application to be amended to be used for living accommodation.
Jean Marc Ah-Sen: What fictional character would you like to be friends with?S.C.: Jane Eyre. I read the Victorian novel in my late teens, first in Chinese and then in English, and was so struck by her strong-mindedness and stubborn individualism. I’d walk around repeating her words in my head, rehearsing to become my own woman. I loved that she was plain-looking, unlike conventional heroines, and that she fended off life’s cruelty with intelligence and integrity. Even as a naïve adolescent, I thought that powerful speech she gave in response to Rochester’s proposal was the sexiest bundle of words a woman could pass on to her lover.
Jane Eyre is also the favourite book by Renee Lai, artist and contributor to Glasstire.
With Wuthering Heights, her startling, singular voice – which people either loved or loathed; there was no indifference – threw her into the spotlight and under the gaze of a whole nation. Within days of its release, everyone in Britain was aware of Kate Bush – or at least ‘that voice’, and its startling, wailing delivery of the name ‘Heathcliff’. Kate was on her way. (Harry Doherty)
Sharing a name with the book that it briefly relays the story of, Wuthering Heights is an ample, yet rudimentary, example of many of Bush’s stylism and conventions that can be found throughout her work- mainly the immense theatrical sense. (Jude Marsh)
Her work as the tragic heroine Cathy Earnshaw in William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights, arguably her most famous film, transfixed me. At the time, there were few South Asian faces in Hollywood, and the fact that Oberon had managed to break through more than 50 years earlier beggared belief in my young mind. (...)In this regard, Wuthering Heights was perhaps her most demonstrative showcase. As Cathy, she toggled among moods—stubbornness, determination, heartbreak—with fluency. Today, one might read irony into the fact that Oberon played a character whom Emily Brontë had conceived as canonically white, while Oberon’s white co-star, Laurence Olivier, played Heathcliff, a man of indeterminate racial origin. (References to his potential South Asian heritage abound in Brontë’s text and the 1939 film, which explains some of the resistance to director Emerald Fennell’s announcement last year that she would adapt the novel with Jacob Elordi, who is white, as Heathcliff.) But the honesty Oberon brought to that character’s torment proves that she was the right actor for the part, irrespective of color. (Mayukh Sen)
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysThis prequel to 'Jane Eyre' gives voice to Bertha Mason, the Creole woman locked away by Mr. Rochester. Antoinette, as she was once known, fights against colonial prejudice, forced marriage, and betrayal. Struggling to maintain her identity, she descends into madness—a victim of patriarchy and racial injustice. Rhys redefines heroism as a fight for self-ownership in a world determined to erase individuality. (Girish Shukla)
La regia di Badiluzzi riesce a coniugare fedeltà al testo originale con una visione innovativa, offrendo una prospettiva fresca su un classico intramontabile. Cime Tempestose al Teatro Piccolo Bellini è un'esperienza teatrale che invita lo spettatore a confrontarsi con le proprie passioni e i propri demoni interiori, attraverso una rappresentazione che unisce tradizione e modernità in modo magistrale. (Gianpiero Pagano in Napoli al Teatro) (Translation)
Trasportando gli spettatori al centro dell’universo tormentato di Catherine e Heathcliff, attraverso il racconto dei giovani Hareton e Catherine, la cui relazione è uno dei temi centrali del romanzo, l’adattamento di Martina Badiluzzi offre un punto di vista del tutto originale, inedito finora, capace di calare nella contemporaneità questo classico, così complesso e simbolico, scritto nel 1846. (Napoli Today) (Translation)
Restando fedele al romanzo vittoriano scritto nel 1846 ma al contempo portando sulla scena temi attuali, la trasposizione di questo classico senza tempo parte dalla relazione amorosa di Cathy e Hareton, che si ritrovano a tornare per puro caso a “Cime Tempestose”.
È emblematico che i protagonisti non siano Catherine e Heathcliff, da sempre considerati tra le coppie più romantiche e passionali della letteratura ma in realtà simbolo di un amore distruttore: nella mise-en-scène di Badiluzzi è la seconda generazione essere protagonista, Cathy, la fotocopia della madre Catherine, e Hareton, figlio non desiderato. (Francesca Arfè in Eroica Fenice) (Translation)
Finally, in striking contrast with the news that opened this post, the Brontë Birthplace renovation is nearly complete with photographer Matt Gibbons capturing the freshly restored spaces, including the parlour where the sisters were born. After dedicated work by volunteers and specialists to restore historical features, the birthplace will open to visitors in March/April 2025.
Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is a timeless Gothic novel, that revolves around the story of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. The haunting setting and eerie vibe make this book a perfect pick.Jane EyreWritten by Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre is filled with Gothic elements. Although it has some romantic touch but it still would be a perfect pick for a gothic novel.
Jane Eyre 2011In Jane Eyre, director Cary Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini transform Charlotte Brontë’s romantic novel of profound love into a moody tale of the gothic imagination. In an exclusive Focus Features interview, Buffini describes the heart of the novel as a “vulnerable young woman in this creepy old house.” Mia Wasikowska plays Jane, the poor orphan who takes up residence in the spooky estate of the formidable Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender) and his peculiar housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench). “Neither a radical updating nor a stiff exercise in middlebrow cultural respectability, Mr. Fukunaga's film tells its venerable tale with lively vigor and an astute sense of emotional detail,” writes the New York Times. Crowning it the best adaptation of Brontë’s novel, Screenrant wrote that “no other [film] has captured the essence of the novel the way that” Fukunaga’s version does.
Esto fue algo que el propio Eggers quiso priorizar, tomando inspiración de las versiones previas de Nosferatu, desde la original de F.W. Murnau hasta la de Werner Herzog en 1979. El director señaló la importancia de enfatizar en esa perspectiva femenina desde el inicio, convirtiendo la narrativa en una historia de "amante demoníaco", con ecos de la intensidad emocional de Cumbres Borrascosas. (Magela Muzio) (Translation)
Eggers told me Death and the Maiden was on his mind while adapting Nosferatu, as well as countless other classic tales about love being supplanted by obsession or self-annihilation, from The Daemon Lover to Wuthering Heights. (David Crow)
It was in the spirit of exiting my comfort bubble that I first agreed to attend “The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever”: an annual event where Kate Bush fans mark her birthday by recreating the film clip to her song Wuthering Heights. If my friend had invited me on April Fools’ Day, I’d have assumed she’d made the whole thing up – but it was July. (Emma Wilkins)
Maria Branwell (1783-1821)Born and raised in Penzance, Maria met Patrick Brontë while visiting her aunt and uncle in Yorkshire, which means, yes, she was the mother of British authors Emily, Anne and Charlotte Brontë and their poet/painter brother Branwell. (LJ Trewhela)
Me cabrea que 'Mujercitas' o los libros de Jaen Austen o las hermanas Brontë se consideren muchas veces una cosa light, sin peso ni trasfondo, porque lo tienen, y mucho. No, no son libros o pelis para chicas, son libros y pelis para todo el mundo. Porque las historias merecen la pena y porque también hablan de cosas importantes y porque, de paso, permiten que afloren muchos de esos porqués que dan lugar a conversaciones o reflexiones. (Ana Requena Aguilar) (Translation)
Elena Poniatowska: Por favor, háblanos de ti, Eve…E.G.: (...) Contar con una genealogía literaria es, además de legítimo, absolutamente necesario, y parecería que las jóvenes no tuvieran derecho a ella. Cuando empecé mis estudios formales yo sólo leía a mujeres anglosajonas y, casi siempre, decimonónicas. Mis grandes referentes literarios eran las hermanas Brontë (enfáticamente Emily), Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Margaret Mitchell, Colleen McCullough y Erica Jong, quien enfrentó un juicio por pornografía. A Virginia Woolf la leí hasta los veintitantos. Pero no conocía autoras con las que me sintiera culturalmente vinculada, y tuve que buscarlas. (...)A un nivel estilístico me reconozco fuertemente influenciada por María Luisa Bombal, Luisa Valenzuela, Inés Arredondo, Rosario Castellanos y por ti, Elena. Y también, dicho sea de paso, por Emily Brontë, Murasaki Shikibu, Flannery O’Connor y Angela Carter. (Translation)
Parade lists Christmas poems including Anne Brontë's Music on Christmas Morning. The poem also features in this year's AnneBrontë.org holiday post. and video.
Death, ghosts and graves featured heavily in Wuthering Heights, the dramatic novel penned by Emily Brontë in Haworth in the 1800s.But little did the famous writer know that, two centuries on, the village in which she crafted her dark Gothic novel would become a favoured resting spot for the ashes of the deceased, if there were no restrictions.When it comes to final wishes, being buried in a cemetery or having one’s ashes spread in a private garden is often the standard procedure. However, this is not always possible due to full cemeteries and legal restrictions on where ashes can be spread. But when 3,000 Brits were asked hypothetically where they might like their ashes to be spread, two West Yorkshire locations featured highly, with Haworth at number 38.Known as the home of the Brontë sisters, Haworth offers a rich literary history and is surrounded by stunning moorland scenery. It’s perfect for those who love literature and the wild beauty of the Yorkshire moors.Staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth were fascinated to hear of the research. Rebecca Yorke, director of the museum, said:“The evocative landscapes across the Brontë moors and the closeness you feel to nature here has been described by many of our visitors as being almost spiritual.“The Brontë sisters themselves wrote about loss and grief, making Haworth – their home – a poignant location to reflect upon life and death.”
Overall it brings to mind Stevie Nicks in her Fleetwood Mac heyday, or Kate Bush warbling about Wuthering Heights. (Samantha Rea)
He [Spencer] is not much of a book person: When asked to tell them the last book he has read, he says “Wuthering Heights” but then adds, “I didn’t read it as much as read the Wikipedia page.” (Jay Lustig)
Pat Heywood, the veteran Scottish actress who made her film debut as Olivia Hussey’s nurse and confidant in Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, has died. She was 92.Heywood died June 26, the Scottish Daily Mail reported.During her four-decade career, Heywood portrayed the maid in the manor at the center of Freddie Francis’ horror comedy Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1970) and the wife of British serial killer John Christie (Richard Attenborough) in the Richard Fleischer-directed 10 Rillington Place (1971). (Mike Barnes)
She also played Ellen Dean in the 1978 TV series Wuthering Heights.
Charlotte Brontë’s 'Jane Eyre' is a compelling exploration of personal strength and moral integrity. The novel tells the story of Jane Eyre, an orphaned girl who overcomes a harsh childhood to become a governess at Thornfield Hall. There, she meets the enigmatic Mr. Rochester and faces numerous challenges that test her resolve and character. Through Jane’s experiences, Brontë addresses themes of love, independence, and social criticism. The novel's rich character development and Brontë’s keen insight into human nature create a narrative that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. Jane’s journey from oppression to self-realization continues to inspire and captivate readers. (Girish Shukla)
A new video of The Brontë Sisters takes us to "where the Brontë Story started", in Guiseley, where Patrick Brontë married Maria Branwell at St Oswald's Church on December 29, 1812.
Jane Eyre2006Before screenwriter Sandy Welch adapted the aforementioned Emma for the BBC, she brought this Charlotte Brontë story to the network, with Ruth Wilson making a breakout turn as the titular governess with a troublesome past. “A lavish production in all the right ways — script, cast, direction, location, details — this is a perfect literary adaptation,” one IMDb user rhapsodized. (Dan Clarendon)
When reflecting on the importance of the book fair, [Tananarive] Due was reminded of the time she interviewed Anne Rice for a Herald article ahead of the 1992 Miami Book Fair. That interview inspired Due to write her first novel. Whether it’s “Jane Eyre” or “Frankenstein” or “The Iliad,” stories push people to ask life changing questions, Rice told her. “And it was not just an escape, but an escape that improves you,” Rice said. “You go back feeling different, and that’s what literature should do.” (Amanda Rosa)
is primarily interested in a kind of ethereal pessimism: the mournful yearning and heightened emotional drama expressed in songs such as Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights, Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart and I Know It’s Over by the Smiths. (Julian Coman)
always tried to read a novel with the feel and environment that resembles the book. [...]I read Wuthering Heights in Yorkshire close to the Moors. (Phil Collins)
A room of one’s own, CornwallPenzance’s historic Chapel Street has many a literary connection. From the house in which Maria Branwell, mother of the Brontë writing clan, grew up, to the Admiral Benbow pub – said to have inspired the inn of the same name in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island – the street promises rich pickings for visiting bookworms. Not least at Women in Word, the bookshop of the Hypatia Trust. Sitting towards the top of the street, it specialises in women’s fiction and nonfiction and includes titles by local writers. Behind it is a stylish two-bedroom holiday apartment, income from which supports the Trust’s work.Three nights from £373.50 for four people, self-catering, hypatia-trust.org.uk (Rhiannon Batten)
Only 2% of GCSE students study a book written by a female author, according to research by campaigners who are urging exam boards to diversify their set text lists to curb the rise of misogynistic views. [...]The most common books authored by women on the approved text lists across exam boards between 2018 and 2022 were Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the campaigners found.These two novels are among the longest on set lists, at 624 and 448 pages respectively, and the campaigners said teachers were disincentivised from choosing them over shorter, more accessible books. (Rachel Hall)
Brontë purists, of course, are taking issue with O’Connor’s creative liberties (how could Emily possibly have – gasp – hot sex?), but for historical accuracy can take a backseat when it comes to timeless human conditions. [...]Where did this film start for you? Did you always want to make an Emily Brontë film?I've been wanting to write and direct for a while and I've been working on the script for a while. I knew for my first thing I wanted it to be about Emily because I felt like I've always located in her a sense of being authentic and being true to who I am, even if what that is feels different. I think we all feel that we're different, ultimately. I just think she's also a really beautiful kind of role model for people in terms of being yourself. The other thing is I've always just wondered who she was as a person. She's quite a mysterious figure, so spending time with her on film was a great way of thinking about her and getting to know her a bit better. Even though, ultimately, I felt after the film, I still feel I don't really know her, but that's all right. She's elusive. [...]Some reviews have been talking about how creative liberties were taken. If you can't already tell, I'm not a Brontë purist. I didn't even know any of that, but also wouldn't have cared. But what is that about? Are people just being protective?I think some people don't like that she's not a virgin. They want to keep her in a glass case. They don't want her to go out and have a good time. I really have loved reading some of the reviews that have been like, "How dare you?" because to have such an extreme reaction means that it affected them and it means that they've maybe got their own relationship with Emily Brontë and they've placed her up on a shelf where they feel that she should stay.There's a mask scene in the first 20 minutes where a dead mother comes to visit, or in imagination does, but if you still feel like you are watching a biopic at that point, I really feel like that's on you. This is a film that's exploring the idea of Emily. Scenes from Wuthering Heights are in the film and her poetry are in the film. There's a love triangle in the film, there's a love triangle in Wuthering Heights. It’s a mix of different things. In the same way that Emily wrote what she felt, that's what I wanted to do. I've got to say, it fills me full of delight to be honest. I'm coming into the story with such respect for Emily and so much love for her, and I know when I break the rules, and I know why I'm breaking the rules.I'm doing the film to speak to people in your generation. If you like the film and you respond to it and it ties into your life and who you are in the middle of working out who you are, then I'm so happy – and that's what art should do, that's what film should do. To just watch a character through a glass case, what's the point? What's interesting is Emily kept all her reviews in her desk and there were lots of people who'd written kind of “how dare you?” reviews. She got them out and read them every now and then to kind of have a laugh, so I feel like she'd probably feel the same way as me. (Sophia June)
The lives of novelists and poets are a frequent subject for cinematic storytelling. Powerful literature, the kind that appeals to readers over the centuries, inevitably inspires visual and emotional fantasies. And that has led to film adaptations: lending concrete voices and visuals to what had been creatures of the imagination, confined to the page. Wuthering Heights is one of those novels that many of us (outside of English majors) might have first encountered as a film, starring Merle Oberon and Lawrence Olivier as the doomed lovers Catherine and Heathcliff. Emily Brontë’ wrote only one novel (under the pen name Ellis Bell) and it is considered one of English literature’s great Gothic romances. Brontë died young, at 30, and in Emily, screenwriter and director Frances O’Connor has spun an origin story for her brilliance that plumbs the emotional depths of her life, including familial strife and tumultuous romance.The film’s opening credits play over dramatic vocal music, creating an odd, tense mood, and the first scene establishes a domestic life rife with conflict. In the Brontë family home, Emily (Sex Education’s Emma Mackey) has given a copy of her newly-published novel to her sister Charlotte, author of another Gothic romantic classic, Jane Eyre. Charlotte (played by Alexandra Dowling) is disgusted with what she has read and asks why Emily would write such a book, full of such horrible people who only care about themselves. Emily is silent and stoic at this outburst. Wuthering Heights was accepted for publication not long after Jane Eyre was published. The success of Charlotte’s book (written under the pen name Currer Bell) delayed the printing of Emily’s novel. The film hints at the artistic competition among the Brontë siblings. Anne also wrote a novel, Agnes Grey (with the pen name Acton Bell), and like Emily and Charlotte, was a published poet. The undercurrent of tension establishes an intriguing dynamic. [...]The excellent cast is more than up to the task posed by this historical biopic. The chemistry between Emily and Weightman is electric, and the scenes of their sexual awakening are rendered with lush, sensual detail. Abel Korzeniowski’s (A Single Man, Nocturnal Animals) score is mostly compelling, but there are times when it feels inappropriately jolting. This unevenness in tone is also partly due to Frances O’Connor’s somewhat disjointed screenplay. The narrative is chronological, but the defining events in Emily’s young life are often dramatized in oddly random or abrupt ways. It would have been much more effective to build up to these epiphanic moments by exploring the unusual Brontë family dynamic a bit more deeply. Still, the film’s sweeping visuals serve as partial compensation, capturing the natural marvels of the landscape that inspired such iconic writing. The stone houses, rolling pastures, spreading trees, and storm-swept moors become characters in this origin story — which becomes the inspiration for one of English literature’s great doomed romances. For O’Connor (an Australian-British actress with a respectable career), the Gothic novelist is an artist who casts off repressive social norms and uses words to evoke (and exorcise) demons of terrible natural beauty.As with Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, there is an obligatory scene in which we see Emily writing her novel, by hand and by candlelight. In O’Connor’s interpretation, Wuthering Heights is a work born of grief and rebellion, a declaration of a misfit’s right to be who she is, and a paean to lost love. Despite some occasional missteps of mood and underdeveloped subtexts, Emily traverses this vision of liberation with enormous sensitivity and daring. (Peg Aloi)
George Eliot's Middlemarch (1872) begins with a marriage that disappoints and dissolves over time. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), by contrast, ends with a marriage between Jane and Rochester, a union that actually restores sight in one eye to a blind Rochester. The prototypical marriage plot in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) converges property consolidation with a happy union between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Victorian literature, after Austen, often plays with marriage as an organizing plot device, a contract that either culminates the events of the novel or catalyzes them.Netflix’s hit reality TV series Love Is Blind (2020– ) is also obsessed with the marriage plot. The show, which describes itself onscreen as an “experiment,” takes Charlotte Brontë’s blind love literally. (Samantha Pergadia)
Wuthering Heights, in its various incarnations on the screen and for television — especially the 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon as Heathcliff and Cathy — has been regarded as a tragic romance. In its play version here, as in the novel, the focus is more on the roots of revenge and domestic violence, especially that of the times in which the original novel was written. As such, it becomes a harder slog to go through for modern audiences.Those with a taste for depictions of the social norms of mid-1800’s England, and those with a liking for modern British stagecraft, will no doubt be enthralled with McCarter Theatre Center’s production of Wuthering Heights. For all others, I would recommend spending an evening at home watching the 1939 film while snuggled under a blanket. (Allen Neuner)
The Scoundrel and Scamp production, directed with a sure hand by Bryan Rafael Falcón, has a solid cast. Dawn McMillan’s Charlotte slipped right into the role of the bossy big sister; Allison Akmajian made Emily’s suppressed rage and desire palpable; and Myani Watson shone as the self-righteous Anne. Hunter Hnat, who rarely disappoints, played several roles, including the drunken brother, Branwell. Tony Caprile’s principal role was as the father, Patrick, but he took on a number of other characters, giving them all distinction.The trouble with this play is the script. Skipping back and forth in time made the story convoluted and confusing. Elizabeth Falcón was tasked with playing characters from the women’s novels, who appeared to underscore what the women were writing. You know, the free-spirited Catherine from “Wuthering Heights,” the mad Mrs. Robinson from “Jane Eyre.” The device was overwrought and kind of annoying. Although the Brontë family was fascinating, this over-long play never made us care much about them.That said, this production was packed with energy and talent. That almost made up for a weak script.(Kathleen Allen)
Unless explicitly said
