Afuh Didachos Mbeng, Department of Official Languages and Translation, University of EbolowaInternational Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, RSIS International, vol. 10(3), pages 8159-8167, March 2026This article discusses female education and punishment in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Buchi Emecheta's Second-Class Citizen, and considers the novelists as writers who do not only advocate for the education and empowerment of the woman, particularly the girl child but also shed light on the societal punishments and limitations imposed on them. In other words, the article shows that both authors emphasize the significance of education in empowering girls and promoting personal growth while critiquing societal restrictions and punishments that girls who desire education face. To both novelists, limited access to education for the girl child, patriarchal oppression and social stigma which characterize(d) Victorian and the post independent African societies serve as containments that attempt to suppress potentially subversive feminist narratives. Using new historicist approach, and drawing from Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punishent, and his observations on the nature and purpose of punishment to show both novelists' destabilization of class and gender hierarchies, the work offers insights into the contentious relationship between British fin de siècle and postcolonial African societies on the one hand, and the education of the girl child on the other hand, thereby questioning the authenticity and representation of society as a disciplinary unit, leading to the conclusion that Brontë and Emeheta harbor a social and cultural agenda with focus on female education.
Doppeltes Übersetzen. Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffers Theaterstück ›Die Waise aus Lowood‹ (1853) und Charlotte Brontës Roman ›Jane Eyre‹ (1847) (Double Translation. Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer's Play 'The Orphan of Lowood' (1853) and Charlotte Brontë's Novel 'Jane Eyre' (1847))
Broterwerb, Alltagsgeschäft, künstlerische Praxis: Studien zu Übersetzerinnen aus der Sammlung Varnhagen (Breadwinning, Daily Business, Artistic Practice: Studies on Women Translators from the Varnhagen Collection)Edited by Jadwiga Kita-Huber and Frederike MiddelhoffBrill VerlagISBN 978-3-7705-7089-8September 2026
Der Band widmet sich bislang unerschlossenen oder kaum erforschten Übersetzungen von Frauen, die mit einem der größten Handschriftenarchive Europas – der in Krakau (Jagiellonen-Bibliothek) aufbewahrten Sammlung Varnhagen – in Verbindung stehen. Für Akteurinnen wie Rosa Maria Assing, Sarah Austin, Helmina von Chézy, Caroline de Crespigny, Ottilie von Goethe oder Henriette Schubart bedeutete das Übersetzen nicht allein eine finanzielle Einnahmequelle. Vielmehr war es im Spannungsfeld von künstlerischem Selbstausdruck, dem Verlangen zur Mitgestaltung ästhetischer Geschmacksbildung und alltäglichen Formen schriftlicher, oftmals mehrsprachiger Kommunikation verortet. Die Beiträge nehmen die Schriften der Übersetzerinnen und ihre aus der Sammlung Varnhagen ersichtliche Vernetzung zum Anlass, die vielfältigen Praktiken des Übersetzens zu differenzieren und sowohl die ästhetischen Strategien als auch die kulturpolitischen Maximen der Übersetzerinnen zu ermitteln.
by Mariana Chajon OliverosPivot: Literary Journal, 11(1), 20-25 (2026)AbstractThis is a brief personal essay that critiques Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Wuthering Heights, provides a brief overview of the field of classic novel adaptation over the past thirty years and proposes questions that go outside of the well-known, “how do we create interest?”. In this essay, I consider what the future of film adaptation looks like, and how Hollywood can move towards capitalizing on universal aspects of classic novels, as well as how it can utilize modern systems of knowledge, such as psychology, critical race theory, sexuality and gender studies, to provide an added layer of meaning, or represent what goes unsaid in many works of classic literature. Fennell’s adaptation serves as a jumping-off point to assess the current challenges of literary adaptations, and the novel Wuthering Heights is used as an example for creative ideation.
by Ouana Alassane Sekongo, University Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Côte d’Ivoire, Wandja Fatoumata Tuo, Université Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire, Omar Ndiaye, Université Cheik Anta Diop, Sénégal, Ataféї Pewissi, Université de Lomé, TogoRevue Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée, de Littérature et d’Education, Volume 9 Numéro 2 – Juin 2026This paper investigates the complex interplay between love, trauma and revenge in EmilyBrontë’s Wuthering Heights, focusing on the character of Heathcliff. It shows how desire forvengeance against the offenders intertwines with strong love. Through a psychoanalytic lens and close reading of the text, the investigation demonstrates that Heathcliff’s trauma and self-immolation – both emotionally and physically – serve as a manifestation of his obsessive longing for Catherine. Ultimately, the study found that revenge, rather thanbeing a mere act of malice, can be a misguided attempt to reclaim lost love, highlightingthe tragic consequences of intertwining passion with vengeance. It indicates thatvengeance against those who hate us does not attract human heart, but it only leads toone’s own destruction. Therefore, the article upholds that patience, redemption andmutual understanding remain the bedrocks of any truthful and lasting human relationship.
by Sajal Hossain DhalyBRAC University2026The purpose of this research is to discern whether Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise are “writing back” to the English and European colonial empires and their literary canons, specifically to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Foundational postcolonial literary theories from books and academic journals provide context to the efficacy of Rhys and Gurnah’s writing back: such as Edward Said’s Orientalism, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s idea of the Subaltern, and Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of mimicry. Furthermore, the research also relies on Chinua Achebe’s theory of abrogation and appropriation of the English language as a means of resistance and taking back agency by the colonised subjects. Upon assessing these books, book chapters, and articles, the research finds that Rhys and Gurnah are in fact not writing back to any colonial empire or writer; Rhys writes for a feminist Creole identity, and Gurnah writes to help establish the African literary tradition.
by Lama Alsulaiman, King Saud UniversityAWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 10. Number 3. August 2026Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and The Giver by Lois Lowry represent characteristics of comingof-age novels, or bildungsromans, in which the protagonists evolve within seemingly idealistic yet highly dominating, emotionally repressive societies. The protagonists of these novels develop their moral identities by actively engaging with their memories. Jane reflects on her personal memories while Jonas internalizes and examines collective memories that are forbidden to other citizens by societal authorities. Accordingly, by comparing the two protagonists' coming-of-age stories, this article aims to illustrate how memories, whether lived or passed on, can play a transformative role in the protagonists' gradual moral growth by reconstructing their internalized morality that Freud conceptualizes as the superego. The significance of this study lies in the new comparative perspective it offers on these two works from different literary periods and genres, underscoring the shared psychological role of memory in the process of moral development. This study answers the question: How can individual and collective memories contribute to reshaping the superego in these two novels? This article utilizes memory studies and employs Freud's construct of the superego as its psychoanalytic lens to demonstrate how and why the protagonists alter their socially imposed mindsets after encountering memories that foster moral growth. The analysis concludes that, in both novels, memory functions as a reconstructive mechanism that integrates emotion with moral consciousness through personal reflection on recollected experiences, releasing repressed emotions and resulting in moral autonomy.
by Özlem Recebli̇Proceedings of the 5th International Congress of Language and Translation Studies(Selçuk University in Konya, Turkey, alongside the Azerbaijan University of LanguagesSeptember 24–26, 2025), pp 626Wide Sargasso Sea, written by Jean Rhys in 1966. It is the rewriting of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. The main character Antoinette grows up in a troubled environment marked by racial tensions and the aftermath of slavery. She and her family struggle with financial instability and social isolation. Also, Antoinette feels increasingly alienated from both the black and white communities around her. After her father’s death she and her mother Annette eventually marry foreign men. However, their relationships become strained due to cultural misunderstandings, and the reader sees kind a madwoman in the attic figure. In this context, this paper aims to analyse main character’s mother Annette's and main character Antoinette's change before and after their marriages to their husbands in the context of how migration, race, and class influence notions of love and emotions in the light of Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s ideas, particularly her critique of the homogenization of “Third World women” and the “Western feminist gaze”. The analysis will also explore the novel through the lens of the politics of location using the Caren Kaplan’s and Adrianne Rich’s ideas. Also, the paper aims to address the themes of madness, loneliness and migration interpreting Antoinette’s and Annette’s mental decline as a result of intersectional forces such as race, gender, class, and colonial displacement, echoing the insights of scholars likeEleanor Wilkinson and Denise Brennan. By examining how migration, race, and class influence notions of love and emotions, this paper underscores the importance of amplifying marginalized voices, regardless of the often painful or unjust conclusions of their stories.
An exhibition at the birthplace will delve into the building’s past, tracing its journey through a butcher’s shop, visitor attraction, café, and a community-owned heritage site.Thomas Haigh, vice chair and marketing and audience development lead at the Brontë Birthplace, said: "While the Brontë Birthplace will always be significant for being the first home of Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Branwell, we know it enjoyed a rich history after their departure."We want to share this 200-year story with our visitors as well as showcase the challenges, discoveries, and community effort behind the restoration and how this remarkable building continues to evolve and serve a new generation of visitors."The exhibition will feature photographs, plans, memories, and other artefacts that reveal the many lives of the building since the Brontë family lived there.A free walking tour of Thornton will also be offered as part of the Heritage Open Days programme.Led by local historian and Brontë family expert Paul Crossley, the two-hour tour will begin at the birthplace and take visitors to key sites including the Brontë Bell Chapel ruins, Kipping House, South Square Centre, and the village’s historic snickets and ginnels.The tour concludes at the Brontë Birthplace, where visitors can enjoy the café, browse the gift shop, or book a house tour. (...)The Brontë Birthplace exhibition will be open from 11am to 4pm on Sunday, September 13, with Mr Haigh available to answer questions from visitors.The walking tour will take place on Saturday, September 19, starting at 11am.Both events are free to attend. (Harry Williams)
Perhaps the production's most distinctive feature is its ensemble-led approach.Rather than relying solely on Jane to narrate her own story, the entire company shares responsibility for carrying her voice throughout the performance.It is an imaginative theatrical device that preserves the novel's first-person perspective while embracing the collaborative nature of live theatre.
However, having returned to it again, it has been a really good read and one that was unexpectedly so, delivering with its dialogue and its quirkiness as well as educating me a lot more about Charlotte Brontë.Sara is a research student whose specialism is Charlotte Brontë and in life, she is pretty certain that she knows where it's heading: she's going to get married to Paul and honeymoon in Paris and then, she's going to continue her research study and find undiscovered letters written by Charlotte which will propel her into the academic stratosphere. (Rachel Deeming)
El caballero y la polilla de la superventas Rachel Gillig. Un libro de fantasía oscura y romance que toma referencias de Jane Eyre y Juego de tronos. Una joven clarividente atrapada en una catedral y un caballero grosero, atractivo y sin respeto por las profecías. (Translation)
Yorkshire town where the Brontë family lived.
CALL FOR PAPERS! 📝We're inviting proposals for papers on The Brontës and the Supernatural for a one day, in-person symposium in Haworth. 👻This symposium seeks to broaden the parameters of Gothic scholarship on the Brontës by exploring the diverse supernatural traditions, beliefs and cultural narratives that informed the family’s imaginative and everyday worlds. We welcome new and original symposium paper proposals from academics, postgraduates and enthusiasts on topics that have perhaps received less attention.Proposals (of no more than 300 words) for 20-minute papers should be submitted to bronte@bronte.org.uk with the subject 'Symposium' by 31 December 2026.
Tue 18 Aug, 10:00amBrontë Event Space in the Old School RoomThis workshop series explores the Brontë siblings' relationship to the Gothic. We’ll explore the Gothic influences that shaped their fiction, dive into their juvenilia and its use of Gothic elements from murder to necromancy to tragic ghosts, and look at how they changed the Gothic forever.The day also includes a visit to the Museum's Research Library to examine collection materials. It is worth noting that the Museum will be closed on this day.
10 - 11am Introducing the Juvenilia: In this session we’ll explore Charlotte’s accounts of their fantastical imaginary world’s construction. We’ll also use extracts from Branwell and Charlotte to explore how the siblings constructed different versions of the same world. 11am - 12pm Influencing the Brontës Juvenilia: In this session, we’ll explore some of the authors and works that inspired the Brontës’ juvenile writing: from Edinburgh magazines, to Gothic novels, to Byron’s poetry, to contemporary geographies, and the Arabian Nights. We’ll look at the tiny magazines that the siblings produced in their imaginary world and what they reveal about the wide-ranging interests and reading of all the Brontë children. 12 - 1 pm Lunch break 1 - 2pm Introducing Our (Anti-)Heroes: In this session, we’ll dive into the interlocking worlds of the juvenilia by exploring some of the key figures and their ever-changing and evolving stories. 2 - 3pm Evolving from the Juvenilia: In this final session, we’ll explore the ways in which story points, themes and characters that are famous from the Brontës’ later work come out of the juvenilia. We’ll trace the development of ideas and question some of our assumptions about the novels and what influenced them by looking at how very early several tropes and concerns appear.
by Alice TorresanDipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari - DISLL, Università di Padova, 2026This work aims to analyze the novel Jane Eyre by looking not only at the love story but also at the text's connection to the context of nineteenth-century British colonialism. The analysis begins with the historical background, highlighting how the exploitation of the colonies represented the "wealth" of the era, an aspect reflected in the character of Bertha Mason. Critical scholarship has explored this theme extensively; in particular, two works proved fundamental to my research: Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. This thesis proposes a third interpretation: the protagonist’s maturation occurs only when she succeeds in recognizing Bertha as a real person with her own history. By comparing these perspectives, I conclude that Jane Eyre’s development is not merely a personal journey, but a choice of ethical responsibility toward the Other. By demonstrating how Jane chooses to flee Thornfield to avoid being complicit in a system that nullifies Bertha’s identity, this thesis confirms that her freedom arises from the rejection of all forms of oppression. Jane’s ultimate goal is the pursuit of a love based on truth and mutual respect, rejecting any bond founded on control or secrecy.
by Nikola MlezivováČeské Budějovice, 2026. bakalářská práce (Bc.). JIHOČESKÁ UNIVERZITA V ČESKÝCH BUDĚJOVICÍCH. Filozofická fakultaThis bachelor's thesis examines and compares the novels Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Firstly, it introduces the literary and historical context of the period in which both novels were created, and then compares the main female characters. Then it focuses on romantic relationships and love, as well as family and social influences, and compares the portrayal of the topics in both novels and the impact on characters.
by Adriana BartůňkováUniverzita Jana Evangelisty Purkyně V Ústí Nad Labem. Pedagogická FakultaMay 2026Although the novel Wuthering Heights was considered controversial in its time, today it is one of the most important works of British Victorian literature. The main aim of this thesis is to analyze and highlight how the author, Emily Brontë, through aspects of this work, depicts and at the same time criticizes moral norms of the Victorian era in which the novel was published, especially through social relationships and hierarchies. This bachelor's thesis also examines how difficult it was to live with these moral norms in the author's time, especially as a woman.
Zhu Mingzhu, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300380, ChinaJournal of Sociology and Education, Vol. 2 No. 3 (2026)Catherine Earnshaw's suffering in Wuthering Heights is often described as a conflict between two men: Heathcliff, the companion of her childhood, and Edgar Linton, the husband who offers rank and security. This paper reads that conflict less as a romantic choice than as a struggle over forms of life. The moors preserve Catherine's unruly kinship with Heathcliff and her memory of an undivided self; Thrushcross Grange promises comfort, status, and social intelligibility within a patriarchal order. Because the novel places these claims within a world governed by inheritance, class prejudice, and gender discipline, Catherine's marriage to Edgar becomes a compromised attempt to secure a life that she cannot fully inhabit. By examining the novel's spatial symbolism, the social conditions of Catherine's choice, and her own language of selfhood, the paper argues that her tragedy arises from an imposed division between inward identity and social survival. The discussion also considers why Catherine's dilemma continues to speak to contemporary readers, especially where external expectations still press individuals to turn against their own sense of life.
by Pui Sang ChiuAdvisor: Jan SchrammUniversity of CambridgeJuly 2025This thesis explores the ethical representation of negative affect in the novels of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy through a study of narrative. Previous scholarship regarded negative emotions in Victorian stories as a sublimated excess to the structure of sympathy. While recent criticism seeks to recuperate a political dimension to ugly feelings, the consensus remains that novels of the canon reject non-cathartic affect: they promote nobler passions at the expense of minor ones. My project challenges this assumption that negative feelings disable the production of major works. I argue that they are neither subservient to the imperative of sympathy, nor exceeding formal control and closure. Rather, their marginality to the didactic discourse spotlights their pervasiveness in the story spaces. Their compression by conventional endings formalises the lived experiences of the many, whose struggle for an ethical middle lies afield from the individual epic. Through the lens of an unsympathetic poetic, I map the site of ugly feelings by asking what does not feel right in the novel. The presentation of narrative compromise as a moral choice betrays a rupture between form and valence; it implicates the reading of moral necessities as a formal tyranny. This asymmetry between storytelling and value-making complicates realism’s claim to authenticity. An aesthetic of the ordinary elevates potentialities in the individual, by also delimiting them to a provincial context. In this framework, petty emotions do not merely serve the lesson of overcoming egoism. Felt by the protagonists and minor characters alike, those sub-moral reactions mark the threshold between heroism and the everyday. While the exemplary individual may triumph over the small social conditions, the common he represents stands in evaluative judgment of that transcendence. Ugliness as a collective standard resists the formative logic of the Bildungsroman. Subtending the complexities of quotidian life, then, is a constellation of the “neighbourly”; an interpersonal horizon occupying the middle distance between fellowship and detachment.With the three canonical realist novelists, I analyse the compounded nexus between narrative and affective discontent. In Jane Eyre and Villette, I study a passive-aggressiveness in Brontë’s first-person narration. The narrator’s withholding displaces personal meanings from the vicinity of story. As local outbreaks of aggression reveal the boundary of interiority, an emotional intent becomes deflected from the content of expression. For Eliot, I read the affect of blame in conjunction with endings as a mechanism of judgment. From Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss to Middlemarch, the closural impulse towards a retributive justice increasingly yields to a dynamic of lateral distribution. The novel’s capacity for moral deliberation produces negative states of deferral and compromise. Like the first two authors, Hardy registers the torsion between the general and particular and the tonal instability it creates. Together, Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the d’Urbervilles articulate a dialectic of irony and sincerity, which Jude the Obscure unravels. In embracing lateness, Hardy’s final novel also signals the end of a minor ethics in negative affect.
by Marta Sánchez RomeraDepartamento de Filología Inglesa, Francesa y Alemana, Universidad de MálagaMay 2026Throughout this dissertation project, I will provide some context on how Victorian values affected the relationship between women, creating a bond that sometimes went further than a simple friendship. Since the category ‘’lesbianism’’ did not exist and homosexuality was widely seen as bad, Victorians romanticised these friendships and were blinded to the fact that something deeper could occur between them. In order to reflect all this, after giving some historical context and theory, I will analyse Villette by Charlotte Brontë, in which there is a clear subtext of sapphic desire, with the aim of revealing how lesbianism was portrayed and seen in the 19th century.
by Sara MaltonJournal of Victorian Culture, vcag014, https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcag014 (July 2026)This essay focuses on the nineteenth-century ‘fasting girl’, a phenomenon scrutinized in medical writing and the popular press, as well as the period’s literature. Fasting girls were typically purported to survive on only the Eucharist and sips of water – for weeks, months, or even years. They often became objects of intense public interest, alternately the locus of legal and medical enquiry or sites of pilgrimage. In evoking earlier fasting saints, whose behaviour was considered anorexia mirabilis, the fasting girl claims to embody the miraculous consequences of devotion to her saviour. The medical establishment would increasingly seek to discredit this earlier understanding of fasting. Cases such as that of the Welsh girl Sarah Jacob (1857–1869), who has been ‘resurrected’ by authors from Dickens to Emma Donoghue (in her recent historical novel, The Wonder [2016]), were at the nexus of this transition from the perception of self-imposed starvation as redemptive sacrifice to pathologized illness, anorexia nervosa (1873). Dickens offers varying treatments of fasting women in his journalism and his portrait of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841). Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley (1849) identifies maternal healing as a tonic to destructive, idolatrous forms of self-starvation. Finally, in its depiction of dangerous religious devotion and the limits of medicalization, The Wonder offers us a prism through which we can critically examine the ongoing cultural construction of the fasting girl. Collectively, the texts considered here invite a more thorough confrontation with the religious dimensions of female self-deprivation and its vexed relationship to female agency.
by Paloma Ríos PrietoAdvisor: Ana Isabel Zamorano RuedaUNED, 2026La tesis doctoral que se presenta en este documento pretende ofrecer una panorámica completa de la producción literaria de la escritora del siglo XIX Anne Brontë para demostrar que el tipo de voz, discurso y los enunciados que la autora va empleando progresivamente a lo largo de la vida. Su trayectoria literaria comenzó como escritora de composiciones poéticas contextualizadas en un universo de ficción denominado Gondal y continuó con una poesía confesional que le sirvió como instrumento para expresar todo tipo de sentimientos, ilustrando una proyección autobiográfica de la interioridad, de su yo más íntimo y personal. Mientras que la voz y el discurso inicial de la escritora se focaliza en una atracción por el mundo de la fantasía, la aventura, la sensibilidad por el paisaje y la naturaleza que la rodeaba, su crecimiento personal se corresponde con la evolución o maduración en su discurso, presentando en la poesía que no pertenece a su universo de ficción un discurso aún más intimista, introspectivo y de autoexploración confesional en el que destaca el análisis de la fe o el sentido general de la vida. La escritura de Anne Brontë también comprende un ensayo dialogado entre dos personajes no identificados conocido como Brotherton Manuscript en el que la autora presenta el debate entre la razón y la fe en relación con el origen de la Tierra. Por otro lado, en las dos novelas, Agnes Grey y The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, publicadas con menos de un año de diferencia, predomina el discurso moral y social, pero fundamentalmente didáctico para reformar situaciones de desventaja social y legal para las mujeres y los niños del siglo XIX. Si la voz de la escritora Anne Brontë comenzó con una predilección por la fantasía, terminará sus últimas líneas con un discurso de realismo social con dimensión feminista que la convierte en una figura pionera en el pensamiento de reforma social que resuena incluso hoy en día. La problemática en torno a la figura y obra de Anne Brontë reside en la escasez de documentos de primera mano que se conservan de ella, en la abundancia de leyendas que la han situado en una posición periférica en relación con sus hermanas, además del proceso de censura e incluso silenciamiento que su obra ha tenido hasta el último tercio del siglo XX. Esta investigación aspira a recuperar la voz de Anne Brontë tanto en su producción poética como en la narrativa, revisando de igual manera, la evolución que ha habido en la crítica literaria con el objetivo final de contribuir en el proceso de reconocimiento literario que su obra merece. La difusión y visibilidad independiente de Anne Brontë como pensadora adelantada a su tiempo se hace necesaria para reconocer y valorar su contribución en la mejora de las condiciones sociales, económicas y legales para las personas pero de manera más específica para los niños y las mujeres. Este estudio espera ser una contribución relevante en el conocimiento científico en el campo de los estudios de género en España, al no existir ninguna tesis doctoral centrada de manera exclusiva en la obra y figura de la escritora Anne Brontë.
Dr. Suvam Nath SharmaDrishti : the Sight # Vol.- XV, Issue - I (May, 2026-October, 2026), pp 122-126The Brontë novels possess canonical status because they refuse exhausted historical meaning and maintain resistance to singular interpretation across generations. Reading the Brontë canon through the lens of weird fiction and contemporary theory reveals how these works systematically dismantle Victorian moral certainties and domesticity’s illusory stability. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë wrote texts that expose moral nihilism as an affective condition wherein established ethical frameworks prove radically inadequate to comprehend human experience and desire. Rather than offering reassurance, these novels stage the eruption of the numinous within domestic interiors supposedly secured by convention. Heathcliff’s demonic force, Bertha Mason’s mônstrum-like presence, and Helen’s recognition of her husband’s fundamental vacancy all constitute manifestations of this numinous threat that dissolves selfhood’s boundaries. Reconsidering the Brontë canon through weird fiction’s diagnostic apparatus illuminates how Victorian comfort depends upon elaborate denial and repression of forces that exceed rational explanation and moral categorization. The permanence of moral chaos and numinous danger in these works constitutes their enduring philosophical wisdom for contemporary readers who inhabit moments of ideological hardening and moral certainty.
Women, Autonomy, and Resistance in Victorian Fiction: A Study of Jane Eyre
Pallavi Bhardwaj. Ritu Sharma and Simran KambojJournal of Technical Education, Vol. 49 Special Issue No. 1 April 2026, p. 116Victorian literature frequently reflects the rigid gender hierarchies embedded within nineteenth-century British0 society. This paper explores the theme of women’s autonomy and resistance in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë within the socio-cultural framework of Victorian England. The novel critiques patriarchal authority and redefineswomanhood through a protagonist who asserts moral, emotional, and economic independence. Through an examination of Jane’s psychological development and key narrative moments, the study argues that Jane Eyre anticipates feminist thought and serves as a foundational text in Victorian feminist discourse.
Esther Liu Godfrey, University of South Carolina UpstateVictorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature, Number 149, Summer 2026, pp. 141-161This essay argues that Gen Z readers, equipped with a vernacular psychological literacy derived from social media and therapy culture, are uniquely positioned to reread Wuthering Heights through a diagnostic gaze: a feminist interpretive practice that recognizes the novel’s psychodynamics as patterns of abuse rather than passion. While feminist critics from Deborah Lutz to Arielle Zibrak have examined the liberating potential of portrayals of desire, contemporary students bring to the text a democratized therapeutic vocabulary—terms such as trauma bond, coercive control, and enmeshment—that reframes the dangerous lover’s allure as pathology. Drawing on pedagogical encounters and the cultural afterlife of Wuthering Heights in Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, and Emerald Fennell’s recent film adaptation, this essay traces how Wuthering Heights persists as a cultural trauma loop: a dopamine-driven cycle of harm and reconciliation that masquerades as romance. Integrating insights from Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Naomi Booth, Jack Halberstam, Christine Jarvis, and Sandra Lee Bartky, I contend that therapy-speak, often dismissed as reductive pop psychology, instead informs a feminist discourse capable of dismantling the aesthetics of romanticized abuse. The diagnostic gaze thus offers a mode of reading that neither pathologizes desire nor romanticizes domination. By recognizing Catherine and Heathcliff ’s relationship as a model of dysregulated attachment rather than transcendent love, Gen Z readers illuminate new ethical possibilities for teaching and reading Brontë today: not the cancellation of Wuthering Heights, but the recovery of intimacy itself.
Santos Zunzunegui Díez, Universidad del País Vasco - Euskal Herriko UnibertsitateaSERIARTE. Revista científica De Series Televisivas Y Arte Audiovisual, 10, 45–58 (2026)Recuperando una idea acariciada durante más de veinte años largos años y con la complicidad esencial de uno de sus mejores guionistas, Julio Alejandro, Buñuel lleva a cabo una adaptación de la gran novela de Emily Brontë, Cumbres borrascosas, transponiéndola desde los áridos páramos ingleses a las ardientes tierras mexicanas. Pero sobre todo insertando el amor imposible y transgresor que la novela describe en la tradición hispánica de la más pura necrofilia con la finalidad de proponer una ilustración cinematográfica de uno de los versos más célebres de nuestra literatura, ese «polvo enamorado» que cantó Quevedo, como destino final de cualquier amor.
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‘A hot July day’: Editorial Introduction
pp 211-213 Author: O'Callaghan, Dr. Claire
Research Articles
Rediscovering Anne Carus Wilson
pp. 214-229 Author: Burstein, Moriam Elizabeth
Abstract:
This article recovers the work of Anne Carus Wilson (1787–1859), who was the wife of William Carus Wilson (1791–1859), the model for Mr Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre (1847). Anne Carus Wilson has been ignored in accounts of the Brontës, despite her known involvement in the Clergy Daughters’ School. Now virtually forgotten, Carus Wilson was a successful children’s author in her own right, whose output during the 1820s and 1830s included short fiction, a novel, multiple devotional works, periodical articles and a children’s biblical card game. This article argues that analysing her surviving work clarifies how she and her husband may have disseminated their Evangelical Calvinism to students at their various schools, even as she sought to model forms of Christian activism for British children in general.
‘Let me try to wait His will in silence’: Silence and Faith in Jane Eyre
pp. 230-244 Author: Lewis, Ariadne
Abstract:
Silence in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) is often unfavourably contrasted with the power of speech and ‘telling the story’. However, the novel’s silences are much more complex than simple signs of oppression or roadblocks to self-expression. Silences in Jane Eyre reveal Jane’s spiritual growth and a narrative of transformation in her relationship with God and Rochester. Jane initially reads God as silent in response to her prayers, which reading shapes her understanding of divine providence and plan for her life. She sees a similar sort of silence reflected in her earthly relationships, and these experiences of silence shape how she uses silence towards those around her. However, when the ‘mysterious summons’ breaks God’s silence, Jane comes to believe that there is a providential purpose behind the silence of God, allowing her to redeem and repurpose silence in her relationships.
‘Amusing you with an old world story’: Relating to the Past in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
pp. 245-257 Author: Walters, Elijah
Abstract:
This essay revisits the topic of narrative structure in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) by exploring similarities between Helen’s diary and John Bunyan’s The Life and Death of Mr Badman (1680). As Brontë’s novel shifts from the Gilbert frame narrative to Helen’s Gothic diary, she introduces her topics of reform through an interpolation of Bunyan’s seventeenth-century fiction. Brontë’s careful interaction with Bunyan’s text makes The Tenant of Wildfell Hall not simply a commentary on Victorian society but also a transformative engagement with literature from the past.Why Trees Matter in Wuthering Heights
pp. 258-275 Author: Defant, Ivonne
Abstract:
Trees are not a remarkable feature of the Brontë moors—trees are indeed rare–yet their very dearth is rife with significance in terms of both gender and ecology. This article proposes that the trans-corporeal interplay between trees and Catherine Earnshaw and her daughter, Cathy, in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) foregrounds ideas of transformation, connection and preservation. The episode of the fir tree in Lockwood’s dream introduces the reader to Catherine’s past and therein the past of the moorland: ancient forests that once blanketed the landscape participating in its formation. Drawing upon an intersection between matrilineality and the ecological history of the landscape centred on the arboreal, this article demonstrates how Brontë interweaves the identity of the moorland with the identities of mother and daughter. While Catherine’s arboreal embodiment allows Cathy to retrieve the spirit of the mother and of the place, trees enroot the self of Catherine, Cathy and the land, interconnecting and enriching them.The ‘Pets’ of Edward Fairfax Rochester
pp. 276-288 Author: Pope, Liam George
Abstract:
In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), Rochester’s dog, Pilot, introduces Jane and Rochester, essentially setting into motion the main plot of the novel. To use Ivan Kreilkamp’s term, Pilot eventually becomes something of an anthroprosthetic seeing eye dog for his owner when he is partially blinded following the fire at Thornfield Hall. Anthroprosthesis refers to an anthropomorphic being that fits the role of a living ‘prosthesis’ for an injured or otherwise disabled human character. This article argues that Jane, upon returning to find Rochester at Ferndean Manor, willingly replaces Pilot in his capcity as Rochester’s ‘guide dog’, becoming an anthroprosthetic human guide dog parallel.The Earliest American Reactions to Wuthering Heights: Some New FindingsSpecial Interst Article
pp. 289-297 Author: Evans, Robert C.
Abstract:
This Special Interest Article describes and quotes from over thirty ‘new’ responses to Wuthering Heights that were published in the United States immediately after the novel was first printed there in 1848 and in several later decades of the nineteenth century. These newly collected responses indicate that the book was at first strongly criticised, whereas other reviews offered occasional positive comments, although even these were often mixed with censure. In the decades following the novel’s initial American appearance, it was still sometimes described negatively; however, by the 1870s, opinion had clearly shifted, with Emily Brontë praised for her bold genius. Taken together, these reviews illustrate the vagaries of literary interpretation and the ways in which some books, initially condemned by their earliest reviewers, can eventually be fully accepted into the canon of great literature.
Book ReviewsAnne Brontë and Lord Byron: Lost Echoes of Influence
pp. 298-300 Reviewed by Cook, Peter
Violence and the Brontës: Language, Reception, Afterlives
pp. 301-303 Reviewed by Curzon, Rachel
“Wuthering Heights”, a Film Directed by Emerald Fennell, Warner Bros., 2026
pp. 304-306 Reviewed by Seijo-Richart, Maria
The Edinburgh Companion to the Brontës and the Arts
pp. 307-309 Reviewed by Stoneman, Patsy
The High Flight: 50 Poems Inspired by Emily Brontë’s Hawk
pp. 310-312 Reviewed by Van Der Meer, Carolyne
Mădălina Elena MandiciProUniversitariaISBN: 978-606-26-1773-82023In this study, the investigative focus is given by the typological analysis of the female reader postulated by three Victorian novelists – Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë and George Eliot – in Jane Eyre (1847), Wuthering Heights (1847), Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Middlemarch (1871-1872). The act of reading performed by fictional women in the English novel of the Victorian period undoubtedly requires clarifications and delimitations. The internal chronology of the texts places the biography of the female reader in the five emblematic mother texts for the Victorian period in a broader historical, cultural, educational and social process that involves, in 19th century England, the proliferation of books of all kinds, the diversification of the reading public, the relativization of the taste for reading, but also the polyvalence of the types of pleasure and instruction offered by it. The central intention of the book is, therefore, to formulate a comprehensive description of the notion of "reading", revolutionized in the Victorian era, when the author-book-reader relationship became impossible to account for, and the female audience became increasingly refined.The book is addressed not only to English scholars, but – thanks to the exegetical methodology used – also to the general, non-specialized public. What new breath can be added to iconic figures of 19th-century English literature and to the female characters created by the pens of the novelists of the time, already turned on all sides? The answer represents an opportune occasion for this work to bring into discussion, through a reader-oriented analysis, the function of reading (active, productive, ultimately propelling the recipient's desire to write and rewrite any complex phenomenon that wins the approval of the text label) – on the scene of identity changes – in the life of the woman-reader/intellectual/educated and, by extension, in the psycho-cultural destiny of the woman who reads, a woman attested historically and culturally. In the Western world, the methodological interest in the act of reading (performed by fictional and historically attested women alike) has reached, in recent decades, countless nuances and refinements. Since the interest in the female reader as represented in the Victorian novel is quite weak in the native space, the indirect aim of the work to contribute to the enrichment of the poetics of reading cannot be ignored either. The choice of the five reading examples discussed at length in the work is not at all arbitrary. In the complex game of reading within the five novels, we can discover the expansion of the English textual consciousness (in the sense of cultural anthropologists): each text refers ad infinitum to other texts, forcing the external reader to (re)read both the mother text and the embedded texts belonging to the predecessors. The ultimate goal of the woman-reader's reading is, as each bundle of hypotheses advanced in the last three sections of the book will indicate, self-reading – the scrutiny of the self through new forms of self-knowledge and legibility.
The Governess and Textual Reinterpretation: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane EyreReaders on a Social Spectrum in Wuthering Heights
Funkcje wątków gotyckich w Wichrowych Wzgórzach Emily Brontë oraz Pogance Narcyzy Żmichowskiej (The Functions of Gothic Themes in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and The Heathen by Narcyza Żmichowska)by Szklarz, WeronikaJuly 1, 2026Zarówno w Wichrowych Wzgórzach Emily Brontë, jak i w Pogance Narcyzy Żmichowskiej występują elementy charakterystyczne dla „formuły gotyckiej”. Niniejsza praca stanowi analizę porównawczą sposobu wykorzystania przez pisarki wątków gotyckich, a jej celem jest wskazanie ich funkcji w wymowie obu dzieł. Autorka wyznacza najważniejsze cechy powieści gotyckiej, przeprowadza analizę konstrukcji przestrzeni i ich wpływu na bohaterów, a także omawia kreację postaci przypominających gotyckich łotrów. Ponadto podkreślono znaczenie sił nadprzyrodzonych w obu utworach oraz wyjaśniono, w jaki sposób gotycka maska służy wprowadzeniu kwestii takich jak związki nieheteronormatywne, dyskryminacja rasowa oraz opresyjność norm płciowych. Praca dowodzi, że wątki gotyckie w utworach Brontë i Żmichowskiej nie tylko tworzą atmosferę grozy, lecz za sprawą kategorii „niewypowiadalności” umożliwiają równoczesne ukrycie i wyeksponowanie tematów niemożliwych do wyrażenia wprost. Tym samym zestawienie Wichrowych Wzgórz i Poganki ujawnia transgresyjny potencjał gotycyzmu, pozwalający na wpisanie obu powieści w szeroki kontekst społeczno-kulturowy.Both Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and The Heathen by Narcyza Żmichowska feature elements from “the Gothic formula”. The thesis is a comparative analysis of the usage of Gothic themes, and its aim is to state their functions in the novels’ message. The author of the thesis outlines the most important features of the Gothic novel, analyses the construction of the spaces and their influence on the characters and considers the characterisation of these who resemble Gothic villains. Furthermore, meaning of the supernatural forces is highlighted, and also it is explained how the gothic disguise serves to introduce issues such as queer relationships, racial discrimination and oppressiveness of gender norms. The thesis proves that the gothic themes in Brontë’s and Żmichowska’s novels not only create horror atmosphere but also, through the category of “unspeakable”, enable the simultaneous concealment and unveiling of topics that cannot be expressed directly. Therefore, a comparison of Wuthering Heights and The Heathen reveals the transgressive potential of Gothicism, which allows both novels to be situated within a socio-cultural context.
Чартистское движение в романах Шарлотты Бронте и Элизабет Гаскелл (he Chartist Movement in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell)Dmitrienko K. V.Current issues of translation, linguistics, history of literature and folklore: collection of articles from the XIV International scientific conference of young scientists dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the Department of Foreign Languages (Ekaterinburg, February 19-20, 2026). - Ekaterinburg: Publishing house "Azhur", 2026. - P. 1224-1236.This article analyzes how the Chartist movement is reflected in Charlotte Brontë's social novels Shirley (1849) and Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (1855). It examines ideas about Chartism that existed in British society and how they were depicted in women's fiction of the second half of the 19th century. Particular attention is paid to the images of the characters through which the writers convey their attitudes to the social problems of their era.
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by Elizabeth ImlayRiver Light PressISBN: 978-1068467424June 2026Did Charlotte Bronte transform the ancient tale of 'Cupid and Psyche' into one of literature's most enduring novels?In this compelling study, Elizabeth Imlay argues that 'Jane Eyre' is a bold reworking of fairy-tales dating back to the tragic myth, recast through the consciousness of a 19th-century woman seeking passionate love. By tracing Jane's symbolic journey through earth, air, fire, and water-body, spirit, passion, and reason, Imlay reveals how Bronte reshapes the story through a feminist lens, redefining love as a unity of the spiritual and the physical, making 'air' a female element.
About the author
Elizabeth Imlay, MA Oxon, was born into a Freethinking family, her father being a classical scholar and her mother a linguist. She was educated at a school for the daughters of Evangelical missionaries, where she obtained a thorough grounding in the Bible, French and Latin. She read English Language and Literature at Oxford, which at that time demanded a knowledge of French, Latin, Anglo-Saxon and Middle and Modern English. She has worked in publishing and journalism and is now a widow with two grown-up children.
Zhiying ZhangThe Explicator, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2026.2680014 (2026)Charlotte Brontë's Villette (1853) is a novel profoundly concerned with the act of looking and being looked at. Vision in the novel is never neutral; rather, it is bound up with power, desire, moral judgment, and gendered discipline. In particular, the ekphrastic episode of the Cleopatra painting in Chapter XIX has elicited substantial critical commentary and functions as a focal point for discussions of gender, spectatorship, Orientalism, aesthetics, and narrative authority. (...)
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