The Alley has totally upped its game with Elizabeth Williamson’s smart and poignant adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic 19th-century novel "Jane Eyre." With a deft combination of flashbacks, monologues and stirring scenes that include intense suffering, spooky surprises and romance, Eleanor Holdridge directs a stellar cast who handle multiple roles in a seamless fashion. And yes, even the costumes are wonderful — clever pieces that fit each dramatic moment with aplomb.John Coyne's scenic design, Alberto Segarra's lighting design and Melanie Chen Cole's sound design work well together and all are transporting, whether Jane is sitting at a desk writing a letter, or cringing in a small bed as the audience sees, hears and wonders about the odd sounds and screams that defy explanation.Brandon Weinbrenner’s casting is perfect. Houston favorites Susan Koozin and Todd Waite don’t have the leading roles, but they have multiple important ones, and their transformations are marvelous. Watching Koozin move from sweet Mrs. Fairfax to the mad woman in the attic is something to see. Ana Miramontes is convincing playing children (no mean feat!), and Melissa Pritchett, Joy Yvonne Jones and Gabriel Regojo ably round out the cast. The chemistry of all of actors seems effortless and allows viewers to concentrate on this long-ago world that still carries emotional resonance today.And then there is the amazing accomplishment that this play achieves: the turning of a long, detailed and sometimes dry read, which may be cumbersome and dated to some contemporary readers, into a model of dramatic efficiency. [...]But what we also learn is that this is a character so low on the social ladder that her very desire for change is a revolutionary thought. Such governesses were not to even entertain such radical notions that “women feel the same as men do,” or that she is a person with thoughts and feelings who should be respected and considered. Brontë’s work broke the glass ceiling on the emotional temperature such women were allowed to have — and this play captures this subversive thread, even while Jane’s modesty and restraint is believably kept intact.The play also infuses — in what is often considered to be a pretty joyless novel — a little levity and comic relief that makes the enigmatic Mr. Rochester an empathetic figure who is actually relatable (and even funny). Chris Hutchison is able to channel his talents into a role that fits him well, and let’s face it: If there is not a successful embodiment of Rochester on the stage, then everything else falls apart. Lucky for the audience, the show glimmers, no matter how intensely depressing the fog, moors and disappointments hanging around insist on being.But here is the main thing: Melissa Molano, a fine actress who has excelled on many stages all over Houston, is superlative in the role of Jane Eyre. Molano finally has a role that allows her formidable talent to shine. She is not too mousy, never over the top. Her despair and passion is completely believable, her timing always right. Her expressions convey so much and every movement counts.When she is speaking with passionate force, you listen. She is an actress who can make the unbelievable thought of a humble governess reaching some kind of happiness and equilibrium in a world that constantly pulls the rug out from underneath her completely believable and meaningful. And that is how you make a 19th-century novel that could buckle under the weight of despair something fresh, dramatic, relevant and inspiring on a 21st-century stage. (Doni Wilson)
There are plenty of meta moments in Underdog: The Other Other Brontë. It is 1837 and at the parsonage in the Yorkshire village of Haworth, aspiring writer Charlotte Brontë (Gemma Whelan), older sister of Emily (Adele James) and Anne (Rhiannon Clements), is reading her reply from the poet laureate Robert Southey, to whom she has sent her poems, asking his opinion of them.Southey is not encouraging. ‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be,’ he writes. ‘He’s a bellend!’ declares Emily.Sarah Gordon’s hilarious but ultimately moving comedy about the Brontës is a racy retelling of the sisters’ struggle to become recognised authors. Charlotte is determined to be as famous and lauded as the likes of Southey, but her ambition results in her overshadowing Anne, the full extent of whose talent was not acknowledged until long after her premature death.The banter between the rival siblings is very sharp, there are some brilliant bits of business and much fun is poked at the prissy male critics horrified that such radical, fierce novels as Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall were written by women.But Gordon also invites us to think seriously about how our view of these literary giants has been shaped, and about their battle to succeed in a profession dominated by men.Incidentally, Charlotte really did write to Southey – an audacious move for the 20-year-old daughter of a country clergyman.At the start of Underdog, Whelan wanders through the audience asking people their favourite Brontë novel. Everyone has an answer. How many people could even name a Southey poem? (Neil Armstrong)
'Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?' and 'The Wife Upstairs' by Frida McFaddenWith shades of Jane Eyre, this is a mystery about a woman who’s confined to the top floor of her beautiful home after a terrible accident. When a hired caretaker arrives, we learn more about what happened to her — and the story she’s desperate to tell. (Lizz Schumer)
5 Jane Eyre, by Charlotte BrontëBy exploring themes such as religion, sexuality, and classism, Jane Eyre was a groundbreaking novel during its 19th-century release. Still revered as one of the genre's first novels, Brontë's story of the titular character, Jane, and her maturing emotions and love for her broody boss, Mr. Rochester, is one that readers still have a hard time putting down. (McKenzie Jean-Philippe)
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë“Jane Eyre” is the story of a young woman’s life as she grows up, finds love and gets placed in some absolutely wild and wonderfully gothic situations.This novel is not only gripping from beginning to end but also feels undyingly modern despite its 19th-century publication date. The romance plot is beyond interesting and each and every side character has such life to them, but the titular character of Jane is why this book has been loved for so long and why I think most modern readers would love this book, too.Jane is so unapologetically herself and strong in her stance that she deserves more. Her first-person narration of her own life is what makes you love her from page one.I may be biased as this is a contender for my favorite book of all time, but “Jane Eyre” really is the epitome of why classics become classics in the first place: not just because a book is smart, but because a book makes you feel something. Because of that, I think it’s a must-read for anybody dipping their toe into classic literature for the first time. (Natalia Ferruggia)
Didsbury’s Fog Lane Park will be transformed into an open-air theatre this September, welcoming four spectacular shows that range from Brontë classics to modern family favourites.
Each performance comes courtesy of Heartbreak Productions, the Leamington Spa-based open-air theatre specialists who are celebrating their 31st birthday with four brand new shows.
Arriving at Fog Lane Park on Thu 1 Sep and sticking around until Sun 11 Sep, the latest season kicks off with a unique take on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, adding a carnival twist to the famous journey of the Victorian heroine. Performances will take place on Thu 1 Sep and Fri 2 Sep (BSL interpreted) at 7pm, with funds being collected for the Firefighters’ Charity.
The Moors, Aug. 13-Oct. 9, American Players Theatre, Touchstone, Spring Green: Shades of Jane Eyre: A young governess arrives at an English manor and finds nothing is as expected. The Moors is a delightful and sharp satire of the gothic novels of the Brontë sisters, written by Jen Silverman and directed by Keira Fromm. August performances are sold out; check ticket availability for September and October at americanplayers.org.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” my kindly Oxford tutor would plead, eying me nervously over our Penguin copy of Wuthering Heights. For, like Cathy, I was pale and wild-locked. However, I wasn’t a galloping consumptive, but a natural-born goth, yet to be humanised by blusher and Frizz Ease. (Hannah Betts)
1. Crimes of Passion (1980)
(...) The intense “Hell Is for Children,” inspired by a New York Times article about child abuse, included some of her most poignant lyrics. Covers of “You Better Run” (The Young Rascals) and “Wuthering Heights” (Kate Bush) provided new twists unheard on the originals – and “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” delivered one of the defining songs of the ‘80s. (Corey Irwin)
The maddened/melted female protagonist is not unique to the present day. Female authors have depicted frantic women, nearly all of whom are mothers, as far back as the 19th century. What is unique to these modern works, however, is the direct identification of parenting — and, in some instances, the children themselves — as the source of madness.(...) Women in literature have lost language, coherence, and belief before. Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” (1899), Antoinette Cosway in Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea” (1966), and Sophie Blind in Susan Taubes’s “Divorcing” (1969), for example, all descend into some degree of madness, but the source of their descent is their marriage, their husbands, and their society’s expectations of them as wives, not mothers. (Andrew Bomback)
[Tim] Miles says the Warner Music team uses a system called Colour Cues, which it developed to match colors representing different moods with musical works. “We are constantly looking for ways of speaking the language of creators,” he explains. “So what we have done is we have created, I think, 50 cards with different colors. So green, for example, stands for natural, beginning, unity, building. We look at scientific studies into music and color.”Not all songs are categorized on the Colour Cues system yet, but “Wuthering Heights,” for example, features there as white, which stands for dreamy. (Georg Szalai)
Avez-vous toujours voulu être écrivain ? Comment le désir d’écrire est venu à vous ?
B.T.: (...) Puis à l’université, mes professeurs m’ont encouragé à poursuivre l’écriture. Ils pensaient que j’avais un certain talent. Ils ne pensaient pas vraiment que je deviendrai un écrivain.
De mon côté, je ne pensais pas que le métier d’écrivain existait encore. Pour beaucoup, la littérature se limite aux « classiques » comme Jane Eyre ou Pride and Prejudice. Puis je suis allé à l’université et j’y ai rencontré des écrivains. (Translation)
Beschreibungen von äußerst empfindsamen Menschen gab es bereits in der Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts, etwa in den Werken von Goethe, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf und den Brontë-Schwestern. Das Phänomen ist dennoch umstritten. Die einen sehen darin eine Pseudo-Selbstdiagnose von Menschen, die nach Anerkennung oder Aufmerksamkeit suchen. (Nathalie Clobert) (Translation)
Il pizzo si sa, è sinonimo di femminilità e romanticismo, ma se proprio non vi sentite eredi di Jane Eyre, provate a indossare lo chemisier in sangallo con una cintura alta in vita e anfibi neri. Per un look ro(ck)mantic indimenticabile. (Rebecca Bruni) (Translation)
Estadão (Brazil) reviews the series The Essex Serpent:
A Serpente de Essex é menos Drácula e Frankenstein e muito mais Jane Eyre e A Inquilina de Wildfell Hall, portanto. (Cristhiano Agiar) (Translation)
Love words of wisdom (including a quote by Emily Brontë) in Liputan6 (Indonesia).
We are grateful to The Theatre Company for providing us with the opportunity of listening to the podcast version of their production of The Moors by Jen Silverman.The Theatre Company presentsThe Moors by Jen Silverman
Available for Streaming October 9 - 24, 2020Directed by Brandon WoolleyStage Manager - Nicole GaldwinSound Design - Adam SmithSound Engineer/Mixer - Justin PhelpsOriginal Music Direction - Merideth Kaye ClarkCast: Sasha Neufeld (Emilie), Dana Millican+ (Agatha), Kelly Godell (A Moor Hen), Paul Glazier+ (A Mastiff), Jen Rowe+ (Huldey), and Lorraine Bahr (Marjory).
The Moorsby Jennifer SilvermanDirected by Brandon WoolleyAvailable for streaming October 9-24.With Lorraine Bahr as Marjory, Paul Glazier as The Mastiff, Kelly Godell as A Moor-Hen, Dana Millican as Agatha, Sasha Neufeld as Emilie, and Jen Rowe as Huldey.Original Music Direction by Merideth Kaye Clark.Sound Design by Adam Smith.The Moors, a bold, theatrical satire by Jen Silverman, takes us on a wild ride through the beautiful and the dangerous while upending gender politics. Sisters Agatha and Huldey reside on the bleak English Moors. Their Mastiff has a bad case of ennui. The maid has strategic multiple personalities. A crash-landed Moor-Hen can't remember anything. A young governess has just arrived from London. The rooms in the house all look strikingly similar. And no one can seem to find Master Branwell. This Brontë-inspired gothic is Grey Gardens meets American Horror Story meets Calvin & Hobbes. The rules are always changing, and that's the only thing anyone can rely on.
And another one bites the dust...This has been a very complicated and difficult decision to make, but we’ve decided to close Taborspace for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, 2019. There hasn’t been any known exposure of the Coronavirus at Taborspace, but we believe it's our responsibility to help keep people safe. Thank you for your support and understanding. We plan to reopen Taborspace on Monday, March 30th, but that will remain tentative as news and information progress.
The Theatre Company presentsFurther information on Broadway World.
The Moorsby Jen SilvermanMarch 18-March 30- April 11, 2020
Directed by Brandon Woolley
Taborspace
5441 Southeast Belmont StreetPortland, OR, 97215
Agatha (Dana Millican) and Huldey (Jen Rowe) are two sisters residing on the bleak English Moors. When Emilie (Sasha Neufeld), a young governess arrives from London, things begin to go awry. She meets the maid (Lorraine Bahr) with multiple personalities. And can't seem to find Master Branwell. The Mastiff (Paul Glazier) has a bad case of ennui and the crash landed A Moor Hen (Kelly Godell) can’t remember anything. This bold, theatrical satire takes us on a wild ride through the beautiful and the dangerous while upending gender politics and demanding visibility for its characters as they struggle to find their way in the world.
A student production of Jane Eyre is going on the West Virginian Wesleyan College:The Department of Theatre and Dance at West Virginia Wesleyan College presents
Jane Eyre
by Willis Hall
Directed by Gregory Mach
Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 21-23, at 8 p.m.; Sunday, Feb. 24, at 2 p.m.
West Virginia Wesleyan College
59 College Avenue
Buckhannon WV, 26201
“Orphaned at a very young age, raised in a home devoid of love, outspoken Jane meets her match when she is employed as a tutor for the ward of the wealthy and enigmatic Rochester. A love story full of gothic charm, secrets, ghosts, and happy endings, this is a classic period piece based on the best-selling 1847 novel by Charlotte Brontë,” said Gregory Mach, Director of Jane Eyre. The story follows Jane as she grows up, including her miserable childhood, working as a governess, and falling in love with Mr. Rochester.
The theatre department is working with guest Costumer Ruth Humphrey, a former theatre professor at Davis & Elkins College of Elkins. Ruth is working with student Costume Assistants Jessie Zito of Baltimore County, MD and Brandon Ulrich of Roanoke, VA to costume Jane Eyre. The Stage Manager of this productionis Caitlin May of Arthurdale, WV and her assistant is Mikayla Dahleger. Technical direction is led by Keith Saine, professor of theatre arts at WVWC. The Sound Designer of the show is bri conley of Roanoke, VA. Delcie McCord of Crawford, WV joins as a member of the sound crew.
Jane Eyre’s two lead characters, Rochester and Jane, are played by Aaron Harris of Anmoore, WV and Taylor Pugh of Glen Jean, WV, respectively. The remaining cast includes Wesleyan students Luke White of Weston, WV; Julian Marshall of Wheeling, WV; Savannah Teter of Girard, OH; Pippa McGinley of Morgantown, WV; Tiara Stokes of Charleston, WV; Brett Alexander Smith of Charleston, WV; and Sinead Tobin of Fairmont, WV.
The inspired idea of Christopher Ash (music) and Carl Miller (book and lyrics) is to have the Brontës star in their own “rise and fall”-style rockumentary. On they come to a bare platform to plug in microphones and start talking to an invisible interviewer, before launching into bracing blasts of song. Unfortunately, everyone has a tiresome habit of holding the microphones too close and thus distorting some of the lyrics.The Seattle Public Library Blog has a few recommendations to read beyond Book-It's production of Jane Eyre.
Twenty-seven songs is too many when a number are unmemorable, yet when the music is good, it’s very good. No One to Marry for Miles is a country-type lament from Anne (Molly Lynch), who is nearly as heavy on the eyeliner as Siobhan Athwal’s marvellously lugubrious and melodramatic Emily.
Adam Lenson’s vivid production taps perceptively into the untamed energy of this moor-roaming clan, the “nobodies from nowhere” who revolutionised English literature.
The family, and this Brontë-soaring show, is anchored by Natasha Barnes as the pragmatic, forceful Charlotte, the only sibling who married. But, the piece asks perceptively, was this a dreadful waste of her talent? (Fiona Mountford)
The Secret History of Jane Eyre. by John PfordresherAnd more on Seattle and Jane Eyre on The Stranger.
Why did Charlotte insist on hiding her authorship of Jane Eyre from everyone but her sisters? Pfordresher lays bare the painful parallels between Charlotte’s life and her novel.
Governess by Ruth Brandon
What was life actually like as a governess in the 19th century? “Not part of the family, not servants, yet not equals.” Brandon explores the economy, psychology, and sociology of governesses and the families they served.
Texts From Jane Eyre, by Daniel Mallory Ortberg
Ortberg, the voice behind Slate’s popular Dear Prudence advice column, created this hilarious collection of imagined text message conversations between famous literary characters. According to Ortberg, “If Mr. Rochester could text Jane Eyre, his ardent missives would obviously be in all-caps.”
The Brontë Sisters – Streaming Video
Heather Saycell’s 2008 film is an engaging examination of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne’s lives and their extraordinary insights into the human heart.
For additional Jane Eyre-inspired titles, check out this list created by librarians at The Seattle Public Library. (Elizabeth W)
58. On BookThe Hindu features the Nilgiris Library.
This unique book club invites you to read through the plays of the current season—Jane Eyre, M. Butterfly, John, and Office Hour—with facilitation by Makaela Pollock.
Some of the books retain their original binding with the library’s insignia. There are treasures there and thrills as one takes out The Life of Charlotte Brontë written by Mrs Gaskell. A black and white illustration of the Haworth Parsonage where the Brontës lived is guaranteed to give goose bumps. (Pankaja Srinivasan)The Sisters' Room talks about the Martin Heron's Literary Landscapes installation on the Haworth moors, just in the way to Top Withins.
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The Queen Anne staircase was sold off from Blake Hall in Mirfield, West Yorkshire (left)
and in Long Island (right)
©rossparry.co.uk
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The Huddersfield Daily Examiner gives more details of this fascinating (ehem) ghost story:Fellow Brontë enhusiast Hilary Wainwright said: 'The staircase represents a slightly more unusual connection between Mirfield and Anne Brontë.'Some will know she worked as a governess at Blake Hall for nine months in 1839 and she depicts her experiences there in the first half of Agnes Grey, renaming the hall 'Wellwood' and the Ingham family the 'Bloomfields.'
'That house was demolished in 1954 and, although the interior parts were dismantled and auctioned off, their fates were lost in the mists of time.
'With one exception. Due to a short article in the Mirfield Reporter back in the 1960s, the wonderful Queen Anne staircase, hand-carved in burled yew, went to a London dealer.
'He then sold it to Allen and Gladys Topping, an American couple he met at Kensington Antiques Fair in 1958 and they installed it in their house on Long Island, New York.
'The story goes that Mrs Topping saw a ghost on the stairs in 1962. Was it Anne? Who knows?
'Having checked this much out, our 'Miss Marples of Mirfield' made inquiries abroad but things did not look promising.
People seemed to think that the house had been lost in one of the many hurricanes that occur so commonly there.
'The breakthrough came when a keen local librarian suggested contacting the Quogue Long Island Historical Society and they tracked down the exact location of the house and contacted the current owner. (Annabel Grossman)
The figure, her hair in a bun, was dressed in a long, full skirt with a tri-cornered shawl. Her demeanour was described as “pensive.”
Mrs Topping’s dog Mr Wyk became agitated and backed away and when she spoke gently to calm the animal the figure disappeared.
Mrs Topping, whose husband founded hardware firm Topping Bros in Manhattan, seemed convinced Anne’s ghost had been exported 3,000 miles with the staircase.
In 1966 she told a newspaper, the Toledo in Ohio, that at the moment the figure vanished she mentally asked who it was and was told “Anne Bronte.”
Mrs Topping, who had visited the moors around Haworth to walk in Bronte footsteps, added: “Since then I have not seen her again. But I often feel her presence.
“I hear footsteps and, occasionally, rappings and other noises. Mr Wyk hears them too and his ears go up and he trots to the stairs.
“But Anne – if, indeed, it is Anne – apparently does not wish to reveal herself anymore. She seems content just going up and down the stairs.” (Martin Shaw)
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| Pocket Books 7, 1939. Cover by Isador N. Steinberg |
For it was one thing to reprint literary classics, like “Wuthering Heights” (a big seller for Pocket Books) or the tragedies of William Shakespeare (which de Graff regarded as a loss leader). Selling classics and critically acclaimed best-sellers for a quarter was a way of democratizing culture, which has been an impulse in American life since the days of the Library of Useful Knowledge and before. (...)The Telegraph & Argus reviews the new edition of Chris Firth's Branwell Brontë's Barber Tale (Electraglade Press):
[Paula] Rabinowitz’s quite valid point is that when we look back on the mass-market-paperback phenomenon it’s hard to keep the Emily Brontës separate from the Mickey Spillanes. In the same year that Signet published “I, the Jury,” it also published reprints of books by James Joyce, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Arthur Koestler. Paperback publishers made no effort to distinguish classics from kitsch. On the contrary, they commissioned covers for books like “Brave New World” and “The Catcher in the Rye” from the same artists who did the covers for books like “Strangler’s Serenade” and “The Case of the Careless Kitten.” (Louis Menand)
Irrespective of whether you accept anecdotal evidence supporting Chris Firth's belief that Branwell invented the character of Heathcliff, not his sister Emily, any decently-written mystery thriller involving that strange family in the parsonage on the hill is likely to prove compulsive reading - especially on a cold winter's day at the darkest end of the year.The Stir lists 'lovely' literary baby names:
In Firth's novel Branwell Brontë's Barber Tale, George MacCraw makes the claim which, in real life, was made by schoolmaster William Oakenshaw in two Halifax newspapers. Chris Firth subsequently supplied material to two linquistic experts to compare Branwell Brontë's style of writing and the style of two editions of Wuthering Heights - the original 1847 version and the amended version that was edited by Charlotte Brontë.
The familiar story of Branwell the waster addicted to opiates and drink, the shame of the upwardly aspiring Brontë family, is reversed in Firth's novel. Branwell is the victim, not the culprit. (...)
The revenge he plots is elaborate, slightly far-fetched, but fully in keeping with the Burke and Hare gothic horror element threading the last 60 pages of this largely enjoyable tale.
I was hoping for stories about encounters with the rest of the Brontë family, but the pastor and his daughters remain in the background. Instead MacCraw's wife Caroline, a less interesting character, provides the romance - until her death in suspicious circumstances in Bradford. (Jim Greenhalf)
Jane: Like Charlotte Brontë's beloved heroine, Jane Eyre, this name has a lovely, understated moxie. (Stephanie Booth)Vox is quite mistaken about the 'class privileges' of the Brontës:
Dickens easily empathized with such children living in poverty, coming, as he did, from a poor childhood himself — a fact which set him apart from many other English authors, like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, who enjoyed the social and class privilege of their births. (Brandon Ambrosino)Autostraddle posts a top ten of queer and feminist books of the year:
10. Texts From Jane Eyre is a compilation, including new material, of Mallory Ortberg’s popular texts from series. The point is less that popular canonical literary characters have phones, and more that depicting them through vapid, hilarious text message means they are dismantled, with a dash of misandry. (Carolyn)Meta Wagner makes a confession in The Boston Globe:
While I can resist seeing “The Interview,” I wish I were immune to the addictive charms of video, in general. I’d like to claim that I spent this past year reading the literary classics that have eluded me, like “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights.” But, instead of reading, I spent the year binge-watching “Orange is the New Black,” “House of Cards,” “Alpha House,” “Breaking Bad,” “Scandal,” “Nashville,” “Girls,” and, so far, seasons one through five of “Grey’s Anatomy.” And so did you.Not the only confession today. Julie Stroebel in The Ottawa Times makes a list of things to do in 2015:
Read more classics. (I've never read "Jane Eyre" or "Little Women.")Texas Homepage lists the recipients of the 2nd Andrew Raymond Duncan Memorial Scholarships:
Lydia White is a 19-year old sophomore at Southwestern University studying Languages and Dance. She has always enjoyed being a student, and before graduating from Rider High School in Wichita Falls, participated in the Rider Marching Band, Applause, productions at Backdoor and Wichita Theaters, and ballet at Dance, Etc. Lydia identifies with how Charlotte Brontë once described Jane Eyre: "[Her] past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance, the present was vague and strange, and of the future [she] could form no conjecture." Nevertheless, she watches for the continued blessings of Jesus Christ in her life as well as the potential adventures that may come to pass near and far. (Summer Rascoll)Cobertes incorrectes (in Catalan) mentions the infamous cover of the Penguin 1989 edition of The Professor with the 1853 Wilkie Collins portrait by his brother Charles Allston, in the cover.
In summer, 2010, the University of Lincoln and historic design consultant Allyson McDermott were approached by the Parsonage to begin an analysis of the available evidence, with a view to coming up with a new, more historically accurate scheme of redecoration.the Brontë Sisters is a bit surprised by the white-painted study quoting Ellen Nussey describe its walls as dove-coloured.
As well as historical and scientific analysis, a wide range of contemporary sources, including watercolours and letters by the Brontës, was also referenced. This rigorous £60,000 programme has informed the creation of bespoke wallpapers, new curtains and painstakingly woven rugs.
It was all there as we looked around, without some of the curtains, which will be coming soon to add the finishing touches. To give a few examples, Mr Brontë's Study has been distempered in plain white, because no evidence could be found that it was ever papered, and the Dining Room now follows Charlotte's own decorative scheme from the early 1850s. The curtains are still in the process of being specially woven, in crimson, to match Elizabeth Gaskell's description. According to forensic analysis, the room was papered both before and after Charlotte's 'gentrification', and the chosen paper is a contemporary design, in scarlet to match the curtains. Several years ago, a scrap of wallpaper was found in Branwell's Studio which can now be dated to the Brontë period. Allyson McDermott matched it with an almost identical sample - also contemporaneous with the Brontës' time - which was found inside a housemaid's cupboard at Kensington Palace. The wallpaper has been reproduced.
Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights is an excitingly fresh and distinct take on the classic novel by Emily Brontë. (...)
Arnold's film is a beautiful and evocative visual masterpiece that brings out the powerful emotions at the heart of Brontë's classic novel, resulting in a viscerally affecting love story. It is a sweepingly old-fashioned tale of family, class, and romance told in a bracingly modern way by one of contemporary cinema's most gifted and unique filmmakers.
Jane Eyre: The Byronic hero of the 19th Century, Edward Rochester is, as critic Lord Macaulay would have described "a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection." After surviving an abusive childhood, Jane Eyre enters the gates of Thornfield Hall as a governess where she meets the love of her life. Soon, Jane stumbles upon Rochester's closet of dark secrets and learns about his wife Bertha Mason (the mad woman in the attic). Jane is upset about Rochester's possible marriage plans to Blanche Ingram but to her delight he proposes one evening. Sinister interventions prevent their marriage to realise and Jane leaves Thornfield. It is when she is about to give into a missionary's life that she feels Rochester's voice is calling out her name. On an impulse she goes back to Thornfield only to find it reduced to ruins and a handicapped Rochester sitting desolate. Charlotte Brontë reunites the couple after a series of struggles and hardships to establish that love wins all battles. (Ipshita Mitra in The Times of India)
Lovers of classic romance will be thrilled by Charlotte Brontë’s timeless love story, Jane Eyre, the newest addition to Book By You’s personalized classics. (Virtual-Strategy Magazine)
Romance novels, in one form or another, have been around virtually as long as writers have been penning stories. Some of the more famous ones were written by the Bronte sisters and also by Jane Austen. Many of these early novels are resurging in popularity as Hollywood takes them and converts their tales into movies. Those box office dollars often translate into increased demand for the early works. An original first edition of a Bronte or an Austen novel can be worth thousands of dollars, depending on the rarity of the edition. (Kenneth Gloss in The Somerville News)The Guardian Express has an article about the singer Kelly Clarkson:
An avid reader, Kelly says her favorite book is “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë.The Spec reviews The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by Catherine Reef:
In the midst of current pseudo-Victorian steampunk and romances, Reef’s biography of the Brontë sisters 1820-1855 strikes an intelligent, honest note.The Hindu talks about an eternal topic, novels and films adapting them:
Reef describes the imaginative games of the Brontë sisters’ childhood, their stern (and for two sisters, fatal) education, limited travels and passionate literary works — Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
She offers a wealth of information about the period, all the while vividly conveying the country ways and vibrant, energetic imaginations of the three writers.
“There’s a fire and fury raging in that little woman,” the writer Thackeray once remarked of Charlotte; that comes through clearly, as does the girls’ creativity and devotion to one another. (Deirdre Baker)
While enough has been said about how a movie can never replicate the feeling and emotions of a book — yeah Sir Larry was nowhere close to the Heathcliff in your head (Wuthering Heights), nor the Ents (Lord of the Rings) for that matter, there have been some movie adaptations that have worked absolutely brilliantly and swept the Oscars as well. (Mini Antikhad Chhibber)Dudley News informs of an event which includes an open rehearsal of the Hull Truck's production of Jane Eyre:
The Mayor of Dudley, Councillor Melvyn Mottram will officially open the new-look facility at 11.30am ahead of an open rehearsal of Dudley Little Theatre’s forthcoming production of Jane Eyre from 12pm.PopDecay remembers Catherine Hardwicke's directing of the first film of the Twilight series:
The event will conclude with a ukulele group performance at 12.30pm.
In 2008, Catherine Hardwicke became the most commercially successful female director in Hollywood, when she directed the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling novel, “Twilight,” starring teen heart throbs Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson. “Twilight” was the first in a series of five romance fantasy films, “The Twilight Saga,” which has grossed over $2 billion in worldwide box office receipts. New York Press critic Armond White called “Twilight”, “a genuine pop classic”, and praised Catherine Hardwicke for turning “Meyer’s book series into a Brontë-esque vision.”The Independent reviews the paperback edition of What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan:
Is There Any Sex in Jane Austen? How Much Money is Enough? What Makes Characters Blush? These are among the questions posed by John Mullan in this collection of astute and appreciative essays on Jane Austen.Vijesti (Montenegro) interviews the writer Slavici Perović:
The approach, with its attention to detail, determination to solve puzzles, and respect for the text, is reminiscent of John Sutherland's approach in Is Heathcliff a Murderer? (Brandon Bradshaw)
Čoserova žena iz Bata me fascinira i dan-danas, literarno rješenje naracije u Tristramu Šendiju Lorensa Sterna ne prestaje da me oduševljava, Džejn Ostin i sestre Brontë na neki način su sestre Erike Džong i rođake svih modernih žena. (Milica Radović) ( Translation)La Vanguardia (Spain) reviews La hija de Juan Simón by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia and produced by Luis Buñuel (1935):
Como muestra de ello, citaré tres secuencias de la La hija de Juan Simón: aquella en la que interviene Carmen Amaya (comentada por el propio Buñuel en Mi último suspiro), el paso de Angelillo por la cárcel –y las pintadas en las paredes que nos muestra la cámara en diversos planos (con alguna referencia a la República)–, o la secuencia del cementerio, donde hay algo del sentimiento de pérdida de la mujer amada que encontramos en la magnífica Abismos de pasión (1954), aunque sin el arrebato (ni la calidad) de la adaptación de Cumbres borrascosas, la novela de Emily Brönte (sic). (Lluís Laborda) (Translation)Christian Books Examiner reviews Julie Klassen's The Tutor's Daughter:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though not quite as much as Klassen’s past couple of novels. It reminded me of both Jane Eyre and The Secret Garden with unexplained things happening in the night. I learned a great deal about schooling during this time period which I found fascinating. (Christin Dicker)Southern Author interviews the writer Baldip Kaur:
Are there any authors you admire? In classics Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and Brontë. Current authors John Grisham, James Patterson etc.Ideas de Chicas (in Spanish) and The Signal Express post about Jane Eyre 2011; Bitten Books reviews Catherine by April Lindner; Too Long; Didn't Read briefly posts about Wuthering Heights 2009; A Corner of the Library reviews Jane Eyre.
In Wuthering Heights, York plays storyteller again in her role as Nellie, the maid who narrates Emily Bronte's windswept classic in April de Angelis's new stage version. "I modelled her on a lovely Scots woman I've known since childhood," York says of her character. "She has this wonderful sense of humour that's quite ironical, and I decided I'd make up stories about her that weren't in the book but which give her some kind of background. There's a line where she says, There are worse than Mr Heathcliff,' so I made up this story that she'd had an unhappy marriage and escaped to work in the house. At the end she says, This is my life.' Cathy and Heathcliff are her surrogate children, and she sort of scolds them, but watches over them as well, and in some way tries to teach them some sense of right and wrong. I suppose Nellie is the conscience of the story; Cathy and Heathcliff are her babies." (Neil Cooper)South from Edinburgh is Brontë Country, which is the subject of a long article in The New Zealand Herald, with pictures. However, the article is either old or wrong, as it states, for instance, that the Thornton birthplace is still owned by Barbara Whitehead and open to the public, which it no longer is.
It's a tale which doesn't really start here in Haworth, but about 10km away in the village of Thornton.But the article is not all wrong, of course, and suggests sites of interest around Brontë Country:
I didn't go there myself - too much Nettle Thrasher - but Rev Bronte was curate in Thornton from 1815 to 1820 and it was there that Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were all born.
The old parsonage where they lived is still open to visitors; these days it is owned by novelist Barbara Whitehead and fellow-writer Bernard Mayston, who proclaim on their website that they are "gradually restoring the interior to the Regency period when it was the home of genius". (Jim Eagles)
Visiting Haworth - even though the shops are full of Bronte ticky-tack - you almost feel as though you're walking in the pages of one of their novels.Incidentally, the local newspaper of that area, The Telegraph and Argus, reports the rise in TB figures we have seen lately. It seems as if no self-respecting journalist can write about TB without mentioning some of its most famous victims:
On our first visit we drove across the tops in a howling blizzard, along the way passing the lonely ruins of a huge old house, and I could have sworn I saw a wraith-like figure swirling outside and heard a plaintive voice crying, "Heathcliff, Heathcliff".
Apart from the tower, little remains of the Church of St Michael and All Angels which Rev Bronte preached in - it was extensively rebuilt in 1881 - but the stolid, sombre atmosphere, with two old ladies in dark coats and warm hats silently polishing the brasswork, is very much as I imagine it would have been in their day.
Most of the family were buried in a sealed vault under the church, but in 1964 the locals built a Bronte Chapel on top, and a plaque marks the spot where their black oak pew once stood.
Surrounding the church is the graveyard where centuries of stone memorials - including those of the Brontes' servants Tabitha Aykroyd and Martha Brown - are jammed together, shaded by dark pine trees and green with age. Beyond, across a protective ring of stone walls, are the unchanging moors and a pathway leading to the great grey pile of the parsonage.
Since 1928 this has been owned by the Bronte Society, which has done a magnificent job of preserving the building and furnishing it with the chairs and tables, clocks and beds, diaries and letters, clothes and nick-nacks they used.
As a result you can wander through the kitchen, Rev Bronte's study, Charlotte's bedroom, Branwell's studio and, best of all, the dining room where the young women did most of their writing, looking much as it would have when they were producing their masterpieces.
Upstairs, in a gable added to the parsonage by Rev Bronte's successor, there's a permanent exhibition on the story of this remarkable family.
You could easily spend a day absorbing the fascinating memories of Charlotte, Emily and Anne and their work ... but out in the surrounding countryside there are more sites associated with them still to be seen.
Alongside the path between the church and the parsonage, for instance, you'll spot a brightly painted building which now houses a childcare centre but was once a school where Charlotte taught.
A helpful map of Haworth and Bronte Country, put out by the English Tourist Board, identifies sites like:
* The village of Cowan Bridge, near Kirkby Lonsdale, where what is now a private residence once housed the Clergy Daughters' School which the girls attended.
Conditions were harsh - Maria and Elizabeth both died of tuberculosis shortly after returning home - and the school was portrayed as Lowood in Jane Eyre.
* Roe Head School, near Kirklees, where Charlotte, Emily and Anne studied and Charlotte later taught.
* Blake Hall, near Dewsbury, and Thorp Green, a hamlet close to York, where Anne was a governess.
* St Mary's Churchyard in Scarborough where Anne is buried (the only member of the family not to lie in Haworth).
* Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse at the end of a 10km round-trip walk from Haworth, said to have been the model for Wuthering Heights.
* The ruins of Wycoller Hall, near Colne, The Rydings, in Birstall, and Stonegappe, at Lothersdale, which respectively became Ferndean Manor, Thornfield Hall and Gateshead Hall in Jane Eyre. (Jim Eagles)
All three of the Bronte sisters died young from the illness.Well, actually it's not quite so sure that Charlotte died from TB. The more widespread theory is that hyperemesis gravidarum killed her.
Caitríona Ní Cheallaigh (13) is currently reading Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë. She prefers Emily Brontë to Charlotte, though she's "not sure why". Caitríona reads "any chance I get - I read when I go to bed at about 9pm for an hour, and I usually read while Im eating".Now for one of the weirdest things ever: a Japanese man who wants the Japanese Governemt to legalise marriage between humans and - erm - cartoon characters. And where's the Brontë connection of that? Well, it opens a can of worms when it comes to Heathcliff and Rochester, according to the Examiner.
As well as the Brontë sisters, she really likes Eva Ibbotson, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. (Catherine Foley)
Book character lust is nothing new. [...]Filmmaker Margarita Jimeno shows her true colours as a Brontëite in an interview on Spout Blog.
I've long hypothesized that what a woman REALLY wants from a man is their unwavering and unswerving devotion. Just take a look at the literary men that lady readers throughout time have swooned over--Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights? Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre? Again, Mr. Darcy and Edward Cullen? What do these men have in common? They love only one woman and will do anything to get her love in return. If that doesn't light a woman's fire, I don't know what will. (Michelle Kerns)
How, if at all, has reading informed your filmmaking?Categories: Brontëites, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Theatre, Wuthering Heights
It has very much, especially when writing characters. I think here’s where I’m influenced the most. Because you are usually reading into the character’s mind, it has been very helpful when I’m directing actors too. I think human understanding would take at least 3 lifetimes, but thanks to literature you can spend a couple of years and you have a very broad understanding. Of course I’m talking about classic literature, like Bronte, Dostoevsky, Austen, Conrad, Orwell, Steinbeck, Voltaire, etc etc etc. (Brandon Harris)
Rare photographs illustrate a new book marking the 80th anniversary of the Brontë Parsonage Museum.The Akron Beacon Journal reviews the on going exhibition in the Akron Art Museum
A Room of Their Own celebrates the museum's past and features never-before-seen see pictures from its archives.
Sarah Barrett's £4.50 book offers a short history of each of the rooms in the former home of the Brontë sisters.
There is also information and the garden on the cellar, plus information about Brontë family members, servants and visitors to the house.
The 24-page book, completed with a chronology and bibliography, is on sale at the museum in Haworth. (David Knights)
, Ohio :Bill Brandt: Shadows and SubstanceAs we have posted before, one of Bill Brandt's subjects was Brontë country:
May 31, 2008 - August 24, 2008
Isroff and Bidwell Galleries
Bill Brandt, England’s greatest twentieth-century photographer, began as a photojournalist and became a poet of light and shadow. Decade by decade, Brandt (1904 – 1983) moved toward evermore radical dualities of black and white, not just in his new photographs but also in his printing of older images. This resulted in his own reinterpretation of his earlier work. Bill Brandt: Shadows and Substance presents 67 photographs from throughout the artist’s career. All are vintage prints, providing a rare opportunity to see the work as the artist originally conceived it.
Brandt also documented the countryside as landscapes steeped in the English literary tradition, capturing the settings of famous British writers, such as Emily Bronte's immortalization of the bleakness of the Yorkshire moors.Now, some book reviews. The Japan Times reviews The Last Concubine by Leslie Downer but has a slightly biased image of Wuthering Heights:
It took him several tries, but he finally found his image after a winter hailstorm frosted the moors and a high wind flattened the scant vegetation, resulting in Top Withens (''Wuthering Heights''), Yorkshire Moors (1945). (Dorothy Shinn)
These include a meaningful encounter with an unkempt but attractively Heathcliff-like masterless ronin. When it came to such men, "She felt a strong fascination for these unfamiliar creatures with their odd, slightly repellent odor. Men though they were, they were of much lower status, so much so that the fact she was a woman and they men was rarely relevant."
Or so it seems at first — but it is a law governing such epic sagas as this that the well-born heroine should eventually end up in such alien arms. It was thus in "Wuthering Heights" that Catherine Earnshaw is last seen in the hirsute embrace of the lowly Heathcliff, and this is what romance heroines have been doing ever since.
Emily Bronte's recipe has proved a lasting one and it continues to nurture, at its lower end, the Harlequin romance series and, at its higher end, this exciting historical novel. One could call it a "bodice-ripper" except that the ladies of the shogun wore no bodices — how about "obi-slasher"? (Donald Richie)
The other reviews are of well known books in these newsrounds: Margot Livesey's The House on Fountain Street in The Globe and Mail:
Less satisfying to the reader are the overt parallels between The House on Fortune Street and Jane Eyre, as well as Great Expectations. The 19th-century flavour of the narrative, its mirroring of similar tropes of discovery and disappointment and betrayal, is so obvious as to overwhelm its strengths. (Aritha Van Herk)And Ruth Brandon's Governess: The Lives and Times of the real Jane Eyres:
The appeal of fiction's most famous governess — Jane Eyre — is the romance, of course. Take away the happy ending and what have you got?Inspire Emotion posts a letter from Charlotte Brontë to M. Heger and highlights her drawings. Chainless Soul has posted several posts recently that deserves attention: comments about some Brontës poems, Wuthering Heights and how Sabrina, the Teenage Witch meets Wuthering Heights (in the episode The Long and Winding Short Cut, 3x22, 4/30/1999, written by Carrie Honigblum & Renee Phillips, complete transcript here) Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry, References, Wuthering Heights
Well, you've got the penury and abuse that made up the lives of most actual governesses in 19th-century Britain. Luckily for historian Brandon, the fascination of history does not depend on happy endings, although there is enough melodrama and injustice to fill a Thomas Hardy novel or two. Or six. (Lynn Harnett in The Seacost)
Pollack movies, such as the tragicomic romance The Way We Were (1973) and the exhilarating show-biz comedy Tootsie (1982), shot into the realm of beloved classics usually reserved for Old Hollywood love stories such as 1939's Wuthering Heights (one of his own favorites) or romantic comedies such as 1940's The Philadelphia Story (another Pollack favorite). (Michael Sragow)The New Zealand Herald has an article on 'mad women' (that would be its not very politically correct description anyway). Journalists never fail to surprise us. You would expect a reference to Bertha, the 'mad woman' in English literature par excellence, wouldn't you? Well, you get a short allusion to Cathy instead.
It's easy to get carried along in the throes of a romantic passion for a man who's "mad, bad and dangerous to know" but love is far more difficult to sustain when endearing quirks and idiosyncrasies blossom into full blown neuroses and /or personality disorders as a host of women, from Wuthering Heights' Cathy to Kate Moss have found out to their cost. (Noelle McCarthy)Hermione Buckland-Hoby writes in her Guardian blog about virtual bookshelves, but ends her post with a funny anecdote regarding the traditional bookshelf.
It's wonderful for finding new books, but an equal pleasure is to be had from making kneejerk character judgements: I've just stumbled upon a bookcase with one shelf devoted to classics with a capital C: War and Peace, Jane Eyre and co are all lined up with rigid neatness, each one perfectly pristine in its jacket and clearly untouched. And on the shelf below them? A dog-eared sprawl of much-thumbed Bernard Cornwells.But haven't we all seen similar things? Some bookshops sell books by the foot even.
I doubt that anyone acquainted with Emily Bronte’s novel pronounces wuthering, as in Wuthering Heights, with the vowel of strut, though the name Wuthering does have such a vowel. (Anatoly Liberman)Monsters & Critics reviews Ruth Brandon's Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres. And Crescent Moon Book Reviews gives Shirley a 10/10.
The National Newspaper (United Arab Emirates) finds Jane Eyre references in Daoud Hari's The Translator. (More on these previous posts)Early in Queen Victoria's reign, 30 percent of adult Englishwomen were single - and considered, as one social commentator put it, "redundant." If of gentle birth and no means, without a family to care for, an extra woman naturally sought work as a governess. Living in another family's home made romance unlikely and isolation inevitable, with poverty and unemployment always on the horizon. It was a grim life, grimmer still because it was the only choice open to many. As Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre decides, "I want this because it is of no use wanting anything better."
In "Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres," Ruth Brandon covers about 80 years in the profession, concentrating on the era when a rising cadre of nouveaux riches and an abundance of single women came together to make the at-home lady educator a household staple. Few of the 25,000 governesses in England in 1851 were employed past the age of 40, since most families preferred to hire malleable young things, despite the dangers of youth: husbands and sons could always be tempted. (Witness Mr. Rochester.) (...)
It's surprising that Brandon didn't devote a chapter to Charlotte Brontë and her sisters, given her frequent references to the governesses in novels like "Agnes Grey" and "Jane Eyre." Those famous novels could have benefited from an analytical eye. Brandon is also a fiction writer, and she leans heavily on the novels of the period to provide cultural background; she might have spent more time exploring the ways in which a novelist's imagination transformed the governess's actual experience. (...)
The shorter chapters about hitherto overlooked women are far fresher. In 1784, Agnes Porter entered the new profession early enough to eke out a quite pleasant existence with an earl's extended family. Just a couple of decades later, however, Nelly Weeton's letters and diaries recorded suffering to rival Brontë's most gothic moments: a cruelly selfish brother, nasty employers with nightmarish homes and a disastrous marriage entered into, apparently, solely for the chance to bear a child of her own. (...)
Young women today," Brandon notes, "grow up in the world that Mary Wollstonecraft dreamed of." While that may be too sunny (and novelistic) a conclusion, at least we're better off than poor Nelly Weeton, with more to hope for than Jane Eyre. (Susann Cokal)
Despite its harrowing content, this is not a bleak book. Seamless digressions evoke Hari’s childhood, a vivid blend of traditions stretching back thousands of years and fragments of Western culture – novels like Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre along with Clint Eastwood movies. His love of the natural world and of camels in particular is transcendent. (Hephzibah Anderson)Alice Walker's daughter, Rebecca, writes in the Daily Mail about her relationship with her mother and quotes a poem of hers with a Brontë reference:
I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers. Virginia Woolf was mentally ill and the Brontes died prematurely. My mother had me - a 'delightful distraction', but a calamity nevertheless. I found that a huge shock and very upsetting.On the blogosphere, Mi Butaca reviews (very unfavourably) Wuthering Heights 1939, Old Fogey briefly reviews and classify several Jane Eyre adaptations in an excellent and highly recommended. Check it out. Ratatosk's Acorns posts about Janians (for Jane Eyre) vs Catherinites (for Wuthering Heights).
We swear that we didn't do it :P.An investigation has begun after it emerged some English students in Bedford were given the wrong books to study before an exam.
About 20 AS level English Literature students had read Wuthering Heights by mistake, Redbourne Upper School said.
The mistake was noticed before the exam had begun and the school informed the examination board.
Headteacher Nigel Croft said it was "not a major issue" and that no student would be disadvantaged.
Letters have been sent to parents notifying them of the error and the school's inquiry into how the mistake occurred.
Jane Eyre, who not surprisingly finds herself in the subtitle of this informative book, is in the minds of many people the archetypal governess, yet there could have been few less typical either as to character or destiny. Her creator, Charlotte Bronte, though, knew her stuff on the subject from personal experience: She had herself been a governess at the beggarly salary of 20 pounds per annum. (Martin Rubin)The mention is quite accurate:
(...) I am fairly stablished in my new place. It is the family of Mr. White of Upperwood House, Rawdon. The house is not very large but exceedingly comfortable and well regulated; the grounds are fine and extensive. In taking the place I have made a large sacrifice in the way of salary, in the hope of securing comfort by which word I do not mean to express good eating and drinking, or warm fire, or soft bed, but the society of cheerful faces, and minds and hearts not dug out of a lead of mine, or cut from a marble quarry. My salary is not really more than £16 p.a., though it is nominally £20, but the expense of washing will be deducted therefrom. My pupils are two in number, a girl of eight and a boy of six. (Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, 3 March 1841)Not to the first time that Hillary Clinton gets compared with the Brontës, but certainly the first time the reference goes deep into Brontë criticism:
In their landmark book of literary criticism "The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination" (1979), Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar were among the first to spotlight this noxious theme, this isolation and ridicule of powerful women by labeling them crazy, hysterical, perverse, monstrous. To challenge male domination—of the world, or just of oneself—was to be risk being marginalized, ostracized, locked away like Rochester's wife in "Jane Eyre" (1847), the fate that gave the book its title. In real life, behavior that strayed from the polite, demure norm expected of women in the 19th Century was rewarded with psychiatric evaluations and often, imprisonment and death. (Julia Keller in The Chicago Tribune)AudioBookTreasury.com has published an audiobook version of Jane Eyre. Read by several free contributors, you can listen to all the chapters here.
The fillies outnumber the colts in the Gowran Park Rooftop Restaurant Race, in which Summit Surge is highest-rated but must give considerable weight to all his rivals. However, Ger Lyons' charge ran a nice race in better company last Sunday at Leopardstown and should go very close. Charlotte Bronte is hard to assess and her strength in the market will be helpful in determining her prospects. (Johnny Ward in The Independent (Ireland))Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Audio-Radio, Books, Jane Eyre, References, Weirdo
Today we have nannies, but in the 19th century they had governesses. If the word calls to mind a person forlorn and severe, the reason may well be Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel, "Jane Eyre." Most of us can conjure up a mental picture of governess Jane.Probaby not the best day to talk about Gordon Brown but we have found this article in The Times about Alison Jackson's works which once again contains a mention to his 'Brontë features':
By design, she is outwardly unremarkable. Small, quiet, with pulled-back hair and a dress of subdued gray, she's a plain Jane indeed. Internally, though, she's volcanic. As a 10-year-old orphan foisted on malign relatives, Jane can be filled with rage and an eerie imagination. As a 20-year-old governess, she feels an idolatrous love for her master, Edward Rochester. We chart Jane's maturity by watching her channel her passions. Ultimately, she emerges triumphant over her awful cousins, her tall blonde rival, the mad wife who is revealed living in the attic, and even over the still loving but chastened Mr. Rochester. Jane ends up independently wealthy with the man she wants. How realistic can this portrait possibly be?
In "Governess," Ruth Brandon considers the case studies of six governesses -- "The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres," as the subtitle has it. Taken together, their lives span a generous century from 1750 to 1860 and suggest that, between the fiction and the reality, there are many alarming points of similarity and a few quietly tragic differences.
Most of the melodrama in "Jane Eyre," it turns out, mimics upper- middle-class social dynamics of the era. A sudden reversal of fortune, such as the death of the male head of the family, could push a gently bred and moderately educated girl out of the lady-of-leisure class and into the mass of workers. (That's some ignominy, we working women might say.) But along with social demotion, the young woman would forfeit any chance of marriage. Even worse, she would be a silent but suffering witness to the life she had lost: She was neither mother nor wife, neither servant nor mistress -- although she took on some duties of all these. The governess might be scorned by the mother she was substituting for, insulted by the children who capitalized on her lack of authority and seduced -- or simply seized -- by the men of the family. (Alexandra Mullan)
It's as bad as trying to find a Gordon Brown. Despite castings in the UK and global searches she can't find anyone to play him, “which is annoying as you don't know how long he'll be PM. The problem is he has very old-fashioned looks, Heathcliff or Rochester, tight breeches, muddy lanes, high collars, lambchop face. I've just found an odd-job man in Bulgaria who might fit the bill actually.” (Tim Teeman)The Brontë horses make it to the news yet again. This time through Charlotte Brontë which, according to The Irish Examiner:
Tobar Na Hinfe hinted at ability first time out at Limerick and stepped well up on that subsequently when beaten a head by the useful Charlotte Bronte at Naas. (Pat Keane)As for the blogs: La tormenta en un vaso writes in Spanish about Mary Cholmondeley's Moth and Rust and finds something similar to Jane Eyre. Mes 3 soleils brings to our attention a biography on Emily Brontë in French by Jeanne Champion called La Hurlevent. Also in French, Madame Charlotte reviews La Recluse de Wildfell Hall, not very favourably, though. Sarah's Bookarama reviews Justine Picardie's Daphne.
Not even Charlotte Brontë's most famous heroine had a story to match the tangled lives of these real-life governesses. (...)And The Telegraph:
Charlotte Brontë, creator of one of fiction's most famous governesses, Jane Eyre, was herself one, and pressed the experience into fierce creative service. But, as Ruth Brandon compellingly describes in Other People's Daughters, the plain facts were as dramatic and often more traumatic. (Salley Vickers)
By the way, The Independent on Sunday apologizes for its Howarth-instead-of-Haworth spelling mistake last week in this article:Nineteenth-century novels that contain one of these troubled creatures form a genre of their own (think of The Turn of the Screw, Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey, The Eustace Diamonds).
Mrs Pryor, the governess in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley, realised that men saw her as 'a tabooed woman' to whom 'they were interdicted from granting the usual privileges of the sex', and it is this taboo which fascinates Brandon. A tabooed subject, she argues, is 'mysteriously and threateningly desirable. So the governess... today ranks alongside the nun as a sexual fetish: the most powerless of women transmogrified, by an ironic twist of fate, into the dominatrix'. (Frances Wilson)
We had a headline that managed to misspell the name of one of Yorkshire's most famous towns – revered as the place where the Brontë sisters were brought up and one of the North's greatest literary shrines ("Brontë moor and Inca Mountain. More similar than you think, says Howarth's [sic] twinning group").Another book review that mentions the Brontës is from the Baltimore Sun: The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman (an inveterate Brontëite).
"Don't you know or don't you care?" fumes John Metcalfe from Baildon. "It's Haworth, not Howarth. Typical southern ignorance. You probably come from the same school that misspells Middlesbrough 'Middlesborough' and pronounces Newcastle 'Newc-arse-sell". "What's so exciting," snarls Stuart Binns from Northallerton, "about Haworth being twinned with some trendy travel destination like Machu Picchu? I'd rather spend my hols in the Pennines any day."
Sensible choice, Mr Binns. But this was merely a slip – unforgivable, admittedly – for which we apologise. No slight intended. And as for "southern softies", it's worth pointing out that the editor-in-chief of 'The Independent' is Manchester born and bred, and that the editor of this newspaper is a proud Scot. (Michael Williams)
There is always someone dead or dying in a Hoffman novel; the metaphor of the mortality and immortality of love is one of her most compelling literary conceits. The ghosts in Hoffman's novels are palpably real, as is the one in The Third Angel. These ghosts evoke and invoke the transitory nature of love; they are breathlessly alive with their eternal, pulsing emotion driving them on, haunting their beloved as well as the reader, just as Heathcliff did Cathy - and generations of readers - on the English moor. (...)The Indianapolis Business Journal traces a profile of Jill Long Thompson, who runs for the
Some critics have minimized the complexity of Hoffman's work by referring to her, with a barely disguised sneer, as a romance writer. Well, Hoffman is a romance writer, but then so were Flaubert, Proust, the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen. (Victoria A. Brownworth)
As a child, Thompson read the Bronte sisters and dreamed of becoming a professional baton twirler. (Peter Schnitzler)GulfNews discusses why we are more fascinated by evil, by negativity than by positivity:
Look at literature, the most unforgettable characters are those that personified evil - Macbeth, Heathcliff, Ebenezer Scrooge. Perhaps we remember them because in the end they were redeemed. (Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary)Heathcliff's redemption? Maybe in some twisted way... but Macbeth's?
S. read this recently and was surprised to find how much she disliked it. The problem was the narrator, William Crimsworth, whom she found self-absorbed and xenophobic (not good qualities in a teacher abroad). (Chris)While William Crimsworth is not our favourite Brontë character for many reasons it should be born in mind that his attitudes, his views of the world are defined by the context in which he was born. Judging a character from a modern-day viewpoint is not wrong per se but judging him solely on that basis might leave us with a confused understanding of him. While William Crimsworth may not have been the most amiable of characters back in the 19th century he had also his good, unconventional points as is the fact that he consents to his wife continuing to work after marriage, for instance.
(...) What made it even more emotional (for me, at least) was that the Parsonage had brought out the original manuscripts of Branwell Bronte's poems that Daphne had purchased from Symington, and later donated to the Parsonage (or perhaps returned them to their rightful home, given the shady circumstances under which Symington had acquired them). Added to which, one of Symington's nephews was in the audience last night, and afterwards, he told me a story that I had never heard before, about Alex Symington's murky involvement with a forged Bronte letter... So the story I told in "Daphne" had a sequel last night...Categories: Books, Haworth, In the News, References, Talks, The Professor, Translations
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