12. Bradford, EnglandThe northern English city of Bradford is finally poised to step out from the long shadow cast by its giant Yorkshire neighbour, Leeds, as it takes its place as the 2025 UK City of Culture. A fabulous year-long programme of events includes the re-opening of the National Science and Media Museum, plus innovative celebrations of local cultural icons: more than 400 works by Bradford-born artist David Hockney held in a Unesco World Heritage 1850s mill; new digital takes on a fantasy world dreamed up by the famed literary Brontë sisters; and a musical programme mixing an electronic bassline symphony, old factory folk music, brass bands and South Asian sounds.
Haworth was the home of the famous Brontë Sisters. The parsonage that was their home is now a fantastic museum open to visitors. From their home, visitors can walk in the footsteps of the Brontes, exploring the wild moors and ruined houses that inspired them to create a collection of memorable Gothic novels. Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Bronte in 1847 is the one most embedded in the landscape of Haworth today as a ruined farmhouse ‘Top Withens’, reputedly the inspiration for ‘Wuthering Heights’, can be found on the desolate moor. (Lauren Jones)
When you think of the Gothic genre, you probably picture ominous weather, crumbling manor houses, and women fleeing in flowy nightgowns, candelabras clutched in their trembling hands. But Gothic isn’t simply a dark and stormy aesthetic. Like so many things in art—and life—it’s about power. Who has it, and what they’ll do to hold onto it. Who doesn’t, and what they’ll do to acquire it.That, perhaps, is why Gothic themes work surprisingly well in so many types of stories. When I first came up with the idea to retell Gothic classic Wuthering Heights with elite figure skaters, I—in true Gothic heroine fashion—thought I was losing my mind. The idea seemed unhinged at first, but Emily Brontë’s themes of oppressive power structures, class differences, and family secrets mapped seamlessly onto the glamorous, scandalous skating world. And so my glittery and Gothic novel The Favorites was born.
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest HemingwayHemingway’s first best-seller has all the big Ernie tropes: spare style, courageous and conflicted men, and beautiful and tragic and tragically beautiful women. The novel follows an ambulance driver working on the Italian Front in WWI, as he grapples with war, God, and his love affair with a British nurse. Pretty standard stuff, I think we can do better.Any of the women in this book would be excellent characters for an Ahab’s Wife or Wide Sargasso Sea treatment, or could serve as the emotional center of a quiet, introspective novel where the nurse, Catherine, survives the war and her American lover, to live at the foot of the Swiss Alps with her child. (James Folta)
Fri 17 Jan, 7:30pmJoin us on the anniversary of Anne Brontë’s birth, as we hear from Adelle Hay, author of Anne Brontë Reimagined: A View from the Twenty-first Century, for an inspiring talk about the youngest Brontë sister.The facts of Anne’s life and subjects of her work often don’t match with the meek and mild image of the Anne Brontë of popular culture. We’ll uncover what we can learn about the real Anne by looking at her novels and poetry, discussing why her legacy remains relevant to new readers almost 200 years later.If you can’t attend the live event, a recording will be sent out afterwards.
A packed programme of events begins with the opening of From Haworth to Eternity: the Enduring Legacy of the Brontës, on February 1.As filming gets underway for the latest Brontë screen adaptation – Emerald Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights – the exhibition will focus on how the many previous film and TV adaptations of Charlotte, Emily and Anne's novels have impacted the village.Also being launched that day is improved visitor provision at the museum – its first fully-accessible toilets and Changing Places facility, whose opening will be marked with a free talk about the Brontës' experience of hygiene and sanitation.Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, says: "2025 is an incredibly exciting year for us as we join the rest of Bradford district to celebrate our time in the spotlight as UK City of Culture."As well as a packed programme of exhibitions, events and activities, plus our new visitor facilities, we’ll be taking a closer look at perceptions of the family and its home as seen through the eyes of other writers, filmmakers and literary tourists over the last century and more."It’s entirely appropriate that the Brontës and the village where they lived and wrote their world-renowned novels and poetry continue to be celebrated over 200 years after they were born."Ann Dinsdale, the museum's principal curator, says: "The first literary tourists started to appear in Haworth in around 1851, following the publication of Jane Eyre. From then on, the village became a place of pilgrimage, increasingly so with each and every screen adaptation."In From Haworth to Eternity, we can look back on the first of these – filmed in Haworth in 1920 – through flyers and photographs saved in our collection, continuing to one of the most recent, Sally Wainwright’s To Walk Invisible."The 2025 museum programme will include a range of talks, in person and online.Amongst those featuring in the online events are author, 'BookTuber' and chair of the Brontë Society trustees, Lucy Powrie; award-winning playwright and theatre director Polly Teale, and Dean de la Motte, author of Oblivion: The Lost Diaries of Branwell Brontë.There'll also be family-friendly activities during school holidays. (Alistair Shand)
Not far from Salts Mill is the seasonally open East Riddlesden Hall, where the 2009 BBC adaptation of Wuthering Heights was filmed. The Brontës themselves didn’t live far from there – their former family home in Haworth, the Brontë Parsonage Museum, can be visited. (Fiona McKenzie Johnston)
In my latest novel, The Favorites, I wanted to write about this dynamic in a way I haven’t seen much in fiction. My champion ice dancer heroines Katarina and Bella both want to win, and they aren’t shy about saying so.They aren’t your typical cutthroat frenemies, though. Sure, there’s some sabotage and drama (I mean, it is a figure skating saga loosely based on Wuthering Heights.…), but through it all the two women celebrate their mutual ambitions and drive each other to keep leveling up. Together, they reach greater heights than they could ever have alone.
Consider, for instance, the forthcoming movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, from Saltburn director Emerald Fennell. While the film is still in the early stages of production, fans have loudly criticised the casting of its lead characters, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. The famous literary figures will be played by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi respectively.Audiences will have to wait until the film is out in cinemas to determine whether or not the “miscasting” allegations hold water. (Louis Chilton)
Grapefuit Lab's presentsJane/Eyre
Original songs by Teacup Gorilla and Dameon Merkl
Adapted by author/musician, Miriam Suzanne
January 17—February 2, 2025
Buntport Theater
717 Lipan Street, Denver CO
We're remounting our popular queer rock adaptation of the gothic novel! Don’t believe the hype about Mr. Rochester, this book is much more than a single romantic plot-point.
Teacup Gorilla and Dameon Merkl have recorded the music in advance – available on vinyl, or anywhere you like to stream. Enjoy to the singles below, order the record, and reserve your tickets for the live show!
This show includes loud music and water-based fog and haze effects. Feel free to reach out if you have questions.
Don’t believe the hype about Mr. Rochester, this story is much more than one romantic plot-point. “The novel has a defiant attitude from page one of the preface, refusing to be set aside” says Miriam Suzanne, who plays in the band and narrates as an older Jane, looking-back on the action. “Brontë and Jane don’t just have a story, they have an agenda.” Julie Rada plays Brontë on stage, as she and Jane create the story together — or despite each other. Denver actress and BETC company member, Lindsey Pierce, plays Jane in-the-action, with Joan Bruemmer-Holden, company member with Boulder’s The Catamounts, providing all the additional characters, from Rochester to several women “friends” that Jane also considers living with in the novel.Grapefruit Lab is the combined vision and multimedia experience of Julie Rada, Kenny Storms, and Miriam Suzanne. We strive for a more just and humane world through hybrid performance, embracing the queerness in human experience, where collaborative art is an ongoing practice of radical community and collective healing. We are humans first, and performance is an embodied process for imagining, exploring, and deepening our humanity. “We want to make art without assumptions,” Suzanne says, “Art that humanizes, and entertains, and challenges, and brings you into conversation.” (Stephi Wild)
If you grew up in the city, Bradford’s cultural history was drilled into you from an early age. The names Forster, Priestley and Brontë were inescapable, as was the annual school trip to the Industrial Museum to relive life as it was when Bradford was a booming textile centre. [...]But Bradford 2025 has worked hard to reflect the city’s culture now. Creative director Shanaz Gulzar (who lives in Keighley) has put together a programme that doesn’t just lean into the tried and tested big names. Yes, David Hockney and the Brontës feature, but so does bassline house remixed with an orchestra, while the working-class plays of Andrea Dunbar are placed, as they should be, in the centre of the city’s literary landscape. [...]But talking to Gulzar at the launch, she told me the things she is most excited about are capital projects that should give Bradford’s cultural institutions more longevity: public toilets at the Brontë parsonage, or facilitating the Peace Museum’s move to Salts Mill. The budget is being used to plug some pretty big holes, at a time when local councils are completely removing arts funding and securing grants for capital projects is getting harder. (Lanre Bakare)
A lack of hotel rooms could hamper the growth of tourism in West Yorkshire despite Bradford's City of Culture year, a report has found. [...]The strategy named parts of West Yorkshire that could be promoted more effectively, including Haworth's Brontë links, Saltaire, the National Science and Media Museum and Bradford's curry culture.The strategy also stated: "Some areas have low awareness among consumers, and perceptions are sometimes negative i.e. "northern and industrial"."West Yorkshire is a relatively meaningless concept to consumers who tend to think of either Yorkshire or individual places or products like Holmfirth or Bradford, for example." (Chris Young and Charles Heslett)
But why Wuthering Heights?“Well, I’ve always loved it. If you’re a Brit, you’ve read it, you’ve seen it, heard the Kate Bush song. You’ve probably had to study it because it’s in all our syllabuses. So, it’s kind of in your bones,” Rice says.“I also grew up in the middle of England, and we used to go walking in the north of England. I’d been to the ruins of what they thought was the Wuthering Heights moors. It’s very, very disappointing,” she adds.But it wasn’t the moors or her bones that reminded her of the novel, but the Calais Jungle refugee and immigrant camp in France between 2015 and 2016.The camp acted as a sort of purgatory for thousands from all over the world, hoping to get a chance for a better life in Britain. Many died trying to get into the UK.“The government were choosing how many unaccompanied child migrants the British government would take in. And I just remember thinking, ‘oh my god, we are doomed if we’re not looking after the most vulnerable people on the planet’. That was when I thought, ‘wait a minute, wasn’t Heathcliff an unaccompanied child migrant?’ I went to the bookshelf, pulled down Wuthering Heights, flipped through, and there he was on Liverpool docks, dark skin, dark hair, speaking a different language.”This thread of hope, of the possibility of a better life, is woven through Rice’s adaptation. Love and romance have had their time in the Wuthering Heights spotlight. Here, they’ve been swapped for revenge, intergenerational trauma, and the breaking of cycles.“Most productions concentrate on the first half of the book, just Catherine and Heathcliff, the romance. I thought it was really important that the book’s in two halves, and the second half is hope with young Cathy and Hetton.” Rice said. “But there are these shoots of hope that allow us to navigate generational trauma, and Emily Bronte guides us through it without being totally judgmental, but saying, actually, you can fight this, if you choose.”Rice’s production is a hybrid between play and musical, with the live band, Greek chorus, and original song and lyrics.“I really wanted Cathy and Heathcliff to feel like punk rock stars. They wanted to destroy the world, both of them full of anger, full of hatred, full of energy,” she said. While Bronte and punk are not traditionally associated, there’s something that seems right about it – all that raw emotion, rebellion.“I wrote a song called Cathy’s Curse really early on. And I wanted her to look like the hottest, wildest rock star I’ve ever seen, because I felt that was her pivot point.”Although the show has been on stage for over three years, Rice is excited to bring it to a new audience.“I really hope that they give it a go, that they can’t believe how entertaining a big classic can be.“I feel that hope bubbles up and that actually, no matter how terrible the world can get, that actually, individuals can make a difference. (Lydia Jupp)
History still seeps in, and all the more so when the details have largely been forgotten or obscured. Memories of horrors that younger South Koreans can no longer name produce uncanny symptoms in their bodies and dreams. Han, who is also a poet, commands an impressive arsenal of literary devices, and in her hands, the national repression of trauma—what Milan Kundera called “organized forgetting”—even affects the weather. The pathetic fallacy hasn’t been put to such good use in fiction since Wuthering Heights. (Judith Shulevitz)
14. Jane Eyre (1943)When his RKO contract expired and he was free to work for other studios, Welles took the opportunity to play Edward Rochester in an adaptation of Charlotte Brönte (sic)’s Jane Eyre, as it would earn money for his own projects.Director Robert Stevenson mounts a handsome version of the novel from a script he wrote with Brave New World author Aldous Huxley and Welles’s one-time collaborator John Houseman. Stevenson emphasizes the gothic elements of the tale, which matches Welles’s smoldering take on Rochester’s romance with Joan Fontaine’s Jane. (Joe George)
In 1970, the remote and windswept Tan Hill Inn in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, became a film set for the adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre.Starring George C. Scott as Mr Rochester and Susannah York as the spirited and resilient Jane Eyre, the production sought out the inn for its atmospheric qualities and its striking isolation, which matched the moody tones of the story.Thanks to some incredible images brought back out of the archives, courtesy of former Northern Echo photographer Ian Wright, we have been able to revisit the day the well-known venue was turned into a film set.The Tan Hill Inn, famed as the highest pub in England, served as the perfect backdrop for the rugged Yorkshire moors described in Brontë's novel. Its weathered stone exterior and remote location added authenticity and a sense of place to the film, bringing Brontë's landscapes vividly to life on screen.Susannah York, cast as Jane Eyre, brought both elegance and tenacity to the role.Known for her fiercely independent spirit, York was a fascinating choice for the character of Jane, who defied social conventions to follow her own path. [...]The inn’s location, perched on an isolated hill in the Yorkshire Dales, is subject to unpredictable weather, which added to the production’s sense of realism, according to many accounts of how the filming went.Despite the challenges, the production left a lasting legacy for both the Tan Hill Inn and the surrounding area.Visitors to the inn often remark on its cinematic history, with many drawn to the pub for its connection to this classic film adaptation. (Patrick Gouldsbrough)
The Presence of the New Woman in Victorian, Modern, and Contemporary Literature: Jane Eyre, The Years, and The Fraud
Elizabeth Nadine Cardenas, California State University, 2024My project explores three texts that showcase the gender inequality faced by Victorian women and traces the progression of the New Woman in each text. I discuss how the New Woman emerges in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Virginia Woolf’s The Years, and Zadie Smith’s The Fraud. I argue that the New Woman is not another gender ideal for women to adhere to but rather a symbol of progress. My project looks at how the women in each text respond to the suffocating restrictions of patriarchal society and howthe desires of these women showcase the demand for equal opportunity and liberation. In my thesis, I emphasize the importance of recognizing Eurocentric feminism and the importance of considering intersectionality when discussing feminist issues. My project explores how the New Woman evolves in each novel and how each author addresses different feminist issues and desires such as equal education, financial independence, and a purpose greater than being forced into the role of housewife. My thesis argues that the idea of the New Woman is not limited to the time period in which she emerged, and hersignificance is still important to consider today. The New Woman is an icon that evokes hope for the future of women, and she is ever evolving.
‘Tales of a Monstrous Heart’ by Jennifer Delaney, published by GollanczTaking inspiration from Jane Eyre, Tales of a Monstrous Heart is a relatively new release but it had an immediate impact on us. Delaney’s debut blends gothic fantasy with romance, in turn making this a book and a story that could easily have slotted into quite a few other categories in this list. It also flips what tends to be the traditional understanding that fey/fae (the mythical beings) are one of the highest and most respected, as, here, they are continually prejudiced against. Romance or romantasy fans will appreciate the slow burn between the two main characters, Kat and Emrys, but it is the take on traditional gothic and dark academia that really worked for us.If you enjoy this book, you’ll be happy to learn it is the first in what will be a trilogy. Once you’ve read the final few pages, complete with a great cliffhanger, you will be desperate to see what happens next. (Ellis Cochrane)
The Favorites by Layne Fargo (out January 14)Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid will love this dramatic, sexy sports drama with a modern-day nod to Wuthering Heights. (It even has Jodi Picoult's stamp of approval!) Ice skater Katarina Shaw always knew she was destined for the Olympics, even without the financial or familial support to do so. But after meeting Heath Rocha, a lonely kid in the foster system, the two build an explosive relationship on and off the ice that later prompts a documentary to investigate how their passionate romance made them stars—before destroying both their careers and relationships. (Hannah Yasharoff)
The one that made you want to become an author: Jane Eyre. (Elise Dumpleton)
Secret Conversations in 'Jane Eyre'When Mr. Rochester confesses his true feelings for Jane — after she says she's going to leave Thornfield (Mr. Rochester's home where she has been working) — he does so on the gorgeous grounds of his home which was depicted by Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, England. (Alexandra Schonfeld)
Wed, 15 Jan 2025 1:00 - 2:00pmThe Black Box18-22 Hill Street, Belfast, BT1 2LACharlotte Brontë, who dazzled the world with some of literature’s most vital and richly-drawn characters, spent her brief but extraordinary life in search of love.She eventually found it with Arthur Bell, a reserved yet passionate Irishman. After marrying, the pair honeymooned in Ireland – a glimmer of happiness in a life shadowed by tragedy.That moment of joy was destined to be short-lived however, as Brontë died just nine months into their marriage. Her genius, and the aura of mystery surrounding her, meant she’d been mythologised even within her own lifetime – a process which only intensified after her death.Observed through the eyes of Mary Nicholls – who encountered Charlotte on that fateful journey to Ireland, and who went on to wed her widower Arthur –Charlotte is a story of three lives irrevocably intertwined. Bound by passion and obsession, friendship and loss, loyalty and deception – this a story of Brontë’s short but pivotal time in Ireland as never before told.Martina Devlin’s enthralling new novel Charlotte weaves back and forth through Charlotte’s life, reflecting on the myths built around her by those who knew her, those who thought they knew her, and those who longed to know her. Above all, this is a story of fiction: who creates it, who lives it, who owns it.Includes lunch.
There’s a palpable buzz circling Sydney’s theatre scene, and it’s centred on a sweeping new adaptation of Wuthering Heights set to open at the Roslyn Packer Theatre. Lovers of classic literature, fans of gripping gothic romances, and anyone keen to immerse themselves in a fresh theatrical experience will have their curiosity piqued by this production. Even if you’ve read Emily Brontë’s original novel (or perhaps devoured the 1939 film adaptation featuring Laurence Olivier), you’ll still find surprises in this latest retelling. From the pounding of a wild heart to the echo of a distant moor, Wuthering Heights promises to deliver all the passion and intensity of Brontë’s masterpiece—while offering a bold new vision for modern theatregoers.Rather than a conventional approach, this production embraces the emotional turmoil at the story’s core, matching it with an evocative set design and a cast determined to breathe new life into the classic tale. For those yet to discover the tragic saga of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, consider this an invitation: come for the brooding romance; stay for the innovative staging, complex characters, and haunting beauty of a story that’s as relevant today as it was nearly two centuries ago. (Read more)
“I grew up thinking that romantic love was the ultimate goal to strive for and achieving that was the only true prize in life that mattered,” says Emilia Vuorisalmi, an acclaimed Finnish doctor and self-confessed “love addict”. “I came from a family where my father rode bare-chested on a white horse to go and woo my mother. She, in turn, sacrificed everything to live with him in the countryside and they were together until her death. Our family was open-hearted, passionate, and everything revolved around love.”Given that Brontë-esque example as Dr Vuorisalmi’s blueprint, it’s hardly surprising that as a teenager growing up in the Finnish countryside, then later a medical student in Helsinki, the beautiful blonde was hard-wired to seek romance. (Susanna Galton)
Linguistic-stylistic features of the translation of the television series "Jane Eyre" into UkrainianAndriy Alexandrovich Kiselev, 2024, Міністерство Освіти І Науки України Запорізький Національний Університет Факультет Іноземної Філології Кафедра Теорії Та Практики Перекладу З АнглійськоїThe presented paper is dedicated to the analysis of the linguistic and stylistic features of the Ukrainian translation of the TV series Jane Eyre. The object of the work can be defined as linguistic and stylistic devices in the whole complexity of their use in the context of the Victorian era realia. The main aim of the paper lies in defining and analyzing linguistic and stylistic peculiarities of the Ukrainian translation oUkrainian translation; - evaluating the quality of the translation from the point of view of its adequacy and correspondence to the original. Stylistic devices of the original (metaphors, epithets, similes, hyperboles, euphemisms) are mostly adequately translated with a cerf the TV series Jane Eyre. It determined the accomplishment of such objectives as:- analysis of the theoretical foundations of film translation and its specifics, identification of the stylistic features in the original Jane Eyre series; - investigation of the translation strategies used for the transfer of stylistic devices, phraseology, proper names and cultural realities in the tain tendency to simplify or adapt to facilitate perception by the target audience. Phraseological units and realia required deep cultural adaptation, which was successfully implemented in translation through the use of equivalents or explanatory transformations. Proper names were transliterated or adapted in accordance with the Ukrainian language tradition, taking into account the pragmatic requirements of translation. The color of the era and socio-cultural features have been preserved due to the careful selection of lexical devices and the stylistic correspondence of the translated text to the original.
Who is the author of Jane Eyre?
Qld Year 12 English course details 2026-29: QCAA considers Stranger Things, Jane Eyre as prescribed texts. (...)Classic novels still remain with Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontё, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby all prescribed. (Isabella Pesch)
One of the artists was called Crazy T, with a rap called Bradford Boy. He’s 10, and if you think that sounds cute, I’ll tell you that the video for the song shows him tearing around on some sort of quad bike – a scourge of Bradford – while wearing a balaclava, before the video shoot is temporarily interrupted by a visit from the police. Emily Brontë this was not. (Anita Singh)
I now realise, maybe the same forces that had led a similarly home-confined Emily Brontë to create a Heathcliffe (sic), the restrictive Indian society of the 1950s, where love was a four-letter word, actually willed the Hindi films to throw up a brooding, intense and tragic hero like Dilip Kumar so girls awaiting marriage could let their angst flow with hot tears. (Mrinal Pande)
Gema Hospido.: ¿Por qué la época victoriana?V.F.: La época victoriana era necesaria. Desde que soy muy pequeña, he sido fiel seguidora de esta literatura y de esta época. Lo gótico victoriano siempre me ha encantado. Y mi padre nos ha metido a Dickens por el culo a toda la familia, porque está obsesionado. Hemos ido a la casa de Dickens, hemos presidido la mesa de Dickens, hemos tomado fotos a la cama de Dickens y hoy voy vestida de Dickens. Luego cambiamos de autor, eventualmente, cuando básicamente arrastré a mis padres a la casa museo de las Brontë. Estaba como a cuatro horas en coche de Londres. Fue un viaje insoportable. Fatal para las lumbares, todo por la maldita casa y ver el mechón de pelo de Charlotte en la vitrina, el reloj de su padre el reverendo, el páramo y los cementerios… He tenido siempre una obsesión por esta época muy fuerte. (Translation)
"I sort of thought about it like, ... it should feel like a character who had wandered into the wrong story, ... like she should be in a Brontë novel or something, and not here," [Betty] Gilpin said. (Elisabetta Bianchini)
En el Portal de la Dirección General de Escuelas, cualquier persona puede leer y descargar más de 300 obras de autores nacionales e internacionales. El Martín Fierro, Casa Tomada, Don Segundo Sombra, La Sirena y el Mar son algunos de los títulos clásicos argentinos que figuran en el sitio.Mientras que otras, como Cumbres Borrascosas, El arte de la Guerra, Orgullo y Prejuicio y El Fantasma de Canterville están entre aquellos de renombre internacional.
Solo tienes que acércate a preguntar, como en la librería Merienda de letras, situada en la plaza de Santa Marta de Badajoz, en la que la próxima lectura que comentarán los participantes será 'Cumbres borrascosas', la magnífica novela de Emily Brontë. Todavía estás a tiempo de apuntarte porque la puesta en común será el día 31 de enero a las 20.00 horas. (Translation) (Marisa García)
Elle est née un 30 juillet comme Emily Brontë et comme elle, elle joue du piano et chante depuis qu’elle est petite. Elle porte aussi le même prénom que l’héroïne de son plus grand roman : Catherine, l’un des personnages les plus fascinants des Hauts de Hurlevent. Ce classique du XIXe siècle va inspirer à l’autre Cathy, Kate Bush, une chanson qui ne ressemble à rien de connu. Elle l’écrit en une nuit, au clair de lune, et l'enregistre dans son premier album The Kick Inside. Cette chanson dans laquelle personne ne croyait et intitulée "Wuthering Heights" ("Les Hauts de Hurlevent") sera pourtant la première composition d’une autrice-compositrice à se hisser pendant plusieurs semaines au sommet des charts britanniques. (Translation)
Nessun riassunto può rendere lo sfolgorio di passioni che divampa da quel capolavoro dell’eccesso che è Cime tempestose. Ma non può dar conto nemmeno di uno degli aspetti più moderni di questo romanzo del 1847 che, anche per questo, è un classico da leggere e da studiare: la complessa struttura della narrazione, in cui diverse voci di testimoni si succedono a raccontare il dipanarsi delle vicende attraverso due generazioni. (Cinzia Perrone) (Translation)
An alert for tomorrow, January 13, in Parry, IA:
Explore literary classics from a variety of authors with our Quarterly Classics Book Club. Join the club in January as they discuss Charlotte Brontë’s best-known novel, "Jane Eyre." This classic focuses on a strong, female protagonist through an intimate, engaging first-person narrative.
The Quarterly Classics Book Club will meet on a new day and time beginning in 2025. The first meeting is from 1-2:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 13 at the Carnegie Library Museum. Books may be purchased in advance for a small fee from the library or borrowed with your Perry Public Library card. For more information, go to www.perry.lib.ia.us, visit the library, or call 515-465-3569. (Des Moines Register)
The Brontë sisters - Emily, Charlotte and Anne lived in Haworth, in the Bradford district.
As the country prepares for Donald Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, Grapefruit Lab, a hybrid Denver-based performance group, faced a question that many artists are asking themselves: What does it mean to create in this moment?“In the political climate, we had a moment of looking around and saying, ‘What are we doing as artists right now?’” recalls Julie Rada, co-creator of Jane/Eyre, Grapefruit Lab’s queer adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. “We were already working on the show, but had an existential moment about what we were doing with our art in Denver. America has major human rights issues, and our show is opening the weekend of the inauguration, so what do we have to say?"That questioning sharpened the group’s focus and clarified the stakes of their work. "During rehearsals, we realized how important it was to tell this feminist, queer story about women claiming agency in the face of oppression while remaining joyful and fun," Rada says.As a result, the timing of Jane/Eyre, which opens on January 17 at Denver's Buntport Theater, feels almost prophetic. First staged by Grapefruit Lab in 2018, Jane/Eyre brings Brontë’s 1847 novel into sharp, modern focus, using humor, Gothic aesthetics and live music by indie band Teacup Gorilla and musician Dameon Merkl to explore the constraints of gender, class and power.Jane/Eyre follows its title character, an orphaned young woman, as she navigates a life shaped by societal expectations. Her story begins in an oppressive childhood and moves through her journey as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she encounters the enigmatic and deeply flawed Mr. Rochester. As their relationship unfolds, Eyre grapples with her own agency, questioning her place within a world that limits her choices as a poor, single woman.What sets Brontë’s work apart, especially for its time, is Eyre’s unwavering defiance. She refuses to compromise her principles or autonomy, even when doing so risks her happiness or security. Jane/Eyre co-creators Rada and Miriam Suzanne leaned into the queer elements they identified in the novel.“Jane has a lot of close relationships with other women,” Suzanne explains. “We found queerness in the text. Jane is constantly talking about how beautiful the women in her life are and how much she wants to spend her life with them. Does that mean it was intended? Who knows? But does it really matter if it was intended?"Grapefruit Lab emphasizes these dynamics, drawing attention to moments where Jane expresses deep admiration and affection for the women in her life. The adaptation doesn’t erase Rochester’s role — his problematic, magnetic presence remains central to the story — but it broadens the lens to explore how Jane’s connections with women shape her identity. By doing so, the production reframes Jane Eyre as a story of fluid relationships, where love and intimacy take many forms."That's what makes it queer in the contemporary sense of the word; there's a fluidity to her relations with all the people she interacts with, from Helen Burns to Diana to Rochester," Rada says. "We're fortunate to have this language of queerness and fluidity that wasn't available then. Are these relationships experiments? How are we defining them? It's left a little open-ended even in our piece."At the same time, the team reckons with the novel’s problematic elements, including its colonialist undertones and ableist depictions. “We don't lean into this very hard, but we recognize that the book has some issues in a way that doesn’t discard or cancel people but holds them accountable," Rada notes. "In a way, that message feels more relevant than it did before."Teacup Gorilla and Merkl's live music play a critical role in this conversation. More than a soundtrack, the music serves as a narrative device, giving voice to Jane’s inner world and the Gothic mood of the production. "We're always interested in not limiting ourselves to a single discipline, and music is certainly evocative and capable of emotional storytelling in a way that text cannot always provide," Rada says. "The band creates a lyrical, Gothic, romantic mood."Songs alternate between narration and first-person reflections from Jane’s perspective, amplifying the tension and depth of her journey. Teacup Gorilla’s full-length album, Jane/Eyre: No Net Ensnares Me, drops on January 10, allowing audiences to connect with the story’s emotional landscape before they see the show. The album is a watershed moment for the band, serving as its first full-length vinyl release.“With a lot of our projects, we have this question: Is it theater or a concert?" Rada says. "You get a full album of original music played live during the show, so it is equal parts concert and theater. This feels more like a true partnership with Teacup Gorilla than our other projects that were maybe more theater-led. In this production, the two elements are not separate distinct entities but come together as the fullest expression of our artistic skills." (Read more) (Toni Tresca)
If public-domain defenders are to prevail over deep-pocketed fights to hold on to lucrative copyrights in near-perpetuity, they might have to remind the public of why copyrights expire in the first place. They could point to the many examples of derivative work that is not only genuinely creative but in fact enriches and broadens the cultural landscape. Think of the way West Side Story brought Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into a bustling, diverse, and radically different cultural setting. Or consider Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, one of five mind-expanding books recommended last week by Ilana Masad. Rhys’s 1966 response to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre fleshes out the backstory of Bertha Mason, the madwoman in Mr. Rochester’s attic, to tell an original tale about the toll of Caribbean colonialism. “Rhys’s project deals with Jane Eyre specifically,” Masad writes, “but her intervention asks us to consider other great literature in its historical and political context as well.” The novel is no less original for having been sparked by another. Like the plays of Shakespeare, who stole shamelessly himself, it serves as strong evidence that nothing will come of nothing. “Creativity,” Nevala-Lee writes, “doesn’t follow the logic of copyright law.” (Boris Kachka)
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean RhysIn Rhys’s terrific answer to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, now a classic in its own right, we follow the journey of the young woman who would eventually be known as the madwoman in Mr Rochester’s attic. Antoinette is a Creole heiress born in Jamaica – and far from the “lunatic” she was first described as. (Anna Bonet)
The Bronté Sisters explores the snow and the Brontës in her new video.
Wenmin Luo. Professor, College of Liberal Arts, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Shantou University, Shantou, ChinaInternational Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 7(12), 244-250.Emily Brontë, the renowned British novelist, employs rich imagery in Wuthering Heights, imbuing everyday objects with profound symbolic significance to illuminate and deepen character development. This study focuses on two pivotal symbolic images in the novel ‘windows’ and ‘books’ and examines their roles in exploring the themes of human nature’s distortion and restoration. The ‘window of the soul’ symbolizes internal conflict, reflecting the tension between primal instincts and civilization, while the ‘window of reality’ represents societal oppression and emotional isolation. These images are crucial for understanding the fractured realities of characters like Heathcliff and Catherine. Meanwhile, books symbolize the transmission of knowledge, emotion, and reconciliation, serving as a bridge for characters to transcend hatred and rediscover their authentic selves. By comparing the experiences of two generations, the study reveals how love triumphs over hatred, ultimately restoring suppressed and distorted human nature. Through her masterful use of imagery, Brontë not only enriches the narrative’s thematic depth but also interrogates the complexities of freedom, societal constraints, and love’s transformative power within the human condition.
There are hundreds of events in the calendar to celebrate Bradford’s tenure. David Hockney, arguably the city’s most famous son, is behind a nationwide project to get people drawing (called DRAW!), while new artworks on nearby Penistone Hill are to be inspired by Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. (Liam Kelly)
Jane EyreCharlotte Brontë, 1847This Victorian classic about an unloved orphan growing into a woman who is free, equal and passionately loved is a gothic romance, an erotic masterpiece, a work to read when you’re young, old, and all the ages in between.
Are psychopaths trendy nowadays?Yes, and it's trendy to explore and romanticize them a bit. I think of Dexter, You. In the Victorian era, the term didn't exist, villains were villains, and their motives and origins of evil were not explored. In Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, Count Fosco, one of my favorite villains, is clearly a psychopath for doing what he does, but it wasn't the same. Now, psychopaths are seen as sexy. They're in fashion.Why?For a long time it was too morbid and it was not right to dwell on these things, and now we are allowed to enter that territory a bit and assess it. The bad boy has always been in fashion. And our desensitization is growing, little can impact us and it is getting worse. We started with Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre who had the madwoman in the attic and now we are with people who shoot parents in the face. My mother would say that we are insensitive to so much violence. (Justo Barranco)
Jane//Eyre. No Net Ensnares MeThe titles of the songs are:1 – Bewick’s History of British Birds (Jane’s Theme)2 – Kind Angels Only (Gateshead Hall)3 – Resurgam (Helen’s Theme)4 – And Where in Summer5 – Paintings of the Sea6 – Some Scorched Desire7 – I Am No Bird and No Net Ensnares Me8 – There in the Darkness She Kindled the Bed
Further down the road in 2026, another Gothic masterpiece is getting reimagined for Gen-Z with Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn) putting her own spin on Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the lead roles. If the horror genre plays its cards right, we’ll be returning to the moors and crumbling castles of yore for years to come. (David Crow)
The Brontë sisters, between passion and tragedyIn the mid-nineteenth century, the Brontë sisters marked a turning point in English Romantic literature. Charlotte, Emily and Anne wrote with unprecedented dramatic energy. Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte, portrays a young governess with an unshakeable will, who faces trials and torments with dignity.For her part, Emily Brontë wrote a masterpiece of profound intensity in Wuthering Heights, a tragic tale set on the wild Yorkshire moors. The love turmoil between Catherine and Heathcliff fuels an epic atmosphere in which nature echoes the moods of the characters.Thanks to their explosive blend of dark romanticism and uncontrollable passions, these two masterpieces still inspire fascination and admiration today. (Amandine Enard-Hauger)
Jane Eyre (2011)Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is a classic piece of English literature and the inspiration for the 2011 film adaptation with the same titular name. The film stars Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender as Jane Eyre and Mr. Edward Rochester. Jane becomes the governess at Rochester's estate where strange occurrences appear to be normal. There've been many adaptations of Brontë's brilliant work, but the 2011 adaptation emphasizes gothic romance themes from the novel. Fassbender's Rochester accurately portrays the Byronic hero seen in the genre as he remains a mystery to Jane and seems to be withholding dark secrets. The film also tackles those societal issues like gender roles and classism. (Valerie Soto)
A sample of Chinese Brontë-related publication:
Yin TianjiaoInternational Theory and Practice in Humanities and Social Sciences, 2(1), 215–222, 2024Wuthering Heights is a classic British literary work written by Emily Bronte, and this paper aims to analyze the main characters in the work using Freud's structural theory of personality, which can reveal the complex psychological activities and behavior motives of the characters. In this novel, Heathcliff's wild and revengeful behaviors reflect the id impulses, driven by primitive desires and revenge mentality; Catherine's inner struggle and conflicting behaviors reflect the ego in reconciling reality and desire; Edgar Linton's behaviors, representing moral and social norms, show the regulatory power of the superego in individual behavior. This analysis deepens our understanding of the novel's characters while highlighting the value of Freud's theory in literary criticism.
Victorian Psycho, Virginia Feito (February 4)$25Virginia Feito’s first novel, Mrs. March, illustrated the inner life of a woman folded in on herself with anxiety and burdened by the assumed expectations of others. It was pure psychodrama, a picture of the kind of strangled and cloistered existence that seems to belong to a time before suffrage. So naturally, Feito’s next book is set in the 19th century. Victorian Psycho is a riff on horror-adjacent “governess in a big house” gothic stories like Jane Eyre and The Turn of the Screw. But with a twist: What if the nanny is a freaking psychopath? The novel is already getting the feature-film treatment, starring Margaret Qualley and Thomasin McKenzie. So read the book now before the paperback gets one of those horrid movie-poster covers. (Bethy Squires)
I’m close to Brontë country, so Rosa Emily Brontë is on the list and, sticking with the literary theme, we’re planting Gabriel Oak, Desdemona and The Poet’s Wife.
The Capital Exchanges in Marriages in Charlotte Brontë’s Novels
Jing H and Tao Tao, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huai’an, ChinaCharlotte Bronte (1816-1855), being famous for her novel— Jane Eyre, is an outstanding British writer in the 19th century. By scrutinizing the marriages in Charlotte Brontër’s novels with the method of textual analysis, this paper summarizes several marriage patterns, which implies the popular values for good matching and the exchange of human capital, social capital, economic capital and cultural capital in marriages. The author contends that the ideal marriage that the female writer longs for is also inseparable from the essence of exchange, which is actually a form of exchange between the cultural capital she holds and the economic and social capital in the hands of the aristocracy. As an intellectual woman of the middle and lower petty bourgeoisie, Charlotte yearns for greater exchange value in marriage with the development of society and the rising of the bourgeoisie.
