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Saturday, December 31, 2005

Saturday, December 31, 2005 6:55 pm by M.   No comments
On the last day of 2005 we would like to wish everyone a terrific 2006. Hoping your wishes will come true and your goals will be realised. And also hoping for lots and lots of great Brontë news of course.

Be happy :)

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12:05 pm by M. in    No comments
Several weeks ago we presented an on-going course on the Brontës. A couple of days ago Brontëana also introduced us to a seminar for the next semester. Well, here at the BrontëBlog we'd like to contribute to the Brontë scholarship cause introducing you to this list of courses (mainly scheduled for Spring 2006) and seminars about or in which the Brontës play an important role. The list is by no means complete and, of course, it's open to the contributions of the readers.

Naomi Jacobs.
University of Maine.

The works and lives of the Bronte sisters have continued to fascinate new readers and to provoke new works of art -- as well as endless objects of kitsch -- in the more than 150 years since they died. We will explore this unusual dialogue between authors and their fans by pairing Bronte works with novels, films, poetry and music written in response. Course assignments will include the opportunity for students to write their own Bronte spin-offs, prequels, or sequels. Texts: Lucasta Miller, The Bronte Myth, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre and selected juvenalia, Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (which tells the story of Rochester's mad wife), Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights and selected poetry, Jane Urquhart, Changing Heaven (in which one character is the wandering spirit of Emily Bronte, offering sardonic commentary on life, love and books), Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Possibly another spin-off novel such as Lin Haire-Sargeant's H: The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights, Films: most likely Wuthering Heights by Hollywood and by Luis Bunuel (Abismos de Pasion) ; perhaps, if available, the 1979 "Les Soeurs Brontes" or Truffaut's "Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent"Music: Kate Bush, "Wuthering Heights"; selections from the Broadway musical of Jane Eyre, Poetry: Sylvia Plath, "Wuthering Heights," other works in homage to the Brontes or in dialogue with Bronte poetryMonty Python, the semaphore version of Wuthering Heights, the Jacobs collection of Bronte ephemera (posters, postcards, cartoons, book bags etc.) Papers, creative projects, class participation.
Tutor: Robert Woodings MA
Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford

If you compare poetry anthologies of Victorian writers published up to, say, 1920, you discover substantial agreement as to who are the significant figures. And the same is true for Victorian artists. But in the last thirty or so years the picture that emerges is very different, as Emily Brontë, William Barnes and Alfred Hunt, for example, are newly recognised and appreciated. Is this just a matter of a change of taste? Or is there a realisation that the Victorian scene was much more varied? And might it be that their Victorian contemporaries were censoring who was acceptable? This is the core of this investigation which has to introduce much that is new, and much that will challenge our contemporary assumptions and even what we assume that we like and dislike. Four poets and artists will be studied, including Emily Brontë and William Barnes and Alfred Hunt and Aubrey Beardsley.

Their work will be assessed alongside that of their Victorian contemporaries and through comparison with more recent critical assumptions.

The Department of English
Dedman College- Southern Methodist University, Dallas

A study focusing on the best-known writings of the Bronte sisters and some of the less well-known work, with attention to continued popular and scholarly interest in their lives, the resulting growth and perpetuation of the Bronte "legend," the cultural contexts in which their work intervened, and the importance of their work for feminist and other modes of contemporary literary and cultural criticism. We may also consider some of the twentieth-century films inspired by their novels. Writing assignments: one short essay, one longer essay, one class presentation followed by short paper posted to Blackboard, final examination.
Texts: C. Bronte, Jane Eyre; Shirley, Villette; E. Bronte, Wuthering Heights, selected poems; A. Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; selected critical essays.
INSTRUCTOR: M. Stone
Dalhousie University, Halifax

This class focuses on a close study of works by the Brontës, with particular attention to the ways in which their texts have been disseminated in both high and low culture.
The University of Texas-Austin.

This course will critically examine the literary outpourings of the Bronte sisters, comparing and contrasting their works from a variety of different viewpoints. We will begin by studying the two most popular novels, Emily's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte's Jane Eyre (we will see film versions of these two classics as well). Then we will move on to Anne's Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which should illustrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of the story-telling impulse. Finally, we will read Villette, adjudged by many modern critics as Charlotte's masterpiece, and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. At each point, we will try on different readings of the novels, primarliy psychological (sometimes auto-biographical and hence likely to be family systems oriented), Marxist, and feminist.

The course will conclude with a series of oral reports based on independent reading: each student will select for study a complete work or collection by or about the Brontes and relate it to the overall concerns of the course. Representative "works" include: poetry by Emily, Charlotte, and/or Anne; reprinted juvenilia (many of the originals are here at UT's Humanities Research Center); Anne's Agnes Grey; Charlotte's Professor or the unfinished Emma (both published posthumously) or her "historical" novel, Shirley; the poetry and/or sermons of their father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte; possible sources in the Romantic poets and journals such as Blackwood's and Fraser's; the controversy surrounding Elizabeth Gaskell's "life" of Charlotte; various other biographical accountings of the sisters and their unpublished (in his lifetime) brother, Branwell; critical/theoretical studies, such as Helene Moglen's Charlotte Bronte: The Self Conceived, Terry Eagleton's Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontes, Robert Keefe's Charlotte Bronte's World of Death, Cynthia A. Linder's Romantic Imagery in the Novels of Charlotte Bronte, and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's Madwoman in the Attic.

Our extended reading list may well include another title such as May Sinclair's The Three Sisters, Rachel Ferguson's The Brontes Went to Woolworths, Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, and Robert Barnard's The Case of the Missing Brontë.
Rutgers University, New Jersey. English Department.

In this course, we will examine various documents--women's conduct books, cookbooks, pamphlets on women's rights, narrative and avant-garde paintings--as a context for the representation of women in novels written by the two major women writers of the period, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot. We will examine Bronte's relation to Jane Austen; Brontë's use of the "condition of England" novel; and Bronte's self-conscious writing of fiction about a "new" woman (long before the term was used). We will look at George Eliot's loathing of "silly novels" by women writers; at the sensation novel which critics thought Brontë had provoked and which George Eliot worked to escape; and at George Eliot's attempt to revise contemporary fiction into epic histories.
Tentative reading list: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Shirley, and Villette George Eliot: Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Geraldine Jewesbury, The Half Sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton.

Interdisciplinary Study of Sexualities Minor at University of North Texas.

This course will be taught in England and will focus on women's experiences beginning with Saint Hilda, abbess of Whitby in the 7th century, and ending with Joss, a woman who lived her life as a male jazz musician featured in Jackie Kay's Trumpet set in the 20th century. Between these two remarkable women, we will study the role of women in the Brontë and Gaskell novels, see how women lived if they were upper class or lower class in the 19th century as we visit a manor house, a workhouse, and a lace factory. The course will end in the Lake District, home to William and Dorothy Wordsworth, where we will discuss Dorothy's journals and William's poetry. Jackie Kay will read to us and discuss her novel Trumpet, and we will discuss the impact of gender on women's lives in the church, at work, and in love relationships.

Wellesley College

Topic for 2005-06: The Brontë Family. A study both of the imaginary world Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë created along with their brother Branwell in their childhood stories and poems, and of the novels they wrote in close contact as adults.

The University of Iowa. English Department
But the best one, without doubts... is this one (just check the link, and you will know why)
Reading in Paradise
Susannah Fullerton

Paradise Regained will focus on 8 great English writers: Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens, Wilde, Elizabeth Gaskell and Trollope. There will also be a dip into some of the poets of the period. The joy of reading is that it can be done anywhere – and the joy of a reading holiday is that you can wallow in lots of time to talk about the books you’ve read. And the particular joy of this course is that it’s lead by an experienced professional teacher and lecturer who will guide you through the discussions and talk about the author’s background and works.

At the BrontëBlog team we would like to express our desire to establish our headquarters right there. Donations are welcome :P


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Friday, December 30, 2005

Friday, December 30, 2005 11:53 pm by M.   No comments
That's the way in which Barbara Melhman, the reviewer of The Poughkeepsie Journal, defines the last Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway production "The woman in White", the musical adaptation of Wilkie Collins' novel.

More Bronte, less Moliere
"Woman in White" should have been more "Wuthering Heights," you know, heavy Bronte, but instead it's half Bronte and half Moliere and if I remember my history correctly, the French and Brits don't like each other very much.


We are trying to imagine what exactly could be a combination between Brontë (we suppose the reviewer means Emily, but who knows?) and Molière. It's not an easy task. Heathcliff meets Tartuffe or Argan comes to Wuthering Heights? We are open to suggestions ...

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12:14 am by M.   No comments
More Brontë references in recently published books:
1-The Haunted Screen: Ghosts in Literature and Film. Ghosts in Literature and Film
Lee Kovacs
McFarland & Company

While ghosts often inhabit films and literature devoted to the horror genre, a group of literature-based films from the 1930s and 1940s present more human and romantic apparitions. These films provide the underpinnings for many of the gentle supernatural films of the 1990s. Tracing the links between spectres as diverse as Rex Harrison's "Captain Gregg" and Patrick Swazye's "Sam Wheat", the text presents the evolution of the cinematic-literary ghost from classic Gothic to the psychological, sociological, and political ideologies of today. Included are analyses of the literary and film versions of classic ghost stories - "Wuthering Heights", "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", "Portrait of Jennie", "Letter from an Unknown Woman", "The Uninvited", "Liliom, and Our Town" - as well as interpretations of modern films not based on literary works that show the influence of these predecessors - "Ghost" and "Truly, Madly, Deeply". The text includes stills, a bibliography, and an index.

The book is divided into four sections. The first one (The gothic ghost) is devoted entirely to Wuthering Heights 1939 version.

2- The Essentials of Literature in English, Pre-1914. Everything You Need to Know About Classic Literature and English
Tony Myers
Arnold Publishers

This book covers the leading works and authors in the traditional canon of literature in English and in doing so gives the reader an engaging and knowledgeable insight into the books, their writers and the connections between them. From Austen to Shakespeare and covering classic favourites such as David Copperfield, Jane Eyre and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Essentials of Classic Literature in English is a delightful introduction to the classic works written in English before the First World War. Entries give a plot summary, an analysis of the major themes, a look at the literary techniques employed by the author and quotes from the original text, as well as a guide to further resources. A glossary of literary terms is also included and is fully cross-referenced to the alphabetically ordered collection of entries on key authors, novels, plays and poems.

We don't know how Jane Eyre is treated or if Charlotte is the only Brontë covered in the book.

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Thursday, December 29, 2005

Thursday, December 29, 2005 1:16 am by M.   No comments
Shared Experience is not the only British theater company touring with a Brontë-related production. As we have been posting the Love & Madness Ensemble was doing a British tour with Wuthering Heights (and Shakespeare's Twelf Night). Now the tour arrives to London and jumps from England to Ireland. (If you're curious here you can find photos of the production and here a review of the show).
UK Tour

The Riverside Studios, London , January 13, 15, 17, 19, 2006
Ireland Tour

Garage Theatre, Monaghan, January 23rd
Market Place Theatre, Armagh, January 26th
Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen, January 28th
Millennium Forum, Derry, January 31st, February 1st
Down Arts Centre, Downpatrick, February 3rd
Burnavon Arts & Cultural Centre, Cookstown, February 8th
Island Arts Centre, Lisburn, February 11th


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Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Wednesday, December 28, 2005 11:52 pm by M.   No comments
Naxos Audiobooks has re-released in the UK this November an abridged version of Jane Eyre (different from the one commented in our previous post).
The reader of this recording is Emma Fielding.
Emma Fielding trained at RSAMD. She has worked for the Royal National Theatre in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and the RSC in Twelfth Night and John Ford’s The Broken Heart, for which she won the Dame Peggy Ashcroft Award for Best Actress. A frequent reader on Naxos AudioBooks, Fielding has also appeared in numerous radio plays.
In the previous link there are plenty of audio samples if you're interested.


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12:23 am by Cristina   No comments
A well-known Spanish newspaper published on Monday an opinion column on Villette (Babelfish "translation") and its recent publication in Spanish.

Leaving aside the political - and highly misinformed - side of it (the article states that the first, heavily-censored edition of Villette dates from 1996, when in fact that was only a reedition of the volume published in 1944 under the existing censorship of the time), it is useful because it shed light on the huge gaps and changes in the 1944 edition through a few examples. A very interesting insight in the uses and misuses of translation, the inner workings of religious censorship, and the imagination of certain translators.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Tuesday, December 27, 2005 1:08 am by M.   1 comment
As we previously posted, the Shared Experience company will tour next year with a revival of Polly Teale's adaptation of Jane Eyre. We can announce now the dates and places of this tour:

JANE EYRE ON TOUR IN 2006
Adapted and Directed by Polly Teale from the novel by Charlotte Brontë
Designed by Neil Warmington
Lighting by Chris Davey
Company Movement by Liz Ranken
Composer Peter Salem

Jane Eyre is poor, plain and unloved. But locked up in the attic of her imagination lives a woman so passionate and so full of longing she must be guarded night and day for fear of the havoc she would wreak. Who is this woman who threatens to destroy Janes orderly world? A world where Jane has, for the first time, fallen in love.
(photo: Mike Kwasniak)

TOUR

Richmond Theatre, Richmond Thurs 2 to Sat 4 February www.richmondtheatre.net

The Nuffield, Southampton, Tues 7 - Sat 11 February http://www.nuffieldtheatre.co.uk/

Malvern Theatres, Tues 21 - Sat 25 February
http://www.malvern-theatres.co.uk/

Cambridge Arts Theatre, Tues 28 February to Sat 4 March www.cambridgeartstheatre.com

Liverpool Playhouse, Tues 7 to Sat 11 March www.everymanplayhouse.com

Oxford Playhouse, Tues 14 to Sat 18 March http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com

Mansfield Palace Theatre, Tues 28 March to Sat 1 April http://www.mansfield.gov.uk/palacetheatre

Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, Tues 4 to Sat 8 April www.citz.co.uk

EDIT (24-1-2006): Trafalgar Studios, London, Mon 1 to Fri 12 May www.theambassadors.com/trafalgarstudios

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Monday, December 26, 2005

Monday, December 26, 2005 12:29 am by M.   No comments
In the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery and until January 22 you have a new chance to see Paula Rego's lithographs about Jane Eyre that were exhibited last year at the Brontë Parsonage.

Paula Rego: Prints and works on paper
12 November 2005 to 22 January 2006

A retrospective exhibition dedicated to this renowned artist’s printmaking, showing an enormous range of work from her earliest ‘excursions’ in etching in the mid-1950s to her recent highly acclaimed series of lithographs on the subject of Jane Eyre. This is the first time that all Paula Rego’s prints are shown together. The retrospective reinforces her renown as a maker of provocative, challenging and emotionally charged images.

The exhibition spans fifty years; it is a testament to Paula Rego’s amazingly inventive imagination and a tribute to her exceptional achievement in contemporary printmaking. It includes the Nursery Rhyme series, Peter Pan, The Children’s Crusade, the Pendle Witches, and her controversial Abortion series.

Related rare pieces are also exhibited: stage proofs, etching plates, hand-coloured unique proofs, drawings and a small book she made for her grand-daughter which metamorphoses into the Nursery Rhyme series



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Sunday, December 25, 2005

Sunday, December 25, 2005 12:50 am by M.   2 comments
Music on Christmas morning

Music I love-­but ne'er a strain
Could kindle raptures so divine,
So grief assuage, so conquer pain,
And rouse this pensive heart of mine;
As that we hear on Christmas morn,
Upon the wintry breezes borne.

Though darkness still her empire keep,
And hours must pass, ere morning break;
From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,
That music kindly bids us wake:
It calls us, with an angel's voice,
To wake, and worship, and rejoice.

To greet with joy the glorious morn,
Which angels welcomed long ago,
When our redeeming Lord was born,
To bring the light of Heaven below;
The powers of darkness to dispel,
And rescue Earth from death and hell.

While listening to that sacred strain,
My raptured spirit soars on high;
I seem to hear those songs again
Resounding through the open sky,
That kindled such divine delight,
In those who watched their flocks by night.

With them, I celebrate His birth;
Glory to God, in highest Heaven,
Good will to men, and peace on Earth,
To us a Savior King is given;
Our God is come to claim His own,
And Satan's power is overthrown!

A sinless God, for sinful men,
Descends to suffer and to bleed;
Hell must renounce its empire then;
The price is paid, the world is freed,
And Satan's self must now confess,
That Christ has earned a right to bless.

Now holy peace may smile from heaven,
And heavenly truth from earth shall spring:
The captive's galling bonds are riven,
For our Redeemer is our King;
And He that gave His blood for men
Will lead us home to God again
(Anne Brontë)

According to the Scarborough Connection website:

Written: Undated - Christmas 1841 - 45. Possibly 1843. First Published: 1846.

This poem is impossible to date as the manuscript no longer exists. It could have been written at any Christmas between 1841 and 1845; though the similarity of the 'rhyme scheme' with her other poem ''Tis Strange To Think' might suggest 1843 as the 'slightly preferable date'. The only version we have - the one presented below - is that which appeared in Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.
(See also: Chitham, 'The Poems of Anne Brontë', p.96 & p.178)

If you can read music you can sing the poem as well with this score composed by Paul Reiners in 2004. The alternative is the hymn "Pater Omnium," composed by Henry J. E. Holmes in 1875 and used as background music here.

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12:04 am by M.   No comments
Leeds Today covers the release of the DVD "Brontë Ways (Part 2 - Haworth to Gawthorpe Hall)" that we presented some months ago.

TWO film makers have completed their opus on Yorkshire's Brontë heritage, charting a 42-mile course through heather-clad moors and historic haunts. English teacher and presenter Ray Riches, 59 from Heptonstall and producer and cameraman Peter Thornton, 56 from Todmorden walk the viewer through the highs and lows of Brontë history - from the desolate beauty of moorland vistas described in Wuthering Heights to the deciduous, closeted greenery of overgrown and seldom visited churchyards of Birstall. The duo completed their project earlier this year, having filmed the first instalment in 2004.
(Neil Hudson)
More details in our previous post.


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Saturday, December 24, 2005

Saturday, December 24, 2005 1:40 pm by Cristina   No comments
BrontëBlog would like to wish one and all a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS in the company of their loved ones!

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12:30 am by M.   3 comments
Do you remember this? We were unable to trace any kind of information related to this new BBC production of Jane Eyre. Well, now we have at least something to report.

We know that the director is going to be Susanne White. At least, her CV in the PFD agency says so. Susanne White is the director of the recent BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens's "Bleak House".
The writer of the series is Sandy Welch. She was the writer of another recent BBC adaptation of a Victorian novel: Elizabeth Gaskell's "North and South". In this interview with Stephen Poliakoff, writer of single television plays mainly for BBC, we can read:

Poliakoff is now right at the top of his tree in the way that Andrew Davies [Davis is the writer, for instance, of the newest Sense and Sensibility BBC on-going project] is simply the best adaptor. But it is being original that interests Poliakoff, not taking a book and making a screen version of it. Not that he believes this is not a skill in itself. He has to be careful here as his wife Sandy Welch is a regular adaptor for BBC drama. Her next will be Jane Eyre. But what really worries Poliakoff is that he might be a dying breed.

Diederick Santer is the producer. His credits include other BBC productions as Shakespeare's "The taming of the shrew" and "Much ado about nothing" (in contemporary settings).

---
By the way, if you are interested in next year upcoming editions of Brontë adaptations for TV, you are encouraged to read the last posts in brontëana's place.

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12:04 am by M.   No comments
This December, Cambridge University Press releases the paperback edition of "Victorian Literature and the Anorexic Body" (originally published in 2002), written by Anna Krugovoy Silver.

Anna Krugovoy Silver examines the ways nineteenth-century British writers used physical states of the female body - hunger, appetite, fat and slenderness - in the creation of female characters. Silver argues that anorexia nervosa, first diagnosed in 1873, serves as a paradigm for the cultural ideal of middle-class womanhood in Victorian Britain. In addition, Silver relates these literary expressions to the representation of women’s bodies in the conduct books, beauty manuals and other non-fiction prose of the period, contending that women ‘performed’ their gender and class alliances through the slender body. Silver discusses a wide range of writers including Charlotte Brontë, Christina Rossetti, Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Bram Stoker and Lewis Carroll to show that mainstream models of middle-class Victorian womanhood share important qualities with the beliefs or behaviours of the anorexic girl or woman.

Chapter 3 is devoted to Charlotte Brontë's writings: "3. Hunger and repression in Shirley and Villette". In this chapter the author compares Charlotte´s treatment of hunger and repression with Dickens's treatment of the same topics. A brief extract:


Dickens typically employs the slender female body as a marker of his heroines' selflessness and lack of sensuality, going so far as to sentimentalize hunger and starvation. This sentimentalization of hunger is precisely where Brontë's images of slenderness depart from his. In Brontë's work, hunger is always painful. Moreover, women's lack of appetite (or inability to eat) is not an innate sign of feminine "nature", as it is in Dickens's work, but represents in large part a criticism of women's social roles, most specifically women's inability, because of constructions of feminity, to speak their desires. Unlike Dicken's heroines, who do not eat because they do not have appetites, Brontë's heroines have desires but learn to repress them: the narrator of Shirley, advising Caroline Helstone on "sealing the lips", conflates silence, starvation, and sexual repression within one image. In Brontë's novels, the fasting body is always a physical presence text (...)


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Friday, December 23, 2005

Friday, December 23, 2005 3:56 pm by Cristina   No comments
... And not for the good reasons. If ever there was a funny, sad and weird story, then this is it. Excellent to draw those Christmas morals and question the meaning of this season. Perhaps the "Christmas Carol" of the future:

Tourists seeking a traditional Christmas have been coming to the picturesque village of Haworth, West Yorkshire, for years, drawn to its unchanging nature and its links with the Brontë sisters. But this year the cobbled streets that are usually filled with yuletide cheer have become home to a festive feud.

A rift between Mrs Santa Claus, a regular fixture on the village seasonal circuit, and a stand-in Santa Claus from the Traders’ Association, has soured the jolly atmosphere.

Sweetie Ruttan, 59, known to Haworth’s children as Mrs Claus, has pulled out of official activities over a £5 entry fee to the new grotto, a charge that she says goes against the spirit of Christmas.


[...]

Mr Beighton, who also accused the couple of ruining his social life, described how he had to hide from children, lest he spoil Christmas for them. “We can’t have two Santas roaming the streets of Haworth. If children saw us together it would spoil the magic,” he said. “So I have had to duck and dive to avoid them, but because they are renegades I don’t know when they are going to appear. One day they didn’t turn up, the next day they were walking down the street.

That has to be one of the funniest thing ever. Imagining the ducking and diving of a man dressed in a Santa Claus outfit is simply hilarious!

When Mr Beighton stepped in as the “official” Santa, Mrs Ruttan made it clear that she did not approve. She said: “He has the manner of a slug, and the traders could not stop me from being Mother Christmas and giving the children sweets. The grotto is in a garage near a chip shop and looks crap.”

Ha! Mind your vocabulary, Mrs Claus.

The association had printed flyers and tourist brochures as early as January promoting Haworth’s events for the year and a Santa’s grotto was included. These had gone to coach companies running excursions to the village where the Brontë sisters once lived.

See the coaches we were talking about on our previous post. Next Christmas they will put together a special line for the War of the Clauses, we are sure. The Brontës will have to make do with being put upon during this season of peace and love.

Kevin Hensby, chairman of the Haworth Traders’ Association, said that 400 children had visited the grotto. “It’s something fantastic for the kids. If you come here you want more than just a sweetie from Santa. Things change — you have to move on.”

Move on, Mr Hensby? By ripping off children who want to see Father Christmas and get some sweets?! Come on, it's the season of giving for something.

Anyway - do read the whole article, it's one of a kind. And afterwards don't forget to place your bets as soon as you can stop laughing. You have to wonder what the Brontë family would have to say about this happening in their village.

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3:50 pm by Cristina   No comments
VisitBritain has an interesting article on the tourism prospects for 2006 in Britain. It also loks into what's better and what may be helping to boost the tourism. Of course, Brontë fans - and literary fans in general - have a role in this, and the companies are responding:

It also seems that people are at last appreciating that the UK is a fantastic destination for a touring holiday. It’s not just our heritage and culture that attracts people, but the increase in choice offered by coach companies. Themed tours from Bronte to Dickens, historic houses and gardens, concerts and sporting events are more popular than ever and we are confident their popularity will increase in 2006.

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12:35 am by M.   No comments
1- "Hiverns suaus"(Mild winters), a poetry book written in Catalan by the recent winner of the Flor Natural Award in the Barcelona Jocs Florals (a literary contest in Catalan language) contains some Brontë references. The writer won the contest with the pseudonym Alexandra March, being in fact a man, Jordi Julià (a reversed Brontë story?). A review here (in Spanish).

The poem: "Gat blanc" (White cat) is preceded by this quote:
"'Tis strange to think there was a time
When mirth was not an empty name" (from Anne Brontë's poem "Past Days")

The poem: "Postals i segells rars" (Postcards and rare stamps) has this preceding quote:
"What is she writing?
Watch her now, How fast her fingers move!
How eagerly her youthful brow
Is bent in thought above!" (from Charlotte Brontë's poem "The letter")

2- Figures of Dissent: Critical Essays on Fish, Spivak, Zizek and Others
Terry Eagleton
Verso Publishers. (New en paperback. Originally published in 2003)

Playwright, literary theorist, fine analyst of the works of Shakespeare, the Brontës (the also recently republished Myths of Power- A Marxist Study on the Brontës), Swift and Joyce, scourge of postmodernism, autobiographer — Terry Eagleton’s achievements are many and his combative intelligence widely admired and respected. His skill as a reviewer is particularly notable: never content merely to assess the ideas of a writer and the theses of a book, Eagleton, in his inimitable and often wickedly funny style, always paints a vivid theoretical and political fresco as the background to his engagement with the texts.
In this collection of more than a decade of such bracing criticism, Eagleton comes face to face with Stanley Fish, Gayatri Spivak, Slavoj Zizek, Edward Said, and even David Beckham. All are subjected to his pugnacious wit, scathing critical pen, and brilliant literary investigations.

One of these articles is devoted to Branwell Brontë (pages 42 to 48).


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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Thursday, December 22, 2005 6:49 pm by M.   1 comment
Thanks to Esther por providing us with the most recent Brontë quote that has appeared in the TV show "Gilmore Girls". If you want to know the other ones, just take a look at this old post.

"Twenty-one is the loneliest number" (Season 6- Episode 7)

SOOKIE: I can't believe Rory's turning twenty-one. It seems like just yesterday she was crying because you told her Charlotte Brontë couldn't come to her sleepover, because she's dead.

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6:03 pm by Cristina   No comments
If you'd rather go for the perishable goods as Christmas gifts, then we have a couple for you too.

Grandma Wilds' biscuits have both a Brontë Parsonage Gift Box and a Haworth Main Street Box (both are on the same page: third and fifth downwards)

And what better to down those yummy biscuits than a steaming cup of Brontë Parsonage Museum Tea? Together they make the ultimate literary snack.

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12:30 am by M.   No comments
It seems that the Love & Madness version of Wuthering Heights is not the only WH that has been on stage this winter in the United Kingdom. Another one has been premiered at the BAC Festival (Lavender Hill, London) last October. As a matter of fact, the play is more a revisitation than a version:

Wuthering Heights
BAC Associate Artist Kazuko Hohki teams up with Colin Carmichael and Siggi Eyberg of Brian - "the boyband of British theatre" - to revisit Emily Bronte's classic tale of passion on the Yorkshire Moors, as seen through the eyes of a Japanese tourist, and some very curious sheep.

A BAC Scratch commission Kazukho Hohki’s work is produced by Your Imagination.

It seems that Kazuko Hohki made properly her research according to this information:

Musician, animator, director, performer and storyteller Kazuko Hohki, who delighted audiences in May 2004 with her show My Husband is a Spaceman, is working with The Nuffield Theatre, for a year as their ‘Time and Space’ artist. (...)
Kazuko is currently working in Haworth, West Yorkshire, exploring the fascination that her compatriots have with Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights. Hawarth has become something of a pilgrimage place for Japanese tourists eager to soak up the atmosphere and Kazuko has been interviewing visitors in her own unique style to strip bare this curious obsession with the quintessentially British romance. The results of her investigations will form the background to her next performance piece to be premiered in 2006.

Co-author Colin Carmichael also wants to give his opinion:
“It’s about a Japanese woman in love with a book,” says Colin. “She comes to England to find her Heathcliff, only to find a fake environment instead - the experience of every tourist in London.”


Regrettably we don't have pictures or reviews of the show for the moment.

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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Wednesday, December 21, 2005 5:53 pm by Cristina   No comments
Welcome to another edition of Brontë presents. Today we'll devote the post to jewels and ornaments :)

If you want that special person to remember the passing of time as well as thinking of their favourite author, you simply have to order this. It's by Philippe Patek, no less. It also seems to have made a trip into the future since ther can't be many people left who use this kind of thing. (To view it you don't need to install the Chinese language pack).

If you'd like for them to carry Charlotte and Jane Eyre around their neck, you just have to get them this silver pendant with the text "surround us with a ring of golden peace". Think of the possibilities - now they will be able to "advertise" their favourite novel anytime, anywhere. (You need to scroll down past Jane Austen and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to reach Charlotte).

If, on the other hand, you'd rather give them an ornament for their house, and more specifically for their tree, take a look at this silver angel with the text "Whatever souls are made of, yours and mine are the same-Emily Bronte" engraved on it, just head over to this website and ctrl+F for "Bronte". Oops! We just noticed it's sold out :( Oh well, perhaps you can already order it for next year!

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9:50 am by M.   No comments
Soft Skull Publishers inform us that after a series of delays, Douglas A. Martin's book "Branwell" (and links therein) is finally available.

It is now available for sale pretty much everywhere, although, in order to give reviewers the time to write and file reviews and such, the official publication date is January 21st. Douglas will be doing readings in New York and Minneapolis, and we’ll keep you updated with any more.

Another possible Christmas present!

EDIT: The publishers have contacted us with further info on the readings:

Here's a link with info on the New York reading at Coliseum Books on January 16 at 6:30 pm.

And here are the details for at least two other readings:

EVENT: Book discussion, reading & signing on Thursday, Jan 19th at 7:30 PM
Query Booksellers
520 East Hennepin
Minneapolis, MN 55414

EVENT: Book discussion, reading & signing on Saturday, Jan 21st at 7:30 PM
Magers & Quinn Booksellers
3038 Hennepin Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55408

The publishers also forwarded us a review from Publisher's Weekly:

In this mannered, tortuous life of Charlotte Bronte's younger brother, Branwell, novelist Martin (Outline of My Lover) offers a tender, tragic portrayal of a doomed artist and homosexual avant la lettre . In Martin's marvelous free and direct telling, Branwell, as the sole son among many
daughters (only Charlotte, Emily and Anne survived childhood) is accorded privileges they are not, such as special home schooling by their strict father, curate of provincial Haworth. Branwell also lords over the set of toy soldiers the siblings use in elaborate play wars, creating vast
civilizations in poems and plays. The early deaths of their mother and sisters Maria and Elizabeth prove shattering for Branwell, on whose fragile shoulders the great hopes of the house rest. Sent off alone to London to gain admittance to the Royal Academy, he falls continually in his family's esteem, becoming a local drunkard and apprentice to the secretly homosexual
freemason society; a last chance at gainful employment, as tutor to a boy in Thorp Green, ends in a scandalous dismissal, and Branwell descends irretrievably into a drug-induced, punishing state of monomania. Though slender, this volume's beautiful declarative sentences are perfectly fitted to this famously imaginative, headstrong family; they bring Branwell Bronte's world to light.

Even if we are told that the explicitness of the homosexual theme has been overstated, we still feel the need to highlight that this book is fiction and by no means is intended as a scholarly biography. Just saying :)



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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 6:05 pm by Cristina   No comments
We find bits and pieces of stuff that wouldn't make the news, but is curious enough to be shown. What better time than the week before Christmas to take a look at these products and perhaps help someone looking for presents for Brontë-lovers?

Today's post is devoted to arts & crafts:

Cross-stitch seems to have made a favourite of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and apart from the kits sold at the Museum shop, there are others: a wintery Parsonage, (the same wintery Parsonage yet again, but a more close-up view, but, pst! the first one is cheaper), and a lush Parsonage (you need to scroll down to the last image). You can also have a Charlotte Brontë kit or even a replica kit of the samplers the girls made as children under the scrutinising eye of Aunt Branwell (scroll down until your halfway down. Picture here). The samplers can also be found here, with a picture for each one (the samplers by Maria and Elizabeth don't seem to be on sale anywhere).

If the person who will be receiving the present is past cross-stitch and up to the next level, you can always get them these lace bobbins, each featuring a Brontë sibling (rejoice: Branwell has just been added!).

And if they're not into sewing you could always go for this cute little cardboard model of the Parsonage.

On the other hand, if you don't want to add extra work to that person, you can always buy something already made, like one of these paintings by Doncaster artist John Bird (Mr Bird, if you are reading this, do tell the webmaster of your site that it's spelt HawOrth in all cases). Or this pencil drawing of the Parsonage by Michael Wilder.

You have no pretext now! Stay tuned for another edition of these ideas for Christmas presents :)

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5:47 pm by Cristina   No comments
We blush to confess it but a couple of things slipped through our hands last weekend. We have no other excuse except that Brontëland has such a crop of news that we are constantly reaping and there are always small plots of land that remain unattended. Sadly, these two plots of land were right outside our door so to speak, for they were announced on a couple of "relevant" websites.

Haworth was celebrating its Torchlight weekend - an endearing festivity with images so beautiful as the one on the left. For more pictures: Saturday & Sunday.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum was holding its own celebration on Sunday too, which must have been incredibly nice as well:

Mince pies, mulled wine and a live brass band will lend a festival feel to the village whilst the choir sing traditional hymns and songs starting on the church steps, then moving to the picturesque Brontë Parsonage Museum gardens.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum warmly invites visitors to join in the singing in the famous Brontë garden, where one of the most famous families in English literature once strolled.

We would like to take this occasion to once again encourage our readers to send in any Brontë-related news or events that they might happen to find :)

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1:25 pm by M.   No comments
Last November (from 16 - 26 November 2005) the New Farnham Repertory Company played a production of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre in St Andrew's parish church, Farnham. The adaptation was by Ian Mullins, who was also the director, and Helen Dorward.
As we failed to report it on time, we want to redeem ourselves by leading you to this website full of pictures of the production. If your interest is now awakened you can read this enthusiast review of the play published in the Farnham Herald:

It was all so real: we were there in that time and place with the characters as the story of Jane Eyre was played out in Farnham’s large and shadowy parish church by the New Farnham Repertory Company.
So close is the proximity of the audience to the players as they move back and forth, using the central aisle to bridge scene and venue, that they cannot help but take the watcher with them. It was a theatrical feat requiring utter concentration for all the cast, who never faltered or lost conviction under such close scrutiny. (...)

The stricken Rochester’s cry from afar for “Jane, Jane, Jane” and her response “I am coming. Wait for me,” played out in semi-darkness is a dramatic zenith, exemplifying Mullins’s directing skill. (...)
Simon Cole, William Whymper, Brenda Longman, Christine McDerment and of course the exceptional Helen Dorward, portray one, or several, of the carefully crafted characters to make another exceptional offering from the NFRC. (Suzanne Cansfield)


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Monday, December 19, 2005

Monday, December 19, 2005 5:09 pm by Cristina   No comments
Just a reminder:

On a day like today in 1848, Emily Jane Brontë died. She carried to the very end the description Charlotte made of her: "stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone".

Charlotte also said:

"Next day [Dec. 19], the first glance at her face told me what would happen before nightfall"

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12:01 am by M.   No comments
Last week, December 10, the program "Music Show" of the Australian ABC Radio National devoted part of its time to discuss Michael Berkeley's opera "Jane Eyre" interviewing the composer and the librettist David Malouf.

Guests: Michael Berkeley and David Malouf

Music in this interview:
Title: Jane Eyre: beginning
Comp. Michael Berkeley/ Lib. David Malouf
Perf. The Music Theatre Wales Ensemble
Conductor: Michael Rafferty
CD: Michael Berkeley: Jane EyreLabel: CHANDOS 9983
DUR: 4.47

Title: Beautiful, beautiful from Jane Eyre
Details as above.
Dur: 3.22

The transcript of the interview can be read here, but if you want to listen to the whole interview and the music you can do it here (Real Audio required), but just for a few weeks. The interview begins approximately at the 27 min and 45 s.

These are a few samples of the very interesting interview:

Andrew Ford: Maybe I could start with you, David, because operas usually start with the words, and in this case you inherited a lot of words from Charlotte Brontë, and then had to work out what to do with them. Obviously you cut them down, but how did you make those decisions?
David Malouf: Well I decided early on, because I already had limitations of how many characters we could have, how many singers; there are only going to be five of those. And so I decided to concentrate only on the central romance element in that book, which is the relationship between Jane and Mr Rochester. And that in many ways is what most people remember of the book. (...)

Andrew Ford: And the story of Lucia di Lammermoor as well, of course in the case of this opera.
David Malouf: Yes, that was because Adèle, the little girl in the house, her mother has been a dancer in Paris, and who is interested in opera, and because it was good to relate this rather operatic story to the world of 19th century opera. And because we have a mad woman in the attic, it was quite easy to have Adèle point out that her favourite opera was Lucia with the mad scene, where the madwoman kills her husband on the night of the wedding. It was a bit later in this piece, we’re going to have a wedding which goes wrong on the night before. So there’s little ways of doing something which I think we quite enjoy these days, which is a reference to other works which helps us see where to place this one, or where not to place this one.
Andrew Ford: And Lucia di Lammemoor and Charlotte Brontë’s novel are virtually contemporary, aren’t they?
David Malouf: Yes, they are. (...)

Andrew Ford: Was it your idea David, or was it Michael’s to do ‘Jane Eyre’ as an opera?
David Malouf: I think it was mine, I can’t quite remember.
Michael Berkeley: It was David’s. If somebody had said to me ‘We’re going to do ‘Jane Eyre’, I’d have run a mile to be absolutely honest, because the last thing I wanted to do was a Hollywood epic. David was very keen to do it, and I was a bit dubious, but when he produced the libretto, it was such a beautifully, surgically incised piece of work, and it did the thing that I felt would need to be done, which was to look at it from a completely different angle. To look at it through a different lens, if you like, and refract it, so that we learn more about these characters. And there’s so much, as David’s just suggested, going on which relates to contemporary society. I mean there’s racism, if you like, there’s the sort of suppressed eroticism which, since Freud, we now think about in a completely different way. I was initially completely appalled by the idea and as soon as I saw the libretto, completely turned on by it. It really was rather like that, so David must take the credit for it.


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Sunday, December 18, 2005

Sunday, December 18, 2005 1:15 pm by M.   No comments
In our last post we talked about 1939's Wuthering Heights version and, in one of these strange internet coincidences, we just came across this article published in The Bozeman Daily Chronicle about a local forgotten celebrity (now living in Livingston, Montana):

Nearly seven decades have passed since Hazel Warp put on a Scarlett O'Hara costume and tumbled down the stairs of Tara in the epic film "Gone With the Wind." But that Hollywood stunt marked a high point in Warp's life. (...)
Warp was the stunt double for actress Vivien Leigh, who played the narcissistic Southern belle in the 1939 Civil War movie. (...)
Her performance was good enough to get her a callback for Leigh's next movie, "Wuthering Heights."
"With 'Wuthering Heights,' (Leigh) told them that she wanted me or she wouldn't work," Warp recalled in an interview at Evergreen Healthcare, where she now lives. (Karin Ronnow)

As we know the final Cathy in William Wyler's film wasn't Vivien Leigh but Merle Oberon. The story is widely known but in this web you can read a brief digest:

When William Wyler, who was going to direct "Wuthering Heights" for Goldwyn, went to London to offer Olivier the part of Heathcliff, the actor at first refused. He didn't want to go back to Hollywood. Then he said he might do it if Vivien could play Cathy; but Merle Oberon had already been cast. Partly as a bribe, but partly because he had gone to a preview of Vivien's latest film, "Sidewalks of London", and had been impressed by her, Wyler offered her the role of Isabella Linton. Vivien turned it down, wanting Cathy or nothing. "For a first part in Hollywood, you'll get nothing better than this", the director warned her, but she refused to heed him, and Isabella went to Geraldine Fitzgerald.

The relations between Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon were far from cordial. This is a brief extract from Terry Coleman's Olivier biography that we mentioned in our previous post:

They had filmed together before, and amicably, in The Divorce of Lady X but in Wuthering Heights, in the close-ups, she accused him of spitting at her. "Daggers drawn... We spat at each other," he said, "we hated each other, and after one appalling row in which we were both trembling and tears were streaming down, and we we were absolutely trembling with rage. Willy (William Wyler) said 'Roll them,' and it was the most heavy-making love scene we'd done and we did it hating each other, but it was one of the top love scenes in the film as it turned out. That was Willy, very bright, very clever."

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11:58 am by M.   No comments
Olivier
Terry Coleman
Henry Hold & Company

Based on exclusive, unprecedented access, the definitive biography of Sir Laurence Olivier, the dashing, self-invented Englishman who became the greatest actor of the twentieth century.
Sir Laurence Olivier met everyone, knew everyone, and played every role in existence. But Olivier was as elusive in life as he was on the stage, a bold and practiced pretender who changed names, altered his identity, and defied characterization.
In this mesmerizing book, acclaimed biographer Terry Coleman draws for the first time on the vast archive of Olivier's private papers and correspondence, and those of his family, finally uncovering the history and the private self that Olivier worked so masterfully all his life to obscure.

Brontë reference:
This biography contains a chapter devoted to the 1939's Wuthering Heights.
Chapter 9 The Making of Wuthering Heights
A brief excerpt:

He set off cocksure of himself, confident that he understood the character of Heathcliff, later saying he had done his homework, having learned from Garbo, who had known everything there was to know about Queen Christina. That is how he remembered it, but in truth he had not done his homework. He had seen the screenplay, but he had not even read Emily Brontë's novel. He took it with him on the Normandie but lost it after three days, bought another copy in New York, and was still finishing on his two-day flight from New York to Los Angeles. (...)
Olivier was obsessed with his appearance and had himself heavily made up as Heathcliff as he ages throughout the film, first aged seventeen, then twenty, then thirty, and finally fifty. Wyler [the film's director] scoffed.

Drama Kings : The Men Who Drive Strong Women Crazy
Dalma Heyn
Rodale Books

The bestselling author of The Erotic Silence of the American Wife is back with another provocative peek at women's secret lives.
Have you ever looked at one of your women friends and asked yourself, "She's so terrific — why is she with him?" In her newest book, Dalma Heyn examines a rising trend in today's relationships — the coupling of high-achieving women with men Heyn terms "Drama Kings," weaker men who are drawn to the women's strength but ultimately attempt to sabotage it. These men create chaos in relationships, driving the women crazy in the process.


Brontë reference:
The beginning quote of Chapter Seven (Drama King #5: The Feeling-Impaired Guy) is from Charlotte Brontë.

"Better to be without logic than without feeling." -Charlotte Brontè, The Professor

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Saturday, December 17, 2005

Saturday, December 17, 2005 12:50 pm by M.   No comments
Do you remember The Brontë project, the novel by Jennifer Vandever ? Did you read the reviews of the novel ? Are you still hesitant about reading it ? Well, we can help.

The New York Times offers you the chance to read the first chapter of the novel, just for free. The book begins like this:

Chapter 1. Letters.
It is painful to be dependent on the small stimulus letters give.-Charlotte Brontë, to Ellen Nussey, 1850

Fate affords some lovers only one opportunity to meet. Others it allows endless opportunities, so that their coupling seems more like the work of fate's fair-haired cousin, serendipity.... more.

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12:40 pm by M.   No comments

Some months ago we reported the edition of The Masterpiece Theatre Collection: Romance, a DVD boxed set of three BBC miniseries including 1998's Wuthering Heights.

Now Playing Magazine reports this release proposing it as a possible Christmas gift:

If you believe grand-gesture romanticism will suffice, though, consider picking up The Masterpiece Theatre Collection: Romance, a DVD boxed set of three timeless tales of love that might, just might, leave her starry-eyed and forgetful of your dead-end economic existence.

First up is director David Skynner’s 1998 adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, starring Orla Brady (Proof) and Robert Cavanah. Nothing is known of dark stranger Heathcliff’s mysterious past when the kindly Mr. Earnshaw adopts him into his family, but his spirited daughter Cathy sees in him a soul very much like her own. Despite divisions of class, the vehement protestations of her jealous brother and, eventually, Cathy’s marriage to an older, wealthier man, Cathy and Heathcliff indulge in a love affair that spans time.



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Friday, December 16, 2005

Friday, December 16, 2005 10:15 am by M.   No comments
Artsworld, the Arts Channel from Sky Digital platform is broadcasting a documentary about Jane Eyre. The first chance is tomorrow December 17.

Literary Classics investigates Charlotte Brontë's haunting, ever-popular tale of the eponymous governess, Jane Eyre.

Broadcast times
Sat 17 Dec 2005 8pm - 8:30pm
Sun 18 Dec 2005 12:15am - 12:45am
Thu 22 Dec 2005 3:30pm - 4pm
Fri 23 Dec 2005 12:25am - 12:55am

Literary Classics takes an informative look at some of English Literature’s greatest authors, poets and novelists. As with the other programmes in this series, this part examines the work in question with the help of a selection of literature experts.
Charlotte Brontë’s ever-popular Jane Eyre was published in 1847 to rapturous acclaim and instant recognition that this compelling study of Victorian society and values was a masterpiece of English literature. Written at the home in which Charlotte Brontë spent much of her life - the bleak parsonage in Haworth in Yorkshire - Charlotte Brontë’s early years were marked by death and illness – powerful and repeated themes in Jane Eyre. This programme tells the fascinating story of the author and her magnificent work – a wonderful tale of repression, freedom of spirit, doomed love and great passion that continues to thrill generations of readers in countries all over the world.


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Thursday, December 15, 2005

Thursday, December 15, 2005 4:58 pm by Cristina   No comments
Well, if this parsonage was a little too expensive or too inconvenient for you, you no longer have an excuse not to own your very own Brontë Parsonage. We have found a virtual model that will fit into every computer!

Historic Sim Houses is full of replicas of famous houses and of course the Brontë Parsonage simply had to be there! It can be downloaded and played with by creating your very own Brontë family (or yourself, in case you've always wanted to know how it feels like living there). There's the church too, by the way.

We must praise the authors for all the work that must have gone into it. Obviously it's not an exact copy when it comes down to furniture and ornaments but with the Sims' furniture it is as close as it gets. And really good at that too.

Now - who's going to get addicted to the Sims? Think of the possibilities! You can rewrite the Brontë story as you like it best.

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12:43 am by M.   No comments
New Brontë references that we trace for our readers in the recent editorial novelties:

Urn Burial (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) by Kerry Greenwood.
Poisoned Pen Press

The redoubtable Phryne Fisher is holidaying at Cave House, a Gothic mansion in the heart of Australia's Victorian mountain country. But the peaceful surroundings mask danger. Her host is receiving death threats, lethal traps are set without explanation, and the parlour maid is found strangled to death. What with the reappearance of mysterious funerary urns, a pair of young lovers, an extremely eccentric swagman, an angry outcast heir, and the luscious Lin Chung, Phryne's attention has definitely been caught. Her search for answers takes her deep into the dungeons of the house and into the limestone Buchan caves. But what will she find this time?

Brontë reference:

"Sometimes I feel that I am in touch with the other side-with other great writers who long to be reincarnated.'' "Oh? Who?" Miss Medenham settled down for a cosy gossip about herself, automatically leaning back to emphasise her unfashionable bosom and crossing her long, slim legs. She was wearing a red jersey dress under the red coat, and champagne-coloured silk stockings. Her fair hair was shoulder length and straight as a drink of water. `Emily Brontë, of course. Didn't you notice the fire and passion of my last novel, the depth, the wind blowing through it?' Phryne wondered whether to admit that she had stuck fast three pages into the dense prose of Earth, Miss Medenham's latest offering."

The World Is a Waiting Lover : Desire and the Quest for the Beloved by Trebbe Johnson.
New World Library

Johnson explores the concept of the Beloved — the elusive, alluring force that beckons us forth to passionate engagement with the world — and shows how our sense of love is often linked to something far greater than ourselves. She explains that mistaking a human lover for the inner, eternal Beloved is the first step in any romance, yet the ability to distinguish between the two ultimately holds the key to our quest for personal freedom and fulfillment.
Steeped in Western and Eastern myth and romantic imagery, The World is a Waiting Lover guides us through story and thought in order to discover passion, Eros, and our authentic selves. It is a personal story and, at the same time, an invitation to explore our individual yearnings to live with fearless authenticity as we find more passion and meaning in our work, relationships, and view of the future.

Brontë reference:
John Lennon appeared immediately, and right after him came Albert Camus, followed by Emily Brontë, W. B. Yeats, Dante Alighieri, and Virginia Woolf, all members of the literary pack I'd adored for many years. (...)
Emily
, when I read Wuthering Heights, I was fifteen years old and feeling different and lonely and unliked. You taught me that a woman can love the land passionately, that human emotions can be as wild and grand as storms and English moors. You taught me that strangeness and longing and sorrow are the very blood of writing and that and that they can save a woman's life.

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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:49 pm by M. in    No comments
Today The New York Sun reviews The Emerson Brothers: A Fraternal Biography in Letters (Oxford University Press). Although the book is interesting on its own, what has caught our eye is the following reflexion by reviewer Carl Rollyson:

"In many ways, our biography is patterned after the 'lives and letters' format made popular in the nineteenth century, in which extensive quotations from the subject's correspondence are woven into a continuous narrative of the subject's life." So Ronald Bosco and Joel Myerson write in the preface to "The Emerson Brothers: A Fraternal Biography in Letters" (Oxford University Press, 416 pages, $49.95). Indeed, I immediately thought of
Elizabeth Gaskell's classic biography of Charlotte Brontë, in which the subject's letters dominate to such an extent that the biographer seems, at times, an editor rather than an interpreter of a life.

This impression is misleading, though, since Gaskell's selections and her diction emphasize the ladylike Charlotte and subtly dampen her subject's passionate nature, transforming her into a Victorian comestible. Messrs. Bosco and Myerson do something of the same for Ralph Waldo Emerson. They domesticate the renowned individualist, making him seem far less radical than the writers of essays such as "The American Scholar.

Maybe this is the proper time to notice this new edition of Gaskell's book.
The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Volume 1 and Volume 2. It's a hardback edition published by Indypublish.com and rather expensive, we must add.

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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 5:58 pm by Cristina   No comments
Rejoice! 152 after its original publication in England, Villette has finally been translated wholly and loyally into Spanish. And about time, don't you think? Details:
Alba Editorial
Translation by Marta Salís
ISBN: 84 8428 283 X
31 €
648 pp.
Hardcover


If you are wondering how it came to take so long until its definitive translation, you might be interested in reading this article (in Spanish) - Lucy Snowe's Alienation in Charlotte Brontë's Villette - by María Jesús Lorenzo Modia, published in September 2002.

Here's a roughly translated excerpt from it:

An aspect which can clearly be seen in this work is the confrontation between what is English and Protestant and what is continental and Catholic. Villette represents a furious attack against Catholicism. That is, perhaps, the reason why the book was forbidden in Spain for a long time and there isn't any translation available in the market, since the only translation ever made dates from 1944 and has important changes and omissions, probably due to the existing censorship in Spain at the time and which have been previously analyzed (Lorenzo Modia, 1998). Charlotte Brontë reproduces in Villette the religious debate of Catholicism vs. Protestantism, so in vogue in 19th century England. What could be original in her approach is that it reveals a belligerant attitude towards Catholics; though, surprisingly, Lucy Snowe travels to a Catholic country in search for freedom, love and personal realisation, addresses a Catholic priest to be confessed and liberated from her deep anxiety when she roams aimlessly around the streets of this metaphoric Brussels, teaches at a school where everybody is a Catholic and in the end falls in love with a layman Jesuit. The obvious ambivalence in her attitude in a profound level is connected with the contradictory position between her and the world, which reflects an idea present in the Victorian society, considering reality as a fight between opposites.

[...]

This is a filtered translation [the one dating from 1944] when it comes to religious subjects and, therefore, the atrocious criticism towards the Jesuits as an Institution and Catholics in general made in the original by Charlotte Brontë is left out.

If you find the subject interesting you might want to read further on it by getting a hold of the following article by the same author:

LORENZO MODIA, María Jesús. (1998) “Charlotte Brontë’s Villette Translated into Spanish: Censorship at Work”. Insights into Translation, Soto Vázquez, Adolfo Luis (Ed.) 113-122. A Coruña: Universidade da Coruña.

In the meantime, you can celebrate that the Brontës are still new in many ways, and still very much in the publishing business!

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