Podcasts

  • With... Bethany Turner-Pemberton - Sassy and Sam chat to researcher and curator Bethany Turner-Pemberton. Bethany is PhD candidate in Textiles and Museum Studies at Manchester Metropolitan...
    1 day ago

Saturday, May 19, 2018

The Telegraph & Argus highlights one of the Brontë Parsonage celebrations this summer. Its 90th anniversary:
The 90th birthday of the Brontë Parsonage Museum will kick off this year’s summer festival weekend by the Brontë Society.
Leading Brontë figures Ann Dinsdale and Jane Sellers will be at a special event to discuss the Haworth museum ‘then and now’.
Ann is the museum’s principal curator while Jane, currently Curator of Cultural Services at Harrogate Borough Council, is a former director of the Brontë Society.
At an event in the nearby West Lane Baptist Centre on June 8 at 3pm, the pair will discuss Haworth in the 1920s and the museum’s journey since then.
The Parsonage opened to the public for the first time on August 4, 1928 to cater for the stream of pilgrims who had been visiting Haworth for the previous 75 years. At last, enthusiasts were able to look round the very rooms in which the Brontë family had lived, written and worked.
The Brontë Society was founded in 1893 to organise a permanent home for the sisters’ manuscripts, letters and personal belongings.
The first museum opened in 1895 above the Yorkshire Penny Bank on Haworth Main Street. By the following summer 10,000 visitors had passed through.
In 1928 the Church put up for sale Haworth Parsonage at a price of £3000, and it was bought by Sir James Roberts, a Haworth-born wool merchant and lifetime Brontë Society member, who handed the Society the deeds. (Jim Seton)
Another Brontë Parsonage upcoming event is the exhibition Wings of Desire exhibition. Keighley News reports:
Literature fans can take flight with Emily Brontë this spring and summer in a special exhibition in Haworth.
Wings of Desire has been inspired by an injured hawk nursed back to health in the mid-19th-century by the writer of Wuthering Heights.
Artist Kate Whiteford took Emily’s merlin hawk, Nero, as the starting point for an innovative project bringing together film, poetry, music and paintings.
Kate is renowned for “monumental” land art which combines art and archaeology to transform sites that have included remote Hebridean islands, the hills above Nairobi and inner-city Coventry.
The centrepiece of Wings of Desire is a film featuring footage of birds of prey in flight, the local landscape, and a birds-eye view of the flight to Top Withins.
The soundtrack includes Chloe Pirrie, who played Emily in 2016 Brontë biopic To Walk Invisible, reading from Emily’s poem The Caged Bird, and music from folk group The Unthanks.
The film can be seen in the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where there will also be Kate’s framed watercolour pictures inspired by Aerial Archaeology photographs of the Yorkshire Dales.
Kate describes Wings of Desire as a meditation on the links between the hawk and Emily.
“The film brings you close to the animal, and close to Emily. When you see a hawk close-up it’s such a privilege. Emily will have needed to handle her bird.
“The film is another way of understanding Emily as a person. It’s to change our perception of Emily as a writer closeted in the parsonage – she ran free on the moors.
Caged Bird is about longing for liberty, free of your chains – it’s just one of Emily’s poems touch on the idea of escape and freedom and flying. life.
“There’s a stunning painting by Emily of the hawk. She was a very gifted artist – the observation in the painting had to come from life.”
SMJ Falconry will be at the Brontë Parsonage Museum on Sunday May 27 from 10am to 4pm with birds of prey displays and handling.
On weekdays in the half-term holidays there will be birds of prey-themed family activities from 10am to 5.30pm, including short guided walks, museum trails and ‘hands on history’ sessions. Flights of Fancy is a children’s craft session on Wednesday May 30, from 11am to 4pm. (Jim Seton)
More upcoming events in Keighley News:
History and Heathcliff will keep visitors happy during the Brontë Society’s summer festival weekend.
History Wardrobe will present an evening of enlightenment during their Gothic for Girls presentation on June 8.
The audience will be taken back to the 18th century to explore the origins of Gothic novels, highlighting the Gothic elements of the works of Emily and Charlotte Brontë.
The presenters will then move forward through the centuries to examine how the Gothic tradition has influenced literature, fashion and culture, right up to the present day.
The presentation will feature a fabulous array of original costumes and accessories, as well as readings from well-loved writers.
The following morning Carol Dyhouse will deliver the annual Brontë Society lecture on the subject ‘The Eccentricities of Women’s Fantasy... and Heathcliff’.
Charlotte Brontë described her sister, Emily’s characters in Wuthering Heights as full of “perverted passion and passionate perversity”.
Carol will ask how and why Heathcliff continues to be pictured as a hero of romance when his author explicitly warned against this.
She will widen her enquiry to consider why woman’s fantasy has often been seen as eccentric, unsettling, pathological or perverse. (Jim Seton)
Opera Wire and L'Est Républicain announce that Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights will be included in the next season of the Opéra de Lorraine in Nancy, France:
 Layla Claire and John Chest star in Bernard Hermann’s “Les Hauts de Hurlevent.” The opera will be directed by Orpha Phelan and conducted by Jacques Lacombe.
Performance Dates: May 2-9, 2019 (Francisco Salazar)
The Wonderful World of Dance reviews the Northern Ballet performances of Jane Eyre:
 Cathy Marston’s contemporary ballet hybrid choreography adds depth to the heart wrenching love story. Each movement has a twist on the classical ballet steps, the traditional is combined with contemporary, creating distinct shapes and a unique physical expression of the inner torment of the characters.
Marston’s pours a lot onto one stage, scenes are filled with the entire cast in multi-layered drama in this retelling of the love story told through lyrical and emotional pas de deux with the early feminist Jane and her distressed Mr Rochester.
It’s wonderful to see a female choreographer bringing the story of a strong female lead to the stage, with a unique choreographic language that received a huge applause from the audience. (Wonderful Team)
KPC (Kendallville) News reports on a recent concert by the Heidelberg choir. The author of the article loved particularly the Andrea Ramsay setting of Emily Brontë's No Coward Soul is Mine. With bonus fake Brontë news:
I See the Heaven’s Glories Shine” is beautiful piece written by Emily Brontë, a Victorian poet. Emily and her two sisters, Anne and Charlotte, published this poem in 1846 in a collection of their poems. Because women did not publish poetry then, it was titled “The Poems of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.” The sisters actually paid for the printing of the book. In all, they only sold two copies. They sent one off to William Wordsworth, but he never wrote back. They also sent one off to Emily Dickinson. It is said this piece by Emily was read at Dickinson’s funeral, upon her request. Now, all these years later, a touring choir from Ohio sings the words as if they have been stamped upon their hearts. At the end of the piece, Vicki leans over to me and says, “Emily would have liked that.” I smile. (Lou Ann Homan)
Obviously, the sisters never sent any copy of their book to Emily Dickinson. Not the least because she was sixteen when the book was published.

The Times interviews the author Victoria Hislop:
My favourite book
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë ignited my love of reading when I was a teenager (it is, after all, about adolescents). I love the way she writes about place and the elements too — it influenced me a lot. It’s almost impossible to believe that this masterpiece was her one and only novel, her first attempt. She was born 200 years ago this July and it still feels fresh — I shall reread it to mark the day.
Jean Rhys in the Wall Street Journal:
She is best known as the author of “Wide Sargasso Sea” (1966), a richly imagined life of Rochester’s insane first wife in “Jane Eyre” that was a forerunner of the now-flourishing genre of novels that spin off from literary classics.
One of her many disciples is Caryl Phillips, whose 2015 novel “The Lost Child” embellishes the boyhood of Heathcliff from “Wuthering Heights.” His latest, “A View of the Empire at Sunset” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 324 pages, $27), fictionalizes the life of Rhys herself. Mr. Phillips is, like Rhys, a Caribbean-born writer who moved to England at a young age, and his depiction of her sad circumstances is sympathetic though narrow and often drab. (Sam Sacks)
Los Angeles Times reviews the latest book by William Trevor, Last Stories:
And in "An Idyll in Winter" (my favorite story in the collection), a man leaves his family for a girl he once tutored in the lonely, Brontë-like moors of northern England until he is eventually called home by the suffering of a daughter who may love him too much. (Scott Bradfield)
The Stamford Advocate shows a school with a 'classical' curriculum. A relic of another time:
 “Jane Eyre” in eighth grade. Shakespeare as the spring play. No technology. Latin taught in classrooms. (...)
Alexandra Kimball, who teaches seventh and eighth grade Language Arts at Regina Pacis, said the students, who are now reading “Jane Eyre,” are more than capable of understanding Brontë’s prose about Jane and her relationship with Mr. Rochester.
“The eighth-graders are totally ready for this book,” Kimball said. “They get a lot. Jane starts off at 9 and they’re not much older than 9 and then she’s 18 and they’re not much younger than 18.” (Erin Kayata)
LeftLion interviews the Nottingham poet Jake Wildeman:

Martin Grey: Any particular poets, poems or collections that first got you into poetry?
Jake: In terms of first getting me in it would have to be the Brontës, 'cos I studied them initially in school. I remember their words and I remember constant references to death and misery, it was delightful for young Jake. In terms of a particular collection though, do go and read HP Lovecraft's Fungi From Yuggoth sonnet cycle, it's a beautiful thing.

The Shields Gazette lists some of the new plants set to be unveiled at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Including:
Rosa Emily Brontë (Ausearnshaw): Soft pink blooms with a subtle apricot hue. The central petals deepen to rich apricot and surround a button eye which unfurls a cluster of deep-set stamens. The fragrance is strong. From David Austin Roses. (Mandy Watson)
Culture Whisper adds
Then there’s the Rosa Emily Brontë (‘Ausearnshaw’), which took its name after the Brontë Society asked rose breeder David Austin to name the rose to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of the esteemed novelist Emily Brontë. Its distinctive blooms are soft pink with a subtle apricot hue, while its central petals deepen to rich apricot. The rose’s fragrance is said to be strong with delicious hints of lemon and grapefruit. (Holly O'Mahony)
 The Daily Star (Pakistan) publishes an eulogy of Professor Serajul Islam Choudhoury:
He never took attendance, but no one ever missed his class. We would all sit quietly, waiting for our Dickens man (he was also our Jane Austen man, the Brontë man, and Tolstoy man, for he was the one who introduced us to the glorious world of the Novel). (Fayeza Hasanat)
Hindustan Times (India) interviews the author Sudha Menon:
Sundays and holidays for Menon meant sitting on the old, beaten sofa in her drawing room, reading American or Russian classics, dad’s collection of PG Wodehouse or Sherlock Holmes. At the age of 10, she was already reading books such as Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, AJ Cronin’s The Citadel, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Émile Zola’s L’Assommoir (The Dram Shop) and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. “My baby steps towards becoming an author were taken all those years ago when I would get lost in the worlds created by the authors I read,” says Menon. (Anjaly Setty)
Le Journal de la Philo (in French) on France Culture:
Simone de Beauvoir a écrit Le 2ème sexe, et parce que vient de sortir le livre : Etats de la femme, l’identité féminine dans la fiction occidentale, de Nathalie Heinich, je vais vous parler aujourd’hui, de la « seconde ».
La seconde, c’est cette figure que l’on trouve beaucoup dans les romans et films du XVIIIème à aujourd’hui : c’est la maîtresse, la 2nde épouse ou compagne, la jeune fille à marier, la vieille fille… bref, la 2nde, ce sont toutes ces femmes qui ne sont pas, pas encore ou plus, la 1ère, la seule et l’unique.
Dans son livre qui n’est ni un plaidoyer féministe ni un commentaire littéraire, mais revendique une « neutralité axiologique » qu’on imagine donc aussi bien politique qu’esthétique, Nathalie Heinich part de l’héroïne de Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre. Soit celle qui expérimente tous les états de la 2nde, je cite, « de la jeune fille qu’elle est à la vieille fille qu’elle s’apprête à être, puis à celui de maîtresse qu’elle refuse, et enfin, à celui de 2nde épouse auquel elle finit par consentir ».
Si Jane Eyre est exemplaire de cette figure de la 2nde, on pourrait presque dire pourtant que la seconde, c’est un peu toutes les femmes… car qui n’a jamais été seconde ou secondé ? Et comme le dit Simone de Beauvoir, la femme, toujours déterminée face à l’homme, c’est aussi le 2ème sexe, l’autre sexe. D’où ma question, aujourd’hui, de 2nde à 2ème, et inversement, les femmes sont-elles des éternelles numéro 2 ? (Géraldine Mosna-Savoye) (Translation)
Digischool's cultural selection (in French) for the week includes:
Les hauts de Hurlevent d'Emily Brontë
C'est le seul roman d'Emily Brontë, elle l'a écrit alors qu'elle avait moins de 30 ans. Il a été publié en 1847, un an avant sa mort. C'est la soeur de Charlotte Brontë, auteure de Jane Eyre. C'est une femme qui a rarement quitté sa campagne du nord de l'Angleterre, elle avait peu d'amis et était peu sociable. Ce manque d'expérience et de connaissance de la vie ne l'a pas empêché d'écrire un roman fort, plein de sentiments extrêmes, mais qui traite aussi d'hyprocrisie, de classes sociales, de moralité et de sexisme. Cependant, Les hauts de Hurlevent, c'est avant tout une grande histoire d'amour (un peu torturée comme on va le voir): un jour, Mr Earnshaw, un aristocrate anglais, ramène d'un voyage à Londres un enfant bohémien orphelin, qu'il rebaptise Heathcliff. Il l'élève comme un de ses enfants et le préfère même à Hindley, son fils ainé. Heathcliff est très proche de Catherine, la soeur de Hindley, et ils tombent amoureux. Mr Ernshaw meurt, Hindley devient maitre du domaine, réduit Heathcliff à l'état de domestique et le martyrise. Catherine, même si elle l'aime, pense qu'elle déchoirait de son statut si elle épousait un domestique. Elle  se marie donc avec Edgar Linton, un grand propriétaire. Le coeur brisé, Heathcliff s'enfuit en Amérique. Il revient des années plus tard, riche à millions, et va exercer sa vengeance sur Catherine et sa descendance. C'est une histoire d'une grande noirceur, un amour qui aboutit finalement à la folie. Cette oeuvre est un classique de la littérature britannique à découvrir ou à re-découvrir. (Axel Djoussou) (Translation
Le Temps (Switzerland) reviews the novels by Elodie Glerum:
Sous l’humour affleure la peur: soit nous ne valons rien, soit nous sommes voués très tôt à péricliter. Le temps des voyages Erasmus n’est qu’un «répit» de quelques mois, avant d’entrer dans un âge adulte et une vie «active» perçus par les personnages comme terriblement aliénants. A l’âge des réseaux sociaux, on noue aucun contact réel: «on se contente de passer» et les personnes qui nous entourent ont l’air de zombies. Pourtant, de petits miracles restent possibles: la rencontre entre un jeune homme et une femme passionnés par la littérature, et l’œuvre des sœurs Brontë… (Julien Burri) (Translation)
La Vanguardia (Spain) presents a new author Alaitz Leceaga:
Alaitz Leceaga, nacida en 1982, supo desde siempre que sería escritora y no esconde que ha pasado muchas horas de su vida encerrada en su habitación degustando historias de todo tipo, aunque se siente deudora de obras como "Cumbres borrascosas", "Rebeca" o "La casa de los espíritus". (Irene Dalmases) (Translation)
Todo Noticias (Argentina) reviews Lady Macbeth:
Basada no en Shakespeare, sino en una novela rusa, Lady Macbeth de Mtsensk, y ubicada en una Inglaterra antigua y rural, esta es la muy intensa historia de pasión y sangre de una mujer joven, sometida e infeliz, que hará todo por vivir su romance con un empleado de la casa. Sí, remite a la historia de amor prohibido entre clases de Cumbres Borrascosas, en el clima ominoso de una gran casa decadente en medio de los campos nublados. (Mariana Mactas) (Translation)
The same film is also reviewed in Otros Cines:
Lo primero que recordé al comenzar Lady Macbeth no fue ninguna de las tragedias shakespeareanas sino la versión de Cumbres borrascosas que hace unos años dirigió Andrea Arnold. Si bien la película de William Oldroyd no tiene el radical y casi excesivo control audiovisual que tenía aquella propuesta, hay en la puesta en escena –seca, austera, realista, nunca teñida de falso prestigio académico o literario– muchas conexiones. (Diego Lerer) (Translation)
Le Soir (Belgique) interviews the author Guillaume Musso:
A 11 ans, j'ai lu Les hauts de Hurlevent d'Emily Brontë, un roman gothique ettourmenté, et j'avais l'impression d'être dans les pensées les plus intimes d'une jeune femme. (Jean-Claude Vantroyen) (Translation)
The Yorkshire Post interviews the poet Ben Myers, author of Heathcliff Adrift, who most appropriately has a dog named Heathcliff (Cliff for short).  A note-filled copy of Jane Eyre on My Jane Eyre. The Brussels Brontë Blog discusses the 'true cause of death of Martha Taylor'.

0 comments:

Post a Comment