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Thursday, February 28, 2019

Thursday, February 28, 2019 12:07 pm by Cristina in , , , , , , ,    No comments
The Paris Review has an article by Lucasta Miller on 'the rise and fall of the prolific poet and novelist Letitia Elizabeth Landon', known as 'the female Byron'.
Her death left a nasty taste in the mouth of the literary industry, and her reputation soon declined in this new Victorian climate. Although her contemporary admirers included Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Heinrich Heine, Edgar Allan Poe, and the young Brontës, by the twentieth century, if she was remembered at all, her work was dismissed as insipid: the incontinent outpourings of a virgin fantasist who penned vapid sentimental verses about flowers, birds, and lovelorn ladies. [...]
We tend to think of nineteenth-century women poets as unworldly, spiritual figures. Emily Dickinson and Emily Brontë, both celibate recluses, dressed like nuns, ran away at the sight of strangers, and did not write verse for money or even publication. But L.E.L., who belonged to the preceding generation, was a canny self-publicist. She danced until 3 AM in low-cut black velvet, pink satin, or scarlet cashmere, and rubbed shoulders with men in the industry. She forged her career in the hypercommercial literary marketplace of the day, a Darwinian battlefield in which the term “free lance” retained its martial and mercenary implications.
Shelf Awareness reviews the book Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley and we sincerely hope that the mistake comes from the reviewer and not from the actual book:
Throughout the story, Knisley adds levity by presenting illustrated factoids, myths and research about women's reproductive health. These include how Emily Brontë died from pregnancy sickness, how sexism has affected women's lives for centuries, the rise of the women's movement, and pregnancy, miscarriage and "conception misconceptions." (Kathleen Gerard)
Horror Society features a class on 'The Paranoid Woman's Film, Exploring The Rise Of Female Led Psychological Gothic Thrillers':
We will then move onto other examples of the genre, such as another Joan Fontaine classic, the 1944 adaptation of Jane Eyre, which was (like Rebecca) explicitly understood as a horror film at the time. This will also be used to illustrate another key feature of the period, that these were not low budget horror films but major prestige studio productions, and ones that sought to acquire associations with legitimate culture.
While Relevant magazine uses Jane Eyre to 'Restore Your Faith In True Love'.
February is the month of love stories, or at least Hallmark says so, yet knights in shining armor are outdated. The Jane Austen romances are humorous and picturesque but somewhat unrealistic. Lolitas have shocked throughout the ages, and now teen girls read only of supernatural or mortally terminal lovers. There have been billions of love stories in the libraries of history, but Jane Eyre is one of the most complex, weaving its way through the longing, heartbreak, and intimacy that is human love. If I could only read one story of romance it would be Charlotte Brontë’s classic. It’s a love story the #MeToo generation needs desperately. [...]
If my daughter only follows in the steps of one heroine, I hope it is Jane Eyre. Jane made hard choices even when it meant she barely survived and faced a prospective life alone. She followed her internal compass to not only what was morally right but also what her heart needed on the journey. And when it was time to give love another chance, she followed her intuition as it joined with her moral parameters. [...]
Courage in the face of pain, standing strong in your worth and committing to whatever is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy—that is the stuff of a great romance. This isn’t a ride-off-into-the-sunset love story, but none of those ring true anyway. (Sharon McKeeman)
However, JSTOR Daily claims that, 'Jane Eyre Isn’t the Romance You Want It to Be'.
Hatred. Insurrection. Patriarchy. Not exactly romantic themes. Readers have always picked up on the tension between the book’s revolutionary subtexts and its uneasy relationship with love. To twenty-first-century eyes, it shows a woman who fights for, yet abdicates to, love. To nineteenth-century eyes, it showed a woman who should abdicate to, yet fights for, love. In either century, readers demand that Jane Eyre should do cultural labor that it steadfastly resists. Its author resists our attempts at that labor, too. For Charlotte Brontë, a woman whose life was steeped in stifled near-romance, refused to write love as ruly, predictable, or safe. (Read more) (Erin Blakemore)
Journal News features a local student who has just published a paper on Jane Eyre.
 An essay by Shepherd University English major Claudia McCarron, of Charles Town, has been published in the 2018-2019 volume of the Sigma Tau Delta Review, an annual journal that publishes critical essays on literature, rhetoric, and composition, and essays devoted to pedagogical issues. The paper, titled "The Revelation to Jane: Christianity and Apocalypse in 'Jane Eyre,'" is the first work by a Shepherd student to appear in the Review.
McCarron's paper examines the parallels between "Jane Eyre" and the book of Revelation. The paper argues that "Jane Eyre" can be read as a female-centered reworking of this Biblical book. McCarron said she wrote the paper for a Bible as Literature class in the fall of 2018.
"It actually began as a failure," she said. "I was struggling to find a critical argument that I was excited to write about."
McCarron said Dr. Heidi Hanrahan, professor of English and Sigma Tau Delta advisor, helped her find a focus.
"We decided that it might be easier for me to write about the Biblical parallels in another work of literature instead of focusing solely on the Bible," McCarron said. "After I started researching the topic, I began to get really interested. I am incredibly excited and grateful to everyone who helped me with this paper at every stage: the editors at the Review for selecting it for publication, Dr. Hanrahan for helping me brainstorm, draft, and revise it, and my sister for letting me complain to her whenever I got frustrated."
Göteborgs-Posten features Chris Lancaster, who has composed the music for Folkteatern's Jane Eyre.
Det är ett känsligt skede. Jane Eyre har just konfronterat Rochester med att hon känner till hemligheten på vinden, det faktum att han gömmer sin fru däruppe. Skådespelarna balanserar inte bara i stundens maxade känsloläge, ett gyllene ljus och en scenbild i djupa färger. I salongen sprider sig också ljudet av en cello. Eller snarare ljuden. Ett par rader upp i salongen sitter Chris Lancaster, elektroakustisk cellist från Brooklyn och spelar. Han är barfota och vid fötterna har han ett virrvarr av sladdar. Med vänster fot manövrerar han pedalerna som transformerar ljudet inifrån cellon, ändrar kvaliten, ljudbilden. Med höger fot sköter han sin sampler, som fångar ljudet och på bordet bredvid honom står laptopen där hela ljudbilden får ytterligare ny skepnad, när han processar musiken ytterligare varv. Resultatet, ett märkvärdigt känslostarkt flöde, fyller salongen. (Hanna Tornbrant) (Translation)
The Washington Post has an article on 'The bizarre and brilliant rules for naming new stuff in space' and recalls the fact that,
Minor planets — any body in orbit around the sun that is not a planet or comet — are the most freewheeling of solar system objects. With a few exceptions, most new asteroids can bear any name that is not offensive or overtly commercial or political. These space rocks carry the names of mathematicians, chemists, engineers, high school teachers, the members of the Beatles and the British comedy group Monty Python, all three Brontë sisters, runner Jesse Owens, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor and activist Malala Yousafzai. (Sarah Kaplan)
Backstage announces:
Chapterhouse Theatre Company is seeking male and female performers for their 20th anniversary Open Air season. The team are casting for a company to perform Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream alongside adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, Cranford, Wuthering Heights, The Secret Garden, and Treasure Island. (Laurence Cook)
Arezzo Notizie (Italy) reviews La Bambinaia Francese by Bianca Pitzorno. Today, Michela Monferrini presents his book Charlotte Brontë, tre di sei in Bisceglie (Bisceglie Vive).

Finally, we would like to congratulate Ann Dinsdale:


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