Grown Genius in Grief

Charlotte Brontë died on a day like today in 1855 and her death is always one of the most poignant events in the ever poignant Brontë story. If you are in lockdown mode, please consider picking up her works or her biography as a couple of sites recommend today.

Libreriamo (Italy) considers Charlotte Brontë to have been a combative spirit.

Charlotte Brontë, uno spirito combattivo
Charlotte Brontë è stata una scrittrice britannica dell’età vittoriana, la maggiore delle tre sorelle Brontë, nota per il suo romanzo “Jane Eyre”. Per conoscere meglio la scrittrice britannica, vi consigliamo di leggere “Charlotte Brontë. Una vita appassionata” di Lyndall Gordon. Si tratta di una biografia che fa emergere il ritratto di una donna passionale e determinata, in conflitto con i vincoli che il contesto sociale imponeva alle donne. Uno spirito combattivo che la scrittrice stessa tendeva a stemperare e a dissimulare, in omaggio alle convenzioni del tempo. (Translation)

The article continues discussing Villette and we have today another piece of news about the last of the Charlotte Brontë novels. The Chicago Tribune announces the new season of the Looking Glass Theatre where:

Up next is the adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's “Villette” (Feb. 5-Apr. 25, 2021). Artistic associate Sara Gmitter will adapt the novel by the “Jane Eyre” author. The play tells the story of Lucy Snow in Belgium in the 1800s. Ensemble member Tracy Walsh will direct this world premiere. (Hannah Herrera Greenspan)

The Quietus reviews Isabel Greenberg's graphic novel Glass Town:

Glass Town itself is a real imagined place, which is to say, it really was imagined by the Brontë sisters and brother, back when they were growing up and inspiring each other. Charlotte Brontë is the protagonist of the book, accompanied by her creation/alter ego Charles and we first meet her having recently lost her siblings Branwell, Emily and Anne and living in a grey, grief stricken version of their childhood home upon the moors in Haworth. They look back on both the time the child authors spent together and apart at various schools, and most specifically at the stories they told and wrote together of their imagined kingdoms.
Each layer of the story has its own colour scheme but the art throughout is consistently inventive and engaging, playing with the overlapping of reality and fantasy. The inhabitants of Glass Town, much like the Brontë siblings, aren't often very nice to each other, their foundations built on both the joys and tensions of a family growing up so isolated and engaged in "scribblemania". The book works on many levels but perhaps the most powerful is the feeling of a child's imagination at work within the heart and mind of a grown genius in grief. (Jenny Robins)

Adding names to the literary canon in the different Penguin series. In the New York Times:

“It might not be just Dickens, Brontë and Austen all the time first. In many, many people’s minds, it’ll be Audre Lorde. Or it’ll be ‘Passing.’ Or it’ll be ‘The Awakening,’” she said, referring to some of the books that launched the Penguin Vitae series. (Concepción De León)

Brisbane Times lists classic novels adapted for the corona times:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. Stage 3 lockdown protocols were in place. (John Birmingham)

The Conversation tries to find comfort in classic novels in these times:

Jane Eyre
 Jane Eyre fights for what she believes to be right. She stands up to those more powerful than herself, whether it be for her own rights or the good of others.
Orphaned and rejected by her guardian aunt, Jane trains to become a teacher at a charity school and then becomes governess to Adele, the ward of the wealthy and seemingly misanthropic Mr Rochester.
Slowly and unwillingly she falls in love with her master but he has a certain secret in his attic. What will this determined woman do to save herself from the temptations of his love? (Pam Lock)

Skiddle recommends some music live streams:

So before we all become sick of this live stream lark and opt instead to sit in the cupboard under the stairs banging a wooden spoon off the saucepan on our heads while singing 'Wuthering Heights', here's some of our favourite live streamed performances so far...

The New Yorker reviews A Biography of Loneliness: A History of an Emotion by Fay Bound Alberti:

Alberti’s book is a cultural history (she offers an anodyne reading of “Wuthering Heights,” for instance, and another of the letters of Sylvia Plath). But the social history is more interesting, and there the scholarship demonstrates that whatever epidemic of loneliness can be said to exist is very closely associated with living alone. (Jill Lepore) 

25 Years Later discusses Rebecca 1944:

Going back to the omission of details which keeps viewers on the edge of their seat, the opening of the film, rather than center itself on giving the viewer a clue as to who Rebecca might have been, instead centers directly on the house and the mysterious forces that surround it, much like the film Wuthering Heights. (Edwin J. Viera)

RadioWoche (Germany) informs that the radio station WDR-5 has changed its usual schedule for the corona crisis:

 Lesungen aus dem Roman “Jane Eyre” von Charlotte Brontë, montags bis donnerstags 20.04 Uhr. Die Lesung ersetzt den Wiederholungssendeplatz von “Dok 5”, das “Europamagazin”, das “Tischgespräch” sowie die “Funkhausgespräche” bzw. “Stadtgespräche”. (Tom Sprenger) (Translation)

La Stampa (Italy) talks about the Peak District:

Sono villaggi liricamente assottigliati intorno a una main street (dove si affacciano una paio di storici pubs) che si allarga nell'immancabile market place per finire contro una parrocchia isolata ai confini del canovaccio in pietra color miele. Richiamano tutti i luoghi immortalati in "Jane Eyre" da Charlotte Brönte (sic). (Andrea Battaglini) (Translation)

Sohh mentions an Instagram post by the model Vida Guerra quoting Jane Eyre. Starz includes Jane Eyre 2011 in its April catalogue. The Memory Tourist reviews Wuthering Heights 2011. Alan Ayckbourn – The Archivist's Blog posts about a 1956 production of Wuthering Heights (adapted by Joan Winch) in Scarborough.

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No Limits

A collection of short stories inspired by the Brontës on the ebook market:

No Limits: A Collection of Short Stories Inspired by Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë
by Jennie L. Morris, Andra Dill, Joshua Ian, Amanda J. Evans, Casia Courtier and Muriel Garcia
Perfectly Poisoned Press (March 19, 2020)

Inspirational, enigmatic, iconic, limitless.
Just a few words that describe the genius of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë. One can only imagine what they could have accomplished if they hadn’t died so young or were perhaps born in more modern times.
In No Limits: A Collection of Short Stories Inspired by the Brontë sisters, six of your favorite authors use their own creative writing to bring you six stories from their imaginations and appreciation of the writing of the Brontë sisters.

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A huge role in kickstarting the Yorkshire economy

The Telegraph and Argus quotes from a recent speech by Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive James Mason:

Mason said: "Bradford will play a huge role in kickstarting the Yorkshire economy.
“Tourism is the life blood of much of the county and presently worth £9billion a year.
"In a city like Bradford we have a host of tourist attractions such as the Science and Media Museum, Salts Mill, Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage to name but a few all on our doorstep with the Yorkshire Dales only a matter of miles away.
"West Yorkshire has a huge part to play in the bigger picture of Yorkshire’s tourism economy and we are here to support the city.
"It’s vital that we and our members prepare ourselves to hit the ground running and be ready for the world to enjoy Yorkshire again when we come out the other side of the COVID-19 crisis.
"We chose Bradford as our host city for the Y20, not because I am from there, because Bradford is showing to the rest of the UK how a city can plan together including the university, local authorities and businesses, that a city can be connected." (Mark Stanford)

Many sites are commenting on the Duchess of Cambridge's collection of  Penguin Clothbound Classics in a recent picture of her at her desk. According to Nine,

Kate loves her classic novels
The Duchess is clearly using self-isolation as an opportunity to catch up on her reading.
Bookworms were delighted to spot a selection of novels lined up on Kate's desk, which were quickly identified as Penguin's Clothbound Classics range, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. The books retail at $29.99 each.
Examining the spines, one fan determined Kate's collection included such works as Sense and Sensibility, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Mansfield Park, The Odyssey, Shakespeare's Sonnets and Tess of D'Ubervilles.
(Yep, always picked her as a Jane Austen woman.)
While there's more to a book than its cover, the Duchess clearly knows a gorgeously illustrated tome can double as Instagram-worthy decor in its own right. (Kahla Preston)

Grazia also reads into it:

... the books are as follows.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Sonnets and a Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
Middlemarch by George Elliot
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Odyssey by Homer
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
What can we learn about The Duchess from this selection? Well, she clearly enjoys a classic, and clearly has a fondness for literature of the Victorian periods - seven of the twelve books are from the era. Her favourite author may be Jane Austen - three of the twelve are by the author - but, interestingly, there's no sign of Pride & Prejudice, undoubtedly Austen's most famous romance. Genre-wise, it's pretty eclectic: amidst the romances, there are epic adventures (Homer's Odyssey) dark morality tales (Wilde's Dorian Gray) and mysteries (one of the most famous Sherlock Holmes books). In short, it's a wide-ranging catalogue of must-reads, and she's clearly got good taste. (Guy Pewsey)

Writer Patricia Nicol has selected the best books on headmasters for the Daily Mail:

There are plenty of heroic teachers in adult fiction, like Miss Temple in Jane Eyre or the wonderful Mr Chips, but I could think of no heads who set a positive role model.

Spiked recommends 'Literature for the lockdown'.

At the risk of further self-indulgence, I’ll leave you with one more recommendation for this period of national quarantine. In Orwell’s essays he repeatedly borrows GK Chesterton’s concept of the ‘good bad book’. In addition, he identifies a category of ‘perverse and morbid books’ that create a world of their own, into which he deposits Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë and The House with the Green Shutters (1901) by George Douglas Brown. To this I would add Sabine Baring-Gould’s Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes (1880). Comparisons with Wuthering Heights are inevitable and, in the shadow of Brontë’s masterpiece, Mehalah was always likely to be plunged into obscurity. It’s curious to think that the Anglican priest who wrote the famous hymn ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ should have also penned this crazed account of intense sexual obsession. (Andrew Doyle)

Forbes Romania recommends books to read while social distancing, including both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights by apparently the same author or the right one depending on which part you read.

În această perioadă în care știrile dramatice ne înconjoară de pretutindeni, cărțile ne pot aduce mai mult decât oricând alinare și ne pot transporta într-o altă lume : lumea aspră și romantică a eroinelor Jane Eyre și Tess d’Urberville sau cea zbuciumată a lui Catherine și Heathcliff. Să nu uităm că multe dintre ele sunt scrise cu mult curaj și finețe de condeie feminine, într-un secol în care destinul unei femei era cel de a fi soție. Toate cele 4 mari scriitoare pe care le veți regăsi în lista noastră și-au trimis inițial la edituri romanele sub un pseudonim masculin, pentru a fi sigure că vor fi luate în serios. Deci iată un motiv în plus să le citim și să le remarcăm sensibilitatea și finețea stilului. [...]
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Romanul care o va face celebră pe Charlotte Brontë va fi publicat sub pseudonimul masculin Currer Bell. Eroina romanului care-i poartă și numele este una dintre cele mai oțelite personaje feminine din literatura universală și nu poți să n-o admiri când refuză dragostea lordului Rochester și părăsește castelul pentru a nu abdica de la principiile sale.
La răscruce de vânturi- Charlotte Bronte [sic]
Va exista vreodată un roman care să descrie cu o dragoste atât de pasională cum este cea din „La răscruce de vânturi”? Forțele care o reunesc pe eroina principală Catherine Earnshaw și pe nemilosul Heathcliff sunt violente și  înrădăcinate într-un devotament total, sădit încă din copilărie. Este imposibil să ne imaginăm acest roman fără dezlănțuirea naturii și violența pasiunii, atât de bine descrise de Emily Brontë. (Translation)

AnneBrontë.org has put together 'Charlotte Brontë’s Guide To Writing A Novel'.

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Independence

Vintage Minis (Great Minds, Big Ideas, Little Books) recently published a selection of quotes of Jane Eyre and Villette:

Independence
Charlotte Brontë
Selected from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Villette.
Vintage Minis
Published: 05/03/2020
ISBN: 9781784876050
Length: 144  Pages
‘To myself alone could I look’

Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe are heroines who depend upon no one but themselves. In the face of hardship, from small sacrifices to great heartache, they cling resolutely to their principles of self-reliance. Lucy's energy and enterprise take her to Belgium and a career in teaching, whilst Jane’s honest, intelligent mind draws declarations of love. Both are the unforgettable creations of the deeply independent and brilliant Charlotte Brontë.

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What's not to love?

Cherwell reviews the film Portrait de la jeune fille en feu:

However, though the film may have profound things to say about art and the roles of women, Portrait of a Lady on Fire excels in the poignancy and universality of the love story at its centre. Motifs from the gothic genre – a solitary woman arrives at a geographically isolated house with a history of death (Héloïse’s sister died in an apparent suicide) and mysterious residents, and experiences an all-consuming forbidden love affair – remind the viewer of Rebecca or the work of the Brontë sisters and grant the film and its central romance a sense of grim foreboding. (Clementine Scott)

National Review publishes an article about John Ford's The Quiet Man:

There is quite a lot packed in that brief scene. Her assertion “I can, I will, I do,” reminiscent of Jane Eyre’s “I am a free human being with an independent will,” then her admission of weakness, that he has the physical advantage, followed by his remark that she has another, more mysterious, advantage. (Madeleine Kearns)

The wonders of Yorkshire by Alastair Humphreys in The Sunday Times:

I paused to admire the William Wilberforce statue here, as I did elsewhere in Yorkshire at the monuments to Captain Cook, the Brontës, Guy Fawkes and Fred Trueman (“t’ finest bloody fast bowler that ever drew breath”).

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution loves tea:

I thought about Alice and her proper ways with tea when I cracked open “Jane Eyre” for the first time in high school. When 10-year-old, maltreated Jane is sent to Lowood, a charity school for orphaned girls, the benevolent superintendent, Miss Temple, takes pity on her and the sick Helen Burns by inviting the deprived girls to her room for tea. Jane recalls: “How pretty, to my eyes, did the china cups and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table near the fire! How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast!”Bah. The trio had to split one measly slice of toast. And, a few pages later, Helen Burns dies. (Ligaya Figueras)

More websites give tips for reading in the quarantine:

Emily Lefroy – 9Honey Writer
"I'm going to re-read the Harry Potter series, it's a comfort read for sure, and reread the classics as well – it's the perfect time to get up to date with the Brontë sisters! (Maddison Leatch in Nine.com)

 "Jane Eyre," by Charlotte Brontë: An orphaned young governess, a love affair with brooding Mr. Rochester, a secret crazed wife locked in the attic – what's not to love? (Megan McCarthy in USA Today)

„Jane Eyre“ von Charlotte Brontë: Geister auf dem Dachboden sind nicht immer Geister, vielleicht sollte man das überprüfen, bevor man seinen Chef heiratet. (Maike Schiller and Holger True in Hamburger Abendblatt) (Translation)

Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Bronte. “Es una novela romántica, que para mí se debe leer como una novela de fantasmas. Es un libro que tiene la virtud de envolverte en un mundo muy lejano y hacerte volar en un dramón conmovedor”. (Elsa Drucaroff in Télam) (Translation)

Glass Town: The Imaginary World Of The Brontës (Abrams)
Isabel Greenberg is a cartoonist fascinated by storytelling and how it shapes both individuals and the world. Her latest graphic novel continues exploring this theme through the lens of historical fiction, imagining the circumstances surrounding the development and destruction of the fantasy world the young Brontë siblings created after the sudden deaths of their older sisters. Greenberg pulls Glass Town and its characters directly from the Brontës’ juvenilia, giving readers a look into the early creativity of an iconic literary family with a playful visual style that captures the Brontës’ enthusiasm as they discover what fiction can do. Glass Town is also a character study of Charlotte Brontë, the last surviving sibling, and Greenberg frames the story with conversations between Charlotte and Charles Wellesley, her primary character in Glass Town. Through Charlotte, Greenberg delves into the dangers of losing yourself in an escapist world. Fictional characters become obsessions that threaten Charlotte’s relationships with her siblings, and in order to be a better sister, she needs to bring herself back to reality. Variations on the characters introduced in Glass Town would reappear in the novels that made the Brontë sisters famous, and this graphic novel inventively weaves the fictional narratives of the young siblings with their own family drama to show how both elements inform their later works. (Oliver Sava in AV Club)

Wuthering Heights. Love can be destructive if passion is the only aspect taking control in a relationship. This short novel explores just that with two love stories; one story is tragic and one story ends happily. With the two love stories, you see the differences that made each one turn out that way. The book can make you think about what love is and how it should be treated in a romantic relationship. (Christopher Molek in Worldatlas)

or films:

Jane Eyre 2011
Vakker, sanselig og observant filmatisering av Charlotte Brontës elskede roman, Med ypperlig spilt av Mia Wasikowska og Michael Fassbender. (Inger Merete Hobbelstad in Dagbladet) (Translation)

Self-quarantine in a family could be challenging as La Depeche (France) explores:

Le couple est un continent qui regorge perpétuellement de terra incognita et qui, depuis toujours, inspire la littérature, le cinéma ou la télévision. De Titus et Bérénice à Rhett Butler et Scarlett O’Hara, de Colin et Chlo à Jane Eyre et Edouard Rochester, de Bonny and Clyde à un Gars une fille, d’Harold et Maud à Scène de ménages. (Philippe Rioux) (Translation)

or dating according to 10 Daily:

Alongside this, as popular memes have described -- it might be the end of the world we once knew, so what about those of us that never found love? Nothing like a last-ditch attempt to discover our Heathcliff. Although he’ll be less likely to be wondering the moors, and more likely to be sitting at home watching re-runs of Friends and eating two-minute noodles. (Lisa Portolan)

Rolling Stone (France) interviews the author Anne Simon:

Vos principales influences ?
J’aime les récits tragiques et cruels, comme les sœurs Brontë ou les romans naturalistes de Zola… Avec tout de même un peu d’espoir et des personnages forts. Côté BD, j’ai découvert Julie Doucet à la fin des années 90. Elle se raconte sans filtre, ses dessins et mises en page sont à tomber. Je n’avais jamais rien lu de tel. De Jérôme Bosch à Sophie Calle, mes goûts éclectiques ont tous un dénominateur commun : raconter des histoires et réveiller l’imaginaire. C’est ça qui m’intéresse. (Translation)

Dod Magazine reviews the latest album of the band Triángulo de Amor bizarro:

Otros temas destacables son Calígula 2025, que narra la historia de un don nadie que quiere convertirse en un dictador y Folía de las Apariciones; de temática romántica e inspirada en Cumbres Borrascosas que recoge las armonías de las folías ibéricas. Aquí, la propia Isa se presenta a si misma como un fantasma en busca de su vivo amado “Soy yo, Isa, quien te espera / ¿No hay nadie ahí que funda mi alma / enterrada en tu memoria / y me lleve al trono vacío / donde estabas tú?” (Pablo García) (Translation)

El Sol de Tampico (México) reviews Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo:

Se le ha querido encontrar influencia a la prosa de Rulfo con los grandes escritores como Faulkner, Prost, Joyce o Kafka; sin embargo, el apego a las supersticiones, a los mitos de aparecidos, a los veneros populares y a las descripciones marcadamente locales de paisajes fantasmales, hacen que la literatura rulfiana se acerque más a los autores nórdicos como Lagerlöff, Ramuz, Bjornson, Hamsun e, inclusive, con la Emily Brönte de Cumbres Borrascosas, en el tratamiento del amor fou –tan atrayente para los surrealistas franceses-. (Juan José González Mejía) (Translation)

InfoLibre (Spain) has a point when it says

Nadie, por tanto, va a leer a Stevenson, Balzac, Baroja, Dostoievski, Galdós o Dickens porque otro le haya recordado la idoneidad de los días largos para leer libros largos. Puede que ocurra en algún caso o dos, no lo niego, pero la norma más bien parece sugerir que esos libros tienen su modo peculiar de atraer a sus lectores: hay quien los encuentra en los estantes de la biblioteca paterna, o en un mercadillo callejero –donde las colecciones populares de clásicos de la literatura universal se liquidan por unos céntimos el ejemplar–, o en la escuela, o en un comentario afortunado hecho por una persona a la que se admira –mi hija leyó Cien años de soledad a una edad muy temprana porque la cantante Shakira dijo en una entrevista que era su libro favorito, y muchos jóvenes usuarios de la biblioteca escolar de la que me ocupo pidieron en ella en su día la novela Cumbres borrascosas de Emily Brontë porque era la favorita de no sé qué personaje de la saga Crepúsculo–. No, aquí la autoridad del lector reconocido cuenta poco y más bien puede resultar contraproducente. Esos otros azares tienen más fuerza. (José Manuel Benítez Ariza) (Translation)

AgoraVox (France) looks at Wuthering Heights... in a different way:

C’est la lecture récente d’un livre qui a éclairé ma lanterne. Emilie Brontë – Les Hauts de Hurlevent.
Dans cette histoire, les heures de coucher et de lever sont régulièrement spécifiées. On constate que les personnages sont très matinaux : la maison s’anime dès 4 heures du matin. Et pourtant il s’agit du récit de familles bourgeoises, pas d'éleveurs astreints à leurs bêtes ! (Tellurix) (Translation)

Keighley News reports that the Brontë Parsonage Museum car park will remain closed to help slow the spread of coronavirus. Ara, La Vanguardia, Diari de Girona and El Nacional (Spain) recommends the Teatre Lliure's Jane Eyre adaptation that can be seen this weekend on Youtube (Sunday, 18 h). Collyers Literary Group posts a review of Wuthering Heights.

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Will Hale's Anne Brontë in Italian

Published last month. An Italian translation of the 1929 biography Anne Brontë. Her Life and Writings by Will T. Hale:

Anne Brontë. La vita e le opere
by Will T. Hale
Translated by Maddaleda De Leo
Casa Editrice Ripostes
February 2020

In occasione del bicentenario della nascita di Anne Brontë, la minore delle autrici inglesi famose per i loro romanzi passionali e coinvolgenti, viene proposta in lingua italiana la prima monografia che mai sia stata scritta su di lei La presente biografia, comprendente anche un'articolata discussione sulle opere dell'autrice, risale al 1929 e il suo autore Will T. Hale (1880-1967), fu professore di letteratura inglese presso l'Università dell'Indiana. É molto difficile reperire questo testo anche in lingua inglese in quanto ad oggi esso non viene pubblicamente diffuso ma è presente solo in rarissime biblioteche tra cui quella del Brontë Parsonage Museum a Haworth.

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There’s nothing better to read in quarantine than a book about containment

Vogue editors share their 'Favourite Books Of All Time'.

Ellie Pithers, Digital Director
[...]
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
I have a postcard of the Brontë sisters blu tacked to my wardrobe door – yep, I’m that girl. There’s nothing better to read in quarantine than a book about containment, but beware: Cathy and Heathcliffe’s [sic] love story will make yours look decidedly ordinary.

For some reason, Better Homes & Gardens thinks it's quite a feat 'to Read Books Online for Free While Social Distancing' (as if reading books doesn't usually imply social distancing).

Audible
To help keep families occupied while schools are closed, Audible is now offering a free collection of stories for kids (or anyone who loves a good story). The lineup includes familiar favorites like Winnie the Pooh, Adventures in Wonderland, and Jane Eyre. Available for unlimited streaming across the globe, the stories are offered in six languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Japanese. You can stream them now on your desktop, laptop, phone, or tablet (no Audible subscription needed). (Jessica Bennett)

Good Housekeeping recommends 'The best audiobooks to settle down with' such as

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
As one of the most esteemed British novels ever, Wuthering Heights is likely a story you read at school. But consider giving it a listen again, so you can appreciate the hauntingly beautiful story love story. (Megan Sutton)

In Spain, Harpers Bazaar announces that, among other titles, Amazon is offering Carmen Martín Gaite's translation of Jane Eyre for Kindle for free.

Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë
Es esa clásica historia de amor que consigue dejar huella. Considerada por muchos como una de las primeras novelas feminismo cuenta la historia de una joven huérfana que se enfrenta a su destino manifiesto y muestra una forma diferente de ver la realidad. (Sara Ullate) (Translation)

RCN Radio (Colombia) recommends five books to read while self-isolating.

Cumbres borrascosas: Siguiendo la línea del romanticismo pero esta vez con una carga mayor de drama, recomendamos este libro de la escritora británica Emily Brontë.
La historia tiene sigue de cerca a Heathcliff, quien fue adoptado de niño por una acomodada familia. Pronto conoce a Catherine, la hija del hombre que lo salvó de las calles. Y no pasa muco tiempo para que se desarrolle entre ambos una apasionada relación llena de altibajos, desesperación, odio, rencor y muerte.
El libro tiene varias adaptaciones cinematográficas, pero la más reciente de ellas fue protagonizada por la actriz británica Kaya Scodelario y estrenada en 2011. (Julieth Castaño) (Translation)

RTVE (Spain) recommends the best literary series to be found on its online archive.

La obra más conocida de la británica Charlotte Brontë es Jane Eyre, novela de la que tenemos una adaptación en 15 capítulos dirigida en 1971 por Domingo Almendros y protagonizada por María Luisa Merlo, Rafael Arcos y Mercedes Prendes. Es una historia de superación personal y lucha contra la injusticia de una chica huérfana en la Inglaterra victoriana. (Translation)

The Irish Times has asked several writers to share their favourite funny novels.

Martina Evans
Humour is all about style for me so my favourite funny authors are serious stylists. [...] Rachel Cusk’s gorgeous prose is studded with hilarious observational gems. Her wicked comedy The Country Life combines Jane Eyre and Cold Comfort Farm along with the true-to-life absurdity of Alice in Wonderland. Just writing about it now makes me want to read it again!

El Periódico (Spain) reminds readers that there are still a couple of sessions left to watch Carme Portaceli's Jane Eyre on YouTube.

El Teatre Lliure ofrece en abierto el espectáculo 'Jane Eyre: una autobiografía', adaptación de la novela de Charlotte Bronte, dirigida por Carme Portacelli y protagonizada por Ariadna Gil. Se puede ver en su canal YouTube, este sábado a las 20.00 horas, y el domingo, a las18.00 horas. (Mireya Roca) (Translation)

Writerly advice from Kirsty Ferry on Female First:

Let me tell you, you will lose all self-respect for yourself if you try to copy Mistress Holt. It’s like rewriting Wuthering Heights – just don’t.

Le Temps (Switzerland) features writer Yasmina Reza.

Ecrire pourtant, quelle folle idée! Yasmina a trop lu, adolescente, pour ne pas se méfier de cette tentation. Emily Brontë lui a donné le goût de la lande; Léon Tolstoï celui des isbas où s’éteignent les ermites. Tout cela, elle l’égraine tandis que tiédit l’Empereur Chen Nung. Conversations après un enterrement était un pied dans la porte de la littérature, sourit-elle. [...]
Quel est le classique qui vous accompagne? Les Hauts de Hurlevent d’Emily Brontë. C’est un livre qui m’a fondée, adolescente. (Alexandre Demidoff) (Translation)

Hartford Courant features young actress Meghan Pratt, 11, who played both young Jane and Adèle in the Hartford Stage production of Jane Eyre.

Finally, this month's treasure from the Brontë Parsonage shared by The Sisters' Room is Charlotte Brontë's blue floral dress.

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Virtual No Soft Nonsense

A virtual visit to the, now temporarily closed, Anne Brontë exhibition at the Morgan Library (you need to log in with your Instagram account):

@cnlibrarian
I invite you on a virtual tour of my exhibition "No Soft Nonsense: Anne Brontë at 200" - on view now in my Story highlights!
.
Right now Anne is keeping silent watch over the empty Rotunda of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library at @themorganlibrary. I'm glad she's there, but I wish you could visit. Best wishes to all 💙

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National Theatre Jane Eyre to be broadcast on YouTube

The fact that the National Theatre will be collaborating with YouTube in order to screen several of their plays is all over the news. One of said plays is Jane Eyre. From The Guardian:

Thursday night could become National Theatre night, as the company announced plans to broadcast some of its most popular productions for free during the lockdown.
The new two-month National Theatre at Home programme will begin with One Man, Two Guvnors, the Richard Bean comedy starring James Corden.
The films will be shown at 7pm every Thursday to try to recreate, where possible, the communal viewing experience. They will then be available on demand for seven days.
Lisa Burger, the executive director and joint chief executive of the National Theatre, said writers, actors and directors had all waived their rights to the productions.
“Everyone has said yes. Please. Let’s get it out to people,” she said. “It has taken a bit of negotiation and management but the outpouring from the industry has been fantastic.”
The shows will be available to watch on YouTube. They kick off on 2 April with a play regarded as one of the most joyously laugh-out-loud shows of the last decade.
One Man, Two Guvnors, directed by Nicholas Hytner, is Bean’s 2011 adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s 1746 comedy and a brilliant vehicle for Corden’s stage comedy skills. The Guardian’s Michael Billington, giving it five stars, wrote: “The result, a kind of Carry On Carlo, is one of the funniest productions in the National’s history.”
That will be followed by Sally Cookson’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, a production that began at Bristol Old Vic; [...]
The shows will also have accompanying contact, which includes Q&As with casts and creatives and post-show talks. (Mark Brown)

Also reported by Stage Chat, Border Telegraph, Variety, Broadway World, etc.

Jane Eyre
This bold and innovative reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece uncovers one woman’s fight for freedom and fulfilment on her own terms.
Streaming from 7pm on Thursday 9 April. Available until 16 April.

Vulture claims that,

Every protagonist in literature is lonely. Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet, Pip, Miss Jean Brodie, Holden Caulfield. They all live inside themselves — that’s what makes them interesting. The contented character has no place to go, no paths to improvement or destruction or unravelling. (Hillary Kelly)

This Cherwell contributor discussing the TV show YOU is clearly not a fan of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights:

And the trope not exclusive to, nor even more popular within, modern popular culture. The orthodox literary canon is rife with abusive yet romantically desirable men, perhaps nowhere more so than in gothic literature. Take, for example, the heroes written by the Brontë sisters. Charlotte Brontë’s Mr Rochester is the type of guy who thinks it’s morally justified to lock up a female love interest in a confined space if and when he deems her out of her right mind: the only difference between him and YOU’s Joe Goldberg, is that Joe chooses a soundproof glass box rather than an attic as his prison. Often described as a proto-feminist work, readers have long been baffled by Jane Eyre’s ending, which sees Jane marry the ghastly individual who dehumanised his last wife for so many years.
And the problem doesn’t just lie in the literature itself. Subsequent adaptations of Jane Eyre, and indeed of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, tend to cast Mr Rochester and Heathcliff respectively as conventionally attractive, relatively young men, whose problematic behaviour is often acted more like troubled angst than abuse. The way in which these texts are retold needs to change radically in order to break the dangerous cycle of romanticising the abuser. (Cora Wilson)

InfoLibre (Spain) recommends Wide Sargasso Sea for self-isolation.

Lo que les propongo, ahora que las torres se multiplican, que todos estamos encerrados en las nuestras, tan aislados como nuestra pobre loca antillana, es que lean Ancho mar de los Sargazos y continúen con Jane Eyre; que disfruten del privilegio que tenemos los lectores de poder unir el magnífico diálogo intertextual Brönte [sic]/Rhys en un texto único, plural, inolvidable, y que observen cómo se aviva la llama, cómo se enciende el fuego inextinguible de la buena literatura. (Lola López Mondéjar) (Translation)

La Vanguardia (Spain) celebrates the 80th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca.

Clásico del cine, invencible al paso del tiempo, Hitchcock supo dotar a esta adaptación de la novela homónima de la escritora británica Daphne du Maurier, publicada en 1938, de un aura de misterio desde los primeros compases, con esa verja que se abre silenciosa y nos guía por un jardín frondoso dominado por una luna a la que sigue la silueta imponente del caserón, una imagen tan evocadora de nostalgia y ensoñación como tremendamente terrorífica. Du Maurier se había inspirado en Jane Eyre y Cumbres borrascosas, de las hermanas Brontë, para dibujar un escenario siniestro de celos y mentiras que se convirtió en todo un best seller. (Astrid Meseguer) (Translation)

According to Contact Music, Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights is one of several songs to 'inspire you to experience nature'.

Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
Nothing quite captures the bleak beauty of the Yorkshire moors like Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and Kate Bush's hit song of the same name certainly does it justice in musical form. It's her debut single, released in 1978 from her first album The Kick Inside and went on to top the UK charts thanks to its captivating weirdness. (Holly Mosley)

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Brontë Sisters Mug

Via Il Libraio (Italy):

BookishlyUK
Author Mug - Brontë Sisters - Literary Gift

Capacity: 10 Fluid ounces

Description
One of our new author mugs, showcasing the wonderful Bronte sisters.
A lovely gift for that literary friend.
Our mugs are designed by our wonderful creative team using a digitally drawn illustration and hand pressed at our studio.

Dimensions
9.5 cm. (Height) 8.2 cm. (Diameter) 10 Fl Oz.

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Beloved stories

Los Angeles Times has an article on 'how to read for free while social distancing'.

In the past week, publishers and audio entertainment companies have offered a deluge of free e-books and audiobooks to keep readers of all ages engaged while they’re hunkered down at home.
Parents, teachers and kids can choose from electronic editions of beloved stories such as Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” Ann McGovern’s “Stone Soup,” Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” and Charlotte Brontë's “Jane Eyre.” (Dorany Pineda)

Jane Eyre has been available online for free (and legally) for decades now. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are also two of several 'Iconic books everyone should read at least once in their lives' according to Heat World.

11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre is an orphan with a terribly sad story. But rising from the ashes, she endeavours to make something of her life, and eventually lands a great job, where she meets Mr. Rochester. Full of twists and turns, Jane Eyre is considered a masterpiece. [...]
20. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights is easily one of the best-known novels of the last two centuries. It's a passionate story of the intense love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an abandoned child adopted by Catherine's father. After leaving Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff returns a wealthy man and seeks his revenge on the people there. (Jade Moscrop)

City Pulse also discusses reading while 'in the grip of the coronavirus'.

She extols, “Rereading stories that you know will make you smile; that have a happy ending.”
To that end, she’s reading “Jane Eyre.” “I know it ends happily. Rereading ‘Little Women’ is like eating a big bowl of mac and cheese. It makes me feel like a kid-safe and protected by familiar people,” she wrote.
Most of these books are available free online. (Bill Castanier)

La FM (Colombia) recommends reading Wuthering Heights:

Cumbres borrascosas: Siguiendo la línea del romanticismo pero esta vez con una carga mayor de drama, recomendamos este libro de la escritora británica Emily Brontë.
La historia tiene sigue de cerca a Heathcliff, quien fue adoptado de niño por una acomodada familia. Pronto conoce a Catherine, la hija del hombre que lo salvó de las calles. Y no pasa muco tiempo para que se desarrolle entre ambos una apasionada relación llena de altibajos, desesperación, odio, rencor y muerte.
El libro tiene varias adaptaciones cinematográficas, pero la más reciente de ellas fue protagonizada por la actriz británica Kaya Scodelario y estrenada en 2011. (Julieth Castaño) (Translation)

Anime News Network reviews A Condition Called Love.

Romance for teens has had a problem for a long time, probably since even before Cathy and Heathcliff began their tumultuous romance back in 1847. (Not that Wuthering Heights was YA, strictly speaking, but it's been embraced by that reading community.) What is that problem? The romanticisation of unhealthy, even dangerous, relationships. Found a bad boy? Love can fix him! Does he have a weird, almost creepy fascination with your whereabouts at all times? That just means he loves you! While these tropes have been on the way out in romance for older audiences, young adult fiction just can't seem to shake them, and while A Condition Called Love's first volume doesn't have anything horrifically dangerous, it certainly feels more like a story where you want to warn the heroine to run away than root for the love interest. (Rebecca Silverman)

El Mundo (Spain) reviews Woody Allen's autobiography, Apropos of Nothing.

Siempre sincero: «Nunca he leído Ulises, Don Quijote, Lolita, Trampa 22, 1984. Nunca he leído una línea de Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence; Lo mismo ocurre con Dickens y las hermanas Brontë». (Luis Martínez) (Translation)

Screen Rant ranks Mia Wasikowska's movies according to their IMDb scores.

3/10
Jane Eyre - 7.2
Mia Wasikowska played the character, Jane Eyre, in the 2011 film, Jane Eyre. This film is based on Charlotte Brontë's famous publication under the same name, which was published in 1847. This hauntingly dark love story reminiscent of Gothic horror with romance intertwined. The film works in a nonlinear plotline with flashbacks used to visually give context to the situations Jane and Edward find themselves in. Mia Wasikowska takes her lead role and works to fully capture the character with narrative authenticity and emotional resilience.
As Edward Fairfax Rochester, Michael Fassbender stars alongside Mia Wasikowska in this haunting film. (Mackenzi Butson)

Stylist interviews AN Devers, owner of The Second Shelf bookshop in London.

MY TYPICAL DAY…
Starts at the shop. We’re hidden in what I think of as a secret courtyard in Soho. I’ve been holding on for dear life since we opened, and it isn’t slowing down. Social media helped us gain a following. And I love talking to my customers. Many are interested in the classics, such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, but we also have unusual sections like Sisters of Sorcery – non-fiction about the occult.
Last year, we sold Jane Austen’s best friend’s copy of Sense And Sensibility for £20,000. I search high and low for books. I go to second-hand stores. I look at auction catalogues. I once found an old copy of a novel by Rebecca West at a stall in Paris that had this unusual Portuguese inscription. I looked into it and discovered it was given to a suffragette, who was also a princess, by Rebecca West herself. I stop for a sandwich around 3pm because we work shifts. In the afternoon, I might work on the details of an in-store event (a book signing or panel). I leave the shop around 6.30pm. (Izzy Hambley)

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Radical, Mimicry and Ideals

New scholar papers published in the last few weeks:

The Radical Politics of Wuthering Heights 
by Marisa Mercurio
Journal of Victorian Culture, March 25, 2020

In 1847, when Emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights under the male pseudonym Ellis Bell, reviewers didn’t quite know what to make of it. Many were dismissive and a handful recognized it as a work of genius, but all were baffled.

The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies: Shirley’s Caroline Helstone and the Mimicry of Childhood Collaboration
Richardson, Ann-Marie (2019)
The University of Liverpool, UK
English Literature, 6, 15-32.

Abstract This essay explores Charlotte Brontë’s 1849 novel Shirley as a literary endeavour to recreate the sibling dynamic of the Brontës’ childhoods, and the psychological
effect of being the ‘surviving’ sibling of a formally collaborative unit. In their adolescent
years, the Brontës famously forged fictional kingdoms together, known collectively as
“The Glass Town Saga”. Throughout adulthood, each Brontë continuously returned to
these stories, oftentimes due to nostalgia and occasionally for creative reinvention. However, by the summer of 1849, their familial collaboration was at an end. Charlotte was
the last sibling standing, having lost all her co-authors in the space of nine months. In
despair, as a form of catharsis, she turned to her writing and this essay will focus on how
protagonist Caroline Helstone became an elegy for both Branwell and Anne Brontë. Mere weeks before Charlotte began volume 1 of Shirley, Branwell was determined to return to a heroine created in his childhood, also named “Caroline (1836)”. This juvenilia piece explores themes of waning sibling connections, death and heartbreak – issues which tormented Branwell and Charlotte throughout his prolonged final illness. Yet Caroline Helstone’s ethereal femininity and infantilization mirrors Anne Brontë’s reputation as the ‘obedient’ sibling, as well as the views expressed in her semi-autobiographical novels Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

Cultural Ideals versus Woman’s Passion: A textual analysis of Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011)
by Tecla González Hortigüela and Eva Parrondo Coppel
Área Abierta. Revista de comunicación audiovisual y publicitaria 20 (1), 95-121

The hypothesis we put forward in this paper is that in the reworking of the novel Jane Eyre by   Charlotte Brontë (1847), the film’s screenwriter Moira Buffini and filmmaker Cary Fukunaga do two things: first,    they recover and highlight the interweaving between violence and sexuality that characterizes literary and cinematographic stories belonging to the female Gothic genre. Secondly, through their screenwriting and directorial adaptation, they update that genre, insofar as they deepen in the structural opposition between cultural ideals on the one hand, such as female purity or women’s independence and, on the other, the passionate heterosexual desire of some women

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Not Oppressive Evils

Peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star. (Charlotte Brontë in Villette, Chapter VI)

This is the quote that a columnist of Granada Hoy (Spain) chooses to comment on his ninth day of quarantine.

More suggestions for this almost planetary self-isolation days. W Magazine recommends books by zodiac sign (sigh):

Leo: Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Yes, that’s right, this is the time to reread Wuthering Heights. This is the time for heartbreaking, earth-shattering romance. If you’re not having it, at least you should be reading about it. You should also be listening to Kate Bush’s iconic “Wuthering Heights” and doing karaoke to it in your apartment. Both Kate Bush and Emily Brontë are Leos. Leos are passionate and completely unable to restrain themselves when they are into someone. They will not be subtle! We need this kind of energy now. We need hot Leos. (Also, please make sure to text your Leo friends the most during quarantine. They’re starving for attention.) (Astro Poets) 

Rutgers-Camden News goes highbrow:

Lauren Grodstein, professor of English and director of the MFA in Creative Writing program
If you’re feeling highbrow in your isolation, I’d recommend A True Novel by Minae Mizumura, which is a deeply engrossing 800-page Japanese novel based loosely on Wuthering Heights. And if you’d rather go low, a truly guilty pleasure is the “Crime Junkie” podcast, which dives deep into the most sordid murder cases of the past hundred years. (Stefanie Charles)

Lynne Tillman in LitHub:

I look at my books, shelves overwhelmed, actually I watch them, I am their guardian. I read this, that, Natalia Ginzburg, Lyndall Gordon on Charlotte Brontë and Virginia Woolf, a book on spies. Books live for me to read, books are alive when they are read, but mostly I fail them, and they rebuke me.

But... as The Toronto Star says: you can do nothing at all. And there's no shame in it:

According to the army of social media influencers who appear to be battling it out for the title of “Most Productive Person in the Time of Coronavirus,” there are so many more interesting things one can do in quarantine besides avoid illness.
For example, you can learn to crochet. You can do 100 squats a day. You can grow tomatoes in your backyard. You can read “Jane Eyre,” read your partner’s palms or learn 10 ways to wrap a sarong. (Emma Teitel)

Babygaga and spring names for babies:

Heath: (...)  The name is also linked to Heathcliff of Emily Brontë's famous novel, Wuthering Heights. (Kristy Law)

The Orange Country Register has some news on the cancellation of the Jane Eyre production at the California State University Fullerton:

[Dale] Merrill had some good news this week for theater students and anyone else who was looking forward to the spring productions. Most of the shows that were canceled will be presented in the fall with as many of the original cast members as possible — and a holiday production will be added to the mix.
Senior Gabrielle Adner, the lead in CSUF’s production of “Jane Eyre: The Musical,” has indicated she will return to the role in the fall as a guest artist. (Susan Gill Vardon)

Dark thoughts for dark days in Il Manifesto (Italy):

Nel libro Storia del buio (Il Saggiatore, pp. 294, euro 27, traduzione di A. Ricci), la giornalista Nina Edwards prova a indagare questo nodo ponendo le basi per una storia culturale dell’oscurità in un tragitto ad ampio spettro di rimandi a zig zag tra arte e filosofia, fisica e psicanalisi, letteratura e biologia. Da William Shakespeare a Ursula Le Guin, passando per Joseph Conrad e Charlotte Brontë, Edwards arriva alla storia sociale del sonno di Roger Ekirch, agli scritti di Jung sull’ombra, agli studi di Martin Bureau sui buchi neri, fino all’invenzione del Vantablack, una sostanza applicabile alle superfici in grado di assorbire il 99,6% della luce, utilizzata per scopi militari e di recente anche artistici – come nel caso dello scultore Anish Kapoor, che ha voluto ricreare un ambiente tanto scuro da far perdere il senso dello spazio, del tempo, di sé. (Claudia Bruno) (Translation)

France Culture and the great classics of European literature:

1. Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë (10 x 24 min)
En 1847, Charlotte Brontë publie, sous un nom d’emprunt masculin Currer Bell, son roman le plus célèbre : Jane Eyre. Présenté comme l’autobiographie du personnage éponyme, ce roman connaît un succès immédiat dans l’Angleterre victorienne, alors même que son héroïne, résolument moderne, ne cesse de se montrer insoumise, de revendiquer son indépendance, et de remettre en question les normes et les préjugés de son époque. Personnage hors du commun, Jane Eyre est aujourd’hui considérée comme une féministe avant l’heure. (Translation)

Telegraf (Serbia) shares some anecdotes about the filming of Wuthering Heights 1939. A passing mention to the Brontës and Wuthering Heights in Die Welt (Germany). Open Book Story posts about Charlotte Brontë as a preacher.

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The Human Heart

It seems a long time ago, but actually, it was twenty days ago when the Music by Women Festival took place at the Mississippi University for Women (Columbus, MS):

Music by Women Festival

March 5-7, 2020

Saturday, March 7

5:00 PM Kossen Auditorium
Concert No. 14

Including in the programme:

The Human Heart by Elaine Ross (b. 1966)

Evening Solace (Charlotte Brontë)

Verses to a Child (Anne Brontë)

Life (Charlotte Brontë)

Love and Friendship (Emily Brontë)

Past Present Future (Emily Brontë)

Teri Bickham, soprano (University of North Carolina Greensboro)

Elaine Ross, piano (Morgan State University)

You can listen to these pieces in the composer's website.

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The most delightfully appalling human beings

La Vanguardia (Spain) informs that Barcelona's Teatre Lliure participates in the #theshowmustgoon initiative and it will stream Jane Eyre in the Carme Portaceli adaptation:

La programació digital del #LliureAlSofà continua amb Jane Eyre: una autobiografia
Ariadna Gil protagonitza la versió teatral de la novel·la de Charlotte Brontë dirigida per Carme Portaceli i per la qual es va endur el Premi Butaca a la Millor actriu el 2017.
L'emissió en obert i completa d'aquesta obra segueix a les ja exitoses propostes de visionat de Hamlet i Renard o el Llibre de les bèsties, i tindrà lloc del dijous 26 al diumenge 29 al canal de youtube del Lliure. (...)
L'espectacle complet es podrà veure en obert i de forma gratu us 26 al dissabte 28 de març a les 20h. i diumenge 29 de març a les 18h., seguint els horaris habituals d'exhibició del Lliure.  ïta del dijous 26 al dissabte 28 de març a les 20h. i diumenge 29 de març a les 18h., seguint els horaris habituals d'exhibició del Lliure. (Translation)

On Italy, Rai Radio 3 also gives the chance to listen to free audiobooks read by famous Italian actors. The catalogue Jane Eyre, read by Elisabetta Piccolomini and Wuthering Heights, read by Maria Guarnieri.

On Norway, NRK also gives the chance to listen to a 1975 radio version of Jane Eyre, now that the Oslo performances of a new adaptation have been postponed (the theatre announces April 14, but we will see):

Jane Eyre skulle vært spilt i Nationaltheatrets lille malersal i Eline Arbos regi i mars, men er utsatt på ubestemt tid. Etter Arbos eksperimentelle og interessante behandling av Henrik Ibsens drama Hærmennene på Helgeland ved Nationaltheatret, er det all grunn til å ha forventninger til hennes bearbeidelse av denne romanklassikeren.
Jane Eyre er en sterk og annerledes fortelling om å finne sin egen vei. Det er en blanding av oppvekstroman, kioskvelter, gotisk grøsser og feministisk klassiker som det har blitt laget film- eller TV-versjoner av hvert tiår siden tidlig 1900-tall.
NRK byr på en radioteaterversjon med Katja Medbøe i rollen som Jane – en av de aller fineste radioteaterstemmene. Dette er trolig i en litt mindre eksperimentell versjon enn den som etter hvert kan oppleves ved Nationaltheatret. (Karen Frøsland Nystøyl) (Translation)

The writer Lisa McInerney recommends Wuthering Heights for coronaseason in The Irish Examiner:

All-time: I read Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights every couple of years.
It’s anarchic, stuffed full of black humour and eviscerating social commentary, and its cast are the most delightfully appalling human beings (except Hareton, the poor eejit).
Heathcliff is the devil, but the devil gets all the best tunes. (Richard Fitzpatrick)

Myanmore (Myanmar) talks about the work of the artist Thoe Htein:

Many artists draw inspiration from many aspects of their life. In addition, their view of the time period they’re in and about is infused into their art. What they see, hear and think about – all part of his world – show up in the colours, the medium, and the perspectives they choose.
Emily Brontë may have penned “Wuthering Heights” from the comforts of her own home, hardly having any contact with the outside world, but in an accelerated time like today, no one really lives in a vacuum anymore; so the experiences the artist lives through are necessarily part of whatever they create.

The Beacon celebrates Women's History Month:

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë
Published under the author’s pen name, Currer Bell, in 1847, “Jane Eyre” is the first book of its time to follow its protagonist’s spiritual and moral growth through the first person-narrative. This book tackles class, sexuality, religion, feminism, and more as readers follow the main character, Jane, through her time employed as a governess. The book is a thoughtful reflection on love, as it follows Jane and her love for her employer Mr. Rochester. An English classic, this tale teaches many timeless lessons about love and life. (Mia Werner)

Les Incorucktiples (France) deals with the quarantine in its own way:

Chaque jour, à 12h, pour survivre au confinement lié à l’épidémie de coronavirus, Les Inrocks vous replongent dans l'un de leurs morceaux préférés. Retour sur le magistral Wuthering Heights de Kate Bush. (...)
Un beau jour, un de leurs amis, Ricky Hopper, qui bosse chez le label Transatlantic Records, leur envoie un certain David Gilmour des Pink Floyd. Kate chante. Hypnotisé par sa voix haut perchée et son sens du songwriting, David la prend sous son aile jusqu'à sa signature chez EMI. Les années passent et Bush enchaîne les petits lives dans des bars. Un soir, elle tombe sur l’adaptation faite par la BBC de Wuthering Heights (Les Hauts de Hurlevent), célèbre roman d’Emily Brontë et pierre angulaire du Romantisme anglais paru en 1847. L’histoire d’amour entre Catherine Earnshaw et Heathcliff lui va droit au cœur. Elle écrit Wuthering Heights. (Carole Boinet) (Translation)

The singer Francesca Fariello shares her quarantine in La Gazzetta Dello Spettacolo (Italy):

Mentre il mondo ci offre più tecnologia per renderci più tranquilla la quarantena, i miei occhi si posano ancor più sulle collezioni di libri antichi on line patrimonio dell’UNESCO, sulle pagine digitali dei libri d’arte del Metropolitan Museum of Art, sulla bozza di un disegno del fratello delle sorelle Brontë del 1848, sulle le pagine social di Musei e Parchi Archeologici… (Translation)

Filmloverss (Turkey) recommends films for the coronaseason:

Wuthering Heights 2011
Son sinema filmi American Honey ile müthiş bir başarı yakalayan Andrea Arnold’un kariyerindeki tek edebiyat uyarlaması olan Wuthering Heights, Venedik Film Festivali’nde Altın Aslan için yarışmıştı. William Wyler, Luis Buñuel, hatta Metin Erksan gibi usta yönetmenlerin kayıtsız kalamadığı, sayısız kez beyaz perdeye uyarlanan Emily Brontë imzalı Uğultulu Tepeler romanı Andrea Arnold’ın elinde tensel bir deneyime dönüşür. Seyirciyle komplike karakterler arasındaki mesafeyi minimize eden bir yaklaşım benimseyen yönetmen böylelikle, edebiyat tarihinin klasikleri arasında girmiş, çok kez uyarlanmış bir metinden hâlâ yeni bir hissiyat çıkarmayı başararak ustalığını kanıtlıyor. (Güvenç Atsüren) (Translation) 

Sortir à Paris (France) recommends Emily Brontë's book. Encuentros de  Lecturas (in Spanish) posts about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

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Eternal Novels

The Spanish publisher, RBA has recently published a couple of Brontë novels in the Novelas Eternas selection:

Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Cranford Collection
RBA
Esta revolucionaria obra, única novela publicada por Emily Brontë, transgredió en su día todas las normas de la moral vigente para ofrecernos una historia salvajemente libre, de amor y crueldad, donde se reivindicaba la libertad de la mujer. El libro nos descubre el oscuro destino al que se ven abocadas dos familias, los Earnshaw y los Linton, a causa del indestructible vínculo forjado entre Catherine Earnshaw y Heathcliff, su hermano adoptivo. Su incontrolable pasión planeará por los sombríos páramos de Yorkshire durante varias generaciones hasta encontrar finalmente la paz.

Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
Cranford Collection
RBA

La obra cumbre de Charlotte Brontë se ha descrito como la primera novela feminista de la historia. Sus páginas nos presentan a Jane, una heroína que gracias a su férrea fe en sí misma y su voluntad inquebrantable conseguirá salvar las peores circunstancias y cambiar su destino. Tras una complicada infancia como huérfana, Jane comienza a trabajar como institutriz en Thornfield Hall a cargo de la hija del malhumorado señor Rochester. A pesar del hoco carácter de su amo, entre ellos irá surgiendo una relación de amor y respeto. Sin embargo, la casa y la vida de Rochester esconden un terrible misterio.

In a few weeks, this collection will also publish The Professor, Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Villette.

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Charlotte Brontë’s defiantly principled yet headstrong Jane Eyre

Yorkshire Live recommends 'Seven Instagram perfect spots in Bradford, Ilkley, Saltaire and Haworth':

You will be following in the footsteps of the Brontës if you take a walk down Haworth's Main Street with its quaint shops, cafes and famous cobbles. [...]
Main Street, Haworth
The street just oozes character and history. It's a favourite spot for film-makers and fans of the famous literary family, the Brontës.
Explore the shops, the alleys and don't forget to take a selfie. Everyone else does! (Andrew Robinson)

In our opinion, though, the most 'Instagram perfect spot' at the moment is your own home.

The Times gives some ideas for homeschooling:

Secondary
[...]
Read classic novels as possible and set up a family book club. For example, see who can read the most novels by Dickens or from a certain period of literature. Books that are out of copyright include Dracula, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and the Picture of Dorian Gray. (Nicola Woolcock, Greg Hurst)

Daily Mail discusses homeschooling too.

So my pupils know I mean business, I may cultivate a more pedagogical persona. But which home tutor to model myself on?
Should I wear grey silk, like Charlotte Brontë’s defiantly principled yet headstrong Jane Eyre, heroine of one of my all-time favourite novels? Or what about one of those dashing waistcoated get-ups, as sported by Saoirse Ronan as Jo March in the recent film version of Little Women?
Perhaps the tweedier twinset look adopted by glamorous MI5 officer Celia Nashe in B. W. Black’s recent The Secret Guests? She acts as the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret’s tutor, when they are secretly evacuated to Ireland to escape the Blitz. I’m sure we will all learn lessons in the coming weeks. (Patricia Nicol)

The Medium has article on writers and pseudonyms.

The Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily and Anne—were among these women writers who wrote under male pen names and went on to produce popular novels. Charlotte first published Jane Eyre under the pseudonym Currer Bell. Emily, who wrote Wuthering Heights,went by the pen name Ellis Bell. Anne chose to write as Acton Bell and published The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The three sisters wanted to avoid that prejudice as they thought people would criticize the elements of their work that were not considered ‘feminine.’ (Danica Teng)

For Mothering Sunday yesterday, AnneBontë.org shared the lives of 'Three Mothers In The Brontë Story'.

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Novel Houses

This is a recent book which features Wuthering Heights locations:

Novel Houses: Twenty Famous Fictional Dwellingsby Christina Hardyment
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Publication October 2019
ISBN: 9781851244805

Novel Houses visits unforgettable dwellings in twenty legendary works of English and American fiction. Each chapter stars a famous novel in which a dwelling is pivotal to the plot, and reveals how personally significant that place was to the writer who created it.
We discover Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s powerful influence on the American Civil War, how essential 221B Baker Street was to Sherlock Holmes and the importance of Bag End to the adventuring hobbits who called it home. It looks at why Bleak House is used as the name of a happy home and what was on Jane Austen’s mind when she worked out the plot of Mansfield Park. Little-known background on the dwellings at the heart of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast and Stella Gibbon’s Cold Comfort Farm emerges, and the real life settings of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and E.M. Forster’s Howards End, so fundamental to their stories, are shown to relate closely to their authors’ passions and preoccupations.
A winning combination of literary criticism, geography and biography, this is an entertaining and insightful celebration of beloved novels and the extraordinary role that houses grand and small, imagined and real, or unique and ordinary, play in their continuing popularity.

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No One Writes to Colonel Rochester

Republic World recommends Hindi TV series for these days:

Meri Aashiqui Tum Se Hi
The popular daily soap Meri Aashiqui Tum Se Hi takes inspiration from Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights. But later after Ranveer returns as a rich man with a vengeance, the story diverts from the novel. (Akanksha Ghotkar)

Canberra Times reviews Christina Hardymen's Novel Houses:

Thus for Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, reference is made to the Haworth Parsonage, now a museum and provides a website reference, while noting that Top Withens, "a ruined farmhouse high on the moors above Haworth often assumed to be Wuthering Heights, is in fact a much humbler house". (Colin Steele)

UrbanPost (Italy) reviews Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility:

«’Ragione e sentimento’? Ciò che subito si nota è la capacità di Jane Austen di parlare dell’animo umano»
Era da tempo che non leggevo Jane Austen e, riprenderla adesso, mi ha fatto comprendere a pieno perché Charlotte Brontë non riusciva ad apprezzarla del tutto. Il suo modo di parlare delle passioni, di descrivere la vita è troppo distante dalle sorelle Brontë, che invece appaiono più oscure, cariche di tormenti e passioni violente (non a caso fanno parte del filone del romanzo gotico), tutto l’opposto di Jane. Quando leggi i romanzi di Jane Austen sai per certo che tutto andrà bene, anche dopo mille avversità alla fine nulla potrà precludere alle sue eroine il loro lieto fine. (Cristina La Bella) (Translation)

Le Journal de Québec interviews the author Sophie Fontanel:

 «En littérature, ce qui est amusant, c’est que les femmes ont écrit, évidemment, même quand elles étaient coincées à la maison. Et on a eu les sœurs Brontë, Virginia Wolf, et des femmes, parmi les plus célèbres en littérature, comme Agatha Christie et Pearl Buck. Agatha Christie est un écrivain majeur, qui a marqué l’histoire du roman policier, de la narration, de la série télé, du cinéma. On n’en parle jamais.» (Marie-France Bornais) (Translation)

La Razón (Spain) talks about isolation and quotes from Jane Eyre a bit bizarrely:

Siempre hay encierros más forzosos que otros. Por ejemplo, célebre es el encierro de los cuatro hermanos en “Flores en el ático”, de V. C. Andrews o el más reciente de “La habitación”, de Emma Donoghue. Aunque el más terrible todavía es el de la pobre primera mujer del coronel (sic) en “Jane Eyre”, cuyo personaje central, precisamente, huye de una epidemia de tifus. Y su respuesta moderna, “Mar de anchos sargazos” (sic), de Jean Rhys, dando voz al personaje que Charlotte Brönte (sic) sólo tortura. (Carlos Salas) (Translation)

Colonel Rochester? 

JNSP (Spain) interviews the members of the Triángulo de Amor Bizarro band:

Rodrigo: “Sí, tienen esa misma estructura circular. Son unos acordes extraños, que no son nada diatónicos, mezclan menores y mayores. Y dijimos “¿qué podemos hacer con esto?” Se nos ocurrió hacer una canción estilo ‘Barca quemada’, pero llevándola a un rollo… Curiosamente Isa estaba leyendo ‘Cumbres borrascosas’, también estábamos muy metidos otra vez en Kate Bush, justo en la época de ‘Wuthering Heights’… Y todo eso nos llevó a una historia de amor fantasmal, de romanticismo clásico, de suicidios… Y todo eso encajó con un beat muy nuestro que…” (Raúl Guillén) (Translation)

The Huffington Post (Spain) lists Wuthering Heights 1939 among the great classics of literature in cinema. The Brontë Babe Blog takes lessons from the Brontës for the coronavirus crisis.

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