Transforming attempted bigamists into heroes

Keighley News reports that local people are being asked to fill the gap left by the closing down of the tourist information office in Haworth.

The Visitor Ambassadors will provide a warm welcome to tourists and help them make the most of their stay in the area.
The volunteers will update visitors on attractions and events and help with maps and directions, working out of a new Visitor Information Point at Haworth railway station.
The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway agreed to provide space following the closure of the long-established visitor information centre at the top of Main Street.
The new centre will provide information on the local area for visitors to Haworth and Brontë Country.
The heritage railway has teamed up with Visit Bradford – Bradford Council’s tourism team – for the venture, with Visit Bradford spearheading the search for ambassadors.
The team are looking for people aged 18 or over, who are passionate about the area, enjoy meeting new people and sharing their knowledge.
Shifts are flexible and will be available seven days a week.
Anyone who is interested in finding out more about becoming a Visitor Ambassador can go to a pop-in session on Wednesday March 18, when Visit Bradford staff will be at Haworth Station between 10am and noon.
Visit visitbradford.com/volunteer for further information.
Worth Valley ward councillor Russell Brown said he welcomed any initiative that helped promote the district.
He said: “It was very sad when they closed the visitor centre last year. We needed something and the railway have stepped up to the plate. It’s great that they are batting for the district.
“Visitor Ambassadors are a great idea because people are going to go to the station when they arrive, and we can signpost them around the area.
“If we can get people into the district, the ambassadors can get them to stay and make the most of what’s here.”
Fellow district councillor Rebecca Poulsen was less enthusiastic about the Visitor Ambassador project, especially if it meant relying on volunteers to keep the new visitor centre open.
She said: “We had an excellent visitor centre in the village. We tried to keep it open, and now we’re trying to do this again but with volunteers.
“It’s great to have a visitor information centre at the station because it’s a focal point, but if they want volunteers every day, it’s a big ask.
“We already ask a lot from volunteers in this area – litter picking, running groups, working at the railway. There’s not a bottomless pit of people available.”
Cllr Sarah Ferriby, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Healthy People and Places, said: “This is an excellent opportunity for anyone able to spare time to share with visitors information about the great things to see and do in and around Haworth.” (David Knights)

Washington Post quotes Charlotte Brontë's opinion of Jane Austen on a list of five myths about her.

There is no sex in Austen's work.
Henry Austen’s biographical notice claims that Jane was “fearful of giving offense to God.” Novelist Charlotte Brontë cemented Henry’s prim and proper vision, complaining in 1850 that “the Passions are perfectly unknown” to the late Austen. (It may be an unfair charge from an author who transforms attempted bigamists into heroes and makes lovers out of violent boors, but I digress.) That opinion persists to this day, with the Guardian speculating that Austen is a model of “sexless greatness” whose own chastity gave us her “wonderful novels.” (Devoney Looser)

The Guardian lists a thing to love from each country in the European Union. Charlotte Brontë is mentioned in Belgium:

When Charlotte Brontë arrived in Belgium in 1843, she wrote of her “prosperous and speedy voyage” from London Bridge Wharf along the north Kent coast and on to Ostend. (Emily Waterfield)

The Indian Express features British-Ethiopian writer Lemn Sissay.

His favourite hero, says British-Ethiopian poet, playwright and broadcaster Lemn Sissay, has never been the knight in shining armour, that infallible legend who steps in neatly to save the day against all odds. Instead, he’s found comfort in the battle-scarred orphan, whose hardscrabble life has welded loss and loneliness into rage and resilience.
“Jane Eyre was adopted, Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights was an orphan, Harry Potter was a foster child, Superman was adopted, Cinderella was kinship fostered by her sisters, Rapunzel had no parent. We are front and centre of popular culture. There’s something special, something specifically deep about the experiences of young people who are without family and I want others to see that,” he says, with great animation. (Paromita Chakrabarti)

The Maris Review (via Literary Hub) interviews Rachel Vorona Cote:

When one spends a fair amount of time reading, eventually connections are going to arise. But I guess once you have a sense of certain trends, certain tropes, and certain themes that tend to be revisited over and over, you start to see the way they’ve traveled over the course of a century or two. All of a sudden, you look at Ramona Quimby and you think about the way she would demand to be loved and you think about little Jane Eyre getting, in that very satisfying moment where she just tells her aunt you’re a monster because, you know, I’m just like this little orphan… What was that John Mulaney quote? “I am very small and I have no money, so you can imagine the kind of stress that I am under.” Like that’s more or less Jane saying, Oh, thank you. You hate me and you make my life miserable.

Circles & Stalls reviews the Manchester performances of Wuthering Heights:

[Bryony] Shanahan’s production is at its most satisfying when communicating via the more abstract expressiveness of music and movement. Alexandra Faye Braithwaite’s compositions (beautifully performed live by Sophie Galpin and Becky Wilkie) elevate proceedings, as they range from quietly ethereal to raucously rousing.
Visually, scenes thrillingly reference the outpourings of fertile, and often feverish, imaginations. Running riot across the moors, the young Cathy and Heathcliffe playfully throw around heavy rocks with seemingly superhuman strength, as if they have become characters within the fantastic stories they tell themselves. Similarly, Heathcliff’s belief that no one dies is echoed in the opening scene of the second act, when both the living and the dead assemble to witness his return from London. Most strikingly, Cathy desperately flaps two pillows in a futile effort to take flight from her sickbed at Thrushcross Grange, stray feathers flutter around her, but her feet fail to lift from the floor of her “gilded cage”.
Frustratingly, there are elements of this Wuthering Heights that I’ll never grow to love, however many times I see it, but there is so much of it that is impossible to resist. Especially the gorgeously choreographed and sound-tracked set pieces, and the vivid performances.
Despite its determination to not recreate Brontë’s book on stage, this version still somehow drove me back to its original source. As I reread the novel, a world I thought I knew all too well seemed suddenly refreshed. Shanahan’s raw and emotional production has infiltrated my imagination and there is no going back. Power’s Nelly, Fagan’s Edgar are there now in my mind as I follow the familiar lines on the pages, and it’s Sharma’s voice I hear speaking Cathy’s words, and her face at the window of Wuthering Heights sobbing to be let in on a freezing cold winter night.

Cultured Vultures recommends '12 classic British books you should read', including

4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
Brontë died less than a decade after the publishing of Jane Eyre, but its impact on the modern literary landscape remains strong. The novel follows Jane, an orphan neglected by her remaining family, and her development, first at school and then as she becomes a governess.
Inspired by real-life experiences, Brontë’s novel is a great read. Tracing Jane’s journey allows for a deeply personal look into her encounters with love, betrayal and greed. You need to read Jane Eyre because it casts a contextually strong gaze at Victorian society, with the protagonist herself interacting with a variety of characters from different social classes. A brave novel, again from the 19th century, that strived to challenge social norms.
5. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966)
If we included Jane Eyre, there’s no question that Wide Sargasso Sea deserves attention, too. An adaptation of the former, Rhys takes up the story of a secondary character, namely Rochester’s first wife, Bertha Mason.
I’m not going to say too much, considering that a proportion of readers won’t have read Jane Eyre, but as a postcolonial novel Wide Sargasso Sea is an essential read. Casting a crucial perspective on an enigma of a character, Rhys brings the novel up to 20th century speed. (Tom Knox)

El Día (Spain) thinks that 18th-century writer and 'salonière' Sophie von La Roche was a pioneer.

Pero quizás, de entre todos los esfuerzos que Sophie hizo para intentar acercar la educación a las mujeres de aquella época, el que más haya que destacar sea la decisión de ganarse la vida como escritora. Emprendió numerosos periplos por toda Europa, los cuales le permitieron redactar los primeros cuadernos de viajes firmados con pluma femenina, y, décadas antes de que las grandes novelistas europeas como Jane Austen o las Brontë comenzasen siquiera a escribir sus obras, ella ya había publicado en el año 1771 su novela Die Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim de la cual, lamentablemente, no existe traducción al castellano, aunque sí al inglés y al francés. Sophie von La Roche se convirtió así en la primera mujer que redactó una obra de estas características en lengua alemana y una de las primeras en toda Europa. (Emma Piquero Álvarez) (Translation)

El Día also celebrated Elizabeth Barrett Browning's birthday yesterday.

En Aurora Leigh, como decimos, la protagonista de la historia lucha por su identidad en circunstancias y territorios adversos. El poema en el que, según Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Barret está a la altura de las mejores novelas de Jane Austen, George Eliott y las hermanas Brontë, es un compendio de reclamaciones sociales, lucha contra la censura establecida y desaprobación política y moral de un mundo victoriano que se guiaba por la obediencia, la represión contra los opositores al régimen, el respeto a la heteronormatividad y las decisiones patriarcales. En una constante batalla contra las restricciones educativas y sociales que sufrían las mujeres, la absoluta firmeza y honestidad intelectual de Aurora provienen, sin duda alguna, de sus lecturas sobre la estética de la antigüedad, las lenguas clásicas, las odas de Quinto Horacio Flaco, el teatro de Shakespeare, la poesía de Alexander Pope y John Milton, las novelas de Charlotte y Emily Brontë y las notas que tomaba de Vindicación de los derechos de la mujer (1792) de la ilustrada ensayista Mary Wollstonecraft. (Santiago J. Henríquez) (Translation)

Woman (Spain) reviews the Spanish translation of Lyndall Gordon's Outsiders.

Quienes rompían con las estrecheces de la conducta femenina, las que intentaban transgredir los códigos morales que sometían a la mujer a normas ajenas, sabían que se convertirían en proscritas. Nada tan revolucionario como un no, ni nada tan liberador. Las escritoras Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner y Virginia Woolf se negaron a someterse y a rendirse, y buscaron sus propios límites. Enorme pecado que hizo de ellas las chicas malas de una sociedad anglosajona que quiso confinarlas en el silencio del hogar. [...]
El desprecio por el talento femenino llevó a Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) y Emily Brontë (Cumbres borrascosas) a escribir bajo seudónimos masculinos, reivindicando una visión femenina del mundo que no fue valorada hasta mucho después de su muerte. (Carlos A. Mendía) (Translation)

ABC (Spain) recommends reading it for International Women's Day tomorrow.

«Proscritas. Cinco escritoras que cambiaron el mundo» (Alba), Lyndall Gordon
Lyndall Gordon (Ciudad del Cabo, 1941) recupera en «Proscritas» la voz de cinco escritoras extraordinarias que tomaron la palabra a lo largo del siglo XIX en una sociedad que habría preferido que estuvieran calladas: Mary Shelley («Prodigio»), Emily Bronté («Visionaria»), George Eliot («Rebelde»), Olive Schreiner («Oradora») y Virginia Woolf («Exploradora»). Porque, como advierte Gordon, «todas y cada una de ellas tuvieron la compulsión que Jane Eyre expresó a la perfección cuando dijo: "Es que debo hablar"». (Inés Martín Rodrigo) (Translation)

La información (Spain) asks writer Ana Merino about the writers who influenced her.

Emiliy [sic] Brontë y su novela Cumbres borrascosas me acompañó en una serie de noches insomnes, y me dio la confianza que necesitaba para terminar mi propio libro. Al leerla comprendí lo importante que es la atmósfera dentro de la ficción. (Miguel Polo) (Translation)

According to Traveler (Spain), Jean Rhys is a forgotten author whose Wide Sargasso Sea needs reclaiming:

El ancho mar de los Sargazos, de Jean Rhys
A pesar de que ya es un clásico y después de su publicación en 1966, la crítica y el público consagró a esta autora británica de manera unánime; su nombre no es uno de los más repetidos cuando hablamos de autores a los que hay que leer.
Rhys se propuso escribir su particular tributo al Jane Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë, e imaginó a una mujer que escapa a los códigos de su familia y se siente más atraída por las vidas de los isleños jamaicanos. (Alexandra Lores) (Translation)

Digital Trends recommends 'The best romance movies on Netflix' such as

Howards End
Directed by James Ivory, this 1992 romantic classic features outstanding performances from iconic actors Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Exploring the various social classes of Victorian England, this story follows three families as they fight to make their mark on the world while the burgeoning love between Thompson’s Margaret and Hopkins’ Henry threatens to engulf everyone’s world in scandal. If you’re a Brontë fan, this Victorian love story is for you. (Nick Perry)

Le Mag du Ciné (France) reviews the film Monos by Alejandro Landes:

Monos est aussi déroutant qu’il est magnétique. C’est un peu comme si la bande de jeunes de Nocturama de Bertrand Bonello s’était réfugiée dans un camp d’entrainement guerrier et fut observée de près par la mise en scène sensorielle d’Andrea Arnold dans sa période American Honey ou Les Hauts du Hurlevent. (Sebastien Guilhermet) (Translation)

The writer Marie Hélène Poitras in Le Devoir reminisces about her college days:

Une fois à l’université, je me souviens d'avoir hésité au moment de m’inscrire à un séminaire consacré aux sœurs Brontë parce que le programme impliquait d’étudier leur corpus par le filtre féministe. Dans le cours, il n’y avait qu’un seul garçon. Je suis allée acheter Hurlevent des monts, lu avec beaucoup d’excitation dans le noir pendant la crise du verglas avec une lampe de poche, une barre de chocolat et un chat couché en boule sur mon ventre. Épopée gothique et romantique, roman fiévreux et aride, hébertien… (Translation)

The coronavirus times in Il Manifesto (Italy):

Stare a casa, senza il dovere dei compiti, senza l’assillo di mettere una idea in una griglia o in una mappa concettuale, senza prepararsi per i quiz o per gli invalsi. Non andare in palestra, né a danza, né alla lezione dove si impara a balbettare l’inglese. Leggere Pinocchio o Cime Tempestose o Germinale e Metello, così, senza un fine se non il piacere. Giocare alle costruzioni, fare pupi di cartapesta con i vecchi giornali. (Laura Marchetti) (Translation)

Nove da Firenze (Italy) has more cheerful news:

Nel mese di San Valentino, i nostri lettori hanno votato la migliore storia d'amore raccontata dalla letteratura e dalla narrativa e al primo posto del sondaggio troviamo quella tra Catherine e Haethcliff (sic) in Cime Tempestose, di Emily Brontë. (Translation)

State of Mind (Italy) explores Wuthering Heights in a psychological context:

Il tema della follia, ovvero del morire per amore, è presente anche in Cime Tempestose di Emily Bronte. Catherine Earnshaw non regge allo stress legato alla contesa tra l’amato Heathcliff e il marito Edgar e muore dando alla luce la figlia Caty. Catherine si trova nella stessa posizione di Lucy, anche se in questo caso l’imposizione al non sposare Heathcliff viene dalla sua educazione e, quindi, dall’interno piuttosto che da un’imposizione esterna. Dopo aver conosciuto Edgar, Heathcliff gli appare come un uomo rozzo e dai modi poco eleganti al contrario del futuro marito. (Read more) (Mariano Indelicato) (Translation)

EcoDiario (Spain) lists several women writers who published under pseudonyms. 2ontheaisle reviews the Hartford performances of Jane Eyre.