Making it to the last page of Wuthering Heights as a measure of intelligence

In The New Statesman, Rachel Cooke discusses the BBC Four Winter Walks episode which featured writer Alastair Campbell.

It’s touching when Campbell speaks of those members of his family that he has lost and how, outdoors, he talks to them (I do this, too), but I think we needed more of it. Did he – incredible thought! – lack the confidence to freestyle? Is this why he recited Emily Brontë’s poem “The Night is Darkening Round Me”, which I’m willing to bet he didn’t know before he signed up for this show? I suppose it’s possible, though, as he said to his stick, he has a huge ego. 

GoBookMart has compiled a list of authors who died in December, including our very own

Emily Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë was born in Yorkshire, England on July 30, 1818. Her pen name was Ellis Bell. She wrote her poems and novel during the Romantic Period. Brontë’s introverted and isolated nature has made her an enigmatic figure and a dare for biographers. The renowned work of Brontë, ‘Wuthering Heights’ impressed the Victorian readers so much that they believed it was written by a man. In 1848, Emily’s physical health got worse and her lung inflammation led to tuberculosis but she rejected any and every medical help stating she would not allow any poisoning doctor near her. On December 19, 1848, at around two in the afternoon, Emily Brontë passed away. (nandini)

School Management Plus wonders,

As schooling became more widely available, it was these same great and good who wrote their own narrow definition of what constituted a high-quality education, prescribing the texts and knowledge that in their eyes would bring about the required edification and improvement of young Victorian scholars.

Of course, many of these texts still appear on exam syllabi two centuries on. But today, when thankfully the vast majority of the population can now read and write by the age of about eight, is making it to the last page of Wuthering Heights still a useful measure of intelligence?

Does that experience develop the understanding and the skills needed for success and happiness in the current age? When you take a closer look, so much of our current education system is based in stereotype and an outmoded social and cultural value system that is about as absurd today as pairing a necktie with board shorts. (Rebecca Purdy)

The Jane Eyre Files podcast on chapter 8 of Jane Eyre is now available.