Taylor Swift, the voice of Jane

The Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate discusses in The Sunday Times how Taylor Swift's lyrics are in the same league as the Bard. Quoting from Invisible String from Folklore:

And isn’t it just so pretty to think

All along there was some

Invisible string

Tying you to me?

[Joe] Alwyn read English literature at Bristol University, so he would have been fully aware of his ex-girlfriend’s clever use of not one but two literary allusions in these four lines. First there is the closing dialogue of Ernest Hemingway’s great wartime love story, The Sun Also Rises:

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”

“Yes.” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

And then there is the moment when Mr Rochester finally admits his love for Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre:

I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you — especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.

Jane Eyre begins with a lonely young girl, who sees herself as an outsider, sitting in a window seat reading a book. For generations, literature has been a resource for teenagers seeking solace amid heartbreak and the confusion of adolescence. Taylor Swift has become their 21st-century voice.

BBC's Bitesize talks about sibling success stories. Apparently, the Brontës' is one of them:

Back then it was common not to credit authors, instead noting who it was ‘edited by’, but the sisters had to take it one step further and publish their novels under male names to ensure privacy and write freely about ‘unfeminine’ topics. Under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, Charlotte wrote Jayne Eyre (sic), Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, and Anne wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, among others, each exploring taboo issues in Victorian society such as social reform, abuse and alcoholism. It was only when they were thought to be one author that they revealed their separate identities to the world - even their publishers didn’t know in the beginning, though some critics suspected.

While Anne’s book is the less famous of the three, it was very successful at the time and even outsold Wuthering Heights. To date there have been over 16 film adaptations of Jane Eyre, and many more media retellings.

The Lancashire Telegraph interviews Jackie Ansbro, a participant in the talent show Starstruck:

 “I really enjoyed Starstruck, I love the experience of being on stage. It was amazing.”

Jackie said originally the trio wanted to sing Wuthering Heights as they felt it could ‘show off their talents better’ but because of the chart success of Running Up That Hill from Netflix show Stranger Things, they performed that.

She said: “I ended up doing the lower notes and the middle part of the song and the other two girls, they did the high notes, but I would have really liked the opportunity to have gone wild, you know, and really done the high notes and the dance moves for Wuthering Heights.” (Carmen Heron)

Likeable protagonists in The News on Sunday (Pakistan):

Notably, the protagonist needs to have the sympathy and support of the audience. To build such a relationship, there has to be a complex backstory. The tortured past of Heathcliff, the tragic hero of Wuthering Heights, helps the reader sympathise with him. Being informed that he has been denied opportunities and love, the readers tend to better understand his character and subsequent actions. Backstories allow readers to explore the fears, weaknesses and motivations of important characters. (Faleha Hakim)

Noticias de Gipuzkoa (Spain) talks about the Brontës. Their life and work in an article that is both succinct and packed with information:

Las hermanas Brönte (sic): dejar huella a través de la literatura

‘Jane Eyre’, de Charlotte Brontë, ‘Cumbres Borrascosas’, de Emily Brontë y ‘La inquilina de Wildfell Hall’, de Anne Brontë, son las tres obras más famosas de estas hermanas que hicieron historia a través de su escritura en pleno siglo XIX y que forman parte de los clásicos de la literatura inglesa.

Quien haya leído Jane Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë seguro que recuerda la frase: “¿Cree que porque soy pobre, silenciosa, poco agraciada y menuda, carezco de alma y de corazón? ¡Se equivoca!”. Aunque mucho se ha discutido sobre si esta era o no una historia autobiográfica, lo cierto es que muchos lectores visualizan en la protagonista a cualquiera de las hermanas Brontë. Charlotte, Emily y Anne fueron tres hermanas que rompieron moldes, que lucharon contra las normas de su tiempo y lograron dejar su huella en el mundo a través de su pasión, la literatura. Jane Eyre, Cumbres Borrascosas y La inquilina de Wildfell Hall son las tres obras más famosas de las hermanas, pero no las únicas. (Read more) (Elisa Jimeno) (Translation)

Diario de Sevilla (Spain) talks about the Spanish edition of the memoirs of the Italian scholar Roberto Calasso, Memè Scianca:

Entre esos recuerdos más antiguos, Calasso evoca a su inseparable Gnao, un gato de tela negra, y la entrada en Florencia de las tropas estadounidenses. Ya en la escuela, hace allí mismo los deberes del día siguiente y después de las clases empiezan las "benditas horas de soledad", en las que pronto la lectura ocupa el lugar de "la guerra y el fútbol", cuando aprende, de la mano de una edición popular de Cumbres borrascosas, a "sumergirse en un libro con la misma intensidad que se experimenta en el juego". La novela de Emily Brontë le abre "el camino hacia una región ignota y fascinante", el Orlando furioso ilustrado por Doré vale por una estimulante iniciación erótica, Baudelaire es el autor del primer poema memorizado, en Proust descubre una "pasión exclusiva e imperiosa".  (Ignacio F. Garmendia) (Translation)

La Opinión de Málaga (Spain) is even more precise, quoting the exact paragraph where the mention is made:

«Llegó una noche en que la lectura me arrasó, por encima de mis juegos amados. Esa noche, en casa de mi abuelo Ernesto, me encontré leyendo ‘Cumbres borrascosas’ de Emily Brontë, era el día de mi 12 cumpleaños. Hasta entonces ni sabía con precisión que era la pasión». (Quoted by Francisco Millet Alcoba) (Translation)

Several news outlets report the death of the guitarist Ian Bairnson (1953-2023) who among many other things, was the original guitarist of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. If you like Wide Sargasso Sea, you may like The Violins of Saint-Jacques, by Patrick Leigh Fermor, according to the New York Times.