A staple of GCSE syllabuses

We have some recent news that are republished in new places. The Brontë Birthplace possible reopening in Time Out:

If the application is approved, the plan is to create space for workshops, events and visits by schools and literary groups. The bedrooms will also be restored to what they would have looked like during the Brontë family’s tenancy. More excitingly, they might be converted into holiday lets so you can sleep under the very same roof as the minds that brought us ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Jane Eyre’ .  (Amy Houghton)

The Soundlandscape: The Wild Hauntings on the Moor audio drama is on the Yorkshire Post:

The Wild Hauntings on the Moor is designed to be listened to while walking through the inspirational moorland surrounding Ilkley and Haworth. The commission is part of ILF’s 50th anniversary celebrations this year and the Parsonage Museum’s Year of the Wild which considers the important role that landscape, weather and the natural world played in the lives and work of the Brontës.

Created by North-East based Obscura Theatre, the 40-minute, two-part audio piece investigates the ever-changing nature of the landscape and also the supernatural themes present in many of the Brontës’ stories. Developed by Yorkshire director Beth Knight alongside Obscura’s writer, composer and sound designer Patch Middleton and director and producer Emily Oulton, the two interconnecting pieces are set in two time-frames and locations and examine the experiences of two lost characters, each attempting to belong to their time and place. A Dream of Death is set in Haworth in 1823, the year that the Brontë family first arrived in the village, and Shadows on Shadows is set in Ilkley in 1973 when the town’s acclaimed Literature Festival was founded. Using headphones and a map, audiences are guided by the narrative performed by Yorkshire actors Riana Duce and Olivia Sweeney as they explore the landscape and experience ghostly visitations. (Yvette Huddlestone)

And the Frank Skinner show 30 Years of Dirt at the Edinburgh Fringe in The Guardian: 

 But – as he reports in 30 Years of Dirt, in an image for the ages – Skinner can no sooner extirpate knob gags from his imagination than the ghost of Cathy Linton be stopped from tapping on the windows of Wuthering Heights. (Brian Logan)

Evening Standard posts an article on schools "ditching well-loved works of genius for iffy woke stuff no-one has ever heard of". On the one hand, we agree that curricula have to be based more on quality than on diversity per se. But we are also aware that historically they have not been and are not diverse for reasons that have nothing to do with quality. However, what makes us most uneasy is the devious use of the Brontë from a specific side of these culture wars. We do not like it and it's counterproductive:

For my money English Literature’s finest hour was the 19th Century – a time when women writers dominated.

Look no further than the Brontë sisters. Charlotte Brontë wrote the unputdownable all-time-classic Jane Eyre. If I had to recommend any one book to a teenager it would be this one: the story of an orphan girl growing up in a harsh world, with a happy ending.

Then there’s Emily Brontë, who wrote the equally-famous Wuthering Heights, a staple of GCSE syllabuses in former times. Plus the lesser-known Anne Brontë, who wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Not only were the Brontë sisters clearly non-male, they were also poor. All three had to work as Victorian governesses: an occupation which Charlotte described as drudgery. (Dr. Andre Cunningham)

Discover Music analyzes the lyrical world of Lana Del Rey:

By singing about “Frankenstein black dreams” — a reference to Mary Shelley’s famous novel — Lana also appears to comment on the Gothic themes that appear in her early music, especially on Ultraviolence. The dark, brooding love interests she sings about could very well be taken from the pages of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, another standout from 1800s England, though Lana updates them to fit her own artistic vision. (Lauren Harvey)

Aunt quotes, including one by Anne, in Pinkvilla. Another local screening of Emily in Modena Today. The Eyre Buds podcast interviews Betsy Cornwell, author of Reader, I Murdered Him.