Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164376
U. Kauer
Abstract Charlotte Brontë's novel The Professor is usually regarded as a failure. The reasons for this failure, have, however, never been closely examined. The essay tries to prove that the main reason why the novel fails to convince the reader lies in the narrative form the author chose. Narrative cross-dressing was a very rare phenomenon in the nineteenth century, so Charlotte Brontë's reasons for choosing a male first-person narrator will be examined in a first step. After that, the essay elucidates the weaknesses in the narrative construction of the novel. The doubts about the hero's masculinity will be verified by various contextual and narrative aspects: the narrator's attitude towards sexuality, his language, and the manner in which he describes other protagonists all contribute to cause a gender instability in the novel. Instead of having a liberating effect, this gender instability undermines the credulity of the narrator-persona and thus explains the inadequacy of the novel noted by so many critics.
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Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164394
Michael Walker
Although last year's exhibition in the Bonnell Room at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, 'A Passionate Response', did not appeal to some of the purists in the Bronte Society, it is a fact, nevertheless, that even while Charlotte was still living the theatre had begun to playa part in the Bronte story. Charlotte, indeed, asked W. Smith Williams for a review of the stage adaptation of Jane Eyre in 1848 which was entitled 'Jane Eyre, The Secrets of Thornfield House'. Since that very first production of Jane Eyre there has grown up an entire industry of arts and entertainment related to Bronte productions. Stage productions of the novels, initially mainly of Jane Eyre, were followed by productions of Wuthering Heights and, later, by The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. These continued to be popular plays with repertory companies and audiences throughout the later nineteenth and early twentieth century. With the advent of moving pictures the two most popular novels were brought to the attention of a new and much wider public audience. The first silent movie of Jane Eyre was made in 1909, an Italian production, and it could be argued that it is through the theatre, but mainly through the cinema and, later, television, that the lives and works of the Brontes have remained so popular with the public at large. Witness, for example, the upsurge of visitors to the Parsonage following the latest Bronte television production on the children's Blue Peter programme in March of this year. Perhaps Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are popular novels, but how many people outside the Bronte Society really know much about the lives of the family? Following on from the first cinematic productions there does appear to have been a huge increase in the interest taken in the lives of the Brontes, leading to the publication of fictionalized novels about them, culminating in the 1930S with numerous 'factional' plays such as 'Wild Decembers' (1932), 'Moor Born' (1934) and 'Stone Walls' (1936), reaching its zenith in 1933 with no less than eight plays staged. It goes without saying that some of the books and plays veered to a rather romanticized image of the sisters, but they did bring to a wider audience
{"title":"The Enduring Appeal of the Brontës in Popular Art Forms","authors":"Michael Walker","doi":"10.1179/030977601794164394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/030977601794164394","url":null,"abstract":"Although last year's exhibition in the Bonnell Room at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, 'A Passionate Response', did not appeal to some of the purists in the Bronte Society, it is a fact, nevertheless, that even while Charlotte was still living the theatre had begun to playa part in the Bronte story. Charlotte, indeed, asked W. Smith Williams for a review of the stage adaptation of Jane Eyre in 1848 which was entitled 'Jane Eyre, The Secrets of Thornfield House'. Since that very first production of Jane Eyre there has grown up an entire industry of arts and entertainment related to Bronte productions. Stage productions of the novels, initially mainly of Jane Eyre, were followed by productions of Wuthering Heights and, later, by The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. These continued to be popular plays with repertory companies and audiences throughout the later nineteenth and early twentieth century. With the advent of moving pictures the two most popular novels were brought to the attention of a new and much wider public audience. The first silent movie of Jane Eyre was made in 1909, an Italian production, and it could be argued that it is through the theatre, but mainly through the cinema and, later, television, that the lives and works of the Brontes have remained so popular with the public at large. Witness, for example, the upsurge of visitors to the Parsonage following the latest Bronte television production on the children's Blue Peter programme in March of this year. Perhaps Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are popular novels, but how many people outside the Bronte Society really know much about the lives of the family? Following on from the first cinematic productions there does appear to have been a huge increase in the interest taken in the lives of the Brontes, leading to the publication of fictionalized novels about them, culminating in the 1930S with numerous 'factional' plays such as 'Wild Decembers' (1932), 'Moor Born' (1934) and 'Stone Walls' (1936), reaching its zenith in 1933 with no less than eight plays staged. It goes without saying that some of the books and plays veered to a rather romanticized image of the sisters, but they did bring to a wider audience","PeriodicalId":230905,"journal":{"name":"Brontë Society Transactions","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127816574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164402
Alison Hoddinott
Abstract In early December 1852, Charlotte Brontë wrote to her friend, Ellen Nussey, that 'something in the third volume' of Villette stuck 'confoundedly in [the] throat' of her publisher, George Smith. Most commentators and biographers locate the source of his displeasure in the portrayal of himself as John Graham Bretton (Dr John) and in the transfer of interest from this character to that of Professor Paul Emanuel in the third volume. This article argues that the explanation should be looked for elsewhere, namely, in the events surrounding the fate of the 'little man', Paul Emanuel and his departure for the West Indies and in Charlotte's own relationships with George Smith and James Taylor.
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Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164303
J. Bellamy
Abstract The first part of this lecture looks at some aspects of Mary Taylor's friendship with Charlotte Brontë, the second something of her life and her own writing, after Charlotte's death.
{"title":"Mary Taylor: 'More Precious Than Rubies' Brontë Society Literary Luncheon Lecture, 7 April 2001.","authors":"J. Bellamy","doi":"10.1179/030977601794164303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/030977601794164303","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The first part of this lecture looks at some aspects of Mary Taylor's friendship with Charlotte Brontë, the second something of her life and her own writing, after Charlotte's death.","PeriodicalId":230905,"journal":{"name":"Brontë Society Transactions","volume":"108 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125191254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164349
Bernadette Bertrandias
Abstract This article examines the way in which the narrative of Villette, more so than Charlotte's earlier novels, is permeated with the subliminary presence of the absent figure 'par excellence': the Mother. Her inverted image can be read through all the negative mother-figures) including Madame Beck and Malevola, but separation is made yet more significant in the novel through the recurring metaphor of the seastorm and the shipwreck, informing the whole of Lucy's experience as doomed to the invitability of loss. These two representations, the debased image and the repetition of loss, can be interpreted in Freudian terms as two symmetrical attempts to master the trauma of the essential loss, but in fact they fail to do so) because the object of the loss is never articulated) but remains buried in Lucy's closed off psyche, as all the fantasies related to the diffuse Gothic forcibly suggest, before they are actually denied by the authoritative speaker. Thus Villette is a cryptic text enacting melancholy, as well as a cathartic attempt, through autobiographic form, to cure it; the long confession carried out by Lucy conceals as much as it reveals) but it also aims at healing, and restoring, through the attempted ab/-re/jection of the haunting, paralysing image of the un mourned Mother: that the outcome should remain highly problematic testifies to the permanence of a poetics of alienation in Charlotte's writing.
{"title":"Villette and the Poetics of the Haunted Self","authors":"Bernadette Bertrandias","doi":"10.1179/030977601794164349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/030977601794164349","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the way in which the narrative of Villette, more so than Charlotte's earlier novels, is permeated with the subliminary presence of the absent figure 'par excellence': the Mother. Her inverted image can be read through all the negative mother-figures) including Madame Beck and Malevola, but separation is made yet more significant in the novel through the recurring metaphor of the seastorm and the shipwreck, informing the whole of Lucy's experience as doomed to the invitability of loss. These two representations, the debased image and the repetition of loss, can be interpreted in Freudian terms as two symmetrical attempts to master the trauma of the essential loss, but in fact they fail to do so) because the object of the loss is never articulated) but remains buried in Lucy's closed off psyche, as all the fantasies related to the diffuse Gothic forcibly suggest, before they are actually denied by the authoritative speaker. Thus Villette is a cryptic text enacting melancholy, as well as a cathartic attempt, through autobiographic form, to cure it; the long confession carried out by Lucy conceals as much as it reveals) but it also aims at healing, and restoring, through the attempted ab/-re/jection of the haunting, paralysing image of the un mourned Mother: that the outcome should remain highly problematic testifies to the permanence of a poetics of alienation in Charlotte's writing.","PeriodicalId":230905,"journal":{"name":"Brontë Society Transactions","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132831100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164358
Frances Gerard
Abstract Like Jane Eyre, though in a different way, Lucy Snowe, the central character of Charlotte Brontë's novel Villette, is a self-directed woman. But she has to learn of love though experience. This experience is characterized by the symbolism of sea, wind and night.
{"title":"Villette: An Uncharted Course?","authors":"Frances Gerard","doi":"10.1179/030977601794164358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/030977601794164358","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Like Jane Eyre, though in a different way, Lucy Snowe, the central character of Charlotte Brontë's novel Villette, is a self-directed woman. But she has to learn of love though experience. This experience is characterized by the symbolism of sea, wind and night.","PeriodicalId":230905,"journal":{"name":"Brontë Society Transactions","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132333000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164295
C. Heywood
Abstract This article proposes that Charlotte and Emily attached similar values to the Pennine landscapes they knew at home and in the Yorkshire Dales. At home they knew the heather-clad, gritstone moorland of the southern Pennines. At school they lived among the limestone crags of the northern Pennines around Cowan Bridge. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte presented both western Pennine landscapes, the limestone north and the moorland south, in a natural sequence created by the heroine's journeys. In Wuthering Heights, the two landscapes appear in the same place: the southern Pennine moorland appears as a dreamlike overlay or magic carpet in the second half of the novel, transforming the limestone landscape which is defined in the first half. Both sisters associated the limestone north with betrayal and death, and the southern moorland with regeneration in the individual and society.
{"title":"Pennine Landscapes in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights","authors":"C. Heywood","doi":"10.1179/030977601794164295","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/030977601794164295","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article proposes that Charlotte and Emily attached similar values to the Pennine landscapes they knew at home and in the Yorkshire Dales. At home they knew the heather-clad, gritstone moorland of the southern Pennines. At school they lived among the limestone crags of the northern Pennines around Cowan Bridge. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte presented both western Pennine landscapes, the limestone north and the moorland south, in a natural sequence created by the heroine's journeys. In Wuthering Heights, the two landscapes appear in the same place: the southern Pennine moorland appears as a dreamlike overlay or magic carpet in the second half of the novel, transforming the limestone landscape which is defined in the first half. Both sisters associated the limestone north with betrayal and death, and the southern moorland with regeneration in the individual and society.","PeriodicalId":230905,"journal":{"name":"Brontë Society Transactions","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124823428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164385
{"title":"Council, Officers and Staff","authors":"","doi":"10.1179/030977601794164385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/030977601794164385","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":230905,"journal":{"name":"Brontë Society Transactions","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131034787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1179/030977601794164367
Marjorie J. Lightfoot
Abstract In Mary Taylor's feminist novel, Miss Miles; or, A Tale of Yorkshire Life 60 Years Ago, Sydney Wynde, a secondary figure, recalls the young Branwell Brontë in terms of appearance, talents, and character. Taylor's treatment of this figure, reminiscent of Branwell, proves to be complex, paradoxical, generous, and worthy of consideration.
{"title":"Branwell Brontë, Mary Taylor, and Sydney Wynde","authors":"Marjorie J. Lightfoot","doi":"10.1179/030977601794164367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/030977601794164367","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In Mary Taylor's feminist novel, Miss Miles; or, A Tale of Yorkshire Life 60 Years Ago, Sydney Wynde, a secondary figure, recalls the young Branwell Brontë in terms of appearance, talents, and character. Taylor's treatment of this figure, reminiscent of Branwell, proves to be complex, paradoxical, generous, and worthy of consideration.","PeriodicalId":230905,"journal":{"name":"Brontë Society Transactions","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129329404","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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