Misplaced Pages

Emily Brontë: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 15:06, 5 March 2013 edit204.186.5.98 (talk) →AdulthoodTag: section blanking← Previous edit Revision as of 15:06, 5 March 2013 edit undo204.186.5.98 (talk) →Personality and characterTag: section blankingNext edit →
Line 37: Line 37:


==Personality and character== ==Personality and character==

Emily Brontë remains a mysterious figure and a challenge to biographers because information about her is sparse,<ref>Lorna Sage ''The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English'' (1999), p. 90</ref> due to her solitary and reclusive nature.<ref>"The life of Emily Bronte is shrouded in mystery, and she remains an elusive and mysterious figure" — Lyn Pykett, ''Emily Brontë'' (1989)</ref><ref>"Emily's reclusive nature had already made her less known than the siblings who had moved in wider social circles" — U. C. Knoepflmacher, ''Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights'' (1989), p. 112</ref> She does not seem to have made any friends outside her family.<ref>Grace Moore, ''Wuthering Heights'' (2012), 'About the author'</ref> Her sister ] remains the primary source of information about her, although as Emily's elder sister, writing publicly about her shortly after her death, Charlotte is not a neutral witness. According to Lucasta Miller in her analysis of Brontë biographies, "Charlotte took on the role of Emily's first mythographer."<ref>{{cite book|author=Lucasta Miller|title=The Brontë Myth|publisher=Vintage|date=2002|pages=171-174|ISBN=0 09 928714 5}}</ref> In the ''Preface'' to the Second Edition of '']'', in 1850, Charlotte wrote:
<blockquote><div>
My sister's disposition was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favoured and fostered her tendency to seclusion; except to go to church or take a walk on the hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home. Though her feeling for the people round was benevolent, intercourse with them she never sought; nor, with very few exceptions, ever experienced. And yet she know them: knew their ways, their language, their family histories; she could hear of them with interest, and talk of them with detail, minute, graphic, and accurate; but WITH them, she rarely exchanged a word.<ref> to the Second Edition of '']'', by ], 1850.</ref>
</div></blockquote>
Emily's unsociability and extremely shy nature has subsequently been reported many times.<ref>"Emily Bronte is altogether an enigma. We perceive a power about her which could not find reasonable vent or utterance, so shut in was it by her repulsive and unsocial qualities. The intense love of life is as strange a feature as any." — The Living Age (1857), Volume 55, p. 409</ref><ref>"'s leanings and affinities were all of a weird character. Unsocial, stubborn in will, destitute of affection for any human being, seemingly unsusceptible of influence or impression from her sisters..." — ], February, 1861.</ref><ref>"Emily Bronte was quite unlike her sisters. She was eccentric, antisocial, painfully shy, and probably meant what she said when she expressed a preference for dogs over people" — Alexander, Sellars, ''The Art of the Brontës'' (1995), p. 100</ref> According to Norma Crandall, her "warm, human aspect" was "usually revealed only in her love of nature and of animals".<ref>Norma Crandall, ''Emily Bronte: a psychological portrait'' (1957), p. 81</ref> In a similar description, ''Literary news'' (1883) states: " loved the solemn moors, she loved all wild, free creatures and things",<ref>Pylodet, Leypoldt, ''Literary news'' (1883) Volume 4, p. 152</ref> and critics attest that her love of the moors is manifest in ''Wuthering Heights''.<ref>Brontë Society, ''The Brontës Then and Now'' (1947), p. 31</ref> Over the years, Emily's love of nature has been the subject of many anecdotes. A newspaper dated December 31, 1899, gives the folksy account that "with bird and beast had the most intimate relations, and from her walks she often came with fledgling or young rabbit in hand, talking softly to it, quite sure, too, that it understood".<ref name="Sacramento">], "Sacramento" , December 31, 1899.</ref> The following anecdote is also related:
<blockquote><div>
Once she was bitten by a dog that she saw running by in great distress, and to which she offered water. The dog was mad. She said no word to any one, but herself burned the lacerated flesh to the bone with the red hot poker, and no one knew of it until the red scar was accidentally discovered some weeks after, and sympathetic questioning brought out this story.<ref name="Sacramento" />
</div></blockquote>

In ''Queens of literature of the Victorian era'' (1886), Eva Hope summarizes Emily's character as "a peculiar mixture of timidity and Spartan-like courage", and goes on to say that "She was painfully shy, but physically she was brave to a surprising degree. She loved few persons, but those few with a passion of self-sacrificing tenderness and devotion. To other people's failings she was understanding and forgiving, but over herself she kept a continual and most austere watch, never allowing herself to deviate for one instant from what she considered her duty."<ref>Eva Hope, ''Queens of Literature of the Victorian Era'' (1886), p. 168</ref>

]'' (1847)]]


==''Wuthering Heights''== ==''Wuthering Heights''==

Revision as of 15:06, 5 March 2013

Emily Brontë
A portrait of Brontë made by her brother, Branwell BrontëA portrait of Brontë made by her brother, Branwell Brontë
BornEmily Jane Brontë
(1818-07-30)30 July 1818
Thornton, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Died19 December 1848(1848-12-19) (aged 30)
Haworth, Yorkshire, England
Pen nameEllis Bell
OccupationPoet, novelist, governess
NationalityEnglish
GenreFiction, poetry
Literary movementRomanticism
Notable worksWuthering Heights
RelativesBrontë family

Emily Jane Brontë (/ˈbrɒnti/; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her solitary novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother Branwell. She wrote under the pen name Ellis Bell.

Personality and character

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights was published in London in 1847, appearing as the first two volumes of a three-volume set that included Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey. The authors were printed as being Ellis and Acton Bell; Emily's real name didn't appear until 1850, when it was printed on the title page of an edited commercial edition. The novel's innovative structure somewhat puzzled critics.

Wuthering Heights's violence and passion led the Victorian public and many early reviewers to think that it had been written by a man. According to Juliet Gardiner, "the vivid sexual passion and power of its language and imagery impressed, bewildered and appalled reviewers." Even though it received mixed reviews when it first came out, and was often condemned for its portrayal of amoral passion, the book subsequently became an English literary classic.

Although a letter from her publisher indicates that Emily had begun to write a second novel, the manuscript has never been found. Perhaps Emily, or a member of her family, eventually destroyed the manuscript, if it existed, when she was prevented by illness from completing it. It has also been suggested that, though less likely, the letter could have been intended for Anne Brontë, who was already writing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, her second novel. In any case, no manuscript of a second novel by Emily has survived.

Death

Emily believed that her health, like her sisters', had been weakened by the harsh local climate and by unsanitary conditions at home, the source of water being contaminated by runoff from the church's graveyard. She caught a severe cold during the funeral of her brother Branwell in September 1848 which led to tuberculosis. Though her condition worsened steadily, she rejected medical help and all proffered remedies, saying that she would have "no poisoning doctor" near her. In the morning of 19 December 1848, Charlotte — in the presence of her dying syster — wrote thus:

She grows daily weaker. The physician's opinion was expressed too obscurely to be of use — he sent some medicine which she would not take. Moments so dark as these I have never known — I pray for God's support to us all.

At noon, Emily was worse; she could only whisper in grasps. With her last audible words she said to Charlotte, 'If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now', but it was too late. She died that same day, at about two in the afternoon, while sitting on the sofa at Haworth Parsonage. It was less than three months since Branwell's death, which lead a housemaid to declare that 'Miss Emily died of a broken heart for love of her brother'. Emily had grown so thin that her coffin measured only 16 inches wide. The carpenter said he had never made a narrower one for an adult. She was interred in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels family capsule, Haworth, West Yorkshire, England. Emily Brontë would never know the extent of fame she achieved with her one and only novel, Wuthering Heights, as she died a year after its publication. She was 30 years old.

See also

Notes

  1. American Heritage and Collins dictionaries
  2. Columbia Encyclopedia
  3. Richard E. Mezo, A Student's Guide to Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (2002), p. 2
  4. Carter, McRae, The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland (2001), p. 240
  5. Juliet Gardiner, The History today who's who in British history (2000), p. 109
  6. Wuthering Heights, Mobi Classics (2009)
  7. The letters of Charlotte Brontë (1995), edited by Margaret Smith, Volume Two 1848-1851, p. 27
  8. Gaskell, Elizabeth (1857, reprinted 1998). The Life of Charlotte Brontë. New York: Penguin. p. 264. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  9. A letter from Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey is quoted in Elizabeth Gaskell. The Biography of Charlotte Brontë. Oxford Edition 1996. Charlotte refers to the winter of 1833/4 which was unusually wet and there were a large number of deaths in the village — thought to be caused by water running down from the Churchyard.
  10. "Branwell died suddenly, on September 24, 1848, a Sunday. At his funeral service, a week later, Bronte caught a severe cold which developed with deadly speed into inflammation of the lungs and consumption." — Richard Benvenuto, Emily Brontë (1982), p. 24
  11. Fraser, Rebecca (2008). Charlotte Brontë: A Writer's Life (2 ed.). 45 Wall Street, Suite 1021 New York, NY 10005: Pegasus Books LLC. p. 261. ISBN 978-1-933648-88-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  12. " extraordinary temper... showed itself in its utmost exaggeration as bodily disease gained upon her. She rejected all sympathy and medical assistance; the sisters dared not notice her failing limbs and panting breath; she would receive help from none." — The Ladies' Repository, February, 1861.
  13. Elizabeth Gaskell, The life of Charlotte Brontë (1870), p. 281
  14. The Ladies' Repository for July 1857
  15. Folio Society, The complete poems of Emily Brontë (1951), p. 282
  16. ^ Javier Marías, Margaret Jull Costa, Written Lives (2006), p. 171
  17. "She dragged herself down to the sitting-room, and died there, about two o'clock. She must have had some horror of dying in that room of death overhead; for, at noon, when the last pains seized her, she refused to be taken back to it. Unterrified, indomitable, driven by her immortal passion for life, she fought terribly. Death took her as she tried to rise from the sofa and break from her sisters' arms that would have laid her there. Profoundly, piteously alienated, she must have felt that Anne and Charlotte were in league with death; that they fought with her and bound her down; and that in her escape from them she conquered." — May Sinclair, The Three Brontes (2004), p. 22
  18. "To Martha Brown and her sisters, loyal servants of the Brontë family, there never appeared to be any doubt that Emily died of grief for her brother. She was taken ill after his funeral and was dead within three months. It was as simple as that." — Winifred Gérin, Emily Brontë: a biography (1971), p. 242
  19. Catherine Reef, The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne (2012)
  20. "Brontë inscribed her desire on her flesh as hunger—and her body became, in the absence of speech, the very text of her deprivation. She died on 19 December 1848 and was buried three days later. Her coffin maker, William Wood, had to construct the narrowest coffin he had ever made for an adult; it measured just 16 inches across" — Steven Vine, Emily Brontë (1998), p. 20

References

Further reading

  • Emily Brontë, Charles Simpson
  • In the Footsteps of the Brontës, Ellis Chadwick
  • Last Things: Emily Brontë's Poems, Janet Gezari
  • The Oxford Reader's Companion to the Brontës, Christine Alexander & Margaret Smith
  • Literature and Evil, Georges Bataille
  • The Brontë Myth, Lucasta Miller
  • Emily, Daniel Wynne
  • Dark Quartet, Lynne Reid Banks
  • Emily Brontë, Winifred Gerin
  • A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë, Katherine Frank
  • Emily Brontë. Her Life and Work, Muriel Spark and Derek Stanford
  • Emily's Ghost: A Novel of the Brontë Sisters, Denise Giardina
  • Charlotte and Emily: A Novel of the Brontës, Jude Morgan
  • L. P. Hartley, 'Emily Bronte In Gondal And Galdine', in L. P. Hartley, The Novelist's Responsibility (1967), p.35-53

External links

Brontë sisters
Charlotte
Emily
Anne
Collaborative work
Juvenilia
Family
Locations
Associates
Cultural legacy

Template:Persondata

Categories: