Charlotte Bronte

Add to the shelf: Classic authors in context

9 Jul 2012

2 Comments

Blackwell’s Companion to Romanticism
I’ve had this book on my Amazon wishlist for quite some time but was being held back by the price. I finally bit the bullet on it and I’m relieved to find I’m really enjoying it. This companion to Romanticism contains 52 essays on all aspects of the Romantic movement. Part 1 of the book puts Romanticism in context with chapters on movements leading up to Romanticism and historical context, including the French Revolution. Part 2 has 23 essays discussing individual novelists and poets. Part 3 discusses genres of Romanticism; the novel, gothic, travel writing, etc. Part 4 is more eclectic with essays on various issues and debates. Feminism, historicism, psychological view points plus comparisons and influences such as England and Germany, Shakespeare and the Romantics, Milton, etc.

I’m currently on Chapter 5, Britain at War, and so far I’ve found the essays very well written. The authors seem to know their subject very well and express their points clearly with factual information to back it up. I’ll compare this to what I feel are some lesser and more jumbled essays next.

David Hume had taken the skepticism of the Enlightenment to its logical conclusions. In his Treatise of Human Nature Hume argued that the notions that we have of cause and effect are simply linked to the way which we experience the events in space and time and that such notions of causation have no objective existence. Thus, one’s knowledge of causation is a matter of habit or custom, not a logical certainty. Hume expressed radical skepticism about the nature of the human self, concluding that what one called the self was merely an ever-changing ‘bundle of sensations’. It was this position that ..laid the foundations for the Romantic Idealism
~Peter Kitson, Beyond the Enlightenment

 

The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel 
I purchased the kindle version of this book and I’m glad that I did because I’m not very impressed with it. Unlike the Blackwell companion, the essays in the Cambridge companion can’t seem to express a complete thought or theory. This book has 11 essays putting the Victorian novel in historical context, discussing the industrial revolution, gender roles, race, etc. So far I’ve read 6 of the 11 and most of the essays are less about sharing with the reader “actual information” and more about the authors musings. I often felt like the authors were not expressing their opinion clearly and they jumped on to another topic or aspect of their topic before they had fully expressed or gave any backing evidence for their first opinion. The exception to this sort of scattered writing was chapter 2, Simon Eliot’s The business of Victorian publishing. Eliot seemed to know his topic very well and shared much interesting information and perspective.
I’m not sure if I will go ahead and finish this book or not. I was pretty disappointed with it but maybe the last couple chapters will surprise me.

 

The Cambridge Companion to The Brontes 
Now after the Companion to Victorian novel mess, I was concerned that this title would also be a total flop. I bought this book on Amazon used for about $2.50, so at least I didn’t have much invested in it lol. To my relief though, this Cambridge companion is great. I haven’t been able to put it down. When I saw that the very first essay was by Juliet Barker my spirits and hopes where lifted. I have the humongous The Brontes by Juliet Barker on my shelf. I haven’t read it yet but I know she is one of THE experts on the Brontes. As expected her essay, The Haworth context, was very interesting. She gave me a whole new view point on the Bronte’s father Patrick.
I am now on Chapter 6, Shirley and Villette, so excited to read this today. Probably my favorite essay so far was Angela Leighton’s The Poetry. It lead me to looking up Emily Bronte’s poem Remembrance which I posted the other day. The first line: Cold in the earth- and the deep snow piled about thee, is still running around my mind.

‘Cold in the earth- and the deep snow piled above thee’, doubles not only the fact but also the sensation of cold. The line gets colder. It probes the buried source of coldness, making cold felt. By piling on snow as well, the poet transforms the sensation of cold into literal weight, as if to force or hold something down. Snow buries the dead doubly ‘deep’, as if earth itself were not deep enough.
~Angela Leighton, The Poetry

Jane Austen in Context, the Cambridge edition
I bought this title used from Amazon as well, in the hardcover. My edition, Jane Austen in context, is just one of the series that cover all of Austen’s novels, her juvenilia, and letters. I’ve flipped through the other titles online, and it looks like each includes a lengthy introduction, numerous notes on the text, and in some cases several appendixes. Not sure if I will make it a goal to collected each but I am tempted. ;)
JA in Context covers in Part 1: Life and works, a short biography, essays on Austen’s language, literary influence, her poetry, etc. Part 2 Critical fortunes includes the reseption of Jane’s work, publishing history, and the cult of Austen. Part 3, Historical and cultural context, is the longest section. It has several essays detailing all aspects of Jane Austen’s times, Agriculture, Dress, Education, Money, and Rank, etc.
I read through the first essay, the biography. It was short but well written and it made its main focus something that is often over looked in other Austen bios, her personal finances. I’ve read snips of some of the other chapters and so far, they all look very interesting and well researched.

Edward Austen (Jane’s brother) eventually enjoyed an income greater than Mr. Darcy’s, nearly £15,000 a year, but he was not at first remarkably generous to his mother and sisters after his father’s death in 1805 left them virtually homeless. Still, his initial pledge or £100 a year did almost double his mother’s income, and eventually he housed her and his sisters in the cottage at Chawton that has become the Jane Austen museum.
~Jan Fergus, Biography Jane Austin in Context

If you are interested in flipping through any of these books you can find them in my Classics Book shop, under Companions and Context. Well, you won’t find the Cambridge Victorian companion becasue I don’t recommend that one lol but you will find the others plus some other goodies to boot. The Classics book shop is just a project I am working on for fun. It is an Amazon affiliate store that I don’t really expect any traffic on but it is hella’ fun picking out my favorite books to add to it lol.
You can find additional companions, literary criticism, and biographies in the book shop under the Lit movement category pages and under the individual authors. Note that the list price for each book is just the Amazon price, click through to check for deals on used editions. The main link for the Book Shop, if you feel like browsing, is at the top of the blog home page.

By: Shannon Category: Add to the shelf, Classic literature, Non-fiction, The Romantics, Understanding & Interpretation, Victorian Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Wishing I could somehow cram all these books into my head instantaneously

1 Mar 2012

2 Comments

Right, so you already know about the 200 classic lit books waiting to be read on my shelves. Well somehow they keep multiplying! I don’t know how it happens. There are just SO many books in the world that need to be read. I have been somewhat good in that I have branched out a little on the book topics and I added several books on PDF that I can read on my iPad. Most of the other books are from the library, so I haven’t actually added too many to the physical shelf.
Still there are so many I want to read, simultaneously, that I don’t even know where to start. Here’s what’s been going on in my reading life these last couple weeks…

1- Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
I finished Shirley awhile ago, read as an ebook so no shelf clutter. I don’t know that I am going to post about it.. It was a good book but no Villette or Jane Eyre.

2-The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
I am almost done with this one, have about 100 pages left. Again an ebook from Gutenberg. I liked this one a little more than Shirley but it is completely different from Anne’s other novel, Agnes Gray. Great plot but the narration structure is kind of questionable lol. It’s written in letters (epistolary) but these are the longest and most detailed letters ever written.

3-The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway
From the library, I read the first 40 pages but didn’t immediately fall deeply into the story like I did with Hem’s other books. I do think I will like the story but I am going to hold off and read this when I am in the Hem. mood.

4-The Complete Short stories Hemingway
Library. I’ve only read Hills Like White Elephants so far and I totally did not get what the ‘unsaid thing’ was. >>>is dense<<<< It probably did not help that I was standing at the stove making dinner while I read it. I want to read all of these stories but no way I can before it’s due back. Better to put this on my To Buy list but on the other hand, I’m not sure if I am a huge fan of Hem’s short stories.. They seem so abrupt! (so I googled abrupt to make sure I spelled it right, I know duh, but it was correct so yay me. And the definition is: Brief to the point of rudeness, which I thought was very funny because it perfectly describes Hemingway’s short stories lol).

5-Classic Myths to read aloud by William Russell
Library. I love this book! I actually checked it out to read to Dd, the stories are abridged for children, but her to be read pile is as long as mine! SoI haven’t had time to read it to her but I am enjoying it myself. The books give you a brief 4-8 pages version of a ton of Greek Myths. I plan on reading the adult versions some day lol, but it’s nice to get the general idea of each story since you come across them so often in other lit. Plus I love that it tells you how to pronounce the Greek and Roman names. Also, the stories have notes at the end about Greek stems and how the names of the Gods in the stories relate to our modern language. I’m on page 90 of about 250. I may have to buy this one too since I still want to read it to Dd.

6-Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver
Library. This is the poetry book I posted about last month. I’m only on page 26. It’s been hard to find the right time to read this because I need quiet and concentration to really pick up on what she is talking about. It helps to be able to read the poetry examples out loud too. I’m not sure yet if this is THE poetry book for me. I tend to fall asleep while reading it..oops.

7-Decontructing Penguins by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone
My last library book, I have not even opened this one yet. It is about analyzing literature in a similar method to the one I outlined in my Lit Analysis Elements post, only this book is aimed at children. The idea is to discuss and analyze books with kids in a book group setting.

Now for something completely different….

 

 

8-Knowing and teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma
This is another book that contributes to understanding of the “Singapore way’ or how mathematics is taught in Asia; but this one actually focuses on the difference in understand and teaching math between teachers in China and the US. Apparently Chinese teachers do not go to school as long or have as much education as US teachers, and yet they do a much better job teaching math. Because they have a deeper understanding of mathematics and emphasize the conceptual with their students. I’m excited to read this one and will probably start it this weekend.

9-Art of Problem Solving Pre-algebra
Alright, now you are not allowed to laugh at me but this math book is for me lol. I decided I want to go back to school, probably for an associates in education…and later a BA in lit?? So I was looking at the college placement test and realized I pretty much have forgotten everything I learned in middle and high school. I am totally clueless about algebra, fractions, etc. The Art of Problem Solving is a curriculum for kids who are gifted in math. I thought it would be perfect for me since it not only goes over the basics, rather quickly which is good, but it also goes much deeper into mathematical understanding and really challenges the student at every level. The website has several video tutorials and I’ve already remembered much of the math I thought was completely gone from my brain. But I decided to go ahead and order the text book because I want to really understand the WHY this time and learn algebra so well it won’t vanish again.

10-Teaching resources, lesson plans, and activity PDFs…. x18
Umm I went a little crazy with the Scholastic teacher express sale.. They have a ton of PDF books on sale for $1. How could I resist that?! I’m most excited about the lesson plans and activities I got for Dd on Greece and Rome. I am going to use these PDFs as well as the book Building Language (a Latin stems book by Michael Clay Thompson) to put together a Greek and Roman curriculum for Dd and I to use this summer. I mentioned the MCT Building Language book awhile ago, when I was talking about ordering his poetry book. I did finally order both (but held off on the Grammar books). Dd and I flipped through the Building Language book already and she really likes it. It’s fun to see a little lightbulb go on in her eyes when she gets the connection between the latin stems and our own language. The MCT poetry book is also beautiful but I need to do quite a bit of work before we use that. There are many references in the book to classic poets, which I love, but I want to pull examples to illustrate the lessons that are more at Dd’s level as well. I imagine reading the classic poems for her so she can HEAR the words instead of focusing on what the poem means and then
using elementary level poems for meaning, metaphor, etc. I have a couple poetry pdfs that will go with that.

So that is what is on my shelf right now. And I haven’t even decided what fiction to read after I finish with Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I should probably pick something from my TBR challenge list…Do I dare start Les Mis?

PS-I’ve included Amazon links to the books so you could read descriptions, reviews, peek inside, etc; not because I think you should buy from them

By: Shannon Category: Add to the shelf, Afterschooling, Non-fiction, Poetry, Self education Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shakespeare fail: The Tempest

30 Jan 2012

11 Comments

Welp I fail the Shakespeare challenge. I decided to read The Tempest for Allie’s Shakespeare reading month but I just don’t think I am going to finish it before the 10th. Maybe I will but even if I do, I don’t have much to say about it.

It started out well enough. The writing is strikingly beautiful in some places (see above) but the further I got into The Tempest the more apparent it became that this was a very visual work and reading alone just was not capturing it for me. I read Hamlet last year and love it. But that was a more psychological play, it transfers well into the written word. The Tempest on the other hand is all about a magical island, sprites, an animalistic man, a magician, storms, fools wandering the island in wonder…It’s about visuals and sounds and the experience. There is much singing and dancing, and all of that is lost on the page. Plus, I just don’t find myself very interested in any of the characters, except maybe Caliban.

There have been a lot of GREAT Shakespeare posts coming through my reader and I really enjoyed reading them. But now, I am feeling positively Shakespeare-d out. I still have Richard the III and A Winter’s Tale on my shelf and I look forward to reading those but down the road quite a ways, maybe in the summer.

In other reading news, I am about 500 pages into Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley. I am enjoying it but it is a little slow going. The namesake of the book does not even come into it until about page 300! Shirley is a leisurely stroll, much less eventful than Jane Eyre or even Villette, but one I want to finish because I definitely want to know how it ends. Shirley is one to read from my preparing for The Madwoman in the Attic list. I’m making some good progress on that (the list is on my 2012 Challenges page) and would like to maybe read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall next. But I might have to break up the Bronte-athon will something modern. Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is eyeing me from the shelf and, something completely different, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man is tempting me.

Now all 5 books I have mentioned in this post are either new purchases or ebooks. NONE are from my original classics collection. *head-desk* I should really get back to those books and start ticking some of the 199 off! Or, I should at least be reading from my To Be Read in 2012 challenge list! But I’m just not in the mood for those, except maybe some Oscar Wilde..he actually sounds fun right now.

So kind of fail all around on what I originally planned to read but it may be better just to let go and travel where the books take me.

By: Shannon Category: Classic literature, Now reading, Renaissance, Victorian Tags: , , ,

Preparing for The Madwoman in the Attic

31 Dec 2011

7 Comments

One of my goals for 2012 is to finally read The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. I bought this book in April and read a little of it at that time but I quickly realized there were several other books I needed to read first if I was going to truly appreciate and understand Madwoman.

In April of 2011, I had only just begun my Classics reading project. I had read Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Sense and Sensibility, and was right in the midst of reading Villette. Back then I had only a vague idea of who George Eliot was and no clue about Margaret Fuller or Virginia Woolf. I had not even read my now much loved Mary Shelley! I was in a sad state reading wise lol. Comparing my knowledge of 19th century woman writers now to back then, I am really pleased with the progress and understanding I have achieved. But I know there are several books I needed to read if I am going to understand all the reference in Madwoman. So, I decided to flip through it and make myself a list.

First, let me give you the synopsis of The Madwoman in the Attic via Wikipedia

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, published in 1979, examines Victorian literature from a feminist perspective. In the work, Gilbert and Gubar examine the notion that women writers of the 19th Century were confined in their writing to make their female characters either embody the “angel” or the “monster.” This struggle stemmed from male writers’ tendencies to categorize female characters as either pure, angelic women, or rebellious, unkempt madwomen. In their argument, Gilbert and Gubar point to Virginia Woolf who says women writers must “kill the aesthetic ideal through which they themselves have been ‘killed’ into art”. While it may be easy to construe that feminist writers embody the “madwoman” or “monster,” Gilbert and Gubar stressed the importance of killing off both figures because neither the angel nor the monster are accurate representations of women or women writers. Instead, Gilbert and Gubar claimed that female writers should strive for definition beyond this dichotomy, whose options are limited by a patriarchal point of view.

Are you as excited about this as I am?! Wait until you see the list of authors discussed in the book…

I decided to break it down for myself by chapter. There are so many books I’ll need to read, I’m not sure I can read all of them and the 2012 list I had already planned. So I may just read each chapter of Madwoman as I complete the works referenced. Laying it aside until the next chapter’s books are completed and then picking it back up again. I kind of hate on again off again reading but I’m not sure there is any other way if I want to get to this book anytime soon.

Chapter 1 The Queen’s Looking Glass
Goethe: Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years (especially the character Makarie)
Brothers Grimm: Little Snow White
People to know: Anne Finch and Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Chapter 2 Infection in the Sentence
Harold Bloom: Anxiety of Influence
Also referenced but to a lesser extent
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow wallpaper (ebook)
Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
People: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Chapter 3 The Parables of the Cave
Mary Shelley’s intro to The Last Man (online)

Chapter 4 Shut up in Prose: Gender and Genre in Austen’s Juvenilia
Jane Austen: Love and Friendship (ebook)
Sense and Sensibility
Northanger Abbey
Also referenced but to a lesser extent
Mansfield Park
Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 5 Jane Austen’s Cover Story
Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent (ebook)
Austen: Northanger Abbey
Mansfield Park
Persuasion
Also referenced but to a lesser extent
Pride and Prejudice
Emma

Chapter 6 Milton’s Bogey
Milton: Paradise Lost
Charlotte Bronte: Shirley
Also referenced but to a lesser extent
Byron: Manfred
Woolf: A Room of One’s Own

Chapter 7 Horror’s Twin: Mary Shelley’s Monstrous Eve
Shelley: Frankenstein
Also referenced but to a lesser extent
George Eliot: Middlemarch

Chapter 8 Looking Oppositely: Emily Bronte’s Bible of Hell
Bronte: Wuthering Heights

Chapter 9 A Secret, Inward Wound
Charlotte Bronte: The Professor

Chapter 10 A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane’s Progress
Bronte: Jane Eyre

Chapter 11 The Genesis of Hunger
Bronte: Shirley

Chapter 12 The Buried Life of Lucy Snowe
Bronte: Villette

Chapter 13 Made Keen by Lose
George Eliot: The Lifted Veil
Also referenced but to a lesser extent
Eliot: Armgart (pdf)

Chapter 14 George Eliot as the Angel of Destruction
Eliot: Scenes of a Clerical Life
Middlemarch
Also referenced but to a lesser extent
Daniel Doranda
People: Margaret Fuller, Harriet Beecher Stowe

Chapter 15 The Aesthetics of Renunciation
Christina Rossetti: Maude
Also referenced but to a lesser extent
Rosetti: Goblin Market
Browning: Aurora Leigh (wiki)

Chapter 16 A Woman –White
Emily Dickinson

I’m lucky that during 2011 I read a few of these books. I’ve already read much of the Austen: Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. That leaves me to read Love and Friendship, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion; not undoable. As for the Brontes, I’ve read Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Villette. I still need to read Shirley, The Professor, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I am more than happy to do so since I love the Bronte sisters. I’ve already read Frankenstein of course and it’s all I can do to not read Chapter 7 of Madwoman right now, I’m so interested to see what they have to say about one of my favorite books.

George Eliot will be the biggest challenge because of her books referenced I have only read The Lifted Veil. Eliot’s books are massive too, so I may have to wait until 2013 to read them all and the corresponding chapters. I am completely new to Emily Dickinson too, so her poems and chapter 16 of Madwoman will probably be an ongoing project.

I’ll also need to read Milton’s Paradise Lost, Byron’s Manfred, and Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Luckily I already have these, and most of the other to be read titles, on my shelf. The more obscure books like Rosetti, Goethe, Edgeworth, and Browning I hope to find ebooks for.

By: Shannon Category: Classic literature, Non-fiction, The Romantics, Understanding & Interpretation, Victorian Tags: , , , , ,

The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell

14 Aug 2011

5 Comments

The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell starts out a bit slow. Rather than jumping right into Charlotte’s life, Gaskell introduces the reader to the environment and character of Yorkshire where Charlotte was born and lived. Gaskell wants to make a case immediately that the “coarseness” Charlotte was accused of was a result of her enviroment. Gaskell essential tries to explain to the cultivated Londoners and other critics of urban England, that Charlotte comes from the wild and obnoxious Northern countryside, where people are distrustful, outwardly hostile, and rude but truthful and loyal at heart. It’s an amusing peek at how rich city people see those that live out in the country. Although Gaskell’s description of the people of Yorkshire is obviously skewed, it surely also contains some truth.

As I read the book, I felt like Gaskell was continually explaining why Charlotte was the way she was and almost making excuses for her. Of course, part of an autobiography is to explain a person’s character but I would much rather be shown a personality than told of one. To my modern sensibilities and perspective no excuse is needed for Charlotte. I can draw the conclusions myself that Charlotte came from a wilder, more independent environment and that her isolation left her incredibly lonely. I wished Gaskell would have left off telling me these things over and over and would have spent more time telling me about Charlotte’s artistic side.

The Life of Charlotte Bronte sorely lacks in it’s portrait of Charlotte as an artist. Most of the book is Charlotte’s letters, with Gaskell setting up or filling in between letters. Perhaps Charlotte just did not talk about her artistry, her methods of writing, inspiration, etc. Still I think Gaskell would have done Charlotte a more timeless justice if she would have focused more on Charlotte, the novelist, and less on Charlotte, the faithful daughter and homemaker.

But I do believe the book is written this way on purpose. Another distinct point Gaskell wants to make was that Charlotte did not neglect her…womanly duties, as it were, in favor of her writting. Sad that this point has to be made but I can understand Gaskell, and other friends and family of Charlotte’s, felt it was important to do her that justice. When you read some of the reviews of Charlotte’s work, especially Jane Eyre, you can understand why Gaskell wanted to refute how Charlotte’s character was being drawn. What was then called coarseness and unwomanly in Charlotte’s work we see today as passionate, emotional, strength, and independance. Qualities few, even fellow women, would accept in the 19th century.

 

Jane Eyre is throughout the personification of the unregenerate and undisciplined spirit…….It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian grace is perceptible upon her.

 

Altogether the autobiography of Jane Eyre is preeminently an anti-Christian composition. There is throughout it a murmuring against the comforts of the rich and against the privations of the poor, which, as far as each individual is concerned, is a murmuring against God’s appointment–there is a proud and perpetual assertion of the rights of man, for which we find no authority either in God’s word or in God’s providence–there is that pervading tone of ungodly discontent which is at once the most prominent and the most subtle evil which the law and the pulpit, which all civilized society in fact, has at the present day to contend with. We do not hesitate to say that the tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home is the same which has also written Jane Eyre

–Elizabeth Rigby, the Quarterly Review  1847

 

Gaskell does show us through Charlotte’s letters, how completely unjust this review is. Charlotte was accepting, almost to a fault in my opinion, of her life as laid out by God. She felt is was her duty, and stuck with it tenaciusly even after the success of her books, to stay with her father in complete isolation in Yorkshire. Anyone who has read Villette knows Charlotte’s deep innate belief in the predetermination of God. That He has already decided who shall lead a happy blessed life and who shall suffer. All her life Charlotte live in acceptance of this. Her novels do show a rebellious nature, but it is always a rebellion against man, against a society that would unjustly keep her character down. Not a rebellion against God. Her heroines are in fact searching for the truth of how God, not Man, would have life lived.

Some of the most wonderful parts of The Life of Charlotte Bronte are when Charlotte talks of her books. I almost jumped out of my chair when I read her letter about the ending of Villette. Those of you that have read Villette and have in turns: wondered, been certain, then doubtful, and shook the book in frustration, will finally have your answer. But I will not give it away here.

The Life of Charlotte Bronte was published just 2 years after her death. Because many of the people mentioned in the book were still alive, almost all names are abbreviated to an initial. This really disturbs the narrative and prevents you from sinking into the story.  Also for privacy, and the risk of lawsuits, very little is told of the people in Charlotte’s life. Although Gaskell gives us a glimpse into Charlotte’s personality and a detailed history of her life, it feels one dimensional without those people around Charlotte fleshed out. In the end, I’m left wanting more detail and more truth about Charlotte, her books, and the events that impacted her life. Luckily, I have Juliet Barker’s massive The Brontes already on my shelf to, hopefully, fill that void.

The Brontes as children…

From their first going to Haworth, their walks were directed rather out towards the heathery moors, sloping upwards behind the parsonage, than towards the long descending village street…The six little creatures used to walk out, hand in hand, towards the glorious wild moors, which in after days they loved so passionately; the elder ones taking thoughtful care of the toddling wee things…They were grave and silent beyond their years; subdued, probably, by the presence of serious illness in the house..They were good little creatures. Emily was the prettiest….So the little things clung quietly together, for their father was busy in his study and in his parish, or with their mother, and they took their meals alone; sat reading, or whispering low, in the children’s study, or wandered out on the hill-side, hand in hand.

By: Shannon Category: Classic literature, Finis, analysis and reviews, Non-fiction, Victorian Tags: ,
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