I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights

vrijdag 5 juni 2015

Virginia Rushton

bronteparsonage:
Virginia Rushton, who died recently, was a well-known and very hard-working member of the Brontë Society who will be greatly missed. A singer, she was also well-known in the world of music, and was largely responsible for an extraordinary operatic project for schools in 2006 entitled The Wind on the Moor. It was featured on this blog and can be accessed here:
bronteparsonage/wind-on-moor

She was also the moving force behind the restoration of Emily's piano:-rhinegold/music_teacher/news/music

This obituary appeared a few days ago:  voiceforarran

dinsdag 2 juni 2015

Does an Award Like the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Help or Hurt the Cause of Women Writers?

In August 1849, Charlotte Brontë wrote a letter to her publisher, W. S. Williams, in response to a review of her wildly successful novel, “Jane Eyre.” Like her sisters, Emily and Anne — both of whom, along with their alcoholic brother, Branwell, Charlotte had just lost to tuberculosis over the course of one terrible year — the eldest Brontë sister published her work under a gender-­ambiguous pseudonym. The runaway success of “Jane Eyre” — published the same year as Emily’s and Anne’s novels “Wuthering Heights” and “Agnes Grey” — had sparked a broad debate about the identities of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Were they one individual writing under several names — a rumor that was, at one point, deliberately circulated by Emily and Anne’s publisher in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of their sister’s best seller? Most of all, speculation raged about the Bells’ gender. One smitten woman wrote Brontë’s publisher wishing to know if Currer Bell was a man — if so, she confessed, she must surely be in love with him.
 
“Much of the article is clever,” Brontë writes of an essay on “Jane Eyre” in the North British Review, “and yet there are remarks which — for me — rob it of importance. . . . He says, ‘if “Jane Eyre” be the production of a woman — she must be a woman unsexed.’ ” This conditional objection to the novel’s bewitching narrative power — if a woman wrote this, then either she, the book or both must be somehow unnatural — stands as an invaluable example of Victorian-era mansplaining. But in their presupposition that male writing and female writing occupy two separate and circumscribable domains, Brontë’s indignant critics also betray an essentialist logic that’s arguably still present today (if reversed) in the rationale for gender-specific prizes like the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Read on nytimes/does-an-award-like-the-baileys-womens-prize-for-fiction-help-or-hurt-the-cause-of-women-writers
 

Museums at Night event.

Keighley News reports on the recent Museums at Night event.
Meanwhile a host of Brontë fans took the opportunity to visit the Parsonage Museum in Haworth after-hours as part of the annual national festival. [...]  Literature fans were able to experience the Brontë Parsonage as the famous siblings did, when the building was lit by candlelight.  The Brontë Society’s museum opened for separate events on two evenings as this year’s contribution to Museums at Night.  On the first night visitors were treated to a glass of wine as they arrived, then they viewed some of the museum’s treasures by candlelight.  Collections manager Ann Dinsdale invited visitors into the library, where she talked about some of the interesting items and artefacts belonging to the Brontë family.  
On the following night visitors were able to have a chat with Charlotte Brontë’s friend Ellen Nussey, played by a costumed actress, while looking around the museum.  Among the visitors were the Routh family, Francesca, James, Angela and Michael, from Pudsey, who had travelled to Haworth specifically for the event.  James said: “It’s the first time I’ve visited for many years, but it’s been a fantastic evening. “Seeing the museum like this is a unique and atmospheric experience, and the live interpretation brought it all the more to life.” Rebecca Yorke, marketing and communications officer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, was delighted with the response to the evening openings.  She said: “It felt very special being in the museum as darkness fell and the candlelight definitely added to the atmosphere. “Our visitors agreed it was a very intimate event and we look forward to offering more opportunities to experience the museum after hours.”(David Knights)
photo's:
bbc/haworth_bronte_museum
telegraph//Bronte-Parsonage-Museum-Haworth
 

Feminist Heroines in the Novels of the Brontë Sisters

Nineteenth Century Women Writers and the Challenge of Gender Roles: Feminist Heroines in the Novels of the Brontë Sisters
Tinna Sif Sindradóttir
Advisor: Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir
2015
University of Iceland

This essay explores the challenges that women writers faced in the nineteenth century, as well as women in general. Therefore, the concept of gender roles is examined, along with the restrictions that women faced. In addition, the notion of separate spheres that were dominant in this period is briefly outlined to exemplify the male-dominated society that these women lived in. However, the main issue focused on is how women writers were able to speak out against this patriarchal society and the traditional gender roles that women were subjected to. Indeed, by becoming professional writers, they challenged the notion of the domestic sphere and the idea that women were mainly supposed to be wives and mothers. As a result, women writers had the ability to empower other women and influence the course of history.  In particular, the Brontë sisters will be discussed to illustrate women writers that challenged the patriarchal society of the nineteenth century. Through their novels and their heroines, the sisters addressed issues that their society faced and they did this in their own unique ways. Special emphasis is placed on Charlotte Brontë and Anne Brontë, as well as their novels. Charlotte and Anne concerned themselves predominantly with problems such as gender roles and equality between the sexes. However, they were also concerned with the education of women and issues concerning the domestic sphere.  The novels discussed are Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. In addition, the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is briefly outlined. The novels in question can be considered as feminist novels. Indeed, the key aspect discussed in Jane Eyre is the empowerment of women through the heroine, Jane Eyre, as well as her demand for equality. Moreover, the battle for women’s rights and independence is explored in the The Tenant of Wildfell Hall through the novel’s heroine, Helen Huntingdon. Finally, it can be argued that Emily challenged gender roles through the way that she wrote, as well as through the heroine, Catherine Earnshaw, in Wuthering Heights.

Oxenhope church is to receive a £37,500

Good news for the Oxenhope Parish Church as reported in Keighley News:
An historic Oxenhope church is to receive a £37,500 Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant.
The money for St Mary the Virgin Church, in Hebden Bridge Road, will support a project to undertake much needed restoration to the church tower walls.
The scheme is costing £120,000 and the announcement of the latest funding will allow custodians of the Grade II listed property to complete the work. (...)
The church’s history includes a link to the world famous Brontë family.
In 1845, the Rev Patrick Brontë, father of the famous novelist sisters Charlotte, Anne and Emily, and their brother Branwell, appointed the then curate, the Rev Joseph Brett Grant, to take charge of the newly formed ecclesiastical district.
That district is now known as Oxenhope village parish.

The Parlour

The Parlour

Parsonage

Parsonage

Charlotte Bronte

Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked about various things; the character of the people, - about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring... ------------------- "She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in Villette was so exactly like what I had experienced, - vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, - wondering what it was like, or how it would be, - till at length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. ----------------------She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgement for her use of some of the faculties she had, - not the best, - but still the only ones she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgement on her from such a world?" elizabeth gaskell/charlotte bronte



Poem: No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.


O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!


Vain are the thousand creeds
That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,


To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.


With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.


Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.


There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.


--
Emily Bronte

Family tree

The Bronte Family

Grandparents - paternal
Hugh Brunty was born 1755 and died circa 1808. He married Eleanor McClory, known as Alice in 1776.

Grandparents - maternal
Thomas Branwell (born 1746 died 5th April 1808) was married in 1768 to Anne Carne (baptised 27th April 1744 and died 19th December 1809).

Parents
Father was Patrick Bronte, the eldest of 10 children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor (Alice) McClory. He was born 17th March 1777 and died on 7th June 1861. Mother was Maria Branwell, who was born on 15th April 1783 and died on 15th September 1821.

Maria had a sister, Elizabeth who was known as Aunt Branwell. She was born in 1776 and died on 29th October 1842.

Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell on 29th December 1812.

The Bronte Children
Patrick and Maria Bronte had six children.
The first child was Maria, who was born in 1814 and died on 6th June 1825.
The second daughter, Elizabeth was born on 8th February 1815 and died shortly after Maria on 15th June 1825. Charlotte was the third daughter, born on 21st April 1816.

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls (born 1818) on 29th June 1854. Charlotte died on 31st March 1855. Arthur lived until 2nd December 1906.

The first and only son born to Patrick and Maria was Patrick Branwell, who was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848.

Emily Jane, the fourth daughter was born on 30th July 1818 and died on 19th December 1848.

The sixth and last child was Anne, born on 17th January 1820 who died on 28th May 1849.

Top Withens in the snow.

Top Withens in the snow.

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