The character Vashti in Charlotte Brontë's novel Villette

The character Vashti in Charlotte Brontë's novel Villette was based on Rachel, whom Brontë had seen perform in London.

French classical actress, the daughter of Alsatian-Jewish traveling peddlers. Her talent was discovered when she was singing in the streets as a young girl, and nurtured in drama school in Paris.  Her fame spread throughout Europe following a sensational success in London in 1841, and became particularly associated with the works of Racine, Voltaire, and Corneille, touring in Brussels, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. When Rachel first stepped on the stage of Comedie Francaise, French classical tragedy was not dying but dead. Regardless, Rachel would remain true to her classical roots. She aroused audiences with an undeniable craving for the tragic style of great writers like Corneille, Racine and Molière. She evoked a high demand for classical tragedy to remain on the stage. She created the title role in Eugène Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvreur. Her acting style was characterized by clear diction and economy of gesture, and represented a major change from the exaggerated style of those days. Out the doors of Rachel’s theatre was a battle of artistic desires. Society was beginning to demand the highly emotional, realistic, instinctual acting styles of the Romantics. Rachel completely turned her back on the Romantic Drama movement happening in nineteenth century France. She was best known for her portrayal of the title rôle in Phèdre. Eliza Rachel, as the actress was also known, was reportedly a great tragédienne.
wiki/Rachel_(actress)

Rachel’s private life was scandalous, and was chronicled with lip-licking relish by the European press: the Leeds Intelligencer, for example, noting her withdrawal from the role of Cleopatra, said her “success was becoming more questionable every day,” as if an immaculate private life was essential for success in that role ( Leeds Intelligencer , 8 Jan 1848). Her health was as fragile as her morals, and she died of consumption. Blackwell Reference  Rachel_(actress) Rachel
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During the summer of 1851, Charlotte Brontë visited London and saw Rachel Felix, the famous French actress, perform in several plays. "Thackeray's lectures and Rachel's acting," she wrote to Elizabeth Gaskell, "are the two things in this great Babylon which have stirred and interested me most -- simply because in them I found most of what was genuine whether for good or evil...." Brontë's adjective, "genuine," affiliates her assessment of Rachel with a mid-century theatrical discourse that increasingly represented the stage and the most favored acting styles as "natural." Although it turns up in many texts and contexts, George Henry Lewes, in his role as drama critic, articulated principles of "natural acting" that influentially framed the discourse for both its onstage and offstage versions. When he too saw Rachel on stage in 1851, Lewes, echoing Brontë, accordingly pronounced the actress "exquisitely natural" and set her up as a positive exemplar for what he perceived to be a theater in decline.
 

Brontë's and Lewes's assessments register a paradoxical cultural impulse that led them both to specify a controversial actress as the embodiment of naturalness. Recent studies of theatricality have underscored its potential to upset traditional gender categories; in particular, such studies have recognized women's capacities to elude naturalized sexual and gender roles in the theatre and to construct their own identities on stage. While these studies have influenced my arguments, I also suggest that the structure of mid-Victorian theatricality accommodated an essentialist version of gendered identity. In the context of the 1850s, moreover, a careful assessment of some such conceptions of identity must modify what we usually see as the restrictive tendencies of essentialism. Jonathan Dollimore has recently argued for the transgressive potential of certain appropriations of dominant ideologies, even essentialist ones, at specific historical moments. My readings of Lewes and Brontë support Dollimore's point: while they both viewed Rachel as essentially "natural," they surveyed her from markedly different gendered positions within Victorian culture. Their affiliated constructions of theatricality thus instantiate nature in the service of divergent cultural goals.

The discourse of natural acting exhibits the prominent features of a high culture conception of Victorian theatricality. This conception distinguished "genuine" or "natural" essence from a material and artificial medium of performance, a distinction that speaks to our current theoretical debates about identity. In postmodern critiques of the coherent humanist subject, theatricality often functions to disrupt conceptions of an originary self and essential identity that ostensibly exist apart from the discourses and practices of specific cultures. Delineating this disruptive theatricality is a project integral to many feminist dismantlings of monolithic, ahistorical conceptions of "the Feminine." These welcome efforts at cultural concreteness, however, cannot fully explain the Victorians' yoking of theatricality and gender, for their theatricality prefigured but was not a prototype of the postmodern version. Unlike postmodernists, many Victorians believed in a theatricality that sometimes revealed and sometimes obscured a timeless, innate self; in this view, an authentic core identity is separated from an external, performing, artificial self. If the portents of postmodern disintegration lurk in the fissures of this divided self, the binary construction nonetheless permitted the Victorians to privilege the "authentic core" in an effort to maintain what they saw as the integrity of a coherent identity. muse.jhu.edu/journals
These_are_not_a_whit_like_nature_Lucy_Snowes_Art_Criticism_in_Villette._

Brontë Parsonage collection

Brontë Relics: A Collection History
Ann Dinsdale, Sarah Laycock and Julie Akhurst
Brontë Society Publications 
ISBN: 978-1-903007-15-0, 48pp, 2012

From the Bronte Blog

In the past we have repeatedly written our wish for a history of the Brontë Parsonage collection and in a strangely positive take on the 'careful what you wish for' warning, we have got not just that but also a a temporary exhibition on the subject right at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

The exhibition catalogue, a collaborative work by Ann Dinsdale, Sarah Laycock and Julie Akhurst, traces the history of the Brontëana items kept there, starting with Charlotte's widower Arthur Bell Nicholls right up to the latest auctions.

It of course includes a chapter on the notorious T. J. Wise, who tricked both Arthur Bell Nicholls and Ellen Nussey into thinking that by selling him their cherished items they would eventually end up in a national museum, not spread all over the world, mutilated and misattributed for decades to come (and indeed many unsolved questions and lost manuscripts today originated there).

Throughout the catalogue there are are lots of great-quality pictures both from the Parsonage collection of Brontëana and from the photography archives. But to us the most striking of all would be the one in black and white showing Martha Brown's sister Tabitha in old age displaying her Brontëana. The picture was described to us by Ann Dinsdale as 'pure Haworth' and it would seem to be exactly that.

The catalogue is a typical Brontë Society publication: good quality paper and a close attention to details.

It's also a fascinating, entertaining read and a great companion to the actual exhibition, particularly for those who are interested in the subject but won't be able to attend. It's funny how, say, a kitchen candle holder can have, not just a history, but be passed down the generations as a highly valuable and meaningful relic. And for those of us who think that Brontëana should be where it belongs, it's terribly exciting to read about the collection taking shape over the decades up until now when it can rightly boast of being the largest collection of Brontëana in the world. As it should.

Brontë Country

Step back in time: Haworth's steep, cobbled main street and its olde worlde apothecary and sweet shop offers a glimpse of life in the time of the Brontes

Read more: Why-Im-big-Bradford-Bronte-Country-really-hits-Heights

On this day in 1817 Patrick Branwell Bronte fourth child of the Bronte family was born at Thornton.

As a young man, Branwell Brontë was trained as a portrait painter in Haworth, and worked as a portrait painter in Bradford in 1838 and 1839. His most famous portrait is of his three sisters: he seems to have painted himself out, though a legend holds that after an argument his father rubbed the image out with turpentine.

In 1840, Brontë became a tutor to a family of young boys in Broughton-in-Furness but was dismissed within six months. During this time he did a translation of Horace. He was then employed by the Manchester and Leeds Railway, initially as 'assistant clerk in charge' at their Sowerby Bridge station, being appointed to that post in August 1840, his salary being £75 per annum paid quarterly;^[2] neither the station nor the line had opened – this event took place on 5 October 1840.^[3] Brontë's salary was increased to £130 when he was transferred to Luddendenfoot railway station as 'clerk in charge' on 1 April 1841.^[2] He was dismissed in 1842 due to a deficit of eleven pounds, one shilling and sevenpence in the accounts, probably stolen by Watson, the porter, who was left in charge when Brontë went drinking.^[2] This was attributed to incompetence rather than theft, and the missing sum was deducted from Brontë's salary.^[2] During his period of employment both as a tutor and on the railways he harboured literary ambitions and published poetry under various pseudonyms in the Yorkshire press. Read more: wiki/Branwell_Bronte-

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On the whole, Branwell's critical reputation was cemented by Charlotte's exceedingly unfavorable judgment of him, revealed in a number of bitter letters sent to her publisher just after Branwell's death. According to Brontë scholar Robert G. Collins, Charlotte's assessment “was the sentence of death upon Branwell's reputation.” Charlotte had not spoken to Branwell for about two years before his death, and days after his funeral wrote: “I do not weep from a sense of bereavement … but for the wreck of talent, the ruin of promise, the untimely dreary extinction of what might have been a burning and a shining light. … There is such a bitterness of pity for his life and death, such a yearning for the emptiness of his whole existence as I cannot describe.” Elizabeth Gaskell, whose 1857 biography became the basis for subsequent Brontë studies, received most of her information about the family from Charlotte, who described the sad but welcome death of her brother. In 1886 Francis A. Leyland, a friend of Branwell's, attempted to restore Branwell's character with the publication of The Brontë Family, with Special Reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë. Claiming that Branwell had been unfairly characterized, Leyland attempted not to clear Branwell of his wrongs but to depict him as a man to be admired in spite of his flaws. Many critics found the book to be dull, however, and continued to maintain their earlier perception of Branwell.

The practice of condemning Branwell continued into the 1940s and 50s, with critics generally claiming that his work showed very little, if any, signs of genius. In 1960, the critical tide turned somewhat when Daphne Du Maurier, in her study The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë, argued that Branwell's reputation had been maligned. A year later Brontë scholar and biographer Winifred Gerin made a case for the need to study Branwell's works as a whole in order to understand his tortured and disappointing life and to comprehend the emotional outlook of the writer. The most recent scholarship echoes Gerin's argument, acknowledging the futility of trying to assess Branwell's overall purpose and qualifications when most editions of his works either include outdated or unreliable information, contain inaccuracies due to difficulties in dating or assigning authorship, or simply bring together fragments of his work. For a proper critical assessment of Branwell's merits as a writer, recent critics contend that a complete and accurate source of all of Branwell's known writings is needed.

Read all the article: enotes.com/patrick-branwell-bronte-criticism/bronte-patrick-branwell

Emily Bronte already has 57,842 'likes' on her Facebook page

 

Look at my wooden soldiers. I only have two, bought at the Haworth Brontë Parsonage Museum's shop. Everyone knows the famous story about the box of wooden soldiers. This photographe  and words of Georges Renaux,  I read on the Facebook page of Emily Bronte.

We may freak at the suggestion of chopping Tolstoy up into digestible megabytes, we may balk at the thought of Scrooge and Hamlet opening Twitter accounts and we may laugh at the thought of Mr Bumble teasing the reader with his very own Facebook page while Jamie Oliver offers a more tempting alternative to a bowl of gruel, but let's not forget Emily Bronte already has 57,842 'likes' on her Facebook page, and who's to say that Shakespeare would object to being the 'Blogging Bard' - if "all the world's a stage" as he says - I'm sure, if he were here today, that would include the laptop as well.
Read all:  Huffington Post

Patrick Brontë

The Brontë Parsonage Museum is partly manned by volunteers who did not disappoint in their dedication and friendliness. Predictably too, Haworth is packed with Bed and Breakfasts; ye OldeTeashops and so on. Nonetheless, a suggestion of tweeness is effectively counteracted by the weight of the history of Brontë family; and the magnificence of the moors. A wide variety of accommodation is on offer (in some cases at top prices) by the locals in the absence- thank goodness - of modern hotel chains. Great efforts are made to create an old world atmosphere in line with theBrontë story. Especially the standard of breakfasts and bakery is high (waist watchers be warned).................

Apart from the moors, Patrick Brontë remained a dominant – one has to say - presence. Over the weekend, one becomes quickly reacquainted with his strong personality; the many tragic aspects of his life; and his energetic commitment to carrying out his pastoral ministry including as Vicar of Haworth, against the background of the lively theological debates raging at the time. Some might   wonder then that the summing up accolade paid to him in the parish church in Haworth in the ceremony to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his marriage to Maria Branwell as well as his Faith, was that  Patrick Brontë was a great British hero - (Oh well; it is the Jubilee  Year!!)................................
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