donderdag 30 april 2015

Makers of multi-million pound new Bronte film preparing to cast actors to play the remaining members of the famous literary family

by
THE producers of a major new film about the Bronte family say they soon hope to make further progress on casting actors for the key remaining roles. The film, called The Brontes, is being made by Yorkshire-based Clothworkers Films, and is due to be released in April next year.
 
Actors’ roles are being chosen by casting director Sarah Leung.
One of the actors announced so far is Matthew Lewis, who will play Branwell Bronte. Mr Lewis is well known for playing the part of Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films. Director David Anthony Thomas said he was expecting the rest of the selection process to be complete “within the next few months".
“A lot depends on the dynamics and interplay between the Brontes, both as family members and as chief protagonists, so that's where we've been focusing so far,” he said. “The cast will be announced upon the completion of the casting process. “The level of interest and anticipation has far surpassed our expectations, and it's unusual for a project at an early stage of development to achieve this level of excitement. “It is very encouraging, and we look forward to building on this as we release more news over the coming months. We will be sharing our work with the thousands who've been following our progress so far.” keighleynews

Letters from Charlotte Brontë to Prof. Constantin Heger


 In 1842 Charlotte and Emily Brontë travelled to Brussels to study at the Pensionnat Heger, a school for young ladies run by Madame Zoë Heger. There the sisters studied French literature under the instruction of Madame’s husband, Constantin Heger. This connection with the dynamic and rigorous Monsieur Heger had the most profound influence on Charlotte Brontë’s life and work.  After Charlotte left the pensionnat on New Year’s Day 1844 she was unable to forget Monsieur Heger. At first she wrote to him every fortnight and then, on Madame Heger’s insistence, she attempted to limit herself to a letter every six months. These letters to Constantin Heger are increasingly unguarded expressions of her torment as she waited for replies that dwindled and then halted altogether.

What language are the letters written in? 

All four surviving letters to Heger are written in French – the language in which he tutored Charlotte – though the post script to the last letter she ever sent him is in English. In her parting words to Heger, she declares that the French language is ‘most precious to me because it reminds me of you – I love French for your sake with all my heart and soul’. Biographer Lyndall Gordon and scholar Sara Dudley Edwards have speculated that writing in a foreign language allowed Brontë the licence to express feelings that she mightn’t have voiced in her native English.

Why were the letters torn up and repaired? 

Of the four remaining letters, three were torn up. The first has been mended with strips of paper; the second and third have been sewn back together; the fourth is intact, though the name and address of a Brussels shoemaker has been scribbled in the margin. Critics have speculated that Monsieur Heger tore up the letters, only for Madame Heger to retrieve them from his wastepaper bin and piece them together again.
 bl.uk/collection-items/letters-from-charlotte-bront-to-prof-constantin-heger

woensdag 29 april 2015

‘I’ll walk where my own nature will be leading’

 
Poem Emily Bronte
 
Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians

Discover 1,200 Romantic and Victorian literary treasures, new insights by 60 experts, 25 documentary films, 30 inspirational teachers’ notes and more. Discovering Literature has been supported since its inception by Dr Naim Dangoor CBE, The Exilarch's Foundation

From: .bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians
So when thinking about Wuthering Heights, we should not see it as a novel that simply depicts or belongs to the moors. The final stanza of one of the Brontës’ most celebrated poems (we do not know if it was written Emily or Charlotte) begins ‘I’ll walk where my own nature will be leading’. It is concerned with both an essential human ‘nature’ and an absolute freedom that goes beyond any particular place or time. The speaker’s deep sense of embodiedness and place is seamed with the hope of radical freedom. At the very end of Wuthering Heights, a little shepherd boy who is ‘crying terribly’ tells Nelly that he has seen the dead Heathcliff and Cathy ‘walk’ on the moors (ch. 34). It confirms how they remain simultaneously deeply identified with the landscape and sinister and alien presences within it. Their own deep sense of belonging to the moors is a source of terror and estrangement for others. Belonging is the way not to belong. - See more at: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/walking-the-landscape-of-wuthering-heights#sthash.vImHr8hH.dpuf

Violent Seizures and Lexic

Violent Seizures and Lexic



 A recent thesis and a paper published in a recent conference:

Privately deviant, publicly disciplined: the violent seizure of female narratives in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The Woman in White, and Lady Audley’s Secret
Amanda K. Hand, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 2015

In Victorian England, women were subjects within their patriarchal society. What Anne Brontë, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon emphasize and “sensationalize” is the subjugated marriage relationship, violently portraying men forcing their wives into submission. Brontë’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Collin’s The Woman in White, and Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret provide examples of men attempting to control the women in their lives. These novels deploy moments of violent seizure to dramatize and critique the inequalities inherent in the strict Victorian marriage laws. However, despite this usurpation of the female narrative, the insurgent testimony of the female voice persists in the mind of the reader. This thesis will examine the Sensation genre, focusing on the female narratives within the three novels. It will argue that the female narrative cannot be shut out or stifled. Once it has been released into the world, it must evoke power and create a culture of change.
The Lexical Characteristics of Jane EyreLiu Chunling
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
2015 International Conference on Social Science and Technology Education (ICCSTE 2015)
Atlantis Press
ISBN:  978-94-62520-60-8
  Jane Eyre is a famous masterpiece of Charlotte Brontë. The novel’s literary achievement is immortal, especially the brilliant language. The description not only brings readers aesthetic pleasure but also hint the fate and emotion of characters. Charlotte’s original description forming a colorful picture makes Jane’s image more perfect and vivid and drives readers to search more for the beauty of the novel and the life. Moreover, Charlotte endows words with indefinite sense and deep connotation. This thesis aims to explore the lexical characteristics on the theory of linguistics.