The Works of the Brontë Sisters

This article scrutinises what generations of readers have perceived to be Wuthering Heights’ “general air of sour hatred” (Gilbert and Gubar 2000: 260) and its disconcerting density of violent and abusive exchanges. Taking up readings of the novel as a story of anti-colonial retaliation (Heathcliff) and feminist portrayal (Catherine; Isabella), I focus on Brontë’s affective politics in (re-)producing and channelling negative feeling in and beyond the text. In so doing, I follow an approach that I call ‘follow the hatred’ which is inspired by Sara Ahmed’s research on the ‘politics of emotion’ (2014; 2004) and, particularly, the ‘fantasy of violation’ (Ahmed 44). Utilising Ahmed’s understanding of emotions as based on processes of attribution that are structured by power relations, I trace Wuthering Heights’s instalment of Heathcliff as a source of hatred—a hatred that gradually infects all relationships and characters in the novel and, not least through occasional hints at romance, seamlessly blends in with mid-nineteenth century boundary panic regarding miscegenation and inverted colonial hierarchies. Illuminating also how the novel sets incentives for readers to feel within these parameters, the analysis shows how Brontë installs Heathcliff as an expansive force of injury and (emotional) infection with a particular effect: consolidating white English, particularly female, identities. Over two main sections—“Heathcliff’s Hatred” and “Catherine’s Liberation”—I thus go beyond popular readings of Heathcliff as either aggressor or underdog, instead offering new insights into how ‘feeling negatively’ is indebted to literary production, tying in with both writing and reading in an age of imperialism.

Abstract: Wuthering Heights has proved exceptionally elusive to interpretation. By foregrounding the idea of human nature, Darwinian literary theory provides a framework within which we can assimilate previous insights about Wuthering Heights, delineate the norms Brontë shares with her projected audience, analyze her divided impulses, and explain the generic forms in which those impulses manifest themselves. Brontë herself presupposes a folk understanding of human nature in her audience.

The thesis aims to explore the position of women in the Victorian era, particularly with regard to marriage, and to see how this is reflected in "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Brontë and "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë. The theoretical part explores the legal and social situation of women in the early nineteenth century and the practical part firstly analyses the novels separately to see how both authors reflect the realities that women of the era were facing. The last section of the practical part offers the overall comparison of the two chosen novels and examines differences and similarities in the central messages and in the final achievement of independence, equality, and justice.

This thesis argues that there are parallels between the situation of women today and Lucy Snowe in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Villette (1853). Based on reception studies, feminist theory and an historically informed close reading of the novel, my ambition has been to explore how Villette has been received by Victorian and 20th-century critics, as well as to examine the text- internal factors that may have contributed to the novel’s continued appeal. In addition to this I have wanted to understand how it is being read today. Although readers’ horizons of expectation have changed since Villette was published, many features of the reception remain conspicuously similar. The novel’s reception shows that the predicament women have found themselves in as ‘the Other’ remains fundamentally stable. Due to new digital resources that give access to ordinary readers’ responses, this thesis presents fresh insights into the modern readers’ experiences of reading Villette. This thesis argues that the novel provides a female perspective that women in particular can relate to: they are able to identify with Lucy’s double and ambiguous self in their own battle for self-definition.

Reseña del libro de Mireia Munmany 'La gestió del patrimoni literari. Conceptualització i anàlisi comparativa dels models català i anglès'. Se trata de un estudio comparativo entre la gestión del patrimonio literario inglés y del patrimonio literario catalán, en el que se abordan los casos de Shakespeare, Woolf, Brontë, Jacint Verdaguer y Josep Pla.

Since 1695, the Lord Wharton Bible Charity has bestowed distinctive Bibles and two religious books to Yorkshire children able to recite certain Psalms and the catechism. Evidence for the Brontë' siblings' familiarity with the chari-ty's project includes their respective literary criticism of the misuse of rote Scrip-tural memorization and quoting and the presence of two Wharton Bibles owned by the Brontës in the Brontë Parsonage Museum Library. Descriptions of the charity's project appear in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847), representing the catalyst for Catherine and Heathcliff 's growing alienation and resistance to Christianity. THE LORD WHARTON BIBLE CHARITY, established in 1695 exclusively for the County of Yorkshire by Nonconformist Lord Philip Wharton, encouraged rote memorization of Scripture and catechism for local children. While their guardians received a small financial reward for successful instruction, Yorkshire children reciting certain psalms from memory would receive a unique Bible and two classic works of Christian doctrine. Although this charity is still operational to a lesser extent, its long-term impact on generations of York-shire children generally passes unnoticed, except for brief mentions in histories of British