The Bronte Myth

THE BRONTE MYTH - THE BRONTË SISTERS FOLLOW UP SPLENDID PATTERNS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE, March, 2007. Reviewer: Waldir Freitas Oliveira (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil). March 10, 2007. The Brontë Sisters - Charlotte, Emily and Anne - remain, even nowadays, with their reputation of remarkable persons in universal Literature. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights continue as habitual readings in numerous countries all over the world. They were published in 1847, 160 years ago, but they have been marked as good samples of classic novels. Charlotte, the eldest of the three sisters, became certainly the most famous of them, as a result of the publishing, in 1857, of her biography, written by Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell - The Life of Charlotte Brontë --, two years after her death and ten years after the edition of Jane Eyre, revealing an unknown author - Currer Bell, a male name elected by Charlotte Brontë, for the purpose of not disclose her identity, and, consequently, her female condition. Emily remains, although, in spite of the large acceptation of Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte, as the most loved of the Brontë sisters, according to the opinion of a large number of critics and historians of the English Literature in the nineteenth century, even though having been the authoress of a few poems and a sole novel - Wuthering Heights. Each year, however, one hundred or more books and articles are published, in many countries, on Wuthering Heights, and especially on the Brontë Sisters, mainly Charlotte and Emily. A myth flowers and persists ever since a true history is repeated, endlessly, and finally woven into culture. A myth was created, without doubt, involving the Brontë Sisters and their family - their father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, and their brother, Edward. In her study The Brontë Myth (published in 2005), Lucasta Miller, an English authoress, with formation at Oxford, deputy literary editor, for many years, of The Independent, and appearing, frequently, in the pages of The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, and The Sunday Telegraph, the most famous British journals, with elegant and precise style, throws light over the daily life of the Brontë, at Howarth, in Yorkshire, wasting out the excessive importance given by many critics and historians to the arid landscape around the Brontë's homeland - the inhospitable moors, - with its strong winds and mighty storms. She reveals, in an opposite manner, the good education provided by the Rev.Patrick to his daughters in their childhood and youth She aims, with this approach, at considering the mythic components that surround their lifes, aside from the real value of the conditions allowing the performance of the Brontë sisters, three young rural spinsters, as women writers who produced literary works with an evident talent, good taste, a fine style, and large acceptance. The Brontë Myth is a notable study in the area o

This book turns out to be the Holy Grail when it comes to the Brontes. The writer goes beyond the misty moors and sheds a bit of light into the reality of the Brontes. It's refreshing and new and the writer leads you to other books, recently published, that open an entire new view of the Brontes. This is a wonderful book.

Will the real Bronte sisters please stand up. A biographer has to put something of himself into the book he writes. We see in people a reflection of ourselves, of our family, of the people we know. In the case of the Bronte's they were doing things that young ladies simply didn't do, like write books, and particularily they didn't write books like these. After all, the books that these ladies wrote talked about, dare I say it, yes, I will, sex. This book, called a metabiography is an analysis of the biographies of the Bronte's. The first biography, written by Elizabeth Gaskell two years after Charlotte's death spun the sisters into picturesque myth -- family tragedies, Yorkshire moor, and all. All families have tragedies particularily in a time when so little was known about medicine. And the image you can write of the moor is different than the land really looks. In attempting to do away with the myth to get to the women underneath, this book takes an entirely new approach to the Bronte's and to biographies in general.

I got this book expecting it to be a biography of the family, and it turned out to be more a review of how and why biographers have distorted who Charlotte and Emily Bronte were and what they achieved as writers. Lucasta Miller's main point in the book is that the Brontes have really been short-changed as authors. I suppose she doesn't really discuss Anne Bronte because she doesn't put her work on the same level as the others and Anne hasn't become a cult figure in the same way CB and EB have. I've always counted JE and WH as among my favorite books, and it was so gratifying to have them vindicated as the great books they truly are instead of being castigated for not fitting into someone else's expectations of what they should be.

Lucasta Miller's THE BRONTE MYTH appeared earlier this year but deserves ongoing mention as an excellent addition to the literature on the Brontes. There've already been numerous books on the topic of each Bronte family member: so why the need for yet another? Lucasta Miller goes a step further in her coverage, showing how the Brontes became cultural symbols as their novels were published, and providing insights into how this happened. Recommended for any college-level literary collection.