Emily Jane Bronte was the most solitary member of a unique,
tightly-knit, English provincial family. Born in 1818, she shared
the parsonage of the town of Haworth, Yorkshire, with her older
sister, Charlotte, her brother, Branwell, her younger sister, Anne,
and her father, The Reverend Patrick Bronte. All five were poets
and writers; all but Branwell would publish at least one book.
Fantasy was the Bronte children's one relief from the rigors of
religion and the bleakness of life in an impoverished region. They
invented a series of imaginary kingdoms and constructed a whole
library of journals, stories, poems, and plays around their
inhabitants. Emily's special province was a kingdom she called
Gondal, whose romantic heroes and exiles owed much to the poems of
Byron.
Brief stays at several boarding schools were the sum of her
experiences outside Haworth until 1842, when she entered a school
in Brussels with her sister Charlotte. After a year of study and
teaching there, they felt qualified to announce the opening of a
school in their own home, but could not attract a single pupil.
In 1845 Charlotte Bronte came across a manuscript volume of her
sister's poems. She knew at once, she later wrote, that they were
"not at all like poetry women generally write...they had a peculiar
music-wild, melancholy, and elevating." At her sister's urging,
Emily's poems, along with Anne's and Charlotte's, were published
pseudonymously in 1846. An almost complete silence greeted this
volume, but the three sisters, buoyed by the fact of publication,
immediately began to write novels. Emily's effort was Wuthering
Heights; appearing in 1847 it was treated at first as a lesser work
by Charlotte, whose Jane Eyre had already been published to great
acclaim. Emily Bronte's name did not emerge from behind her
pseudonym of Ellis Bell until the second edition of her novel
appeared in 1850.
In the meantime, tragedy had struck the Bronte family. In September
of 1848 Branwell had succumbed to a life of dissipation. By
December, after a brief illness, Emily too was dead; her sister
Anne would die the next year. Wuthering Heights, Emily's only
novel, was just beginning to be understood as the wild and singular
work of genius that it is. "Stronger than a man," wrote Charlotte,
"Simpler than a child, her nature stood alone."
"It is as if Emily Brontë could tear up all that we know human
beings by, and fill these unrecognizable transparencies with such a
gust of life that they transcend reality."
—Virginia Woolf
Gr 8 Up-British actor Martin Shaw reads this shortened version of the classic Emily Bronte novel. His easily-understood accent is appropriate and helps to set the mood. Shaw reads at a very steady pace, pausing effectively for emphasis or when his character might be thinking. Usually calm and gentle, his voice can resonate with anger or other emotion when necessary. There is some differentiation in pitch to emphasize male vs. female speech, but it is not exaggerated or overdone. The abridgement retains Bronte's words linking speech or narration sometimes from one page to another. It provides students with an easier way to become familiar with the story and get a feel for her style. Teachers could use this presentation to introduce the novel or to entice students to read it on their own.-Claudia Moore, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
"It is as if Emily Bronte could tear up all that we know human
beings by, and fill these unrecognizable transparencies with such a
gust of life that they transcend reality."
-Virginia Woolf
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