Early 19 th Century English Literature, part 2 Presented by Mike Trial Technical Support by Compass Flower Press
Course Outline • October 12 – Mary Shelley (and John Polidori) – Maria Edgeworth – Frances Burney – Jane Austen • October 19 – The Brontës – William Thackeray – George Meredith – Wilkie Collins (and Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
Why aren’t Trollope and Dickens included among the mid-Victorian writers to be discussed today? • Trollope – because he’s not good enough He wrote too much, too fast (57 books and plays, plus short stories in 35 years of writing.) He achieved popularity and money, but not quality. (others will have different opinions, I’m sure) • Dickens – because he’s too good It would take a full session to discuss his works and influence. (our Wilkie Collins discussion will touch on Dickens.)
Timelines The Victorian Era: 1837-1901 • Anne Brontë 1820-1849 (died at age 29) • Branwell Brontë 1817-1848 (died at age 31) • Charlotte Brontë 1816-1855 (died at age 39) • Emily Brontë 1818-1848 (died at age 30) • William Thackeray 1811-1863(died at age 53) • George Meredith 1828-1909 (died at age 81) • Wilkie Collins 1824-1889 (died at age 65)
The Victorian Era, Rule Britannia!
The European social and political context of the mid-Victorian Era • 1848 is a year of revolutions across Europe • Bismarck forms the German nation • Imperial Russia is at its zenith
The Brontës (1818-1855) This is a chalk on paper portrait of Charlotte Brontë done by George Richmond in 1850
Where did the Brontës live? The Bronte’s lived in a small town called Haworth on the Yorkshire Moors Jane Austen’s writing years were spent at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire
Of the six Brontë children … • Maria and Elizabeth died in childhood • Charlotte published – Jane Eyre (1847) – Shirley(1849) – Villette (1853) – The Professor (posthumously in 1857) • Emily published only – Wuthering Heights(1847) • Anne published – Agnes Grey (1847) – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall(1848) • Branwell published only a few poems
Emily Brontë (1818-1848) She was the secretive one, happiest when she was alone, roaming the Moors. She and youngest sister Anne had created their fantasy world Gondol, while Charlotte and Branwell created Angria, in their shared-universe, role- playing game Her poetry show a tough and defiant soul Her character Heathcliffe draws on her brother Branwell’s dissolute life Emily died a year after her only book was published in 1847.
Emily Brontë (1818-1848) Emily’s poetry shows a tough and defiant soul “ … no coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere … ” Emily’s poetry gave Charlotte the idea for the 3 sisters to self-publish a book of poems as by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell It was released in 1846, the sisters’ first published work. It sold 2 copies.
Anne Brontë (1820-1849) • Tenant of Wildfell Hall – women had no rights in marriage (the bad husband’s behavior is modeled on her brother Branwell’s behavior) • Agnes Gray – the miserable life of a governess (often the only choice of employment a respectable woman had)
In Agnes Grey we see Anne’s view (though these are the words of critic F. Schwarzbach, NYU) • Girls are trained to grow into witless ornaments, boys into heartless brutes. • These moral monsters then form their own families, brought together hardly knowing one another and doomed, at best, to loveless coexistence in unions of family convenience.
And of course, Charlotte’s best-seller, Jane Eyre • Robert Southey had advised Charlotte "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life" • No drafts survive, only the the fair copy which she finished transcribing August 19, 1847 • She sent it immediately to publisher Smith, Elder, as an autobiography edited by ‘Currer Bell’ • It has the trappings of melodrama: outcast orphan, Helen Burns, Lowood school, governess at Thornfield, ghost in the attic, mysterious Rochester, leaving Thornfield, then Mr. Rivers – an offer to go to India, an unexpected inheritance, Thornfield burned, Rochester injured, and so … • Reader, I married him.
1847 was an important year for the three Brontë sisters • Jane Eyre an autobiography edited by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë) is published by Smith, Elder, Co. • Wuthering Heights , by Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë) is published by Thomas Cautley Newby Co. • Agnes Grey by Acton Bell ( Anne Brontë) is published by Thomas Cautley Newby Co.
Charlotte Brontë published two other books in her lifetime, one was Villette • Villette was published in January 1853 • At the time Villette was written Charlotte was living alone with her 75 year old father a Haworth Parsonage • Villette draws heavily upon Charlotte’s days in Brussels, and her unrequited love for Konstantin Heger • Mathew Arnold’s review said in part “ … contains, hunger, rebellion, and rage … a bitter complaint against the destiny of women … ”
Branwell Brontë (1817-1848) a tragic, wasted, life The Black Bull pub in Haworth as it looks today One legend has it that Mrs. Robinson in the 1963 Charles Webb novel, and 1968 movie The Graduate was based on Branwell’s liason with his employer’s wife
The towers of Glasstown remained in the hearts of the four children their entire lives It was perhaps the happiest time of their lives, sitting at the table in Haworth Parsonage writing the endless adventures of Angria, Gondal, Glasstown. To my mind, their experience, prefigures the experiences of many reclusive people of today who spend their time in solitude, engrossed in role playing games on-line.
A birthday gift of toy soldiers to Branwell in 1826 fired all 4 children’s imagination • The children collectively created an imaginary world and wrote tiny books of stories about characters in different nations in that world • They were also influenced by the dramatic paintings of John Martin • And later by the life of Lord Byron
Both Austen’s and the Brontës’ juvenalia survives
Comparing the juvenalia of Jane Austen and the Brontës • Austen: “ … the false glare of Fortune and the Deluding Pomp of Title … ” – Drawing room readings, often epistolary in form, and humorous, satirical, observant • The Brontës: “ … near the heart of my own kingdom, Angria, … found a Conqueror to whom I was no rival, but a trampled slave … ” – melodramatic, exotic … a shared dreamworld, distant from the bleak Yorkshire moors.
Other points about the Brontës • In Jane Eyre , the saintly Helen Burns, Jane’s friend at Lowood school, is based on Charlotte’s idolized older sister Maria • Both Heathcliffe and Mr. Rochester were to some extent modeled on Branwell • All four children wrote poetry throughout their lives • The shared fantasy world of the Brontës juvenalia stayed with all of them their entire lives; they each used it as the starting point for their mature writing
There are a couple of videos about the Bront ë s at the Columbia Public Library This video is a good, short, documentary of the Brontë family This video is a longer, 5 part, re-enactment of the lives of the Brontës
William Thackeray (1811-1863)
William Thackeray (1811-1863) An only child, born in Calcutta, his father is a British • civil servant who dies when William is 5 years old He is sent ‘home’ to England and lives with an aunt • until his mother, remarried, returns to England Public school education, then Cambridge – he does • not graduate He marries young, three children, his wife became • insane and was institutionalized Loses his inheritance gambling, takes up journalism • and finds he is good at it His novel Vanity Fair is serialized in monthly • installments in Punch magazine and is popular, when subsequently published in book form, it becomes a bestseller Dies at age 52 •
William Thackeray • Was a master of satire, learned in his decade of paid journalism for satirical periodicals • He satirized the novels of people like Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Benjamin Disraeli • In his novels his characters’ language identified their social position (Dickens was better able to differentiate character through language more subtly) • He was an Anglo-Indian but was not affected by that experience as much as some other writers
British India during the Victorian Era The yellow areas are independent Indian kingdoms, the reddish color is British India The Anglo-Indians were aristocrats in India, middle-class in Britain
Some other Anglo-Indians • Writers – Rudyard Kipling – George Orwell – Lawrence Durrell • Actors – Vivien Leigh – Julie Christie – Joanna Lumley
Vanity Fair, Thackeray’s most famous novel • Serialized weekly (7000 words per week for nearly a year with no breaks!) • Becky Sharp is openly a social climber, (she was once a governess but we don’t see her misery in that position like we do in Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey ) • Final lines: “ … Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? – or having it is satisfied? – come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.”
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