Brontë, Charlotte. (1816 - 1855).
L i f e
- a sister of Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë
- attended a school for the daughters of poor clergy, her two elder sisters died here of harsh and unhealthful conditions > educated at home
- all the three sister writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne led a solitary life in a relative seclusion x but: possessed an informed view of the wider world
W o r k
- Branwell and Charlotte led a childhood series of book-length manuscripts about the fantasy kingdom Angria
Poems, by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846):
- Currer, Ellis, and Acton = genderless pseudonyms for the sisters
- sold only two copies x but: inspired each of them to write a novel
The Professor (1846):
- based on her own experience as a pupil-teacher in Brussels
Jane Eyre: An Autobiography (1847):
- argues for independence x but: praises self-discipline and resolution
- the protagonist: an unloved and unjustly persecuted child suffering with her sense of sexual, religious, and familial injustice
- Jane follows her free will and conscience, and finds her happiness
Shirley (1849):
- a social novel concerned with the machine-breaking in the industrial North
Villette (1853):
- concerned with restrictions on women’s choice and women’s employment
Quote
"Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer."
From Jane Eyre (1847).
Basics
(Painting: Evert A. Duyckinck. 1873. Source: Wikimedia Commons).
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Author
Charlotte Brontë. (1816 - 1855). British. -
Work
Novelist. Poet. Author of Jane Eyre (1847).
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Genres
Victorian novel and poetry. Gothicism.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.