This is a recent Romanian scholarly book with Brontë-related content:
Mădălina Elena Mandici ProUniversitaria 2023
In this study, the investigative focus is given by the typological analysis of the female reader postulated by three Victorian novelists – Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë and George Eliot – in Jane Eyre (1847), Wuthering Heights (1847), Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Middlemarch (1871-1872). The act of reading performed by fictional women in the English novel of the Victorian period undoubtedly requires clarifications and delimitations. The internal chronology of the texts places the biography of the female reader in the five emblematic mother texts for the Victorian period in a broader historical, cultural, educational and social process that involves, in 19th century England, the proliferation of books of all kinds, the diversification of the reading public, the relativization of the taste for reading, but also the polyvalence of the types of pleasure and instruction offered by it. The central intention of the book is, therefore, to formulate a comprehensive description of the notion of "reading", revolutionized in the Victorian era, when the author-book-reader relationship became impossible to account for, and the female audience became increasingly refined. The book is addressed not only to English scholars, but – thanks to the exegetical methodology used – also to the general, non-specialized public. What new breath can be added to iconic figures of 19th-century English literature and to the female characters created by the pens of the novelists of the time, already turned on all sides? The answer represents an opportune occasion for this work to bring into discussion, through a reader-oriented analysis, the function of reading (active, productive, ultimately propelling the recipient's desire to write and rewrite any complex phenomenon that wins the approval of the text label) – on the scene of identity changes – in the life of the woman-reader/intellectual/educated and, by extension, in the psycho-cultural destiny of the woman who reads, a woman attested historically and culturally. In the Western world, the methodological interest in the act of reading (performed by fictional and historically attested women alike) has reached, in recent decades, countless nuances and refinements. Since the interest in the female reader as represented in the Victorian novel is quite weak in the native space, the indirect aim of the work to contribute to the enrichment of the poetics of reading cannot be ignored either. The choice of the five reading examples discussed at length in the work is not at all arbitrary. In the complex game of reading within the five novels, we can discover the expansion of the English textual consciousness (in the sense of cultural anthropologists): each text refers ad infinitum to other texts, forcing the external reader to (re)read both the mother text and the embedded texts belonging to the predecessors. The ultimate goal of the woman-reader's reading is, as each bundle of hypotheses advanced in the last three sections of the book will indicate, self-reading – the scrutiny of the self through new forms of self-knowledge and legibility.
The book contains the following chapters: The Governess and Textual Reinterpretation: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre Readers on a Social Spectrum in Wuthering Heights
Lucia plays Anne Brontë, alongside Laura Del Papa and Hilary Scott as sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë. Told over five days spanning three years, the play unfolds entirely within the Brontë family home, and offers an intimate and unflinching account of the sisters’ artistic ambitions, their pseudonymous path to publication, and the sisterhood that carried them through both. The play illuminates how their experiences echo those of the heroines who live on in their beloved and much interpreted literary classics, including Jane Eyre, Villette, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Wuthering Heights, not to mention the mythology surrounding the sisters themselves. Lucia came to the material with little prior knowledge of the Brontës. “I did all of that research over my audition” — but was quickly won over. What drew her in was not the sisters’ literary genius, so much as [Jordi] Mand’s insistence on their humanity. “They are geniuses. Of course they are. But they’re also real human people, with real human thoughts and struggles and doubts,” she says. That balance is especially pointed for Anne, who is usually overlooked because she lacks a towering masterwork like Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights to her credit. Lucia found in the role of Anne a portrait richer than the historical record allows: “Jordi does such a beautiful job at bringing her dimension,” she says. “Even though she is the forgotten Brontë sister, she is anything but forgotten in this play.” (Arpita Ghosal)
As England’s largest county, you can expect Yorkshire to be a bit exceptional. It is England in miniature: high fells and moorland for wild walking; soft green valleys for timeless villages and sparkling rivers (waterfalls, too); a bracing coastline for family beaches and fossil-hunting; and rolling farmland dotted with romantic ruined abbeys and sprawling stately homes. Add to the mix a lively dollop of culture – a 500-acre sculpture park, David Hockney, moody Brontë country, museums covering everything from the quaint (toys) to the spectacular (trains) – plus one-off Yorkshire experiences such as steaming across the moors in vintage railway carriages, and everyone should be happy. (Helen Pickles)
Isabella Blow’s niece, Harriet Verney, shares an intimate look at the legendary fashion editor in The Times: But really she was Boudica. Issy had walked out into the fields in those kitten heels and that full look in some kind of Brontë-esque suicide attempt in the rolling hills of Hilles The Economic Times (India) calls the usual suspects to talk about Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage Museum: Stepping inside Haworth feels like turning a page from a classic English novel. Not long ago, digital creator and travel vlogger Farida dropped a video on Instagram, offering glimpses of the charming village. Cobbled streets, stone cottages, rustic bookshops, hazy lamposts and cosy tea rooms dominate the region, where every nook and corner feels like you have stepped back in time. One can also enter the Gothic churches that feel hauntingly beautiful. Literary enthusiasts can visit the famous Brontë Parsonage Museum, where one can witness Emily's mahogany writing desk and Charlotte’s rare miniature books, original manuscripts, and personal letters. Visitors can stand in the dining room where Wuthering Heights was penned, surrounded by the family’s original furniture, clothes, and hauntingly preserved Victorian rooms. Those looking for some adventure can hike through the wild moorlands to the atmospheric ruins of Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse widely believed to be the setting that inspired the desolate Earnshaw home in Emily Brontë's novel. Continuing with the vintage journey, you can board an authentic steam train on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. This 5-mile heritage line winds directly through Brontë country, stopping at Haworth’s beautifully restored Edwardian station. (Trisha Dey)
Kelly Creagh named one of her dogs Annabel, after the dead girl in Poe’s last great poem, which tells you roughly everything about where her imagination has spent the last fifteen years. The Nevermore trilogy dragged a cheerleader into Poe’s dreamworld. Phantom Heart rebuilt Leroux’s opera house as a teenage nightmare. Strange Unearthly Things sent three psychics into a Jane Eyre that bled. Across all of it, Creagh borrowed dead authors’ scaffolding to write about grief, duality, and the self we keep in shadow. (Jim McLeod) The Irish Independent channels John Lennon when he imagines a world without Donald Trump. You know, it's easy if you try. There’s a pivotal scene in Wuthering Heights where Heathcliff overhears part of a conversation – the bad part – between his beloved Cathy and the servant Nelly Dean, but has fled in a rage by the time she’s saying the good part. Luckily, some of us are not so hot-headed. Last Sunday morning, after buying my copy of the Sunday Independent, I sat into my car and turned on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk just as Kenny was introducing the items on his show. These were the first words I heard him saying: “President Trump has died suddenly.” Now, if I had done a Heathcliff on it, I would of course have been devastated to hear this news, given what a great job Donald Trump is doing. I would have been inconsolable at the loss of his enlightened leadership. I might even have switched off the radio and wept. For about five seconds, my head was spinning at the incalculable significance of this news. Forget about a clunky plot device in Wuthering Heights. Whole movies have been made about such moments, as a character’s life flashes in front of him – a process that spins out for about two hours in the cinema. But something told me that I had only heard the “bad” part, as it were. That there was perhaps more to this than the statement I’d heard from Kenny. Indeed, given the president’s many enemies, one might have expected that the celebrations of his sudden death would have started already. That cars would already be tearing down the street with their horns blaring at the “good” of it all. Sure enough, the Newstalk “listen back” facility revealed that Kenny’s full sentence went like this: “Lindsey Graham, sometime foe but then staunch ally of President Trump, has died suddenly.” (Declan Lynch)
Broadway World reviews the Festival d'Avignon performances of the Trilogia Cadela Força by Carolina Bianchi and Cara de Cavalo: Poets and artists, living and dead, populate the trilogy. Bianchi is not settling scores so much as searching for her place among them. What is poetry in the face of violence, not violence as metaphor, but violence as lived experience? Some figures, particularly the grand metteurs en scène who occupy the pantheon of the Festival d'Avignon, are treated with satirical irreverence while remaining, despite everything, aspirational. Others (Sarah Kane, Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson) become something like secular saints. Bianchi inhabits their characters, weeps before their portraits as though before religious icons, and clings to their writings like relics. (Wesley Doucette) The Economist reviews Fiona Sampson's new George Sand biography, Becoming George: Nevertheless, some readers may still be tempted to pick up a copy of “Indiana”, “Lélia” or “Mauprat” after they have finished “Becoming George”. For Ms Sampson lays out just how many admirers Sand had, including the Brontë sisters, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Marcel Proust. Gustave Flaubert, who exchanged letters with Sand for many years, addressed his fellow writer as chère maître (dear master).
Finally, an alert for today, July 17, in Boulder, CO: Friday, Jul 17 2026, 2:00pm - 4:00pm Community Room (2nd Floor), NoBo Library
Do you love the Brontës? Would you like to learn more about them and discuss them with fellow enthusiasts? Come celebrate our favorite literary sisters with light refreshments, trivia, crafts, and more! Period dress and/or fantastic hats encouraged but optional.
A couple of Haworth Festival alerts for tomorrow, July 18:
Sat 18 Jul, 2:00pm Brontë Event Space at the Old School Room, Haworth
Join us for a deliciously gothic event with Dr Alessandra Pino, co-author of A Gothic Cookbook. Alessandra’s book digs into food themes and motifs in a series of classic and contemporary novels from the 19th century to the present day. We will be looking into how gothic food manifests into the Brontës novels, what it might mean and how some of the adaptations portray food. Alessandra is an expert on the intersections of the Gothic, food, and cultural memory. She worked with a Michelin-starred chef for nearly ten years before moving to academia, researching and publishing on food, cultural memory, the supernatural and the Gothic.
Sat Jul 18th 4:00pm - 5:00pm Join Dr Claire O’Callaghan & Dr Michael Stewart as they dismantle the myths that have long obscured Emily Brontë’s life and art, revealing a bold, passionate, and politically attuned writer whose work still resonates today. Rediscover Emily Brontë for our times. Emily Brontë is one of our best-known writers, but also one of the most enigmatic. Her only novel, Wuthering Heights, has been adapted across all media forms. The latest film adaptation, directed by Emerald Fennell, and starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, is yet another interpretation. Dr Claire O’Callaghan’s Emily Brontë Reappraised brings new insight into how we read and remember one of literature’s most enigmatic writers. It has just been re-published in a new expanded form. Dr Michael Stewart is the multi-award-winning author of nine books, including, Walking the Invisible: Following in the Footsteps of the Brontës, and Ill Will: The Untold Story of Heathcliff. He is also the curator of the Brontë Stones and the director of the Brontë Writing Centre.
The Week recommends "punchy" books you can finish in a day:
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Rhys’ “chilling, dreamlike” prequel to “Jane Eyre” explores another side to Charlotte Brontë’s “madwoman in the attic”, said Adrienne Westenfeld in Esquire. We meet the white Creole heiress, Antoinette Cosway, in Jamaica years before the events of Thornfield Hall. Isolated and lonely, she is soon “driven to despair” by the cruelty of her new husband Edward Rochester. Rhys’ book is just 176 pages long; packed with “gorgeous imagery and turbulent emotions”, it will roll over you like a “hazy island fever dream”. (Irenie Forshaw)
The Cyprus Mail announces a new production of the Greek adaptation of Wuthering Heights by Yannis Kalavrianos to be staged this Autumn in Nicosia: Under the direction of Achilleas Grammatikopoulos, Emily Brontë’s timeless tale of passion and revenge, Wuthering Heights, will arrive at Thoc’s Main Stage this autumn alongside a third Main Stage production which is yet to be announced. “Carrie” – No, not the Sissy Spacek shocker, but William Wyler’s deeply affecting and little known 1952 adaption of Theodore Dreiser’s “Sister Carrie.” As the wealthy married man whom Carrie, the small-town girl played by Jennifer Jones, falls for, Laurence Olivier gives perhaps his best unheralded performance. Olivier always credited Wyler, who starred him as Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights” years before, with teaching him how to act for the screen. (Peter Rainer) A new production of Jane Eyre. The Musical opens tomorrow, July 17, in Cleburne, TX:
Book by John Caird Music and Lyrics by Paul Gordon Additional Lyrics by John Caird Plaza Theatre Company at Dudley Hall 305 S. Anglin St., Cleburne, TX 76031
With Addisen Bairrington, Nathan McCarthy
Based on the classic novel by Charlotte Brontë, this haunting and romantic musical follows the journey' of Jane Eyre, an orphaned young woman who overcomes hardship and heartache to find her own voice and true love. With a richly atmospheric score and deeply emotional storytelling, it's a sweeping tale of resilience, passion, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.
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