English 365 - Seminar: The Brontës
Cornelia Pearsall
T 1:00-2:50

Within the confines of a remote vicarage and the span of a very few years, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë, and their brother Branwell produced novels, poems, drawings, paintings and whole fictional, even fantastical worlds.  They were a family blighted beyond measure (all died young, and in quick succession) and perhaps blessed beyond measure (two of the sisters are among Britain's greatest novelists).  Their writing explores such issues as childhood and maturity, piety and illicit desire, money and power, civility and violence, race and empire, life and death.  In this course, we will work especially closely with the rich variety of literary works produced by these writers, and examine also the remarkable mid-Victorian phenomenon that the Brontë household itself presents.

Readings will proceed in the chronological order of their production, with a few exceptions.  We begin with the impressive juvenilia of all four, drawing from their early narratives and art work to enter into the imaginary worlds they created.  Alongside these, we'll read a riveting biographical account, The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857), written by Elizabeth Gaskell, a notable Victorian novelist in her own right.  Gaskell in effect chronicles the entire family, since they were inseparable in their development and mutual influences.  Then we work closely with the major novels of the three sisters, written to some degree in tandem and all published around 1847: Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and Anne Brontë's  Agnes Grey.  The sisters also jointly published a volume of poetry, and we’ll concentrate especially on the poems of Emily Brontë.  Tuberculosis early ended the lives of Emily and then Anne (in 1848 and 1849, respectively); opium addiction and alcoholism had already killed Branwell.  The course proceeds with Charlotte's remaining novels (before her own death in 1855), concentrating on Villette (1853), considered by many her masterpiece.

After Emily's death, Charlotte wrote, “An interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world”—and indeed a great many interpreters have stepped forward to offer their services.  The novels Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights alone have deservedly received an immense amount of critical attention.  As this is an advanced seminar, we’ll consider a variety of theoretical approaches to these novels (including feminist, deconstructive, psychoanalytic, and new historical readings).  We work with criticism in order to sharpen our own analytical understanding not only of the novels but of the usefulness and limitations of varying approaches.  At the center of the course, however, are these extraordinary literary works; in reading them it is impossible not to feel at points as Charlotte Brontë did, in re-reading her sister's novel Wuthering Heights: “we seem at times to breathe lightning.”

Requirements: a short paper at midterm, a long paper at the end of the term, and an oral presentation of your work.

Prerequisites: at least one 200-level course in the English department, or permission of the instructor. Please complete an application form, available through the English Department office.