192- ] English Literature
Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte
Brontë (/ˈʃɑːrlət ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/;[1] 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855)
was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who
survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.
She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the gender
neutral pen name Currer Bell. Jane Eyre went on to become a success in
publication, and is widely held in high regard in the gothic fiction genre of
literature.
She
enlisted in school at Roe Head, Mirfield, in January 1831, aged 14 years. She
left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily and Anne, at home, returning in
1835 as a governess. In 1839, she undertook the role of governess for the
Sidgwick family, but left after a few months to return to Haworth, where the
sisters opened a school but failed to attract pupils. Instead, they turned to
writing and they each first published in 1846 under the pseudonyms of Currer,
Ellis, and Acton Bell. Although her first novel, The Professor, was rejected by
publishers, her second novel, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847. The sisters
admitted to their Bell pseudonyms in 1848, and by the following year were
celebrated in London literary circles.
Charlotte
Brontë was the last to die of all her siblings. She became pregnant shortly
after her wedding in June 1854 but died on 31 March 1855, almost certainly from
hyperemesis gravidarum, a complication of pregnancy which causes excessive
nausea and vomiting.
Early
years and education
Charlotte
Brontë was born on 21 April 1816 in Market Street, Thornton (in a house now
known as the Brontë Birthplace), west of Bradford in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, the third of the six children of Maria (née Branwell) and Patrick
Brontë (formerly surnamed Brunty), an Irish Anglican clergyman. In 1820 her
family moved a few miles to the village of Haworth, on the edge of the moors,
where her father had been appointed perpetual curate of St Michael and All
Angels Church. Maria died of cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters,
Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and a son, Branwell, to be taken
care of by her sister, Elizabeth Branwell.
In
August 1824, Patrick sent Charlotte, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth to the Clergy
Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire. Charlotte maintained that the
school's poor conditions permanently affected her health and physical
development, and hastened the deaths of Maria (born 1814) and Elizabeth (born
1815), who both died of tuberculosis in June 1825. After the deaths of his
older daughters, Patrick removed Charlotte and Emily from the school. Charlotte
used the school as the basis for Lowood School in Jane Eyre, which is similarly
affected by tuberculosis that is exacerbated by the poor conditions.
At
home in Haworth Parsonage, Brontë acted as "the motherly friend and
guardian of her younger sisters". Brontë wrote her first known poem at the
age of 13 in 1829, and was to go on to write more than 200 poems in the course
of her life. Many of her poems were "published" in their homemade
magazine Branwell's Blackwood's Magazine, and concerned the fictional world of
Glass Town. She and her surviving siblings – Branwell, Emily and Anne – created
this shared world, and began chronicling the lives and struggles of the
inhabitants of their imaginary kingdom in 1827. Charlotte, in private letters,
called Glass Town "her 'world below', a private escape where she could act
out her desires and multiple identities".Charlotte's "predilection
for romantic settings, passionate relationships, and high society is at odds
with Branwell's obsession with battles and politics and her young sisters'
homely North Country realism, none the less at this stage there is still a
sense of the writings as a family enterprise".
However,
from 1831 onwards, Emily and Anne 'seceded' from the Glass Town Confederacy to
create a 'spin-off' called Gondal, which included many of their poems. After
1831, Charlotte and Branwell concentrated on an evolution of the Glass Town
Confederacy called Angria. Christine Alexander, a Brontë juvenilia historian,
wrote "both Charlotte and Branwell ensured the consistency of their
imaginary world. When Branwell exuberantly kills off important characters in
his manuscripts, Charlotte comes to the rescue and, in effect, resurrects them
for the next stories [...]; and when Branwell becomes bored with his
inventions, such as the Glass Town magazine he edits, Charlotte takes over his
initiative and keeps the publication going for several more years". The
sagas the siblings created were episodic and elaborate, and they exist in
incomplete manuscripts, some of which have been published as juvenilia. They
provided them with an obsessive interest during childhood and early
adolescence, which prepared them for literary vocations in adulthood.
Between
1831 and 1832, Brontë continued her education at a boarding school twenty miles
away in Mirfield, Roe Head (now part of Hollybank Special School ), where she
met her lifelong friends and correspondents Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. In
1833 she wrote a novella, The Green Dwarf, using the name Wellesley. Around
about 1833, her stories shifted from tales of the supernatural to more
realistic stories. She returned to Roe Head as a teacher from 1835 to 1838.
Unhappy and lonely as a teacher at Roe Head, Brontë took out her sorrows in
poetry, writing a series of melancholic poems. In "We wove a Web in
Childhood" written in December 1835, Brontë drew a sharp contrast between
her miserable life as a teacher and the vivid imaginary worlds she and her
siblings had created. In another poem "Morning was its freshness
still" written at the same time, Brontë wrote "Tis bitter sometimes
to recall/Illusions once deemed fair". Many of her poems concerned the
imaginary world of Angria, often concerning Byronic heroes, and in December
1836 she wrote to the Poet Laureate Robert Southey asking him for encouragement
of her career as a poet. Southey replied, famously, that "Literature
cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she
is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it even as
an accomplishment and a recreation." This advice she respected but did not
heed.
In
1839, she took up the first of many positions as governess to families in
Yorkshire, a career she pursued until 1841. In particular, from May to July
1839 she was employed by the Sidgwick family at their summer residence, Stone
Gappe, in Lothersdale, where one of her charges was John Benson Sidgwick
(1835–1927), an unruly child who on one occasion threw the Bible at Charlotte,
an incident that may have been the inspiration for a part of the opening
chapter of Jane Eyre in which John Reed throws a book at the young Jane. Brontë
did not enjoy her work as a governess, noting her employers treated her almost
as a slave, constantly humiliating her.
Brontë
was of slight build and was less than five feet tall.
Brussels and Haworth
In
1842 Charlotte and Emily travelled to Brussels to enrol at the boarding school
run by Constantin Héger (1809–1896) and his wife Claire Zoé Parent Héger
(1804–1887). During her time in Brussels, Brontë, who favoured the Protestant
ideal of an individual in direct contact with God, objected to the stern
Catholicism of Madame Héger, which she considered a tyrannical religion that
enforced conformity and submission to the Pope. In return for board and tuition
Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. Their time at the school was
cut short when their aunt Elizabeth Branwell, who had joined the family in
Haworth to look after the children after their mother's death, died of internal
obstruction in October 1842. Charlotte returned alone to Brussels in January
1843 to take up a teaching post at the school. Her second stay was not happy:
she was homesick and deeply attached to Constantin Héger. She returned to
Haworth in January 1844 and used the time spent in Brussels as the inspiration
for some of the events in The Professor and Villette.
After
returning to Haworth, Charlotte and her sisters made headway with opening their
own boarding school in the family home. It was advertised as "The Misses
Brontë's Establishment for the Board and Education of a limited number of Young
Ladies" and inquiries were made to prospective pupils and sources of
funding. But none were attracted and in October 1844, the project was
abandoned.
First publication
In
May 1846 Charlotte, Emily, and Anne self-financed the publication of a joint
collection of poems under their assumed names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The
pseudonyms veiled the sisters' sex while preserving their initials; thus
Charlotte was Currer Bell. "Bell" was the middle name of Haworth's
curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls whom Charlotte later married, and
"Currer" was the surname of Frances Mary Richardson Currer who had
funded their school (and maybe their father). Of the decision to use noms de
plume, Charlotte wrote:
Averse
to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and
Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious
scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like
to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our
mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine" – we
had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with
prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the
weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true
praise.
Although
only two copies of the collection of poems were sold, the sisters continued
writing for publication and began their first novels, continuing to use their
noms de plume when sending manuscripts to potential publishers.
The Professor and Jane Eyre
Brontë's
first manuscript, 'The Professor', did not secure a publisher, although she was
heartened by an encouraging response from Smith, Elder & Co. of Cornhill,
who expressed an interest in any longer works Currer Bell might wish to send.
Brontë responded by finishing and sending a second manuscript in August 1847.
Six weeks later, Jane Eyre was published. It tells the story of a plain
governess, Jane, who, after difficulties in her early life, falls in love with
her employer, Mr Rochester. They marry, but only after Rochester's insane first
wife, of whom Jane initially has no knowledge , dies in a dramatic house fire.
The book's style was innovative, combining Romanticism, naturalism with gothic
melodrama, and broke new ground in being written from an intensely evoked
first-person female perspective. Brontë believed art was most convincing when
based on personal experience; in Jane Eyre she transformed the experience into
a novel with universal appeal.
Jane
Eyre had immediate commercial success and initially received favourable
reviews. G. H. Lewes wrote that it was "an utterance from the depths of a
struggling, suffering, much-enduring spirit", and declared that it
consisted of "suspiria de profundis!" (sighs from the depths).
Speculation about the identity and gender of the mysterious Currer Bell
heightened with the publication of Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell (Emily) and
Agnes Grey by Acton Bell (Anne). Accompanying the speculation was a change in
the critical reaction to Brontë's work, as accusations were made that the
writing was "coarse", a judgement more readily made once it was suspected
that Currer Bell was a woman. However, sales of Jane Eyre continued to be
strong and may even have increased as a result of the novel developing a
reputation as an "improper" book. A talented amateur artist, Brontë
personally did the drawings for the second edition of Jane Eyre and in the
summer of 1834 two of her paintings were shown at an exhibition by the Royal
Northern Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Leeds.
Jane
Eyre
Charlotte’s
first manuscript, The Professor, was rejected nine times before she received an
encouraging reply from the firm of Smith, Elder & Co of Cornhill who didn’t
want to publish it, but was interested in any longer works Currer Bell might
wish to send. Therefore, Charlotte quickly finished and sent Jane Eyre in
August 1847, and it was published six weeks later. The book was immediately
popular and “Currer Bell” quickly became known by the reading public as “the
author of Jane Eyre.”
Jane
Eyre tells the story of a plain governess, Jane, who, after difficulties in her
early life, falls in love with her employer, Mr Rochester. They marry, but only
after Rochester’s insane first wife, of whom Jane initially has no knowledge,
dies in a dramatic house fire. The book’s style was innovative, combining
Romanticism, naturalism with gothic melodrama. It also broke new ground in
being written from an intensely evoked first-person female perspective.
Speculation
about the identity and gender of the mysterious Currer Bell only heightened
with the publication of Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell (Emily) and Agnes Grey
by Acton Bell (Anne). This accompanied a change in the critical reaction to
Charlotte’s work. Accusations were made that the writing was “coarse”, but
sales of Jane Eyre continued to be strong and may even have increased as a
result of the novel developing a reputation as an “improper” book.
Charlotte
was also a talented amateur artist and personally did the drawings for the
second edition of Jane Eyre. In the summer of 1834, two of her paintings were
shown at an exhibition by the Royal Northern Society for the Encouragement of
the Fine Arts in Leeds.
Shirley
In
1848, Charlotte began working on her second novel, Shirley. It took her much
longer to write this book because she was dealing with the death of family
members during this time and was unable to write. It was published in October
1849 and deals with themes of industrial unrest and the role of women in
society. It is written in third person and reviewers generally found it less
shocking than Jane Eyre, which is written in first person.
Charlotte
was persuaded by her publisher to make occasional visits to London thanks to
the popularity of her novels. She revealed her true identity and began to move
in higher social circles, alongside William Makepeace Thackeray, Harriett
Martineau, and Elizabeth Gaskell. She never left Haworth for more than a few
weeks at a time, as she did not want to leave her ageing father.
Shirley and bereavements
In
1848 Brontë began work on the manuscript of her second novel, Shirley. It was
only partially completed when the Brontë family suffered the deaths of three of
its members within eight months. In September 1848 Branwell died of chronic
bronchitis and marasmus, exacerbated by heavy drinking, although Brontë
believed that his death was due to tuberculosis. Branwell may have had a
laudanum addiction. Emily became seriously ill shortly after his funeral and
died of pulmonary tuberculosis in December 1848. Anne died of the same disease
in May 1849. Brontë was unable to write at this time.
After
Anne's death Brontë resumed writing as a way of dealing with her grief, and
Shirley, which deals with themes of industrial unrest and the role of women in
society, was published in October 1849. Unlike Jane Eyre, which is written in
the first person, Shirley is written in the third person and lacks the
emotional immediacy of her first novel, and reviewers found it less shocking.
Brontë, as her late sister's heir, suppressed the republication of Anne's
second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, an action which had a deleterious
effect on Anne's popularity as a novelist and has remained controversial among
the sisters' biographers ever since.
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