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Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell was the first book ever printed of the Bronte sisters. Due to the prejudice to female writers at the time, they adopted male pen names. The names corresponded to the first letters of their names: Charlotte was Currer Bell, Anne Acton Bell, and Emily Ellis Bell. The first printing only sold two copies.
Masterpiece Theater is presenting a series on the Bronte Sisters.
Like all young girls in high school, I read Wuthering Heights and fell in love with Heathcliff and became interested in the Bronte sisters. I guess now they would be more interested in watching the movie or have I aged myself. Do young girls still long to be Catherine and find a love like that?
If I am going to watch a movie of Wuthering Heights I prefer the 1939 version.
I heard MTV did a version. Not sure if I want to see a modern retelling.
My A to Z theme is about poetry, not novels so here is a poem from each of the Bronte sisters for your enjoyment.
Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree —
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?
The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green.
Emily Brontë
Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.
Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.
And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft and lone,
Silently lights the unclouded skies.
Charlotte Brontë
“Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
O, beautiful, and full of grace!
If thou hadst never met mine eye,
I had not dreamed a living face
Could fancied charms so far outvie.
If I may ne’er behold again
That form and face so dear to me,
Nor hear thy voice, still would I fain
Preserve, for aye, their memory.
That voice, the magic of whose tone
Can wake an echo in my breast,
Creating feelings that, alone,
Can make my tranced spirit blest.
That laughing eye, whose sunny beam
My memory would not cherish less; —
And oh, that smile! whose joyous gleam
Nor mortal language can express.
Adieu, but let me cherish, still,
The hope with which I cannot part.
Contempt may wound, and coldness chill,
But still it lingers in my heart.
And who can tell but Heaven, at last,
May answer all my thousand prayers,
And bid the future pay the past
With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?”
Anne Bronte
Monday – Floetry
Tuesday – Edgar
Wednesday – Angelou
Thursday – Symbolism
Friday – Spoken Word
Saturday – Tupac
Sunday – Nikki
Click here to see all my A to Z Challenge posts
I loved the PBS about the Brontes! I’m
I feel like the looking back on the love that was written during these eras is more romantic than living them. I imagine life had to be hard for most and especially women. Yet the poetry and the stories tell another story. Maybe there is a acclimatization to one’s suffering?
With our modern knowledge we look back and say life must have been unbearable back then, but that was all they knew. I wonder what they would think of our times now, tethered to our phones, busy being busy?
She is one of my favorites.