| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in The Bronte Myth for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details
|
The point of the study is to examine the way interpretations of these two women have shifted so kaleidoscopically over the last century-and-a-half. Charlotte is seen in Gaskell's Life as "paragon of womanhood", then, as the century ends and the vogue for self-improvement takes hold, as a self-taught writer who had risen from obscurity. The 20th century brought the revelation of her thwarted passion for a Belgian schoolteacher, and she became an embodiment of smouldering unfulfilled sexual intensity. Emily, more neglected earlier on, came into her own in the latter part of the last century, revered as "the mystic of the moors". Both women of course were icons of the feminist literary movement in the 1960s, and their popularity continues today in the academy; but they are loved outside the university as well, appealing (says Miller) particularly to shy, lonely, bookish children.
Miller skilfully weaves a narrative of the developing Bronte myth, paralleling it with the development of the art of biography itself, allowing the two to illuminate one another. Sometimes, reading through the trivia (Bronte chocolate and biscuits, D-grade critical studies and so on) the reader might wonder if the subject really merits such in-depth treatment. But in tracing this story, Miller has good points to make about the way a biography is always, to one degree or another, a fiction, reflecting the concerns of the age in which it is produced. For anybody interested in the Brontes, or interested in what Virginia Woolf called the "bastard, impure art of biography" there is a great deal here of interest. --Adam Roberts --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
More than just another book about the Brontes, this work examines the art of biography and the changing trends in this genre. As with many other writers, the sisters have become public property and, as such, there is a tendency for us to become focussed on the authors rather than their literary canon. Lucasta Miller urges us to return to the novels in order to learn about these enigmatic women, and that is exactly what I intend to do.
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
|