Table Of ContentThe Brontes
MASTERS OF WORLD LITERATURE
PUBLISHED
GEORGE ELIOT by Walter Allen
COLERIDGE by Walter Jackson Bate
T. s. ELIOT by Bernard Bergonzi
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS by Bernard Bergonzi
MATTHEW ARNOLD by Dougle18 Bush
JANE AUSTEN by Dougle18 Bush
JOHN KEATS by Dougle18 Bush
JOHN MILTON by Dougle18 Bush
JONATHAN SWIFT by Nigel Dennis
DANTE by Francis Fergusson
STENDHAL by Wallace F owlie
TIIOMAS HARDY by Irving Howe
HONORE BALZAC by E. J. Oliver
GOLDSMITII by Ricardo Quintana
TENNYSON by Christopher Ricks
THE BRON'I'Es by Tom Winnifrith
IN PREPARATION
PROUST by William Barrett
FLAUBERT by Jacques Barzun
SAMUEL JOHNSON by James L. Clifford
IBSEN by Harold Clurman
EUGENE o'NEILL by Harold Clurman
EMILY DICKINSON by J. V. Cunningham
YEATS by Dougle18 N. Archibald
by LeonEdel
JOYCE
CONRAD by Elizabeth Hardwick
EMERSON by Alfred Kazin
SHAKESPEARE by Frank Kermode
POE by Dwight Macdonald
CHEKHOV by Howard Moss
FIELDING by Midge Podhoretz
HENRY JAMES by Richard Poirier
MELVILLE by Harold Rosenberg
MASTERS OF WORLD LITERATURE SERIES
LOUIS KRONENBERGER, GENERAL EDITOR
The
Brontes
by TOM WINNIFRITH
To Tabitha
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book could not have been written without the help of
Mrs. Christine Wyman and Mr. Martin Wright. I am also grateful
for the advice of Mr. Edward Chitham, Professor Bernard Bergonzi,
and Mr. Ray Roberts. The University of Warwick generously gave
me one term's sabbatical leave, and I must thank my wife and
family for allowing me intervals of peace in which I could write
about the Brontes.
© Tom Winnifrith 1977
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1977 978-1-349-03253-2
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First published in the USA x9 77
First published in the United Kingdom 1977
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CONTENTS
ABBREVIATIONS Vll
INTRODUCTION 3
ONE Biography 6
TWO Juvenilia 2.3
THREE Poetry 32
FOUR Wuthering Heights 46
FIVE Agnes Grey 66
SIX The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 76
SEVEN The Professor 88
EIGHT Jane Eyre 102
NINE Shirley 12.4
TEN Villette 137
CONCLUSION 155
NOTES 157
171
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX 179
ABBREVIATIONS
Unless otherwise noted, all references to the novels of the Brontes
and to Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte are to the Haworth
edition, edited by Mrs. H. Ward and C. K. Shorter (London, 1899-
1900).
AG. Agnes Grey.
BST. Bronte Society Transactions.
EC. Essays in Criticism.
FN. Five Novelettes. Transcribed and edited by W. Gerin
(London, 1971).
G. The Life of Charlotte Bronte.
H. The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bronte. Edited
by C. W. Hatfield (London, 1941) .
JE. Jane Eyre.
MLR. Modern Language Review.
NCF. Nineteenth-Century Fiction.
P. The Professor.
PMLA. Proceedings of the Modern Language Asoociation of
America.
RES. Review of English Studies.
s.
Shirley.
SHCBP. The Complete Poems of Charlotte Bronte and
Patrick Branwell Bronte. Edited by T. J. Wise
J.
and A. Symington (Oxford, 1934).
SHEA. The Complete Poems of Emily Jane and Anne
Bronte. Edited by T. J. Wise and J. A. Symington
(Oxford, 1934).
SHLL. The Brontes, Their Lives, Friendship and Corre
spondence. Edited by T. J. Wise and J. A. Syming
ton (Oxford, 1932).
viii ABBREVIATIONS
TWH. The Tenant of WildfeU Hall.
v.
Villette.
VN. Victorian Newsletter.
WH. Wuthering Heights.
The Brontes
Introduction
~
It may seem a strange paradox that one should be forced at one
and the same time to apologize for including the Brontes in a
series entitled Masters of World Literature and for writing yet
another book on the Brontes. The popularity of the Brontes, aris
ing from the easily grasped pathos of their lives, the wide appeal
of their novels as simple love stories, and the allurements of both
equating and contrasting events in their lives with events in their
books, has led to a spate of popular biographies. Such popularity
has intimidated critics who have tended to fight shy of biography,
who have not seen the love story as a proper literary genre, and
who have seen the perils as well as the pleasures of equating fiction
with autobiography. The cult of the Brontes can be seen very
clearly at their home in Haworth; the thousands of pilgrims who
visit this Yorkshire village, hear fragments of oral tradition, see
spurious relics, and are exploited by tawdry commercialism, might
well imagine that they are visitors to the shrine of some continen
tal saint. Such a cult has not found favour with the high priests
of our more austere literary tradition, and just as there are some
students of the Brontes who know nothing of any other major
literary figure, so there are students of literature who profess to
know almost nothing of the Brontes. Emily, it is true, is generally
regarded as a novelist of stature, but her slender output and the
fact that her genius was not really recognized until long after her
death has made it difficult to fit her into any pattern of literary
history. Charlotte's reputation has sunk as that of her sister has
risen; she has been the victim of the biographical cult, and it is
