Virginia Woolf on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre & Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

Virginia Woolf on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre & Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights | NOVEL ANALYSIS

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Analysis of Virginia Woolf’s essay on Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre & Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights, from Virginia Woolf’s critical book The Common Reader (1925). In the essay, Virginia Woolf outlines what makes the writing of these two novelists so majestic & intense, & describes Charlotte Brontë’s & Emily Brontë’s most intrinsic qualities. What is fundamentally different about the writing of the two sisters (including the aim, scope, focus of their writing)? Virginia Woolf contrasts the Brontës’ to Jane Austen’s narrative style. The lecture examines Virginia Woolf’s analysis in relation to John Keats’s egotistical sublime and chameleon poet (what we might call High Romanticism), and to Charlotte Brontë’s & Emily Brontë’s use of ‘Pathetic Fallacy’ in their symbolic use of nature.
EMILY BRONTE WUTHERING HEIGHTS ANALYSIS
CHARLOTTE BRONTE JANE EYRE ANALSYS
VIGINIA WOOLF THE COMMON READER ESSAY
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Пікірлер: 128

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Do you agree with Virginia Woolf’s assessment of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights?

@HRJohn1944 3 жыл бұрын

"The characters of a Jane Austen or a Tolstoy....." -I love both, but that's an interesting pairing.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

@@HRJohn1944 Ha! - well, yes. There are obvious differences! But - in terms of the construction of characters and their environments - they do both use Free Indirect Discourse to slip in and out of characters' perspectives.

@EmoBearRights 3 жыл бұрын

It occurred to me that Woolf really understood why the Brontes worked and also why Charlotte couldn't appreciate someone like Austen, who Woolfe could appreciate. It's like the difference between the two different movements in the Renaissance - the Florentines painted frescos which required you knowing exactly what you needed to paint before you applied your paint to the wall before it dried, so those artists were intricate draftsmen who thought their rivals the Venetians couldn't draw properly. Whereas Venice was too moist for frescos so their artists painted in oils and created effects using colour and light and found the Florentines dull. Austen is a Florentine like Botticelli and the Brontes Venetians like Titain.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

What a beautiful observation! Yes, I agree - their art is fundamentally different in type.

@meganluck4352 3 жыл бұрын

You described them very well.

@diamondtiara84 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for giving me an incentive to get more knowledge of art history. I never paid much attention to Florentine or Venetian works, but now I'm intrigued and intend to find out more.

@EmoBearRights 2 жыл бұрын

@ANGELIA ANGEL I'm genuinely moved to have stimulated someone else's interest in learning but I have to give credit to the open university and my tutor there Katy Layton-Jones for that perspective. They also impress upon you the importance of crediting sources too.

@rmarkread3750 2 жыл бұрын

YES! And for more than stylistic or technical reasons.

@Susu-sp7vu 3 жыл бұрын

First of all i wanna say as a German male i dont have many friends or family that share my interest in these books, so i am very excited about this channel so i can get some insights into my favorite books. Since i am not an expert on literature i do apprechate the insights of one. Secondly i got to say that the Bronte sisters are my favorite authors by far, because their works go so well together and are so passionate. When i red the first few chapters of "Jane Eyre" i felt every single possible emotion. I was angry, i cried and i laughed .... it was intense. While Charlotte is much more focused on the personal and shows us what we are missing out on, if we dont find true love (soulmate) And then makes us feel it like noone else, Emily created a storm a warning of what might happen to a society if it does not allow for love regadless of class (or other circumstances). I feel like they both approached the same issue just from different angles, and its amazing. Thank you very much If u feel like i have butcherd your language i do apologize. As i have mentioned before i am not a native speaker.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

I am so glad that you enjoy my channel - thank you very much indeed for watching and engaging with it. "Emily created a storm, a warning, of what might happen to a society if it does not allow for love regardless of class" - that's an insightful way to frame WH. As you say, it's a novel about corrupted love. Or, as I've said elsewhere, I think of WH as a novel about the corrupting power of hate.

@meganluck4352 3 жыл бұрын

Welcome to our world of literature! I personally am an Austen fan but I did read both Brontes years ago. I have yet to read Virginia Woolf's works . Eventually I ill make my way through them all.

@randywhite3947 2 жыл бұрын

Same with me

@ambermoon719 Жыл бұрын

@Susu 🙏🏻 I loved your comment. I’ve only read Emily’s WH so far, and it took me by storm and by beauty. Now I’m trying to figure out which Brontë book to read next. I don’t think Austin will be my cup of tea, compared to the Brontë sisters who I think will turn out to be more poetic & fiery rebels, more my taste. I loved your comment and no one’s judging your English as the message of your passion came through thoroughly and I loved it.

@marijeangalloway1560 2 жыл бұрын

What else might Emily Bronte have created had she lived! Charlotte described first hearing Wuthering Heights as "like breathing lightning"-----what a wonderfully descriptive phrase! Emily was truly the ultimate poet of the sublime, that beckoning, unreachable beauty that exists just beyond our normal senses. Woolf's friend and Bloomsbury colleague, novelist and critic E.M. Forster, also wrote of Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights in his analytical work "Aspects of the Novel." He called her a "prophetic" novelist, whose subject cannot be expressed in speech, but must be "sung" to convey its meaning, which I think was his way of expressing the presence of the sublime in her writing.

@SlightlySusan Жыл бұрын

I don't find Mr. Rochester's call for Jane to be unrealistic. I was driving from the grocery store when I knew that the divorce of a man I loved deeply had been finalized that day. In less than a week, I received a letter from him, telling me of his divorce. I was Jane to his Rochester.

@tonyausten2168 3 жыл бұрын

I think the word "Indignant" really explains Charlotte in a nutshell. There is a ferocity of power in her immediate feelings expressed in her words. She would rather hop on a horse and run into the wild and feel the breeze. She would be the first to accuse Jane Austen for being "elegant". Both Emily & Charlotte live in the nature. Woolf is correct to say the sisters are a product of their lonely rural lives. Ironically- Charlotte called Jane Austen's characters as elegant & confined. I think Ms Austen would smile. :)

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Ha! - yes CB's comments on Austen are revealing, I think, in terms of understanding how CB sought to differentiate her own writing style. CB, for instance, wrote to W. S. Williams on 12th April 1850 (Williams was the literary reader and joint owner of CB’s publishing house - and, annoyingly for CB, a fan of Austen’s): "I have likewise read one of Miss Austen's works Emma-read it with interest and with just the right degree of admiration which the Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible and suitable-anything like warmth or enthusiasm; anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all such demonstration the authoress would have met with a well-bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outré and extravagant. She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well; there is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting: she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress.”

@rmarkread3750 2 жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox There is never any doubt about how Charlotte Bronte feels about something, is there? Such passion! Such commitment and intensity!

@margaretstanton7567 Жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox CB's comment is really revealing! Hadn't read it before. The Bronte sisters suffered greatly from well-bred sneers in their teaching jobs, so she knows of what she writes.

@Therika7 Жыл бұрын

Perhaps the Brontës didn’t know that Austen had an active social life and knew people (like some of her brothers) who had been all over the world. She wrote biting satire, not only in her books but in her letters (the latter being mostly destroyed by Cassandra after Jane’s death to prevent people knowing what Jane had said about them…) I know that Austen’s nephew (J.E. Austen Leigh) wrote a biography of her that made her seem more like Fanny Price than Elizabeth Bennet.

@lindafleming3907 Жыл бұрын

Charlotte is an Aries/Taurus (think Mr Darcy) and Emily is a Leo/Virgo (think Harry and Meghan.) Nevertheless, the sisters are incomparably brilliant! And poor Branwell, a broken hearted Cancerian!

@pamelahall517 3 жыл бұрын

Wow, I never knew Virginia Woolf had such strong and introspective thoughts about the Bronte’s works! Her words made clearer the appeal of the Bronte sister’s novels in ways I never thought of. Though I feel Anne Bronte’s novels are just as genius and powerful and was sad to see her works overlooked. Virginia Woolf hit the nail on the head with her observation of being led or accompanied by Charlotte Bronte into this world she created. I have often put myself inside her characters, wondered about their lives outside the strand of time we are given in the novel. Because Charlotte’s personality is so strongly felt in every word and her invitation so inviting, I want to ask her as we walk though her pages what happens next, what led you to use these expressions, or what were you experiencing in life as you wrote this masterwork? Emily’s genius is evident and her poetry enthralling. Even her novel's expressions and descriptions are superb, yet I take no walks with her through Wuthering Heights. I do not want into this wild and supernatural, beyond reality universe. Often I don't even want to be an observer. And why? Heathcliff and Catherine never grow from their experiences as do Charlotte’s characters, they instead digress. I agree theirs is not love in the romantic sense. But this is not how to love at all! Love is kind, it does not keep account of the injury. So, I don’t find Cathy at all lovable as Woolf supposes. Cathy is callous and self-serving. Who says “I am” someone and abandons them so readily? In addition, Heathcliff is no Byronic hero to me. All he does is give a lesson on revenge’s destructive nature. These situations of revenge and hatefulness do happen in real life. I don't think their situation transcends anything. It is a despairing novel. Woolf was correct in thinking of these characters as extraordinary people and hard to relate to. However, I don’t agree with Woolf’s conclusion that Emily leaves the eternal questions asked but unanswered. I got answers as I find Emily’s gift, her truth, is that she uses the characters as warning examples. Heathcliff & Cathy’s terrible behavior takes them only to despair and ruin. It seeps into everyone they touch and eventually to three headstones on the slope on the moor. We despair only for what might have been had they not made such stupid decisions. It is Hareton and Catherine’s actions that transcend this utter cruelty, this poison and we have loving people and their love quietly prevailing at the novel’s end. So, despite its wildness, Emily’s work contains moral lessons like her sister’s but with a very different approach. And why would there not be moral lessons? After all, Emily too was a parson’s daughter. I was glad to see Virginia’s deep thoughts on the Bronte sister’s literary masterpieces though. Thank you for bringing attention to Woolf’s work about them and for your wonderful analytic and illuminating post.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your kind words, and your illuminating comment. I think you're right about Emily exploring the nature of one's moral compass in WH, but I don't think I would call it a "lesson". That sounds rather too didactic for me. Instead, I found the 'morals' rather more puzzling. Perhaps what Woolf meant in saying that "the sentence remains unfinished" is that EB leaves it up to readers to attempt to answer the questions posed?

@orlamckeown4917 3 жыл бұрын

What an overlooking of Woolf's was her non-mention Anne Brontes Tenant of Wildfell Hall! A mighty book! I'd have been interested in her thoughts on AB. As indeed I would be if you tackled this particular one. Someone below has already called it "chilling". Agree totally.

@jenellebelle9828 2 жыл бұрын

I love Tenant of Wildfell Hall! Anne Bronte’s work is a bit different than her sisters’ but amazing in a different way. I personally found her perspective to be more realistic, while her sisters were more romantic and dramatic. Charlotte Bronte disliked Anne’s work and tried to keep it out of circulation after Anne’s death! It annoyed me quite a bit when I found that out.

@lucysnowe4613 2 жыл бұрын

@@jenellebelle9828 CB let Anne's novel Tenant go out of print, altho she liked Anne's first novel Agnes Grey, and her poetry. Though Anne's views in Tenant seem to have been shared by the sisters, Charlotte thought the book reflected poorly on Anne's reputation, and worked hard to "undo" a lot of the damage she felt the book had done to the way the public perceived Anne. Charlotte also may have felt that writing this book, amp the subsequent backlash, contributed to her sister's premature death less than a year after it was published.

@KevTheImpaler 3 жыл бұрын

I agree that Emily Brontë was more a poet than Charlotte. Wuthering Heights is one long prose poem.

@carlottamelfi 3 жыл бұрын

Really? I’d have to say the opposite ha

@sweetwoodruff6246 Жыл бұрын

I think the tragedy and pain of living with an addicted family member is always glossed over. You grieve every single day watching them go away, killing themselves and there is nothing you can do. It’s a dark, excruciating thing to witness when you love someone.

@njensen83 3 жыл бұрын

I wrote a paper in college disagreeing with Woolf’s comparison of the Brontë sisters in A Room of One’s Own; it was fun to think about it again...and apparently to be inspired to write an essay-length KZfaq comment! Woolf is unfair to Charlotte. I think the superior poet writes in a way that makes it EASIER to understand the intended meaning. I also can’t relate to the notion that writing about love, hate, and suffering as abstract concepts should be more highly regarded. Just look at modern-day news stories: you can read a headline about a natural disaster causing massive casualties and feel a general empathy for those affected, but the story of just one person, or one family, makes it possible to truly understand and personally feel the gravity of the situation. One video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nose has resulted in more legislation than any infographic describing the massive amount of trash in the ocean. I think this is the reason I scoffed a bit at the assertion that Jane Eyre “does not attempt to solve the problems of human life”. She’s an underdog from the start and I think the “I love, I hate, I suffer” approach only helps the reader to see how incredibly capable she is, and how limiting her circumstances are. We are by Jane’s side as she is raised by her abusive aunt, then gets shipped off to live in deplorable conditions at a school where she loses her best friend to an outbreak of disease (which in turn is the only reason better management finally takes over the school). The reader has to face that suffering and is naturally lead to wonder what their life might be, given similar circumstances. Jane’s palpable frustration always read to me as an indictment on the limitations placed on women during that time period. Even in one of her happiest romantic moments with Rochester she chides him with her “I am not an angel” speech; she rejects all of his florid idealizations and insists he simply see her for the human being she is. If the book is not trying to change the world, it seemed to me it would at least challenge the accepted notions of contemporary readers. I also find it interesting that at one point she says the writer who is able to act as an invisible observer is better able to create a world we feel we can visit. I agree Jane Austen creates a wonderful and vivid world, but then Woolf places Emily Brontë in that category while admitting that a reader would say a Heathcliff or a Catherine would never exist in the real world. Heathcliff’s “vivid existence” is a wild caricature of hatred and revenge, not a fully-realized human being. Altogether I didn’t find the argument to hold together well (in either this or A Room of One’s Own). Should a writer aim to change the real world, to objectively describe it without intervening on it with one’s personal feelings (creating a mood), or should one be scrapping the entire real world and creating a new one independent of facts? Why are Charlotte’s characters less realistic drawn out in the scope of her observations (when all people exist in the way they are perceived by others), but Emily’s Heathcliff is more realistic and vital in his embodiment of only one human trait? The excerpts she provides from Wuthering Heights don’t really support this notion that Emily was trying to correct a “gigantic disorder” in the world either; the Catherine Earnshaw quote sounds like the dramatic kind of love-musing Jane Eyre would shut down in a heartbeat and the “repose of the dead” quote? I remember recoiling as I read it, especially because she goes on to diss people who cry for the loss of their loved ones!

5 ай бұрын

@njensen83 Thank you for your insightful comment. I wouldn't agree more!

@seventhsheaven 3 жыл бұрын

You could say that Austen’s style is more “sense” and Bronte’s is “sensibility”. I much prefer Austen’s style, which has humour and is grounded in reality. Her romances are touching without being too dramatic to be within reach. I really enjoyed Jane Eyre, but I prefer Austen’s wider focus. Austen was clearly fascinated by people and society, while the Brontes were more interested in their own individual feelings and impressions. I really despised Wuthering Heights, though. Too much melodrama.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Ha! - yes, I think that's a good way to put it!

@randywhite3947 2 жыл бұрын

Sucks you feel that way about Wuthering Heights

@annakermode6646 3 жыл бұрын

I loved this analysis of Virginia Wolfe’s analysis! I agree with Wolfe that Emily writes with some sort of magical pen that makes you care intensely for these utterly unlikable characters! Wuthering Heights has fascinated me for decades.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Yes, managing to write a novel where readers care about unlikeable characters is really quite a skill! And a very brave choice too, I think. In that sense I would align EB's characters in WH and Austen's Emma Woodhouse. In their very different ways of course!

@theladyfausta 3 жыл бұрын

I completely agree with how Woolf describes Charlotte's writing! The first time I read Jane Eyre it felt like a spiritual experience--there was just something about it that made me feel like I was genuinely able to see the world the way Jane did, which was very different from the way my life was. Love this and it's so interesting to hear the commentary one famous writer has for another!

@nhmisnomer 3 жыл бұрын

I agree with Wolf's analysis entirely. I'd never heard/read it before. Thanks for presenting it!

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

My pleasure! - thanks for watching.

@rmarkread3750 2 жыл бұрын

I came to this essay rather late, and I regret my tardiness. How did Virginia Woolf do it? How did she even find the TIME for all her wide reading, let alone to compose, edit, and publish brilliant criticism and excellent novels!? And, not only was she prolific, but she is familiar with seemingly every period and genre of writing and displays an amazing an appreciation infused with delight at everything she reads-so long as it is good writing. (She never makes the mistake of calling something “great” without showing that it’s good.) I wish I shared her open-mindedness. One problem I frequently run into as I listen to your essays is diction. I appreciate the OED’s definition of somewhat obscure terms, but I am dying to know what people in the nineteenth century meant by “sublime” and “ego.” How can we use “sublime” to describe something as transitory as a couture gown? How does Shelley’s use of “ego” word relate to Meredith’s “The Egoist,” not to mention Freud? It seems that nowadays we mean something quite less than Shelley did at his time. Isn't Nelly Dean also one of Emily Bronte’s great creations? Not because her passions elevate her to greatness, but because it is through her sensibilities that all the intensity and passion in “Wuthering Heights” are filtered. By use of this (seemingly) innocuous and artless frame, Emily Bronte puts the events of “Wuthering Heights” into the perspective necessary for the reader to accept the “impossible” characters and events of the novel. You speak frequently of the Authorial Voice. It seems to me that we run a certain risk when we identify the Author’s observations and assessments with those of one of the characters. Jane Austen and Emily Bronte are very adept at that sleight of hand. I don’t think it is Elizabeth Bennet who speaks the famous first line of “Pride and Prejudice,” and I find Nelly Dean’s descriptions so slanted, so intent on telling her audience what to think about and how to judge the characters and story of “Wuthering Heights” it verges on kitsch. Is not George Eliot’s description of “Pathetic Fallacy” the same as T.S. Eliot’s “Objective Correlative”? I guess I must ask your forgiveness for carping. That is not my intention. It’s just that in the forum you provide, I have found the opportunity to share ideas with people who may not be likeminded, but at least have READ the masterpieces I have long cherished. Thank you very much.

@Sherlika_Gregori 3 жыл бұрын

I’ve just read it today what Virginia Woolf thought of the two sisters , and Hardy as well. Uncanny that I’m seeing your video about it.

@meganluck4352 3 жыл бұрын

The Brontes' are very "emo" dark, brooding and melancholy, especially Charlotte.. Fine for those who think on those terms and relate that way but I prefer Jane who looks outward and observes other people and writes about life that way. I have read their works a long time ago but simply enjoy Jane's novels much more with the family connections, the characters reacting to each other and how they relate to each other.

@emmaphilo4049 Жыл бұрын

Jane Austen and The Brontës are so extremely different that there is no wonder one may appreciate Austen and not the Brontës

@unasperanza9803 Жыл бұрын

I adored both when I was a teen and young twenties. I read everything the Brontes wrote now I can't reread any of them but I appreciate Austen so much more than ever.My favourite Austens are now Persuasion and Mansfield park whereas when I was younger it was P& P and Emma.On a weird note my first preschool teacher was called Mrs Mansfield so I have always been fond of that name...

@dream-mh8bs 3 жыл бұрын

I have read Jane Eyre and short after that Emma. English is not my first language I've read them translated so my understanding of the writer is different then you but somehow not fully distanced. I always wanted to understand the comedy in Austen's lines but I only understood what other readers were meaning after I read her in English ( The Northanger Abbey ). For me Jane Eyre is a better novel than any other novel I've read by Austen so far ( P&P, Persu. , Emma, The N.A. ) because the character to me was so interesting. After reading many romantic novels Jane Eyre felt fresh and real to me. ( It still is a romantic one, destiny is all over the book ) Not because it showed suffer but because of how Jane reacted to things. Jane Eyre doesnt screams "I am an awesome book" it shortly says "This is the book I am and you are reading" It is unapologetic. It is interesting how different we understand books from each other because you said we dont read C.Bronte because of her characters. After J.E I've read Emma (before that I watched your video about it and tried to read it more deeply to truely understand the writers vision) and I agree about the mini world the writer creates. To me, that is a big reason why her novels are read a lot. It invites you in. It makes you feel like you just moved to the village and you get to know the people as you live. Maybe because of the translations I understood books differently then I would if I've read them in their original language. Great video !

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for watching my videos, Dream - I'm glad that you are getting something from them. You're right - Jane Eyre does unapologetically proclaim 'this is the book I am' - I think that's what Woolf means when she refers to CB's "obstinate integrity". I think what Woolf means when she talks of not reading CB for the characters, is not that we don't find her characters engaging (as you suggest, many people identify passionately with the character of Jane Eyre), but that her characters are different expressions of her own self. So, Jane Eyre is an expression of CB's self, and Rochester is an expression of CB's self, and so on. And characters who serve merely functions of plot (e.g. Blanche Ingram, one might say Bertha Mason [or "Mrs Rochester"] perhaps) have less psychological complexity. And that is different from, say, a writer like Austen who creates incredibly divergent characters (an Anne Eliot and a Fanny Dashwood, a Miss Bates and a Mary Crawford), but which still retain psychological verisimilitude (lifelikeness). Even very minor characters seem to have their own believable motivations and personalities (e.g. Anne/Nancy Steele in Sense and Sensibility, or Baddeley in Mansfield Park, or Mr Hurst in Pride and Prejudice).

@dream-mh8bs 3 жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox Thanks for explanation I'm not fluent in English so sometimes I cant fully understand but now I get what Virginia Woolf said about characters better.

@renatanovato9460 3 жыл бұрын

First, I do agree with Woolf. There is an intensity and a density to the narratives of the 2 Bronte sister. It feels like Austen's narratives are muslin and the Brontes' heavy, thick wool (and dark too). In fact Nature plays an important part in both Brontes' books, in a way that Jane's mood is usually in consonance with the weather. Night has a important role gor Jane, because at night she flourishes as an artist an woman. And Cathering is the wuthering herself. She is part of that geography as is Heathcliff, even expressed in his name. Jane Eyre is quite conservative in her views, and although she might disagree with the world, she lives by its rules different from the characters in Austen's novels who usually end up abiding to social rules, but learn quite a lot in tue process, overcoming prejudice, pride, weakness of character ....

@92ninersboy 2 жыл бұрын

Jane Eyre is far more than an expression of the author's ego. I think it was an expression of her soul and that's why it has resonated so strongly with readers all these years. And, obviously, there are few characters in literature that are more vivid than Rochester or Jane herself. Charlotte Bronte created one of the strongest narratives in the history of novels and some of the most unforgettable characters - and she was revolutionary. I feel Woolf's take on Charlotte is somewhat limited. There is a reason that Carl Jung referenced "Jane Eyre" as an example of strongly expressed archetypal characters. The same can be said for "Wuthering Heights". Both Emily and Charlotte probed deeply into human nature - into the soul. I would say Charlotte was more from a Christian perspective and Emily seemed more pagan in her sensibility. How can someone read "Jane Eyre" or, for that matter, Charlotte's "Villette" (my favorite Bronte novel) and not be aware of how deeply she probes her characters psychology. I think Woolf reflected how Charlotte Bronte was viewed in the early part of the 20th century. Both of the sisters have been viewed differently over changing times. Charlotte experienced another resurgence with critics after the 1970's though "Jane Eyre" has never lost favor with readers. And for good reason.

@MurphysEveryWhim 3 жыл бұрын

I just read this essay a couple of days ago, and so running across this video was fortuitous. Thanks for helping me get more from the essay.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

You're very welcome!

@savvy2358 2 жыл бұрын

“She does not attempt to solve the problems of human life;” ♥️

@pmarkhill519 Жыл бұрын

So glad we have you to listen and grow! I know no one anymore, since grad school, someone who can talk and think on this level!

@dianabart2299 3 жыл бұрын

I absolutely love your channel! This is like someone (you) extracted my thoughts and put it in words.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Oh, thank you - a lovely thing to say.

@jenniferteff 2 жыл бұрын

I enjoy you lectures so much and have learned so much! Thank you.

@elenamullins1780 2 жыл бұрын

I love your channel SO much. Thank you for what you're doing here!

@elizakay5886 3 жыл бұрын

I loved this video! Thank you for this channel ❤

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Oh good! It's my pleasure.

@Therika7 Жыл бұрын

Dr. Cox, your videos make me want to go to graduate school (finally). I have missed being a student - and never stopped studying on my own - for decades. Thank you so much, especially for this video.

@ixchelbermejo9266 2 жыл бұрын

I do really agree with the assessment of the character of Wuthering Heights. Love this video

@marygorden2334 11 ай бұрын

I greatly enjoy your analyses of novels. I have a theory about Wuthering Heights. I feel as if Emily gives us a perfect example of life during her era. I feel that Heathcliff represents the love in her family’s home before the death of her mother. Heathcliff, the name, in my opinion, represents the “heather” and “cliffs” of the Yorkshire moors as being idyllic. But that idyll was torn away with the death of the Brontë Family’s mother. The brother becomes an alcoholic because he will never give his father happiness since the father can only reminisce on life before the mother died. The son could never match the perfection of the wife for the father. Thus, the son was jealous of his dead mother. And that jealousy drove him to drink. In the novel, Cathy pines for Heathcliff - the loving, ideal family home. She is tormented by being separated by death from that love. Emily and her sisters were forced to attend a boarding school where the master was abusive and cruel. They also went far away from home to live in Belgium. In both places, Emily was quiet, antisocial and studied each person and feeling in those foreign homes. And, death from diseases was a constant for people in Yorkshire and elsewhere. Emily’s father was a vicar who performed funerals constantly. Death was a gruesome part of their lives. So, I believe the novel is autobiographical for Emily. Because she’s a writing genius, she weaves a story of characters who actually represent feelings. Thus, the novel is dramatic and unbearable at times to read. Heathcliff represents the happiness and love of living on the Yorkshire moors before her mother’s death. She knows of this great love through her father’s poetic style of storytelling. He must have spoken poetically about his deceased wife and their plans to raise a happy family on the moors. And, Emily picked up every emotion in his voice so much so that the idyllic home life in the Yorkshire moors is something that she pined for her entire life. And, it was always just beyond her reach. It would never be. Because she and her siblings were motherless and their father would never be happy like he was before his wife’s death. So, I believe the novel is Emily’s story of the life her parents wanted and lost. I believe Cathy represents Emily’s mother and Heathcliff represents the idyllic life the family once had all together in the family home on the Yorkshire Moors. Without the mother, life became chaotic.

@mollymccarty1754 8 ай бұрын

Thank you, very interesting!

@katina9632 3 жыл бұрын

Hi Dr. Cox! Hope you’re doing well. I absolutely loved Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native in high school. I’m going to check to see if you have done a video about that novel right after I comment here, but if you haven’t done one, I’d love to hear your analysis of Eustacia Vye.

@Ozgipsy 2 жыл бұрын

What a powerful analysis that was from you, and what an insightful critic Woolf was. On another level it’s a contrast of three women across time that was fascinating. The female view of the world has changed so much more than the male view.

@pankajasrinivasan4491 3 жыл бұрын

I enjoyed this immensely and can't wait to dig our my copies of Jane Eyere and Wuthering Heights. To listen to Virginia Woolf 's analysis was wonderful. Though I am old enough to boldly say I am not with her all the way :) But thankyou. This has just enriched my reading of the Bronte sisters. I am a huge fan.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much indeed! Much appreciated. I find that Woolf's literary analysis (of any author) always has astute observations and adds to my understanding, even if - like you - I don't agree with it all. She's so sharp!

@randywhite3947 2 жыл бұрын

What don’t you agree with?

@louisbrady7716 2 жыл бұрын

That was a really interesting lecture about the two Bronte novels.

@degalan2656 14 күн бұрын

Thing is, when one is truly inlove one can sense things that are inexplicable. I’m one of those that rather does not want to believe in such-and-such… but have indeed experienced it myself. Call it a wavelength that two people are attuned to.

@EDDIELANE 3 жыл бұрын

I just found this channel and love it! I wonder if you could speak a bit about how Charles Dickons and Wilkie Collins influenced each other. Or maybe something about Ann Radcliffe!

@rociomiranda5684 2 ай бұрын

I'd rather spend time with Charlotte Bronte than many other more "artistic" writers. Her honesty is so brutal and so refreshing. This, she says, this is what it's like to be a woman.

@phemyda94 2 жыл бұрын

The 19th century in Europe, when modernity began to take form, marked a cultural shift from art as observation to art as self expression. This can be seen in music and painting of the era as well. Realism and classicism became romanticism then impressionism then post-impressionism and expressionism.

@bethstovell8608 3 жыл бұрын

I’ve enjoyed your videos for a while. I’m thankful that you are exploring the Brontes and Woolf in this way. Your comment about Virginia Woolf as a practicing novelist functioning as a literary critic in this essay reminded me of Carol Shields’ biography of Jane Austen. While a biography in the general sense, it is Shields’ experience as a novelist that frequently shines through as she imagines Jane’s experiences in writing. I wonder how you think Woolf’s own novels reflect what she values in Charlotte and particularly in Emily. Does Woolf see herself as the same kind of novelist or something else?

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Gosh - that's a really interesting question. To some extent I think that Woolf, as a novelist, was interested - on a fundamental level - in form. I think she was interested in how to use narrative to convey mental activity. In this sense, I think she was in fact closer to what Austen was attempting, which I talk about in my video on Austen & Woolf and their use of stream-of-consciousness: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aKp6nMmGvNuoj6s.html But I also think she admires the profound, enormous question-asking of Emily. And Woolf too (I think) is without the need, as Woolf says of EB, to seek answers necessarily to those questions.

@EmmyTheGuitarTeacher Жыл бұрын

I enjoyed this so much! Personally, Jane Eyre is my favorite. I love the emotion and the individuality... the idea that an obscure person of no worldly importance in society has a world of emotions inside of them. The narrow focus is wonderful to me. I think in a way the narrow focus is realistic. I think most people go through life interacting with the world as individuals, shaped by their own unique experiences and fighting internal battles. Everyone feels primal emotions. Isn't that kind of Jane's battle, to follow her convictions in spite of the primal emotions trying to sweep her away? I'm in awe of Jane Austen's level of observance and awareness of human beings and their motivation and the way they move through the world. It's amazing. Jane Eyre is interesting in a very different way. I've often marveled at the huge difference between the Brontës and Austen. I quite enjoyed Virginia's thoughts and, as always, learned so much from you Dr. Cox. Thank you!!

@RaysDad 3 жыл бұрын

I think Virginia Woolf's analysis is brilliant and engaging, especially her provocative judgment that Emily was the better poet. Perhaps Emily was the better prophet. E.M Forster referred to Prophecy as a rare quality of writing; the author senses and employs universal forces, both natural and supernatural. Among novelists Forster could only name Dostoevsky, Melville, D. H. Lawrence and Emily Bronte as prophetic. Charlotte may also have been a prophet, but if so she was a minor one (like Thomas Hardy) because her characters don't challenge the forces -- they haven't the will. To me, the character that most resembles Heathcliff is Captain Ahab. Both stare Fate straight in the eye and shout "NO!"

@narminzarrin8645 2 жыл бұрын

Please do more on Woolf!

@shirahmalkacohen5017 3 жыл бұрын

Woolf is always an astute critic, whether you agree withher or not. But what about poor Anne Brontë? Did Woolf ever write about her? I feel she is always neglected when people talk about the Bröntes, even though she was just as good a writer as her sisters.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

I agree - sadly overlooked. And by Woolf too. (I can't recall Woolf ever analysing Anne Bronte's writing in any detail.)

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

@@i.b.640 Yes I agree. And "chillingly good" is an apt description. AB chillingly exposes the failures of the law and a culture that expects / demands, as you say, the figure of the woman who sacrifices herself to 'save' a man.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

@@i.b.640 Well indeed! Or, while we're on Mansfield Park too, there's no suggestion that Mr Rushworth should reform Maria.

@shirahmalkacohen5017 3 жыл бұрын

Yes to all of this! I think that Anne Brontë has such a good balance between a poetic style and realism. She feels like the successor of Jane Austen and the precursor of George Eliot. It's such a pity that she wrote only two novels... Her novels are so engaging, and yet, as you say, chilling.

@henryahoy 2 жыл бұрын

I love that idea that Heathcliffe through anyone else's eyes could not have been a central figure of a novel, but Bronte's brilliance was to bring him to life and bring him to us in such a way that we cared what happened to him

@CaroleMcDonnell 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much! That was fun! Could " brother of genius" also refer to a kind of redemptive sisterly act for Bron, Emily's brother? Could Virginia be seeing Bron as Heathcliff?

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Re. "But even as we ask it we see in Heathcliff the brother that a sister of genius might have seen". Is Heathcliff based (in some way) on Branwell? That's a really interesting question. Perhaps, yes. Her choice of language ("brother" & "sister") clearly suggests her thoughts were tending towards the familial. Woolf was clearly fascinated by the biography of the whole Brontë family. In fact, the very first piece of writing that Woolf had accepted for publication describes her "pilgrimage" to Haworth (published 21 December 1904).

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

As an aside, there was an interesting article published not that long ago examining Branwell's influence on Heathcliff, which compares Branwell’s poetic voice (especially in Branwell’s poems ‘Misery I’, ‘Misery II’ and the ‘Caroline’ sequence) and Heathcliff’s voice in his laments for Cathy in WH (by Carolyne Van Der Meer, 'Branwell Brontë's Role in the Creation of Heathcliff, Brontë Studies 42:3 (2017) pp.211-219).

@CaroleMcDonnell 3 жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox oh gee, poor Branwell. The burden of failed genius. I feel so sorry for him now...yet again. Off to google the poem. Thanks.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

@@CaroleMcDonnell My pleasure.

@LisaOutrequin Жыл бұрын

It's interesting how in Persuasion, Anne suggests Captain Benwick resist the narcissistic temptation of poetry by balancing his diet with prose. Charlotte Bronte later escaped that prescription 🤨😏

@cheriepeden6384 Жыл бұрын

Jane Eyre spoke to me as an18 year old in so many ways, but I picked up my sister's copy of Wuthering Heights, read a couple of pages and forgot about it. This says more about my eratic reading habits 5han anything else. But if the book doesn't speak to me almost immediately, I don't carry on with it. A critic like Virginia Woolf is so useful when you want to understand why you react to a book the way you do.

@scarletr.7753 Жыл бұрын

Then you're missing out. If you keep reading, Wuthering Heights comes to life

@dorothywillis1 2 жыл бұрын

I have a problem. I have not read much in Virginia Woolf's work, primarily because the little I did read irritated me. Now I find she wrote fairly extensive comments on three of my favorite authors and here is an analysis of her comments by Dr. Cox, whose opinions I respect and whose videos I enjoy! I am working myself up to watching this video, but it's not easy!

@lucysnowe4613 2 жыл бұрын

Fascinating! I loved Woolf's insightful analysis and your elaborations on it. As a lover of the Brontes, this makes me appreciate their works a whole lot more! It's too bad Woolf didn't include Anne Bronte in her analysis... I know she was not widely considered as brilliant as the other two (I disagree w/ that evaluation; each sister had her own focus, style, and genius, and Anne's tho different, was not inferior) but I would have loved to know what Woolf thought of Anne's books.

@Therika7 Жыл бұрын

The Brontës’ writing (and Woolf’s commentary here) makes me think of what Jung said about myths and fairy tales… and the sublime, and the shadow self. Austen’s writing is more scientific like the Age of Enlightenment.

@sue1342 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for this - a very thought-provoking piece. Woolf's analysis is interesting and I agree with her to a point, but I find her quite dismissive of the Brontes' life experience - different from her own but I would say equally valid. The sisters may not have been as sophisticated as Woolf's associates but they were very well read and understood a world that was alien to Woolf. Also, poverty is relative: the family was not in such dire straits as to cause constant unhappiness. Woolf is certainly right on the passion they bring to their writing, but I think there are certainly philosophical - and political - ideas to be found in their works too. It's a pity, though, that Anne was left out who in that respect is the best example.

@askbask 3 жыл бұрын

Woolf beautifully describes that intensity and power in Charlotte's writing - although maybe she too sometimes veers a little too close to the Brontë myth of the wild, untamed writers on the moors: I strongly recommend Helen Glen's "Charlotte Brontë: The Imagination in History", where she argues for Charlotte being more intellectually shrewd, for her "literary intelligence" and political astuteness that is sometimes shadowed by the more mythological, romantic descriptions of her supernatural power.

@reveranttangent1771 3 жыл бұрын

Woolf's complaint reminds me of Card's mice quotient. The mice quotient is a heuristic for narrative focus. Woolf seems to want more I, idea focused writing, with a didactic purpose. Card identified mystery stories as examples of idea focused literature. I doubt that he would disagree with me for adding the Platonic dialogues, the feminist warning of the handmaiden's tale or the comicism of Lovecraft's works.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

For those who aren't in the know (and don't worry it has nothing to do with rodents!), the M.I.C.E. Quotient is Orsen Scott Card's formula that breaks down stories into the four elements of a text's structure (all narratives contain all elements to a higher or lesser degree, but often one dominates). These four elements are: M = Milieu I = Idea C = Character E = Event Milieu (or location story): “The structure of the pure milieu story is simple: Get a character to the setting that the story is about, and then devise reasons for her to move through the world of the story, showing the reader all the interesting physical and social details of the milieu. When you've shown everything you want the reader to see, bring the character home.” (p.49) Idea: “The idea story has a simple structure. A problem or question is posed at the beginning of the story, and at the end of the tale the answer is revealed. Murder mysteries use this structure: Someone is found murdered, and the rest of the story is devoted to discovering who did it, why, and how.” (p.51) Character: “The character story is about a person trying to change his role in life. It begins at the point when the main character finds his present situation intolerable and sets out to change; it ends when the character either finds a new role, willingly returns to the old one, or despairs of improving his lot.” (p.52) Event: “The event story structure is simple: It begins when the main characters become involved in the effort to heal the world's disease, and ends when they either accomplish their goal or utterly fail to do so.” (p.54) (from Orson Scott Card ‘Elements of Writing Fiction: Characters & Viewpoint’)

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

Hmmm - interesting thought experiment. I think I would align Woolf more with 'Character'...

@williammarkland8351 13 күн бұрын

I think Virginia meant that the rwo Catherines are "lovable" to Heathcliffe, not us.

@danieleprice191 9 ай бұрын

The missing word is obession. Manic or addiction is rooted in those who have been denied maternal love, to substitute other intense emotions to compensate for the loss. That's the reason Austen appears repressed to some and Brontes supernatural or unrealistic to others.

@sash3497 2 жыл бұрын

A great essay and a great presentation of it. My concern with ‘a remote parsonage on the moors’ is not accurate. The parsonage was in a thriving town (Haworth) - albeit on the edge of moors. There were many visitors to the parsonage. It may have been parochial compared to London but it wasn’t a hermitage. Although this does not effect the argument of the essay but perhaps any analysis of where this ‘ego sublime’ perspective comes from in c bronte. Not that is being in a remote parsonage imo

@mattneufeld9642 3 жыл бұрын

11:40 Ann Bronte unlike her sisters, did try to change society through her novel Tenent Of Windfall Hall. I amire how Ann tried to use her platform as an author to be a voice for the voiceless. Although from an entertainment point of view I found Tenent Of Windfall Hall to be the most boring of all the novels that the Bronte sisters wrote.

@DrOctaviaCox 3 жыл бұрын

I definitely wouldn't say that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is boring! - but I agree with your point about it being specifically targeted at revealing the unfair absurdity of the marriage laws at the time.

@user-zo4ig4xx5n 3 жыл бұрын

It is perhaps a little assuming to disagree with Wolf in any point and in fact I mostly agree with her. The only part I don't quite agree with her is her assumption that Charlotte doesn't care or doesn't involve herself with the problems of society. Obviously she is aware that society wouldn't approve of a liaison or marriage between Mr. Rochester and Jane and that is why she puts her heroine to try to distance herself from him. She even tries to paint a portrait of Miss Ingram to persuade herself that Mr. Rochester cannot possibly care about her. Furthermore in Villette she invents an equally sensitive heroine but one that has to live constantly in the tumult of the world and without the consolation of a lifelong partner. What could be more realistic than that? And as far as Shirley is concerned it mainly addresses the problem of the Luddites.

@wednesdayschild3627 3 жыл бұрын

I had to read Jane Eyre when I was in middle school. I wanted to read a fanfiction about Blanche and Bertha. I was irritated at Jane's perfection.

@lightgrey5365 6 ай бұрын

northrop frye would say that austen is a novelist while the brontes are romancers :)

@vonBottorff Жыл бұрын

I first wrote a long, rather angry response, but that's gone to electron heaven and I'll just say *you either get Brontean Dark Romanticism or you don't.* VW obviously didn't. Meanwhile, I'll now rewatch the 2011 version of _Jane Eyre_ to get all of this not getting it out of my head.

@tenorsfan7492 11 ай бұрын

Mrs Leavis showed that Mrs Woolf was all wrong about Wuthering Heights!

@sudhirchopde3334 2 жыл бұрын

Have you seen the Parsonage at Haworth? Looks large we'll set up warm and well lit. It overlooks the graveyard ,like at the bottom of the garden. The church is very depressing . Those days...high up by itself it could be isolated. Tuberculosis took them all. No money,Lending library made them well read. Useless brother and s goodlooking wellread parson of s father who never got a promotion !

@amybee40 3 жыл бұрын

I am trying to pause the video between sentences, but you never pause at the end of a sentence!

@electraruby4078 Жыл бұрын

Yes of course poets are not constrained by space and time. They are making us conscious of the realms that lie beyond the physical.

@christinashirey1178 7 ай бұрын

It has been posited that Emily Brontë may have had autism. If so, she likely had an atypical understanding of emotions and experienced them atypically as well. This combined with her genius, passion and comparatively isolated social experience (or lack thereof) may give insight into the reason her portrayal of human emotions seems strange to more typical minded folks. Her lens was clearly very unconventional, which is extremely compelling to some and repellant to others. Might WH be her attempt at interpreting emotions in her unique way, or an attempt to make sense of how she thought others might experience them?

@davidlee6720 Ай бұрын

Literature owes tuberculosis a lot. Seems to set fire to the imagination - not only with DH Lawrence and the Bronte's but many another as well. A tragedy for the individual in real life though- although many would have preferred such an option if they had to chose: to die young but to to remain forever amongst the immortals.

@skyegypze3982 3 жыл бұрын

Too many commercials.

@stefaniejohnson29 3 жыл бұрын

I find Wuthering Heights to be an uncomfortable book to read. It is difficult to relate to the ethereal characters. In the end, I had no sympathy for any of the tragic characters. I do love the prose and the use of weather to encompass big emotions. I have always thought that the message is that love and hate are not in opposition, but are adjacent to one another. The idea of an unanswered or unanswerable question is intriguing and adds to my discomfort with the novel.

@Fucoc 7 ай бұрын

I dont think I agree with Woolfe. I don't think Austen's characters are that multifaceted compared to e.g. Jane Eyre, who is far more than a woman who is a governess or being in love. I feel that the love described in "Pride and Prejudice" for example is so shallow and boring, with no reason for being there in the first place, while Bronte's characters have real chemistry or a lack thereof. Rochester and St. John e.g. are the polar opposites, one beautiful and puritanical, the other dark, ugly and lustful. Elizabeth in P&P dislike Darcy because he is so arrogant and are bore, but then realises that he changes his character and finds him more interesting, but without them having any passionate chemistry that I as a reader finds alluring. Or plausible. Wuthering Heights is so full of passion that I can't put it away, weather it is love or hate.

@delhatton 2 жыл бұрын

Charlotte wrong an action novel? a la Tom Clancy?

@lawrencegoldworm Жыл бұрын

I'm honestly not sure if Dr. Cox even knows what she's saying. Of course, that may be my fault as I was put to sleep within the very first, few tedious moments.

@daydays12 2 ай бұрын

Virginia Woolf is a wonderful critic.... I haven't read her for many years though. I don't agree that Jane Eyre is exhilarating. I was impressed though with it until the arrival of Rochester. From then on it was all down hill. Such an awful character , in many ways, including his infantilisation of Jane and the even more detestable Rivers and all that hideous Victorian religiosity. I was indignant at all that. Aieee.

@2msvalkyrie529 10 ай бұрын

Who is the target audience here !? People who need the meaning of the word "indignation " explained to them ?? Have academic standards really fallen that low ?!?