Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell

Brontë, Emily; Brontë, Anne

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139541114.001

Cited by 7 publications

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“…5 However, to deal with the problem of the violent and blunt nature of Wuthering Heights, Charlotte defines Emily in far more transcendent language, with words such as 'power', 'fire', and 'originality' being used to describe her, summarising her character with the line, 'Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone'. 6 This initiated the now familiar myth or public image of Emily Brontë as an innocent noble savage, transcending conventional society, as if she existed outside of, or above, her real world, and above typical gender conventions for women of her time.…”

Section: The Myth: Constructing the Transcendent Authormentioning

confidence: 99%

Muse, Sister, Myth: The Cultural Afterlives of Emily Brontë on Screen

Shachar¹

2020

Brontë Studies

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Hotel, York). It explores the cultural portrayal and legacy of Emily Brontë through an analysis of several representative screen adaptations of both her biography and her novel, Wuthering Heights. It uses the recent BBC biopic directed by Sally Wainwright, To Walk Invisible (2016), as the guiding screen adaptation around which to discuss the various ways Emily Brontë had been adapted as a cultural persona on screen, imagined in various guises as a mystical author, a radical feminist 'sister', and a muse for our contemporary age. Moving from classic Hollywood film to recent independent and BBC productions, this article suggests that Emily Brontë has become implicated in wider and ongoing cultural debates about authorial identity, gender, and myths of creativity that contemporary culture has inherited from the nineteenth century.

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Section: The Myth: Constructing the Transcendent Authormentioning

confidence: 99%

Muse, Sister, Myth: The Cultural Afterlives of Emily Brontë on Screen

Shachar¹

2020

Brontë Studies

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“…our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine"'. 10 According to Catherine A. Judd, Charlotte's decision to adopt a pseudonym can be explained with the 'misogynistic critical legacy' of nineteenth-century reviewing culture, for 'femininity became one more weapon in the arsenal of biased literary criticism'. 11 Also, Charlotte and her sisters sought to demarcate their own work from the domestic fiction published by other women novelists.…”

Section: Currer Bell As Pseudonym and Commoditymentioning

confidence: 99%

Currer Bell, Charlotte Brontë and the Construction of Authorial Identity

Jung¹

2014

Brontë Studies

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Focusing on the recovery of the textual and authoriality-defining politics of Charlotte Brontë's pseudonym 'Currer Bell', this essay examines how Charlotte's penname affected pre-1850 constructions of gendered authorial identity and how, after that date, Currer Bell was partially erased by means of the two distinct personae that readers fashioned for Charlotte, the female author, and Charlotte, the historical figure. The essay explores the pseudonym's redefinition and revaluation by means of an analysis of brief accounts of Charlotte's correspondence and the reviews of her fiction. It also examines how the use of different personae by Charlotte and critics of her works contributed to a myth that conflated distinctions she had introduced to differentiate herself as writer, using the gender-ambiguous remit of Currer Bell, and as the private individual Charlotte Brontë. The essay concludes with a consideration of how Charlotte's textual inscription is transformed by visual culture media, which facilitated her becoming a cultural icon.keywords authorship, Charlotte Brontë, cultural icon, popular and critical afterlife, pseudonym Too little attention has been given to the study of the pseudonym that Charlotte Brontë adopted at the beginning of her writing career and what this particular authorship practice can tell us about her personality. Textual and narratological studies have facilitated sophisticated analyses of the construction of authorship and the ways in which the authorship function of pseudonyms can inform readings of literary texts. 1 The key to understanding Charlotte's professional life lies in the pseudonym of Currer Bell, and it is the relationship between this name and Charlotte's identity and character that promises to correct misconceptions of the historical, rather than the mythified, Charlotte Brontë. Before 1850 readers would have been familiar with the names of Currer, Acton and Ellis Bell as the authors of prominent novels in the late 1840s. They would not have known that these names were pseudonyms. The erasure of the significance of Charlotte Brontë's pseudonym, which has (partially) occurred in her critical afterlife, and especially in the undergraduate syllabus and introductory works to Victorian fiction promoting biographical readings of texts,

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“…2 This was the legend fostered by Charlotte, even to the point of making Anne seem simple-minded, or at least exceptionally passive and impressionable: 'hers was naturally a sensitive, reserved, and dejected nature; what she saw [Branwell's selfdestruction] sank very deeply into her mind; it did her harm'. 3 In this paper I do not want completely to overturn that legend but rather to qualify it and to suggest that Anne's was a far more robust, practical, courageous and assertive kind of goodness than the legend implies. Furthermore, her work displays a tough and thoughtful feminism which has not been given its full due by subsequent generations of feminists.…”

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confidence: 94%

Anne Brontë: A Quiet Feminist

Shaw

2013

Brontë Studies

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Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Muse, Sister, Myth: The Cultural Afterlives of Emily Brontë on Screen

Muse, Sister, Myth: The Cultural Afterlives of Emily Brontë on Screen

Currer Bell, Charlotte Brontë and the Construction of Authorial Identity

Anne Brontë: A Quiet Feminist

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