The Brontė Sisters

The Brontė Sisters

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontė were the third, fifth and sixth of the six children of an Anglican Priest of Irish descent. The landscape in which the children lived, a small village in the Yorkshire moors, influenced them. It is against this background that both the tragic personal stories of the Brontės and the fictious tragedy of their novels unravel.

Isolation at Haworth (their village) didn't mean lack of ideas or of literary stimulation. In an environment where the imagination was constantly stimulated by nature, the children created a fantasy world, which to them was as real as the outside one.

After a volume of poems written by all three sisters, the Brontė sisters' work met with success. They published three novels: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte, Wuthering Heights, by Emily, and Agnes Grey by Anne. In December of 1484 Emily died of consumption, as did Anne a few months later.

● Anne (1820 - 1849)

Her works have been considered as written in the shadow of her more gifted sisters. Recent criticism has begun to recognise that Agnes Grey shows a fine balance between plot, characters, and a clear flowing style.

● Charlotte (1816 - 1855)

Charlotte survived the other two, enjoying a brief spell of popularity and personal happiness after her marriage to an Anglican priest; she died in childbirth in 1855. She was the real driving force behind the publication of the family's work.

In her best novel, Jane Eyre, Charlotte showed a combination of realistic observation and fine humour with an intensity of feeling and imagination typical of the Romantic Movement.

● Emily (1818 - 1848)

Passion and feelings are at their strongest in Emily's works. Her poems show a violent impulse to break through life's conventions, and a desire for a freer world of the spirit; her verses recall the work of Byron and Shelley. The same wild spirit is present in Wuthering Heights, Emily's only novel and one of the most famous in the English language. In it Emily confronts human passions with the requirements of society.

Texts:

● (From Wuthering Heights)