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Tehanu
More or less, more or less
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
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Location: Seceded from the Ford Nation
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 Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 9:02 pm Post subject: Brontė letters found apologising for school portrayal |
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From Reuters:
| Quote: | HAWORTH (Reuters) - Charlotte Brontė offered to rewrite parts of "Jane Eyre" after a legal threat from the headmaster of the school on which she based the infamous Lowood school, newly discovered letters show.
The letters have raised the prospect that somewhere, tucked away in a dusty attic or a pile of musty papers, could lie an amended manuscript of the 19th-century classic, toned down by the British novelist to avoid a libel lawsuit.
... The book's Lowood school, presided over by the cruel Mr Brocklehurst, was a harsh place where pupils were half-starved.
According to the letters, the description upset headmaster Reverend William Carus-Wilson, who wrote to his former pupil Brontė and threatened her with legal action after recognising himself and his school from her description of Lowood.
But the letters, discovered a month ago and written by Carus-Wilson's grandson Edward, show Brontė dissuaded him from pursuing his case by sending him a 1,400-word sketch, expurgated of the offending passages.
... Brontė never changed the original book and the headmaster never pursued a legal case. |
Hm. Glad it didn't get rewritten, that's a powerful part of the book! I remember reading in Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Brontė what a controversy this was, but that given that her two older sisters died as a result of attending the school she had some reason to be bitter about it.
On an unrelated matter, how the hell do you formal an umlaut?!
Edited to umlaut! ėėėėėėė. Thanks Al-Q!
Last edited by Tehanu on Sat May 27, 2006 11:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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al-Qa'bong
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Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 6031
Location: A monistic vulgarity in which nobility and wisdom have been exchanged for a pale belief in progress
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| Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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One of the Bongettes has a trema in his name, so I know this one.
Alt+137 gives you ė.
Oh yeah; I did my Master's thesis on Mrs. Gaskell.
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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Doug
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| Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 9:19 am Post subject: |
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| When will they find letters from the Brontė sisters apologizing for being so incredibly boring? |
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cueball
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| Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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| I didn't find Wuthering Heights was boring. |
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al-Qa'bong
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Location: A monistic vulgarity in which nobility and wisdom have been exchanged for a pale belief in progress
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| Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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Wuthering Heights is the most disturbed book I've ever read.
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"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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cueball
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| Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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That is one of the reasons it is not boring. However, of the accumulated works of the Bronte sisters, I think it has the most depth, and touches on far more of the grey area of life, than the total of all of the other sisters works, which I feel have too sharply defined aroung good/evil motifs.
Is this web site big enough to do a proper deconstruction of Wuthering Heights? Does JF have the bandwidth? The server space? |
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Doug
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| Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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| cueball wrote: | | I didn't find Wuthering Heights was boring. |
I did....sure, there were disturbing parts, but I only made it through to the end because I had to. Big snoozefest for the most part. |
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cueball
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| Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 1:35 am Post subject: |
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| Wow. I don't really know what to say. Perhaps it bored you because you had to read it. |
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Hephaestion
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Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 24243
Location: Where the Wild Things Are...
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| Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 2:04 am Post subject: |
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| cueball wrote: | | Wow. I don't really know what to say. Perhaps it bored you because you had to read it. |
Perhaps it only bored him because he read it.
But I'd like to stick up for the Brontė sisters. They are nowhere *near* as stullifying as Jane Austen...
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fern hill
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| Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 2:09 am Post subject: |
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| Jane Austen is funny. But then, I'm a gril. |
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al-Qa'bong
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Location: A monistic vulgarity in which nobility and wisdom have been exchanged for a pale belief in progress
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| Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 3:04 am Post subject: |
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Jane Austen as ChickLit?
That explains a lot.
*ducks and runs as fast as his little legs can carry him*
_________________
"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful" Hammurabi
"We can't all be Sam the Sham; some of us have to be Pharoahs" Larry, brother of Darrel, and his other brother Daryl |
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