...This is not funny! Not funny at all!
http://www.brontecollege.com/
If only it were that simple! (In fact has nothing at all to do with the Brontës). George Elliot appears to be extremely popular in Canadian academia nowadays, but courses on the Brontës are scarce. I've found one so far and it has been cancelled.
*sigh*
6 comments:
Yeah, the Brontes seem so rare everywhere!!!!
Even in terms of internet sites, I haven't found many promising or satisfactory ones. (which is why I was so glad to find your blog).
Also, I wish there was a good Bronte forum...
Why is it the case do you think? I would think that having three awesome authors in the same family would be all the more reason why they should be more talked about/studied.
My guess is perhaps people are scared. Afraid to know more about the Brontes and the power they can wield through their works and their lives....
The yahoo forum is alright. At the moment it's rather more concerned with off topic things, and a massive photo tour of Brontëland than discussion, but there are so many members that in theory there should be some great discussions once they get started. So far my messages have not been noticed much.
You know, it looks like the Brontes are lumped into Women's Studies rather than English! I think that is absurd- as though they cannot have any relevance outside of any discussion of gender.
In my personal experience people generally think that the Brontës are dull. One friend of mine thought Jane Eyre would be something very staid, proper, prim, and boring- frankly. And she was shocked. ;)
I was lucky enough to take a Bronte seminar at my university. That's a long, funny story. It was actually a Victorian topics seminar and I intended to sign up for it before I knew the topic. It was that summer that I thought to myself- hm. I really love Jane Eyre. Why don't I try reading ... oh, this 'Villette'? And then read another and another ;) THEN I missed the date for registration. I was annoyed, but when I saw the booklist for the class I was frantic- it listed EVERYTHING that the family had ever written. After freaking out, I lingered on a waiting list for months, and only JUST got in.
...I shudder even now. ;) But it was brilliant! I loved every moment of it... And I got to present a seminar, and write a research paper on Mr Rochester, which was splendid. I had a terrible fever too, when I wrote it, and at one point I actually thought that I could ASK Charlotte Brontë questions and she could answer me. Hee. Just a little delirious. But it must have worked because I got the highest mark in the class. :)
OMG!!!! You DO DO look sound like a kindred spirit!! (and I don't even know your name =))!!!!
I have some stories to tell as well.
I think I've talked to Charlotte scores of times!!! At one point I thought I could HEAR her! As well as see Jane walking across the moors and calling me. I could detail all her features up to the angle of her eyebrows. All this started happening to me when I visited Bronte Country in December of last year (It is truly one of the best visits of my entire life!!!). I swear I heard voices and probably "felt" a presence of two. It was so haunting! Breathtaking!
Then I came back to my school...going on with regular work (and my major was Neuroscience-and I was planning on going to medical school in the fall of this year). But there was just something NOT right. I felt it so much that I almost went into depression because I just wasn't happy. ....anyways, sparing the unhappy details, what came out of it was that I ended up talking to my Dean, the English department faculty at my college, as well as therapists and I finally decided to change my major to English with a view of doing Bronte Studies in the future. This is why Charlotte is like my hero. I could see her guiding me all the time-like a few days ago I found out I didn't do so well on my poetry paper but then I think of what I can and want to do a few years down the line, and then I read a few pages of JE, and I feel better. ...
so yeah...the Brontes definitly haunt me. You should see my room...my friends say its like a Bronte shrine LOL!..with Bronte-ish pics and postcards =D
I agree that the Brontes are classed more in the women's studies department rather than English...
However, in my college we read Bronte works in certain classes, and only once in a few years is there a seminar entirely dedicated to Bronte. Other than that, we'd just have to make do with classes on Victorian Literature or Literary Criticism, which is what I am going to have to do until I get into grad school.
As for JE, OMG yes!! I am actually surprised at how many people think it is prudeish and prim and boring!! Like HELLO!!!! PUHLEASE!!!
That is just utter BS!!!!!!!! Everything I ever wanted to know and feel..I've found in that book. Truly. And I am sure if I can, others could too if only they opened up their goddamn brains. (sorry if I sound mean...I just have to vent when I hear such comments from insipid people).
It awesome that that Victorian class changed your career path and got you into Bronte! I think I could say that the Vic Lit class I took (and the awesome prof) made me think seriously about English.
oh oh I'd LOVE to hear ur ideas about Rochester. OMG I do do have a soft spot for him! Heathcliff and Rochester are always competing againts each other for who is highest in my esteem (in my head of course! :D)
Hope I didn't bore you hehe
Take care!!
Neuroscience, you said? Well... I'm a physicist. As you can see, the love for the Brontës is something that cannot be easily reduced to some sector or another. And if you think that Brontës are rare in an English-speaking country... well try to imagine what it is in a non-English one :P.
M. (from the BrontëBlog)
to mysticgypsy:
My imagination isn't that vivid, sadly. It's not for want of trying, though. I dabbled in fanfiction and tried to see characters but it only works on its own terms, doesn't it? (I once had a vivid Jane Eyre dream... about being at a party with Colonel Dent of all people!). When I was ill, I recall that for a moment I realised that I was feverish and though that I could imagine up an imaginary CB to interrogate. ;) Never tried it, though.
I used to be an art major but I hated it. There is no place for fine art in today's world- none. Illustrators get $4.00 a picture. And me and my mom are literally clinging to life here at the moment so I cannot afford the luxury of being a 'starving artist'! I got into English through... Chaucer. Yep. I love Chaucer. I'm the only student at my uni who doesn't recoil in terror from the Canterbury Tales, and certain the only one who says things like: "I love the Parliament of Fowles!!"
My Rochester seminar is such a long story. It'll have to wait. I had to write it on 'Jane Eyre and Marxist Criticism'. Mine was an interesting approach, especially since I find Marxist crit... dull. But I made it my own, and I think I made it fun as well as interesting. I had more freedom with the paper, so... I believe I mixed in a little historicism- I brought in a classical legal and moral debate and also some material on John Wilmot... It sounds like a strange combination but it worked out to one end. If I can ever stop thinking it isn't any good I might try to get it published.
to M:
We also have a chemist patronising Bronteana and one engineer if I'm not mistaken.
I've always wanted to read the novels in translation. I read part of Jane Eyre in French once, and a very small part in Spanish. The experience was very exciting- somewhat like reading them for the first time!
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