Brussels Bronte Group Website

We have a new addition to the links list at left: the Brussels Bronte Group website, associated with the Brussels Bronte Blog. This website is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in the Brontes, and particularly with the city Charlotte and Emily studied in. Their time in Brussels was crucial, especially for Charlotte who went on to include her experiences there in most of her novels. The site boasts what is probably the most extensive collection of information on Monsieur Constantin Heger (who was her inspiration for Mr Rochester), and the pensionat available online, including some fascinating images, such as these of the pensionnat gardens Charlotte immortalises in Villette. Below is an image of the gardens Charlotte refers to in Villette as the allee defendue.

Blogging in Brussels

I would like to welcome the latest Bronte blog to join us online. The Brussels Bronte Blog has just started publishing this month. Be sure to add it to you lists!

http://www.brusselsbronte.blogspot.com/

The Brussels Brontë Group was originally formed by Brontë Society members in Belgium and the Netherlands to bring together people interested in the Brontës and in the Brussels places with Brontë associations. It soon grew to include members of many different countries and nationalities: British, Belgian, Dutch, French, German and others. We welcome anyone in any country who is interested in the works and lives of the Brontës (and 19th century literature in general) and would like to know more about the history of the Pensionnat Heger (the school where Charlotte and Emily Brontë stayed in 1842-43 and which inspired Villette and The Professor), the Quartier Isabelle where it stood, and the city of Brussels in the 19th century.

The Blog provides a forum for members to keep in touch with one another, and we welcome contributions by anyone who is interested in our Group.

Reader, I Married Him: Mr Rochester, and M. Heger

I had to split the segment into two halves to make it fit, so here are parts one and two. I must say that I am still surprised by the nonsense some of the 'experts' have to say about Mr Rochester- especially Lucasta Miller. At least now I know where the 'Mr Rochester is a rake who's had lots and lots of mistresses' myth comes from. Incidentally I also find her description of Charlotte's attitudes to Jane Austen to be exaggerated as well. It makes her seem as though she thought 'great romantic tempests' were the only kind of real emotion one could experience. If you read her letters on Jane Austen, she is critiquing the depth of the characters in Emma. She says she cannot sense their arteries and blood beneath the surface. In other words, Jane Austen does not fully penetrate the psychology of her characters. That is a authorial strategy (not a fault). Charlotte was also writing these letters to defend herself from a rabid Jane Austen fan who had been writing to her about how she ought to write like Jane Austen. When the fan wrote back demanding that she acknowledge the superiority and genius of Miss A that's when Charlotte let him have it. She was, as I have said... a snark.

Since the clip makes reference to Monsieur Heger in discussing Mr Rochester, I have included a clip from the Brontes of Haworth, a mini series about the lives of the Brontes. In this clip Charlotte has returned to Brussels alone after the death of Aunt Branwell, and has a talk with Monsieur Heger.

The Stratford Playscripts

I am not sure when these two plays, both by Reg Mitchell were written, but for those interested in perhaps staging a Brontëan play, information regarding obtaining reading copies of the scripts and performance rights can be found here. From the same source, here are their brief synopses:

The Thorp Green Scandal

The Brontë children were, for different reasons, unable to hold down any job. Charlotte failed as a governess, Emily as a school teacher and Branwell wasted his talents in several positions. The exception was Anne, the youngest of the family, who managed to retain her second appointment as Governess to the daughters of the Robinson family. She joined them at Thorp Green, near York in the summer of 1840. Returning home to the Haworth parsonage, Anne fell under the spell of the new curate, William Weightman, who had something of a reputation with the ladies. He died of cholera. Two years later, Branwell joined his sister as tutor to the young Edmund Roninson, but became besotted with Mrs Lydia Robinson, seventeen years his senior. They had a three-year affair before Branwell was dismissed by her husband. Anne resigned her post, writing that she had some very unpleasant and undreamt-of experiences of human nature during her five years at Thorp Green. Branwell took to drugs and drink, fell into a decline, eventually drinking himself to death at the age of thirty-one. He died in his fathers arms.

The Bell Brothers

The Brontë children were unemployed. Charlotte had returned chastened from her teaching post in Brussels, Emily had left her teaching post in Halifax, and Anne had resigned her position as Governess to the Robinson's daughters. All except Emily had suffered the pangs of unrequited love. When Charlotte came across Emily's poems she had the idea of publishing a selection of their poetry, which they did under the pen name of the Bell Brothers. Although a failure, their three novels became instant successes, taking the literary scene by storm. But success was followed by tragedy with the death of Emily from tuberculosis. Anne also fell to the disease a few months later leaving Charlotte the only surviving child of the Rev Patrick. During the publication of three more novels, she became the toast of the London literati, whilst her relationship with her young publisher blossomed, only to be later doomed to failure. Against her fathers wishes, Charlotte married his curate, Arthur Nichols.