Brontë Studies. Volume 37, Issue 2

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 37, Issue 2, April 2012) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:

Editorial
pp. iii-v(3) Author: Adams, Amber M.

Frances Trollope (1779-1863): Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman
pp. 83-89(7)  Author: Barnard, Robert
Abstract:
This paper aims to pay tribute to the courage of Frances Trollope in depicting the cruelty of industrial practices in the northern counties of England, particularly as they affected young children. It suggests that Charlotte Brontë's ridicule of Michael Armstrong, amounting almost to contempt, sprang mainly from her lack of personal experience of the conditions of near slavery that dominated working-class life in Haworth and in the north generally.

`The Contrary Direction to Millcote': Jane Eyre and the `Condition of England' Novel
pp. 90-94(5)  Author: Dingley, Robert
Abstract:
When Jane Eyre is offered the position of governess at Thornfield, she notes the house's close proximity to the industrial centre of Millcote, but Charlotte Brontë's few subsequent references to this `large manufacturing town' seem calculated to distance her novel from any closer engagement with its `life and movement'. This article argues that Charlotte Brontë's elision of Millcote is consciously designed to differentiate her own fictional project from contemporary treatments of the `Condition of England', and specifically from Frances Trollope's Michael Armstrong, of whose adverse critical reception she was keenly aware. .

Villette Revisited: Lucy Snowe's Urban Experience
pp. 95-104(10)  Author:  Choi, Young Sun
Abstract:
Charlotte Brontë's urban experience had a profound impact on her life and art. Her Brussels sojourn and several extended visits to London, in particular, offered her an opportunity to explore the complexities and paradoxes of urban life. Her concern with the city made its way to her œuvre in varying degrees, culminating in Villette, which can be defined as a text of urban modernity in terms of the content and of the worldview it presents. Set in a European capital, the novel revolves around an English provincial girl's negotiation of modern city life, presenting a feminist remapping of the city through a discourse of flânerie. The topic of Charlotte Brontë and the city, therefore, brings to light her engagement with the state of the world, challenging the common assumption that her literary concern was confined to matters of personal interest.

Patrick Brontë's Homeland Today
pp. 105-111(7)   Author:  Logan, Robert; Bell, Joy
Abstract:
In addition to Charlotte Brontë’s use of Eugène Sue’s Mathilde and Le Morne- au-diable as models for her earThis paper presents an illustrated topographical tour of the Brontë Homeland in the south of Co. Down in Northern Ireland, with a family tree. Patrick Brontë's father's early life, his marriage, the houses where the family lived and the places where Patrick taught are described.

Breeching Boys: Milksops, Men's Clubs and the Modelling of Masculinity in Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
pp. 112-124(13)  Author:  Pike, Judith E.
Abstract:
In Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë calls into question the conventional rearing of boys in the middle and upper classes in Victorian England. She exposes how many fathers fail to instil the prerequisite values of Victorian manliness in their sons. Instead of producing chivalric young gentleman, they create future tyrants, who abuse their masculine privilege and primogeniture. These fathers often laud their sons' unmanly behaviour towards women and girls, as a means of separating their sons from `petticoat government'. Anne Brontë also offers an alternative model of fatherhood through Gilbert Markham whose paternal affection for young Arthur eventually wins over Helen Huntingdon's affections.

The Mystery of the Moors: Purgatory and the Absence/Presence of Evil in Wuthering Heights
pp. 125-135(11)   Author: Dodworth, Cameron
Abstract:
The moors surrounding Wuthering Heights, Thrushcross Grange and Gimmerton are mysterious not only owing to their description in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, but also owing to their direct influence on the characters in the novel. Specific instances of character exit and return from the world outside these moors create significant changes in these characters, off-scene. The nature of these instances of character change, and also the nature of what that mysterious realm outside the moors might actually be is explored in this essay in terms of good and evil, particularly in relation to heaven, hell and purgatory.

Raging Hormones, Budding Feminism: Returns to Wuthering Heights
pp. 136-144(9)  Author:  Engelhardt, Molly
Abstract:
Wuthering Heights enthusiasts, particularly baby boomers who were teenagers during the 1960s, admit to facing a dilemma upon returning to the novel as adult scholars: they are embarrassed to find the novel at ideological odds with their current social politics. My article addresses this problem by first situating the novel and the 1939 film adaptation into the cultural milieu of the early 1960s to show how they reinforced the generation gap that catalysed into radicalism later in the decade. I then track my own returns to Wuthering Heights, first as an adolescent in the 1960s, then as a newly politicized feminist in the early 1980s, and lastly as a graduate student in the 1990s to show how returns to the novel involve the awakening of past feelings and the confrontation of former reading selves. The novel's poststructuralist components impede the impulse of the adult scholar to supplant past feelings with the tools of intellectualism and the text instead accommodates, even celebrates, integration, a requisite for recovering women's history and becoming a subject.

Robinson Reflections Part 1: The Robinsons (of Newby Hall?)
pp. 145-158(14)  Author:  Gamble, Bob
Abstract:
Three complementary articles, collected as `Robinson Reflections', will be published in Brontë Studies. The work attempts to add to the body of knowledge relating to the Robinson family of Thorp Green Hall and the story of the relationship between Branwell Brontë and Lydia Robinson (née Gisborne).
The Robinson family in general and the details of the story of Branwell's alleged involvement with Lydia are of great interest, not least because the drama unfolded over the period when Charlotte, Emily and Anne were composing novels. Dr Tom Winnifrith of Warwick University has said that `[the Robinsons] were about the only large family, and certainly the only grand family, that the Brontës knew well'. As such, they were a primary source of inspiration for many of the characters, situations and attitudes which the Brontë sisters called upon in their work.
This article provides evidence that the Thorp Green Robinsons were related to the Robinsons of Newby Hall (the family of the Earl of Ripon) and proposes the existence of an ancestral link between Elizabeth Metcalfe (the Reverend Edmund Robinson's mother) and the Newby Robinsons. It also demonstrates the significance of the Reverend Thomas Gisborne's presence in Durham by suggesting that the Reverend Patrick Brontë's Durham connections contributed to both Anne Brontë's arrival at Thorp Green and William Weightman's appointment to Haworth. The links between Thorp Green and Newby have echoes in the life and times of Ned Robinson, Anne and Branwell Brontë's pupil.

When did Charlotte Brontë Read Vanity Fair?
pp. 159-162(4)   Author: Burstein, Miriam E
Abstract:
Since the nineteenth century critics have speculated about whether or not Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was influenced by W. M. Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1847-48). Charlotte Brontë herself denied that she had seen any of Vanity Fair before finishing Jane Eyre. However, striking parallels between a speech that Becky Sharp delivers to Rawdon Crawley in the April 1847 instalment of Vanity Fair and Jane Eyre's famous `I tell you I must go!' riposte to Mr Rochester invite questions, at the very least, about when Charlotte read Thackeray's novel for the first time.

The Clock in the Tower of St Michael and All Angels: Then and Now
pp. 163-165(3)   Author: Arnedillo, Óscar
Abstract:
This paper presents a history of the clock and bells in the tower of St Michael and All Angels Church in Haworth from original research.

Reviews
pp. 166-172(7)