Recommended:
A. Stuart Daley, "A Chronology of
Wuthering Heights" (WH
pp. 349-352).
[Cora's Note: According to Daley's "Chronology," the
events of the novel transpire from 1757 (Hindley's birth) to 1803 (Cathy
& Hareton's marriage).]
Chs.
1-4
(
WH Chs. I - IV, pp. 3-31)
[Narrative
Present - narrated by Lockwood]
Lockwood's
visits to Wuthering Heights and his ensuing illness; he entreats Nelly Dean to
tell the "history" of the place and its inhabitants, and so begins the
exposition (i.e. introduction)
of the novel's major settings, characters, and conflicts.
The
Narrative Frame of Wuthering Heights [WH ]
provides a plausible situation for the telling of its story (i.e. the
narrative)--and plausibility is important to 19th-century Realistic fiction.
The first narrator (story teller) that we hear in the “narrative
present” of the novel is that of the character Lockwood, the new tenant of
Thrushcross Grange (Heathcliff is his landlord).
Shocked and intrigued by his visits to Wuthering Heights, Lockwood then
asks his housekeeper Nelly Dean to tell him the full “history.”
Thus, we are introduced to the second and main narrator of the story:
Nelly Dean, an eye-witness and, thus, a participant-narrator in the
“history” she will relate to Lockwood—and to us, the readers of Wuthering
Heights. The “time frame ”
of the narrative will thus shift back and forth between the “narrative past”
(of past events “history” of Wuthering Heights that Nelly Dean
recalls ) and the “narrative present” (of Lockwood, who sometime
later is being told the past “history” by Nelly Dean).
The
character of participant-narrator Nelly Dean is especially important to analyze and understand.
In creating and choosing this character to be the primary narrator of WH,
Emily Bronte has set up a complex narrative frame.
Many critics have asked and tried to answer why.
One reason may be to make WH more believable and “realistic.
Nelly Dean seems firmly rooted in common sense, every day, normative
“reality,” and thus helps to “authenticate”—or make more
“realistic” and plausible—the often
wild, passionate, even fantastic story of WH.
Yet Nelly Dean also complicates our understanding of the characters and
actions of the story, because she was a “participant” in the past history
she relates. Overall, she seems to
be a “reliable” narrator—but she is not altogether nor always an
objective, disinterested observer. –She
has opinions and interests invested in the events and characters she presents to
Lockwood—and to us, the readers. Keep
in mind, then, that Nelly “mediates” the story—we have access to the
“history” only through her “mediating” point of view—she “filters”
and can be tempted to “color” her account with her values, opinions, and
perspectives. For example, it
becomes clear after awhile that she does not like the protagonist Cathy
Earnshaw.
Consider,
then, how Nelly’s attitude could affect and prejudice the way she represents
the original Cathy to Lockwood—and to us.
Consider that as a
participant, as well as a witness, to most of the events that she narrates,
Nelly Dean may also have a stake in “coloring” her own part in the story
(i.e. shifting blame away from herself?) at times.
Chs.
4 - 7 ( WH
Chs. IV - VII, pp. 31 - 49)
[Narrative
Past, narrated by Nelly Dean]
Heathcliff's
mysterious origins and introduction to the Earnshaw household & estate
Wuthering Heights. Family dynamics
are characterized in terms of relationships to Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw’s
favorite (why?). Formative
childhood characters and events develop Heathcliff, Catherine, & Hindley.
Hindley is sent away to college. Mr.
Earnshaw dies and Hindley returns with wife & abuses/degrades Heathcliff.
Strong attachment between Catherine & Heathcliff:
Catherine teaches Heathcliff his letters & they roam the moors as
free spirits. Then comes the
incident at Thrushcross Grange: Catherine mends, staying 5 weeks with Lintons.
When Catherine returns to Wuthering Heights, she is changed.
KEY
SCENE:
Ch. 7 [Ch. VII].
Edgar and Isabella Linton visit Wuthering Heights.
Heathcliff attempts to be presentable but Hindley banishes him to the
garret. Catherine steals away to join Heathcliff--who vows revenge:"…I
shall pay Hindley back" (47). Note
contrasts between Edgar Linton & Heathcliff—especially from Cathy’s
point of view.
NARRATIVE
FRAME: Return to
Narrative Present (Ch.
VII, pp. 47-49)
Chs.
7 - 10 ( WH
Chs. VII - X, pp. 40 - 71)
[Events
of Narrative Past, narrated by Nelly Dean]
Hareton Earnshaw is
born, his mother Mrs. Hindley Earnshaw dies, and his father Hindley grows
ferocious and savage, especially toward Heathcliff.
Then . . .
KEY
SCENES:
Chs. 8 - 9
[Chs. VIII - IX]: Catherine dresses for Edgar Linton’s visit; note
further contrasts made between Edgar and Heathcliff. Nasty scene develops wherein Cathy slaps Nelly and Edgar, but
Edgar doesn’t leave—he is “doomed” (56) in Nelly’s view.
Hindley enters drunk and abusive (57): he drops his son Hareton, but
Heathcliff saves the child (58), ironically “the instrument of thwarting his
own revenge” (58).
Out of
sight by the fire, Heathcliff overhears (part of) Catherine’s discussion with
Nelly regarding Cathy’s accepting Edgar’s proposal of marriage.
Catherine relates her “queer dream”—a parallel with traits of the
Byronic hero/ine—her “joy” when angels fling her out of heaven.
Cathy contrasts her love for Edgar and Heathcliff:
“Nelly, I am Heathcliff" (64).
She can’t abide the idea that they would ever be really separated.
Heathcliff disappears, Cathy grieves and experiences her first
serious illness--Nelly observes, Catherine can’t “bear crossing much”
(67). Edgar and Catherine marry,
and Nelly goes with them to live at Thrushcross Grange.
NARRATIVE FRAME: Return
to Narrative Present (Ch. X, pp. 70-71): Lockwood’s
illness updated; Nelly continues her “history.”
Chs.
10-12 ( WH Chs. X - XII, pp. 70 - 103)
[Narrative Past,
narrated by Nelly Dean].
Catherine &
Edgar’s marital happiness--at least until Heathcliff returns after 3 years’
absence. Heathcliff’s
transformation and Cathy’s joy. Isabella
Linton falls in love with Heathcliff, despite Catherine’s and Nelly’s
warnings and assessment of his true character.
Heathcliff pursues his revenge plot against Hindley, taking up his
gambling debts. Heathcliff learns
of Isabella’s feelings for him and hatches a second revenge plot.
Heathcliff and Isabella elope.
KEY SCENES:
Chs. 11 - 12
[Chs. XI - XII]: Heathcliff accuses Cathy of treating him “infernally” and
swears he won’t “suffer unrevenged” (87). Edgar forbids
Heathcliff to come again to the ‘Grange.
Note Catherine’s reaction to this 2nd separation from
Heathcliff: she feels victimized by
both Heathcliff’s and Edgar’s “blind ingratitude” (89), holds
herself blameless (91), vows to “break their hearts by breaking my own” (91)
and punish them by dying. Catherine
fasts three days in her room. Nelly
mistakes Catherine’s “true condition” (94) and remembers too late
Cathy’s previous illness (94-95), caused also by the first sustained
separation from Heathcliff (when he disappeared three years earlier).
Cathy’s madness: her bird and mirror hallucinations, her return to her
childhood self when Hindley had also tried to separate her from Heathcliff,
“my all in all”(97). To this 12-year-old remembered Catherine, Mrs.
Linton is “wife of a stranger; an exile, and an outcast” - an “abyss”
(97). Catherine foresees her own
death, and speaks to Heathcliff through the window to her past self: “I
won’t rest til you are with me. I
never will!” (98). Edgar, learning of Catherine’s true condition, is enraged
with Nelly Dean. Cathy, realizing
very late that Nelly has been an enemy rather than a friend, calls Nelly
“traitor” and “witch” (100)
Chs.
14 ( WH
Chs. XIV, pp. 113 - 120)
[Narrative
Past, narrated by Nelly Dean].
After Isabella elopes with Heathcliff, Edgar is
resigned. Catherine, pregnant,
sustains a long illness. Nelly
learns that Isabella and Heathcliff have returned to Wuthering Heights via a
long letter Isabella writes to Nelly (105-113).
In it Isabella asks, “Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? . . . mad? . . . [or] a
devil?” (105). Alarmed, Nelly pays a visit to Wuthering Heights,
is more alarmed when she sees Isabella, and undergoes Heathcliff’s close
questioning about Catherine’s illness. Heathcliff
is in obvious inner torment, and he exacts from Nelly a promise to help him see
Catherine one last time (119).
NARRATIVE
FRAME:
Return to
Narrative Present (Ch. XIV, pp. 119-120):
Lockwood
recovering from his illness, observes, "I have now heard all my neighbour's
history" from the "housekeeper" [Nelly Dean], and judges her
"on the whole, a very fair narrator" in her "style" (120).
Ch.
15 ( WH Ch. XV, pp. 120 - 126)
[Narrative
Past, narrated by Nelly Dean]
As arranged by Nelly Dean, Heathcliff has his
last meeting with Catherine before she dies. Passionate & telling
words are spoken (see Key Scene below), during which Nelly Dean grows
increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, Edgar approaches, but Cathy won’t
let loose her grasp on Heathcliff, and Edgar finds them together.
Catherine faints away, Heathcliff entreats Edgar to look after Cathy, and
"in his anxiety for her" (126), Edgar does. Before Heathcliff
leaves, however, he vows to stay in the garden overnight and wait to hear from
Nelly how Catherine has passed the night.
KEY SCENE: Ch. 15
[Ch. XV]: Heathcliff’s last meeting with Catherine alive: “Oh,
Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear
it? . . .” (122). Catherine responds:
“ . . . You and Edgar have both broken my heart, Heathcliff! . . .” (122). She continues, bitterly: “ . . . Why shouldn’t you
suffer? I do! . . . ” (123). Heathcliff: "Are you possessed with a
devil....Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and
eating deeper eternally, after you have left me?...Is it not sufficient for your
infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments
of hell?" (123). Catherine:
“. . . I shall not be at peace...” (123). Heathcliff: “Why
did you betray your own heart, Cathy?..." (124).
Catherine: “. . . I
forgive you. Forgive me!" Heathcliff: "Kiss
me again....I forgive what you have done to me. I love my
murderer--but yours! How can I?" (125).
Catherine will not let Heathcliff leave, though Edgar approaches and
confrontation is imminent; Nelly is "horrified" (126).
Chs.
16 - 24
( WH Ch. XVI - XXIV, pp. 127 - 194 )
[Narrative Past,
narrated by Nelly Dean]
Young Cathy is born, the child of Edgar and
Catherine, and Catherine dies in childbirth. Heathcliff’s reaction is
savage, tormented: “May she wake in torment!….I cannot live without
my life! I cannot live
without my soul!” (129). Nelly
Dean entwines locks of Heathcliff’s and Edgar’s hair and (re)places them in
dead Catherine’s locket before she is buried (130).
A storm breaks the next day. Hindley
and Isabella’s murder attempt on Heathcliff’s life fails. Isabella escapes Wuthering Heights, goes south [to London],
and bears their son [Linton Heathcliff] (141).
Hindley dies 6 months after his sister Catherine dies (142).
Heathcliff is now the outright legal master of Wuthering Heights, and he
extends his revenge plot against the next generation:
to Hindley’s son Hareton, Heathcliff says:
“Now . . . you are mine! Andwe’ll
see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, given the same wind to twist
it!” (144).
Twelve years pass (145).
The character young Cathy is introduced.
She begins to long to visit Penistone Crags, which she can see through
her nursery windows, and she gets her chance when her father Edgar goes to
London to attend his dying sister Isabella (147).
While he is away, young Cathy visits Wuthering Heights.
She encounters her cousin Hareton Earnshaw and they wound each other’s
pride (152). Edgar returns with his
nephew Linton Heathcliff, but Heathcliff asserts his claim to his son, “my
property” (159). Heathcliff still pursues his revenge plot against Edgar
Linton: wanting to make his
descendent lord of Thrushcross Grange (160), Heathcliff plots to get young Cathy
to marry his son Linton. Meanwhile,
Linton Heathcliff’s abusive treatment of his cousin Hareton Earnshaw is
depicted. Direct and inverted
parallels suggest themselves between the first and second generations of the
Earnshaw-Linton-Heathcliff characters. Nelly
and Edgar try to warn young Cathy of Heathcliff’s true character, but she
still wants to get to know her cousin Linton Heathcliff better (169-170).
Their secret “love” correspondence is stopped, but during her
chaperon Nelly Dean’s illness, young Cathy visits Linton at Wuthering Heights.
Nelly tells on Cathy, and her father Edgar forbids further visits (194).
Ch.
25 ( WH Ch. XXV, pp. 194 - 197)
[Return
to Narrative Present]
“These
things happened last winter,” Nelly tells Lockwood (194).
Lockwood
vows to leave the district for “the busy world” beyond (195), though
he is a bit attracted to young Cathy Linton.
Chs.
25-30 ( WH
Ch. XXV - XXX, pp. 194 - 226)[Narrative
Past, narrated by Nelly Dean]
Edgar
relents and allows Cathy and Linton’s correspondence to resume.
Both Edgar and Linton are very ill, though Linton’s state is kept
secret. Cathy rides to meet Linton
on the heath, and she doubts his professed feelings for her, but Linton is
desperate because of his father’s threats.
Heathcliff lures Cathy and Nelly Dean back to Wuthering Heights with
Linton, and takes them prisoner. Heathcliff’s
final revenge plot nears fruition, when he forces Cathy to marry Linton.
Cathy is anguished at being kept from her dying father Edgar.
Nelly is released, and Cathy escapes and manages to see her father Edgar
before he dies. Edgar is unable to
change his will in time, for his lawyer has been bought off by Heathcliff.
Edgar dies, and Cathy, now married to Linton, is ordered to return to
Wuthering Heights. Having a “strong faith in ghosts,” Heathcliff reveals to
Nelly that he has unearthed Catherine in her grave, felt her “presence,” and
is now “pacified—a little” (219-220).
Heathcliff takes elder Catherine’s portrait from Thrushcross Grange,
forces young Catherine to return to Wuthering Heights, and makes Nelly stay at
the Grange.
Nelly,
our primary narrator, now must rely upon the reports of Zillah, the housekeeper
at Wuthering Heights, for news of young Cathy’s life. Nelly calls Zillah “a narrow-minded, selfish woman”
because Zillah dislikes young Cathy (221)—an ironic parallel to her own
attitude toward the original Cathy. Linton
dies: “He’s safe and I’m free,” young Cathy proclaims (223).
Yet Heathcliff’s second revenge plot seems fulfilled:
he is now master of Thrushcross Grange and young Cathy, “destitute of
cash and friends” (223), is his dependent.
Zillah tries to help Hareton smarten up (note parallels to Nelly’s
relationship to young Heathcliff in earlier years), but young Cathy scorns her
cousin . . . at first.
Ch.
30-31 ( WH
Ch. XXX-XXXI, pp. 226-231)
[Return
to Narrative Present]:
“Thus
ended Mrs. Dean’s story” (226).
Lockwood,
recovered, plans to quit the Grange and return to London, and he visits his
landlord Heathcliff to tell his plans.
Ch.
32-34 ( WH Ch. XXXII-XXXIV, pp. 231-256)
[Narrative Present & immediate past]
Some
time passes. In September 1802
(231), Lockwood returns to Yorkshire and finds Nelly Dean now residing
Wuthering Heights, Cathy and Hareton in love (Cathy teaching Hareton to read
& the two wandering the moors, paralleling the original Cathy and Heathcliff
in their youth)--and Heathcliff dead. Nelly provides
Lockwood with the “sequel of Heathcliff’s history” (235).
The
growing affection between young Cathy and Hareton is described:
Nelly confides to Lockwood: “The crown of all my wishes will be the
union of those two…” (240).
KEY
SCENES (Chs.
33-34):
Heathcliff’s
reaction to the growing intimacy between Cathy Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw
is quite different: an “absurd termination to my violent exertions”
(244)—i.e. an ironic conclusion to his revenge plots.
Heathcliff is “disarmed” by Hareton Earnshaw’s “resemblance” to
the original Catherine, and sees her eyes in both young Cathy and Hareton (244). Heathcliff has lost his desire to “revenge” himself on
his “old enemies” through their young “representatives” (245). He sees in Hareton “a personification of my youth” (245).
Heathcliff: “…I am
surrounded by her image” (245), and he foretells a strange “change,” the
attainment of his “single wish” is at hand (245-246).
It
is April—spring—and Heathcliff suddenly appears “very much excited,
and wild and glad!” Cathy reports to Nelly (247).
When Nelly investigates, she is terrified by Heathcliff’s aspect:
he seems to her a “goblin,” “a ghoul, a vampire” (249, 250).
Nelly reflects on his life: “But
where did he come from, the dark little thing, harboured by a good man to his
bane?” (250). Dawn restores her
“common sense” (250), but at breakfast, Heathcliff will not eat, gazing
“at something” that brings him “both pleasure and pain, in exquisite
extremes” (251), and that only he can see.
At 4:00 in the morning, in a distracted state, Heathcliff calls Nelly to
him, talks of his will and burial wishes, and his strange happiness (252-253).
He “repent[s] of nothing” and declares himself close to
attaining “my heaven” (252, 253).
Heathcliff is haunted: “Well,
there is one who won’t shrink from my company! By God! she’s
relentless” (253). The next
morning, Heathcliff is found “dead and stark” in his bed—though his eyes
“keen and fierce” meet Nelly’s and “he seemed to smile” (254). though Joseph refuses “to meddle with him,” proclaims that
“Th’ divil’s harried off his soul,” and gives thanks that the “lawful
master and the ancient stock were restored to their rights” (254).
Heathcliff is buried as he wished—“to the scandal of the whole
neighbourhood”—next to Catherine in the churchyard, and Hareton grieves for
Heathcliff’s death (255). Country
folk swear that the ghosts of Heathcliff and “a woman” walk (255).
Hareton and Cathy are to marry on New Year’s Day and move to
Thrushcross Grange.
Ch.
34 (Ch. XXXIV)
- [Narrative Present & Conclusion; narrated by Lockwood]
Lockwood
visits the Kirk (church) and the graves of Edgar, Catherine, and Heathcliff. In the closing lines “under that benign sky,”
Lockwood “wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the
sleepers in that quiet earth” (256).
Reading & Discussion
Questions: Wuthering
Heights
1.
What
sort of person is Lockwood? How
does his own character and experiences—for example, his illness--seem to color
his account of events in Wuthering Heights?
2.
Characterize
Nelly Dean. Do you think that she
ever misrepresents, and perhaps omits, information in her account?
Does she cause any significant events to happen?
Is Dean a reliable narrator? Why do you think Bronte chose/created this
kind of character to narrate the story of Wuthering Heights?
3.
What
do you think is the purpose of having two narrators—Lockwood and Dean—in the
novel Wuthering Heights, structuring its “narrative frame”?
4.
How
do Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange differ as physical places?
Do you see any parallels or similarities between them, or would you
characterize these two settings as complete opposites? What do these
differences and/or similarities suggest about their symbolic roles in the novel?
5.
What
mysteries are there about Heathcliff and his origins? What possible explanations might there be for Mr.
Earnshaw’s fondness for Heathcliff? What
attracts Catherine to Heathcliff? And
why does Hindley hate him? Describe
Heathcliff’s relationships with Hindley and, later, Hareton.
6.
Does
Wuthering Heights seem to be mainly Catherine’s story or Heathcliff’s?
Or would you argue that the novel has two protagonists?
Do you sympathize with either or both or neither of these characters?
Explain why. What key motives and desires seem to drive these two
characters? What key event(s) seem
to fix their course--toward destruction? toward redemption?
7.
Many
critics view Catherine and/or Heathcliff as a “Byronic hero”—that is, like
the heroes in the poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), a celebrated
and notorious English Romantic poet. The
typical Byronic hero is contemptuous and rebellious against conventional
morality and/or defies fate; is proud, moody, cynical, with defiance and misery
on his brow—usually a secret misery; he is passionate, capable of strong and
deep affection, but implacable in revenge.
Do you think this description fits the character of Catherine and/or
Heathcliff? Can a female character
be a Byronic hero?
8.
Why
does Catherine marry Edgar Linton? What
do you think of Catherine’s explanation to Nelly Dean?
Catherine explains to Nelly Dean that her feelings for Linton and
Heathcliff are different: how are her feelings for these two men different?
Does her explanation suggest that Catherine knows she will be making a
mistake in marrying Linton?
9.
Analyze
the characters of Edgar and Isabella Linton.
Why do you think that Edgar wants to marry Catherine?
Why does Isabella marry Heathcliff?
Why does Heathcliff marry Isabella?
10. Some
critics consider Catherine a Romantic Faustian character--a female version of
the Romantic quest to overcome self-division.
Do you consider Catherine a divided soul, conflicted within herself?
What are Catherine’s divisions and conflicts?
What destructive choices does Catherine make?
Does she make any constructive choices?
11. What
are some of the “Realistic” aspects of the novel?
For one small example, consider the character Joseph. He is a difficult character in the novel--difficult to get
along with and difficult for many readers to understand because of his dialect
difficult. What is his function in
the novel? What would be missing if
he were left out?
12. Wuthering
Heights
covers a long period of time and three generations of the families involved. How does Bronte try to unify and intertwine these stories?
What are the roles of Hareton and young Cathy, who carry the
“history” of the Earnshaws and Lintons into a third generation?
Compare/contrast the younger couple to Heathcliff and the original Cathy. What are the similarities?
What are the differences? Compare
Catherine and Heathcliff’s end to that of Hareton and young Cathy.
Does the apparent happiness of the latter couple seem to redeem the
excesses of the original pair? Do
you think that the novel would have been more or less effective if it had
stopped with the story of Catherine and Heathcliff’s generation?
Why?
WWW LINKS
The Brontė Birthplace (Brontė
Birthplace Trust Association [BBTA],
U.K., formed in 1999):
http://www.brontebirthplace.org.uk/
Masterpiece Theatre (PBS Online):
Wuthering Heights (aired
1999)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/archive/programs/wuthering/index.html
...Emily Bronte
- 19th Century Women Writers, by Abby Wolf (Lecturer
in the History and Literature program and in Women's Studies,
Harvard Univ.)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/wives/writers/bronte.html
...19th Century Women Writers: Introduction,
by Abby Wolf (Lecturer
in the History and Literature program and in Women's Studies,
Harvard Univ.):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/wives/writers_text.html
Masterpiece Theatre (PBS Online): Wives
and Daughters (aired April 2001)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/wives/index.html
"Elizabeth Gaskell's enchanting tale of romance, scandal, and intrigue in a
gossipy English town comes to ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre in a lavish
four-part production of Wives and Daughters, adapted by celebrated
screenwriter Andrew Davies."
...English
Society Illustrated
[early Victorian age]:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/wives/society.html
...Novel
to Film:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/wives/ntof.html
Romanticism and Realism
- ENG 103 Lecture Notes, by Cora Agatucci (Central Oregon Community
College), Spring 2001:
http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/Literature/Rom_Real.htm
Victorian Web Sites, by Mitsuharu
Matsuoka (Faculty of Language and Culture, Nagoya Univ., Japan):
http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/Victorian.html
Mitsuharu Matsuoka's Web sites (dating from 1995) include 19th-Century
British Authors, The Dickens Page, The Gaskell Web, Gissing in Cyberspace and
the Brontė Sisters Web, and are highly regarded by
the international academic community for the abundant information and resources
his sites offer.
...Brontė Sisters Web, by
Mitsuharu Matsuoka
http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/Bronte.html
...Emily
Brontė (1818-48):
http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/BS-Emily.html
...Wuthering Heights E-text
http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/Bronte-Wuthering.html
Victoria Research Web (maintained
by Patrick Leary, History Dept., Indiana Univ.-Bloomington):
http://www.indiana.edu/~victoria/vwcont.html
The Victorian Web: Literature, History, &
Culture in the Victorian Age
(George Landow, Prof.
of English and Art History, Brown Univ.)
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/victov.html
...Emily
Brontė: An Overview
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/bronte/ebronte/ebronteov.html
Victorian Women Writers' Project (Perry
Willett, General Editor, Indiana Univ.):
http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/
BOOKS
Bloom, Harold, ed. The Brontes.
Modern Critical Views, Vol. 8. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. [COCC Library: PR4169.B76
1987: Includes "Charlotte and Emily Brontė,"
by Raymond Williams; "A Baby God: The Creative Dynamism of Emily
Brontė's Poetry," by Rosalind Miles; "Repression and Sublimation of
Nature in Wuthering Heights," by Margaret Homans; "Wuthering
Heights: Repetition and the 'Uncanny,'" by J. Hillis Miller; and a
Bronte "Chronology."]
---,
ed. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Modern
Critical Interpretations, Vol. 8. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
[COCC Library: PR4172.W73 E45
1987: Includes eight critical essays on Wuthering Heights,
arranged in chronological order of publication.]
Bronte, Charlotte, Emily Bronte, and Anne Bronte. Poems
by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. London: Aylott & James, 1846;
Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1848.
Cecil, David. Early Victorian
Novelists: Essay in Revaluation. London: Constable, 1934. [COCC
Library: PR873.C4 1934 Prefatory Note: "These essays are derived from a series of
lectures on the Victorian novel delivered at Oxford two or three years
ago"; includes Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights.]
Chitham, Edward. The Birth of Wuthering
Heights: Emily Bronte at Work. Houndsmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire, UK: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
[COCC Library: PR4172.W73 C48 1998]
Chitham, Edward, and Tom Winnifrith.
Bronte
Facts and Bronte Problems. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities
Press, 1983.
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. The Life of Charlotte
Bronte. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder, 1857.
Gerin, Winifred. Emily Bronte: A
Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. [COCC
Library: PR4173.G4]
Gregor, Ian. The Brontes: A
Collection of Critical Essays. A Spectrum Book: Twentieth
Century Views. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970.
[COCC Library:
PR4169.G7 Includes "The Structure of Wuthering Heights,"
by C. P. Sanger; "The Brontės: A Centennial Observance," by R. Chase;
"The Image of the Book in Wuthering Heights," by R. C. McKibben;
"Charlotte Brontė as a Critic of Wuthering Heights," by P.
Drew; "Control of Sympathy in Wuthering Heights," by J.
Hagan; "The Place of Love in Jane Eyre and Wuthering
Heights," by M. Kinkead-Weekes; "The Other Emily,"
by D. Donoghue; and a Selected bibliography (pp. 177-179).]
Hanson, Lawrence, and Elisabeth Hanson.
The
Four Brontes: The Lives and Works of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne
Bronte. 1949. Rpt. Hamden, CN: Archon Books, 1967. [COCC
Library: PR4168.H25 1967]
Hatfield, C. W., ed. The Complete Poems of Emily
Jane Bronte. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1941; London: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1941.
Hewish, John. Emily Bronte: A
Critical and Biographical Study. London: Macmillan; New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1969. [COCC
Library: PR4173.H4 1969]
Knoepflmacher, U.C. Wuthering Heights:
A
Study. 1989. Rpt. Athens: Ohio Univ. Press, 1994. [COCC
Library: PR4172 .S73 K58 1994]
Leeming, Glenda. Who's Who in Jane
Austen and the Brontes. New York: Taplinger, 1974. [COCC
Library: PR4037 .L4 1974]
Miller, J. Hillis. The Disappearance of God: Five
Nineteenth-Century Writers. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1963.
O'Neill, Judith, ed. Critics on
Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Readings in Literary Criticism, Vol. 2. Coral Gables, FL: Univ. of Miami Press, 1968. [COCC
Library: PR4169.O5 1968b]
Paden, W. D. An Investigation of Gondal.
New York: Bookman, 1958.
Pinion, F. B. A Bronte Companion. London:
Macmillan, 1975.
Ratchford, Fannie E. The Brontes' Web of Childhood.
New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1941.
---. Gondal's Queen: A Novel in Verse.
Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1955.
Stevenson, W. H. Emily and Anne
Bronte. Profiles in Literature Series. New York: Humanities
Press, 1968. [COCC Library: PR4168.S67
1968b]
Vogler, Thomas A. Twentieth Century
Interpretations of Wuthering Heights. A Spectrum Book:
Twentieth Century Interpretations, Vol. 6. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1968. [COCC
Library: PR4172.W73 V6]
Winnifrith, Tom, and Edward Chitham.
Charlotte
and Emily Bronte. Literary Lives, Vol. 6. New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1989. [COCC
Library: PR4168.W544 1989]
Yablon, Anthony C., and John R. Turner. A
Bronte Bibliography. London: Hodgins, 1978.
JOURNAL
ARTICLES
Baldwin, Dean.
Rev. of A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Bronte, by Katherine
Frank. Magill Book Reviews. EBSCOHost
Academic Search Elite, Article No. 9104159030 . [Full text
available]
Abstract: "A reinterpretation of the life of Emily Bronte,
emphasizing her strong will, passion for privacy, and need to control her own
destiny."
Berry, Laura C. "Acts of Custody and Incarceration
in Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall." Novel:
A Forum on Fiction 30.1 (Fall 1996): 32 (24pp). EBSCOHost
Academic Search Elite, Article No. 1445321. [Full text
available]
Abstract: "Examines the subject of child custody found in the
novels Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and The Tenant of Wildfell
Hall, by Anne Bronte. Relationship between imprisonment and
caretaking in debates over the Infant Custody Bill of 1839 in Great Britain;
Child custody in the plots of the novels; Debunking of discipline in The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall."
Bick, Suzann. Rev. of A Chainless Soul: A Life of
Emily Bronte, by Katherine Frank. Antioch Review 49.3 (Summer
1991): 464. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, Article No. 9604022496.
[Full text available]
Cole, David. W. ""The Fate of
Milo' and the Moral Vision of Wuthering Heights." ANQ 11.2
(Spring 1998): 23 (7pp). EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite,
Article No. 470329. [Full text available]
Abstract: "Focuses on the moral concern of the book Wuthering
Heights by Emily Bronte. Discussion on the personality of Milo who was
mentioned in the book; The book's concern with wholesome practicality."
"Daughters of Ambition." Psychology Today
25.2 (March 1992): 11. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite,
Article No. 9203232251.
Abstract: "Praises several
famous women and considers the high cost of their achievements. Chemist Marie
Curie; Poet Emily Dickinson; Queen Elizabeth; Virginia Woolf; Emily
Bronte; What they have in common; Body image problems; Breaking out of
traditional gender roles; Eating disorders."
Field, Frank. "Reviews and Short Notices: Late
Modern." [Rev. of The Romantic Movement, by Maurice
Cranston.] History 81.262 (April 1996): 278 (2pp). EBSCOHost
Academic Search Elite, Article No. 9606210588. [Full text
available]
Abstract: "Reviews the book The Romantic Movement, by Maurice
Cranston. Cost of the book; Name of the publisher and the year the book was
published; Background information on Maurice Cranston; Discussion on early
Romantics; Examination of Romanticism in England, Germany, France, Spain and
Italy; Perceptions of Cranston on Emily Bronte."
Gezari, Janet. "Fathoming
'Remembrance': Emily Bronte in Context." ELH 66.4 (Winter 1999): 965
(20pp). EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite,
Article No. 2649084. [Full text available]
Abstract: "Comments on the use of `Remembrance' as title of
the poem by Emily Bronte. Usage of the word as title
of published poems by several poets in 1846; Distinction between remembrance and
recollection; Assumption of poem speaker as a female; Illustration of indicative
and imperative mood in the opening lines."
"Jane Campion on Her Gothic Film The
Piano." [Cover Story] Sight & Sound 3.10 (Oct. 1993):
6. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, Article No.
9405060382.
Abstract: "Presents writer-director Jane Campion's views on her
gothic film `The Piano.' Comparison of the kind of romance portrayed by writer Emily
Bronte in the book Wuthering Heights; Exploration of the power of
eroticism; Involvement in bodyscape; Attitude toward writing characters without
a twentieth-century sensibility about sex; Presence of romantic impulse."
Lamonica, Drew. "Confounded
Commas: Confusion in an Interpretation of Heathcliff." Notes
& Queries 44.3 (Sept. 1997): 336. EBSCOHost
Academic Search Elite, Article No. 9710113101
[Full text available] Abstract: "Reviews the book Wuthering
Heights (1847), by Emily Bronte."
Mills, Pamela. "Wyler's Version of Bronte's Storms
in Wuthering Heights." Literature Film Quarterly 24.4 (1996):
414 (9pp). EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, Article
No. 9702271968. [Full text available]
Abstract: "Evaluates the motion picture Wuthering Heights,
a novel by Emily Bronte, as directed by William Wyler. Alterations made to the
novel; Description of the characters; Plot; Conflicts in the story; Focus on
interrelationships of the characters."
O'Keefe, John. "The Moor the Merrier." American
Theatre 17.3 (March 2000): 9. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite,
Article No. 2857099. [Full text available]
Abstract: "Focuses on writer John O'Keefe hiking across the moors
in Yorkshire, England. Stomping grounds of Emily Bronte and her sisters;
Versions of the Bronte story; O'Keefe's own autobiographical shows."
Simpson, D. "Recent Studies in the Nineteenth
Century." Studies in English Literature 30.4 (Fall 1990): 715
(24pp). EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, Article No. 9103041183.
[Full text available]
Abstract: "Reviews recent studies in the nineteenth century,
including Macmillan's Literary Lives, Cedric Watt's Joseph Conrad,
Michael O'Neill's Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edward Chitham's Charlotte and
Emily Bronte, Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from
Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, and more."
Steinitz, Rebecca. "Diaries and Displacement in Wuthering
Heights." Studies in the Novel 32.4 (Winter 2000):
407(13pp). EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, Article Number: 4145443.
[Full text available]
Abstract: "Focuses on the diaries of two characters in the novel
'Wuthering Heights,' and the diary of its author Emily Bronte. Characteristics
of the diurnal form; Differences between the diaries of the characters Catherine
and Lockwood; How the themes of temporality and space are reflected in all three
diaries; Suggestion that Bronte works specifically with the
material significance of the diurnal genre and its role in the anxiety of place."
Von Sneidern, Maja-Lisa. "Wuthering Heights
and the Liverpool Slave Trade." ELH 62.1 (Spring 1995): 171
(26pp). EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, Article Number: 9503224517.
Abstract: "Deals with the treatment of institutionalized slavery
in the novel Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. Development of
Anglo-Saxon mythic identity and its mystification of race; Effect of the
economic nature of slavery on the concept of commodity fetishism in Marxism;
Dismantling of the myth of racial superiority; Character analysis of Linton
Heathcliff."