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Art of Emily Bronte
Essays offer interpretations of various aspects of Emily Bronte's poetry and her masterwork Wuthering Heights
248 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1980
About the author
Anne Smith
192 books2 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 30, 2018
‘And our chief regret is, of course, that it was Anne, and not Emily who accompanied Charlotte to London.’
Well, doesn’t that just set the stage for a disparate collection of dry, cryptic, supercilious and mildly sexist essays.
As Paglia said, ‘Criticism at its best is re-creative, not spirit-killing’. I believe that good criticism should be unbiased, clear-sighted, illuminating and passionate. With the notable exception of Barbara Hardy’s ‘The Lyricism of Emily Brontë’, not one of these essays sustains such an approach. The contributors are frequently sanctimonious and it’s clear in many cases that there is no genuine love nor even a twitch of appreciation for Brontë’s work. She is instead regularly labelled as ‘complacent’ (an argument which is often specious since the justifications are inarticulate or simply non-existent) whilst the critics go to great lengths to belittle her works rather than champion the accomplished elements. The essays frequently skew into lengthy and irrelevant discussions of works by other writers, as well as fanciful comparisons to Dickinson for no other apparent reason than that she and Brontë share a Christian name. In short, these essays offer no enlightening or fresh approach to a very well-analysed writer.
There is such snobbery surrounding Wuthering Heights. Critics are determined to solve it, pin down the enigma. (Although thankfully Barbara Hardy explains how the power of the novel lies in its reticence.) Such snobbery is perfectly embodied by Colin Wilson’s ‘A Personal Response’. Now, I don’t want to make this personal, but this dude certainly reads like a Class A fuckwit. Not only is he sexist and antiquated in his arguments (he even has the audacity to suggest that the target audience for Wuthering Heights is bored housewives. He, of course, doesn’t like the novel) his haughty and disdainful outlook saturates, and compromises, his contribution.
‘In between 1948 and 1975, I have written a dozen novels myself, which at least places me in a good position to appreciate literary skill.’
Sorry, mate, but your crappy essay belies that assertion.
Other crackers include: ‘In the novels of Anne and Charlotte, there is the predictable element of wish-fulfillment that you might expect in novels by intelligent but inexperienced young ladies’ and ‘They liked dominant males - unsentimental men who would make love violently.’
Phwoah, sign me up.
Well, doesn’t that just set the stage for a disparate collection of dry, cryptic, supercilious and mildly sexist essays.
As Paglia said, ‘Criticism at its best is re-creative, not spirit-killing’. I believe that good criticism should be unbiased, clear-sighted, illuminating and passionate. With the notable exception of Barbara Hardy’s ‘The Lyricism of Emily Brontë’, not one of these essays sustains such an approach. The contributors are frequently sanctimonious and it’s clear in many cases that there is no genuine love nor even a twitch of appreciation for Brontë’s work. She is instead regularly labelled as ‘complacent’ (an argument which is often specious since the justifications are inarticulate or simply non-existent) whilst the critics go to great lengths to belittle her works rather than champion the accomplished elements. The essays frequently skew into lengthy and irrelevant discussions of works by other writers, as well as fanciful comparisons to Dickinson for no other apparent reason than that she and Brontë share a Christian name. In short, these essays offer no enlightening or fresh approach to a very well-analysed writer.
There is such snobbery surrounding Wuthering Heights. Critics are determined to solve it, pin down the enigma. (Although thankfully Barbara Hardy explains how the power of the novel lies in its reticence.) Such snobbery is perfectly embodied by Colin Wilson’s ‘A Personal Response’. Now, I don’t want to make this personal, but this dude certainly reads like a Class A fuckwit. Not only is he sexist and antiquated in his arguments (he even has the audacity to suggest that the target audience for Wuthering Heights is bored housewives. He, of course, doesn’t like the novel) his haughty and disdainful outlook saturates, and compromises, his contribution.
‘In between 1948 and 1975, I have written a dozen novels myself, which at least places me in a good position to appreciate literary skill.’
Sorry, mate, but your crappy essay belies that assertion.
Other crackers include: ‘In the novels of Anne and Charlotte, there is the predictable element of wish-fulfillment that you might expect in novels by intelligent but inexperienced young ladies’ and ‘They liked dominant males - unsentimental men who would make love violently.’
Phwoah, sign me up.
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January 26, 2024Not for me. I tried reading the introduction and the first chapter and both were too dense and required intimate and deep knowledge of Emily Bronte's works (which I don't have). I'm not a fan of literary analysis to begin with - only the author knows their intent and how much of what they achieved was deliberate/due to skill / craft and how much was accidental / the words just happened to fall from the pen that way - but don't mind reading more accessible literary analysis books; this one, requiring deep knowledge of the author, her work, and literary craft on the part of the reader, just wasn't my cup of tea.
September 17, 2021
Wonderful essays on Emily's poetry and prose- all illuminating, all insightful. Recommended for anyone who loves her work.
November 10, 2023
Anthology of essays - three on poetry & five on Wuthering Heights
February 4, 2014
This anthology contains 5 essays (as well as Anne Smith's introduction) focussing Wuthering Heights. I owe my liking for Wuthering Heights to the light that this collection of essays shed on the hard-to-appreciate novel.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews