Università di Roma “Tor Vergata” Letteratura Inglese I Prof. Elisabetta Marino [email protected]Historical Background (Columbia Encyclopaedia) Queen Anne 1665–1714, queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1702–7), later queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1707–14), daughter of James II and Anne Hyde; successor to William III and Mary. Reared as a Protestant and married (1683) to Prince George of Denmark (d. 1708), she was not close to her Catholic father and acquiesced in the Glorious Revolution (1688), which put William III and her sister, Mary II, on the throne. Since neither she nor William had surviving children and support for her exiled Catholic half brother rose and fell in Great Britain, the question of succession continued after the Act of Settlement and after Anne’s accession. The last Stuart ruler, Anne was the first to rule over Great Britain, which was created when the Act of Union joined Scotland to England and Wales in 1707. Domestic and foreign affairs alike were dominated by the War of the Spanish Succession, known in America as Queen Anne’s War. Anno accademico 2010/11 1 The Act of Settlement (1701), passed by the English Parliament, aimed at providing that if William III and Princess Anne (later Queen Anne) should die without heirs, the succession to the throne should pass to Sophia, electress of Hanover, granddaughter of
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Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”Letteratura Inglese IProf. Elisabetta Marino
1665–1714, queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1702–7), later queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1707–14), daughter of James II and Anne Hyde; successor to William III and Mary.
Reared as a Protestant and married (1683) to Prince George of Denmark (d. 1708), she was not close to her Catholic father and acquiesced in the Glorious Revolution (1688), which put William III and her sister, Mary II, on the throne.
Since neither she nor William had surviving children and support for her exiled Catholic half
brother rose and fell in Great Britain, the question of succession continued after the Act of Settlement and after Anne’s accession.
The last Stuart ruler, Anne was the first to rule over Great Britain, which was created when the Act of Union joined Scotland to England and Wales in 1707.
Domestic and foreign affairs alike were dominated by the War of the Spanish Succession, known in America as Queen Anne’s War.
King George I
1660–1727, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27); son of Sophia, electress of Hanover, and great-grandson of James I. He became (1698) elector of Hanover, fought in the War of the Spanish Succession, and in 1714 succeeded Queen Anne under the provisions of the Act of Settlement, becoming the first British sovereign of the house of Hanover.
He was personally unpopular in England because of his German manners, his German mistresses, his treatment of his divorced wife, and his inability to speak English. George’s dual role as elector of Hanover and king of England also raised problems; he spent much of his time in Hanover and was widely (although unjustly) believed to be indifferent to English affairs.Anno accademico 2010/11 1
The Act of Settlement (1701), passed by the English Parliament, aimed at providing that if William III and Princess Anne (later Queen Anne) should die without heirs, the succession to the throne should pass to Sophia, electress of Hanover, granddaughter of James I, and to her heirs, if they were Protestants. The house of Hanover, which ruled Great Britain from 1714, owed its claim to this act.
George’s succession brought the Whigs to power, and the early years of his reign saw constant maneuvering for power among his ministers (the most important was Robert Walpole). Robert Walpole dominated the end of the reign, beginning his long tenure as virtual prime minister. George was succeeded by his son, George II.
King George II
1683–1760. Though devoted to Hanover, of which he was elector, George (1727-1760) was more active in the English government than his father had been. The early part of his reign was peaceful and notably prosperous. However, just as George had quarreled with his father over personal matters, so his son, Frederick Louis (1707-1751), prince of Wales, was strongly at odds with the king. The principal ministers after the fall of Walpole were Henry Pelham, his brother, Thomas Pelham-Holles, and William Pitt.
King George III
1738–1820, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1760–1820); son of Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, and grandson of George II, whom he succeeded. He was also elector (and later king) of Hanover, but he never visited it.
Early ReignGeorge was not very intelligent and could not read until he was eleven. However, his tutors praised him for the amount of effort he was willing to put into solving his academic problems. After his father’s early death (1751), young George was educated for his future role as king by his domineering mother, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. He succeeded to the throne at the age of 22 and earnestly set himself to cleanse politics of corruption and to curb the arrogance of the aristocratic Whig leaders, who he believed had weakened the royal powers. Political instability marked the first 10 years of the reign, for the king’s lack of faith in most of the available ministers and increasing factionalism led to a rapid turnover of ministries and inconsistency of policy.
Ministries of North and the Younger PittOnly in 1770 did George find in Frederick, Lord North, a chief minister who was able to manage Parliament and willing to follow royal leadership. Although North achieved financial consolidation at home and imposed closer government control over the East India Company by the Regulating Act (1773), his 12-year ministry is remembered chiefly for his policy of coercion against the American colonists that led finally to the American Revolution. This policy of course reflected the views of the king, whose refusal to accept the loss of the colonies prolonged the war. Opposition in Parliament to what was regarded as increasing royal influence finally forced George to accept the resignation (1782) of North and the formation of ministries first by Lord Rockingham and then by the earl of Shelburne, who concluded the Treaty of Paris – Versailles - (1783), granting independence to the United States.
Another important minister was the younger William Pitt. Despite the furious reaction to the king’s actions among Whigs, Pitt won control of Parliament in the 1784 election and was to retain power until 1801 and then hold it again from 1804 to 1806.
After Pitt’s appointment George retired from active participation in government. Pitt was able to improve trade, reform the governments of Canada (1791 Canada Act) and India (1784 India Act), and unite the kingdoms of Ireland and England (in 1800 the Irish Parliament ceased to exist, and Ireland was given representation in the British Parliament). He also managed the wars with France.
England in the Reign of George IIIBefore George died in 1820 the fabric of English life had been vastly altered from the stable society of 1760. Despite the loss of the American colonies there had been a great expansion of empire and trade, and the ground for further expansion had been laid by the explorations of James Cook. At home, the population almost doubled, improved agricultural methods increased productivity, and advances in technology and transportation marked the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Social reform, although much discussed, made little headway, and all attempts to effect an extension of the suffrage or a redistribution of parliamentary representation failed. Through all these developments George patronized the arts, especially portraiture, and founded the Royal Academy of Arts.
Anno accademico 2010/11 3
The Regulating Act said that:
the East India Company had to appoint an official to be Governor-General of all the districts controlled by the Company
the British government would appoint a council of four men to advise and control the Governor-General.
British judges were to be sent to India to administer the British legal system which was used there.
Later Life and CharacterGeorge, who had suffered a short nervous breakdown in 1765 and a more serious one in 1788–89 (which caused a fierce conflict between Pitt and Fox over the powers to be vested in the regency), became permanently insane in 1810. It has been suggested that he was a victim of the hereditary disease porphyria. He spent the rest of his life in the care of his devoted wife, Charlotte Sophia, whom he had married in 1761, and the prince of Wales (later George IV) was made regent (Regency). Unlike the first two Georges, George III had a tranquil domestic life, although scandal touched his brothers and sons. George was an honest and well-intentioned man, but his stubbornness and limited intellectual power confounded his efforts to rule well and made him a somewhat tragic figure.
Anno accademico 2010/11 4
The Royal Academy of Arts
• The Royal Academy was founded in 1768 by a group of leading artists and under the patronage of George III. However, the Academy did not receive any state subsidies and was very much under the control of the artists.
• The Academy's first president, Joshua Reynolds, established it as a school to train artists in drawing, painting, sculpture and architecture. They were supposed to “imitate” the great artists of the past.
• The first Academy was housed in Pall Mall (1768-1771) but moved to Somerset House (1771-1837) until the British government took over the rooms for office space. It shared premises with the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square until it moved to Burlington House in 1868.
George, the eldest son of George III, rebelled against his father's strict discipline. He soon became a womanizer, a gambler and a drinker. In an effort to persuade the Parliament to pay off his debts, George agreed to marry his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick. After the birth of a daughter, Princess Charlotte, on 7th January 1796, the couple lived apart.After the death of George III, Queen Caroline appeared at George's coronation as George IV but she was turned away from the doors of Westminster Abbey. George's indulgent lifestyle seriously damaged his health. By the 1820s he was extremely overweight and was addicted to both alcohol and laudanum. George IV also began showing signs of insanity. The king became more and more a recluse at Windsor Castle and eventually died in 1830.
Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”Letteratura Inglese IProf. Elisabetta Marino
Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful: with an Introductory Discourse concerning Taste (published in its first form in 1756, and in its enlarged form in 1757) by Edmund Burke
Anno accademico 2010/11
“Fonthill Abbey” (1796-1813), costruita nel Wiltshire per William Beckford e “Beckford Tower”, alta torre costruita successivamente a Bath (1827).
ELEMENTS OF THE SUBLIMEASTONISHMENTThe passion caused by the great and sublime in nature is astonishment, and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. The mind is so entirely filled with its object that it cannot entertain any other, nor reason on that object which fills it.DARKNESSTo make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary, for a great deal of apprehension vanishes when we are able to see the full extent of any danger. (…) Darkness is more sublime than light.POWERSublimity includes, besides the idea of danger, the idea of power also. (…) Strength, violence, pain and terror are therefore ideas which occupy the mind together. The sublimity of wild animals is due to their power; and the power of princes is not unmixed with terror, so that we address them as 'dread majesty.'PRIVATIONSAll general privations are great, because they are all terrible--vacuity, darkness, solitude and silence.DIMENSIONSAgain, vastness, or greatness of dimension, is a powerful cause of the sublime; and of the three measures of extension, length strikes us least, and height is less grand than depth. The effects of a rugged, broken surface are stronger than those of a polished one. (…) The last extreme of littleness is sublime also, because division, as well as addition, is infinite. [Making reference to Milton’s descriptions] O'er many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous; O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp; Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death, A universe of death.PHYSICAL REACTION: TENSIONThe sense of the sublime, then, has its source in an unnatural tension of the nerves, such as is produced both by fear and by pain, and may even be aroused in some degree by mimicking the facial and bodily expressions of fear and pain.
ELEMENTS OF BEAUTIFULDIMENSIONSIn the first place, beautiful objects are small.SMOOTHNESSThe next property constantly observable in objects of love is smoothness; I can recollect nothing beautiful that is not smooth. Smooth leaves in trees, smooth slopes in gardens, smooth streams in the landscape, smooth coats of birds and beasts, smooth skins in fine women, and smooth surfaces in ornamental furniture.DELICACYFurther, an air of robustness and strength is very prejudicial to beauty; an appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to it.COLOURSOf the colours of beautiful objects we note that they must not be dusky or muddy, but clean and fair.PHYSICAL REACTION: RELAXATIONWhen we have before us objects of love and complacency the whole body is composed, and the hands fall idly to the sides; and all this is accompanied by an inward sense of languor. It is impossible not to conclude that beauty acts by relaxing the whole system.---------------A COMPARISONON closing this general view of beauty, it naturally occurs, that we should compare it with the sublime; and in this comparison there appears a remarkable contrast. For sublime objects are vast in their dimensions, beautiful ones comparatively small: beauty should be smooth and polished; the great, rugged and negligent; beauty should shun the right line, yet deviate from it insensibly; the great in many cases loves the right line, and when it deviates it often makes a strong deviation: beauty should not be obscure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy: beauty should be light and delicate; the great ought to be solid, and even massive. They are indeed ideas of a very different nature, one being founded on pain, the other on pleasure.
William Blake (1757-1827) from Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794)
When Britain first, at heaven's command,Arose from out the azure main;This was the charter of the land,And guardian Angels sung this strain:
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;Britons never will be slaves.
The nations, not so blest as thee,Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall:While thou shalt flourish great and free,The dread and envy of them all. […]
LondonI wander thro' each charter'd street,Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,And mark in every face I meetMarks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,In every Infant's cry of fear,In every voice, in every ban,The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper's cryEvery black'ning Church appalls;And the hapless Soldier's sighRuns in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro' midnight streets I hearHow the youthful Harlot's curseBlasts the new born Infant's tear,And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
Britannia was the original name given by the Romans to their newly conquered province.Britannia became a popular figure in 1707 when Scotland, Wales and England were finally united to form Great Britain. She was immortalised in 1740 when the poem “Rule Britannia” by James Thompson was put to music by Thomas Augustine Arne."Rule Britannia" became an unofficial national anthem
The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure. Readers accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will perhaps frequently have to struggle with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness: they will look round for poetry, and will be induced to enquire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be permitted to assume that title.
Lo STILE INNOVATIVO
Readers of superior judgment may disapprove of the style in which many of these pieces are executed it must be expected that many lines and phrases will not exactly suit their taste. It will perhaps appear to them, that wishing to avoid the prevalent fault of the day, the author has sometimes descended too low, and that many of his expressions are too familiar, and not of sufficient dignity.
RIFERIMENTO AMBIGUO A REYNOLDS
An accurate taste in poetry, and in all the other arts, Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed, is an acquired talent, which can only be produced by severe thought, and a long continued intercourse with the best models of composition. This is mentioned […] to suggest that if poetry be a subject on which much time has not been bestowed, the judgment may be erroneous, and that in many cases it necessarily will be so.
Frasi significative della Preface to LYRICAL BALLADS, 1800
Wordsworth si APPROPRIA del lavoro
For the sake of variety, and from a consciousness of my own weakness, I was induced to request the assistance of a Friend, who furnished me with the Poems of the ANCIENT MARINER, the FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE:, the NIGHTINGALE, and the Poem entitled LOVE. I should not, however, have requested this assistance, had I not believed that the Poems of my Friend would in a great measure have the same tendency as my own, and that, though there would be found a difference, there would be found no discordance in the colours of our style; as our opinions on the subject of poetry do almost entirely coincide.
Tratteggia un quadro della società contemporanea
For to treat the subject [the systematic defence of his theory] with the clearness and coherence […] it would be necessary to give a full account of the present state of the public taste in this country, and to determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved; which, again, could not be determined, without pointing out, in what manner language and the human mind act and re-act on each other and without retracing the revolutions, not of literature alone, but likewise of society itself.
LA TEORIA POETICA DI WORDSWORTH
The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate
ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately
contemplated, and more forcibly communicated [...] The language, too, of these men is adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects […]) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation.
[…]
For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: but though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man, who being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings.
La malattia della società
For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident.
Chi è il poeta?
Taking up the subject, then, upon general grounds, I ask what is meant by the word Poet? What is a Poet? To whom does he address himself? And what language is to be expected from him? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind.
Da WE ARE SEVEN (Lyrical Ballads) A simple child, dear brother Jim, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?
I met a little cottage Girl: She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head.
She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad: 10 Her eyes were fair, and very fair; --Her beauty made me glad.
"Sisters and brothers, little Maid, How many may you be?" "How many? Seven in all," she said And wondering looked at me.
"And where are they? I pray you tell." She answered, "Seven are we; And two of us at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea.
"Two of us in the church-yard lie, My sister and my brother; And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."
"You say that two at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea, Yet ye are seven!--I pray you tell, Sweet Maid, how this may be."
Then did the little Maid reply, "Seven boys and girls are we; 30 Two of us in the church-yard lie, Beneath the church-yard tree."
"You run about, my little Maid, Your limbs they are alive; If two are in the church-yard laid, Then ye are only five."
"Their graves are green, they may be seen," The little Maid replied, "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side. […]
Anno accademico 2010/11
Dalla Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff, by a Republican
[…] And this brings me to my grand objection to monarchy, which is drawn from THE ETERNAL NATURE OF MAN. The office of king is a trial to which human virtue is not equal. Pure and universal representation, by which alone liberty can be secured, cannot, I think, exist together with monarchy. It seems madness to expect a manifestation of the general will, at the same time that we allow to a particular will that weight which it must obtain in all governments that can with any propriety be called monarchical. They must war with each other till one of them is extinguished. It was so
But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy,France standing on the top of golden hours,
Upon Westminster Bridge(Poems in Two Volumes, 1807)
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty:This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky;All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will:Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822)NoteThe Catholic Question, which was agitated in Parliament about that time, kept my thoughts in the same course; and it struck me that certain points in the Ecclesiastical History of our Country might advantageously be presented to view in verse. Accordingly, I took up the subject, and what I now offer to the reader was the result.
When this work was far advanced, I was agreeably surprised to find that my friend, Mr. Southey, had been engaged with similar views in writing a concise History of the Church 'in' England. If our Productions, thus unintentionally coinciding, shall be found to illustrate each other, it will prove a high gratification to me, which I am sure my friend will participate.
Dorothy Wordsworth’s DiaryJuly 29th, 1802
“It was a beautiful morning. The City, St. Paul’s, with the River and a multitude of little Boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke… the sun shone so brightly, with such a pure light, that there was even something like the purity of one of nature’s own grand spectacles”.
Queen Victoria 1819–1901, queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1837–1901) and empress of India (1876–1901). She was the daughter of Edward, duke of Kent (fourth son of George III), and Princess Mary Louise Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.Early ReignVictoria’s father died before she was a year old. Upon the death (1830) of George IV, she was recognized as heir to the British throne, and in 1837, at the age of 18, she succeeded her uncle, William IV, to the throne. With the accession of a woman, the connection between the English and Hanoverian thrones ceased in accordance with the Salic law of Hanover. Marriage to AlbertIn 1840, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Albert, with whom she was very much in love, became the dominant influence in her life. Her first child, Victoria, later empress of Germany, was born in 1840, and the prince of Wales, later Edward VII, in 1841. Victoria had nine children. Their marriages and those of her grandchildren allied the British royal house with those of Russia, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Romania, and several of the German states.Through Albert’s efforts, Victoria was reconciled with the Tories, and she became very fond of Minister Peel during his second ministry (1841–46). She was less happy with the Whig ministry that followed, taking particular exception to the adventurous foreign policy of Viscount Palmerston. The resulting friction was a factor in Palmerston’s dismissal from office in 1851. Royal popularity was increased by the success of the Crystal Palace exposition (Great exhibition, 1851), planned and carried through by Albert.It began to wane again, however, when it was rumored on the eve of the Crimean War that the royal couple was pro-Russian. After the outbreak (1854) of the war, Victoria took part in the organization of relief for the wounded and instituted the Victoria Cross for bravery. She also reconciled herself to Palmerston, who became prime minister in 1855 and proved a vigorous war leader.Widowhood and Later YearsIn 1861, Albert (who had been named prince consort in 1857) died. Victoria’s grief was so great that she did not appear in public for three years and did not open Parliament until 1866; her prolonged seclusion damaged her popularity. Her reappearance was largely the work of Benjamin Disraeli, who, together with William Gladstone, dominated the politics of the latter part of Victoria’s reign.Disraeli became the queen’s great favourite. In 1876 he secured for her the title empress of India, which pleased her greatly; she was ardently imperialistic and intensely interested in the welfare of her colonial subjects, particularly the Indians. Victoria’s relations with Gladstone, on the other hand, were very stiff; she disliked him personally and disapproved of many of his policies, especially Irish Home Rule.In her old age, Victoria was enormously popular. Jubilees were held in 1887 and 1897 to celebrate the 50th and 60th years of the longest English reign. The queen was not highly intelligent, but her conscientiousness and strict morals helped to restore the prestige of the crown and to establish it as a symbol of public service and imperial unity.
Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell (by Charlotte Bronte)[…] About five years ago, my two sisters and myself, after a somewhat prolonged period of separation, found ourselves reunited, and at home. Resident in a remote district, where education had made little progress, and where, consequently, there was no inducement to seek social intercourse beyond our own domestic circle, we were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition; […]One day, in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my sister Emily's handwriting. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me - a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music - wild, melancholy, and elevating.[…] Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because - without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called 'feminine' - we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice […]My sister Emily first declined. […]I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone. […]In Emily's nature the extremes of vigour and simplicity seemed to meet. Under an unsophisticated culture, inartificial tastes, and an unpretending outside, lay a secret power and fire that might have informed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero; […] Neither Emily nor Anne was learned; […]they always wrote from the impulse of nature.
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION [1850] OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS (by Charlotte Bronte)With regard to the rusticity of 'Wuthering heights,' I admit the charge, for I feel the quality. It is rustic all through. It is moorish, and wild, and knotty as a root of heath. Nor was it natural that it should be otherwise; the author being herself a native and nursling of the moors.[…]Her descriptions, then, of natural scenery are what they should be, and all they should be.
Where delineation of human character is concerned, the case is different. I am bound to avow that she had scarcely more practical knowledge of the peasantry amongst whom she lived, than a nun has of the country people who sometimes pass her convent gates. […]For a specimen of true benevolence andhomely fidelity, look at the character of Nelly Dean; for an example of constancy and tenderness, remark that of Edgar Linton.(Some people will think these qualities do not shine so well incarnate in a man as they would do in a woman, but Ellis Bell could never be brought to comprehend this notion […]Heathcliff, indeed, stands unredeemed […]We should say he was child neither of Lascar nor gipsy, but a man's shape animated by demon life – a Ghoul - an Afreet.
Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not know: I scarcely think it is.
Wuthering Heights
Chapter IHeatcliff è presentato sulla scena da Lockwood
1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little
Portraits by Patrick Branwell Bronte
imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.
[…] But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a dark- skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose. Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling - to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I'm running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him.
Chapter IIIIl sogno e la prima presentazione in scena di Catherine
The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small - CATHERINE EARNSHAW, here and there varied to CATHERINE HEATHCLIFF, and then again to CATHERINE LINTON.
In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw - Heathcliff - Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres - the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin. I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee. It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the inscription - 'Catherine Earnshaw, her book,' and a date some quarter of a century back. I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all. Catherine's library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen-and-ink commentary - at least the appearance of one - covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph, - rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.
[…] 'I must stop it, nevertheless!' I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me in - let me in!' 'Who are you?' I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. 'Catherine Linton,' it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of LINTON? I had read EARNSHAW twenty times for Linton) - 'I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!' As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, 'Let me in!' and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear. 'How can I!' I said at length. 'Let ME go, if you want me to let you in!' The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on! 'Begone!' I shouted. 'I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.' 'It is twenty years,' mourned the voice: 'twenty years. I've been a waif for twenty years!' Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.[…]"Come in! come in!" he sobbed. "Cathy, do come! Oh, do -- once more! Oh, my heart's darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!" The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice. It gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.
Chapter IVHeathcliff entra in scena presentato da Nelly Dean
[…]"Now, my bonny man, I'm going to Liverpool to-day; what shall I bring you? You may choose what you like. Only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back. Sixty miles each way -- that is a long spell!" Hindley named a fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy. She was hardly six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip. […]"See here, wife! I was never so beaten with anything in my life; but you must e'en take it as a gift of God, though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil." We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy's head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child, big enough both to walk and talk. Indeed, its face looked older than Catherine's; yet when it was set on its feet it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and
Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors. She did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for; what he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad.
Chapter VIHeathcliff racconta come Catherine sia rimasta a casa dei Linton
[…] "Nonsense! We ran from the top of the Heights to the park, without stopping -- Catherine completely beaten in the race, because she was barefoot. You'll have to seek for her shoes in the bog to-morrow. We crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted ourselves on a flower-plot under the drawing-room window. The light came from thence; they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were only half closed. Both of us were able to look in by standing on the basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we saw -- ah! it was beautiful -- a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there. Edgar and his sister had it entirely to themselves; shouldn't they have been happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven! And new, guess what your good children were doing? Isabella -- I believe she is eleven, a year younger than Cathy -- lay screaming at the farther end of the room, shrieking as if witches were running red hot needles into her. Edgar stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat a little dog shaking its paw and yelping, which from their mutual accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them. The idiots! That was their pleasure -- to quarrel who should hold a heap of warm hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to get it, refused to take it. We laughed outright at the petted things. We did despise them. When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted, or find us by ourselves seeking entertainment in yelling, and sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I'd not exchange for a thousand lives my condition here for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange -- not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the house-front with Hindley's blood!"
Chapter VIILa metamorfosi di Catherine
Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks, till Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often, in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily: so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in.
Chapter VIIIDescrizione di Edgar Linton attraverso il suo ritrattoMrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a soft-featured face, exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive and amiable in expression. It formed a sweet picture. The long light hair curled slightly on the temples; the eyes were large and serious, the figure almost too graceful.
Chapter IXIl sogno di Catherine"If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable." […] "I dreamt once that I was there." "I tell you I won't hearken to your dreams, Miss Catherine! I'll go to bed," I interrupted again. She laughed and held me down, for I made a motion to leave my chair. "This is nothing," cried she. "I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home, and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights, where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now, so he shall never know how I love him; and that not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire." […]My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning. My great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be. And if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger -- I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods; time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles
the eternal rocks beneath -- a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind -- not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again. It is impracticable, and ---- "
Chapter XLa metamorfosi di HeathcliffNow fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed more than ever to behold the transformation of Heathcliff. He had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man, beside whom my master seemed quite slender and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilized ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued, and his manner was even dignified -- quite divested of roughness, though too stern for grace.
Chapter XIProlessi della morte “da donna vittoriana” di CatherineWell, if I cannot keep Heathcliff for my friend -- if Edgar will be mean and jealous -- I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own. That will be a prompt way of finishing all, when I am pushed to extremity.
Chapter XIILa morte di Catherine […] she fasted pertinaciously under the idea, probably, that at every meal, Edgar was ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her feet; […] "What is that apathetic being doing?" she demanded, pushing the thick entangled locks from her wasted face. "Has he fallen into a lethargy, or is he dead?" "Neither," replied I, "if you mean Mr. Linton. He's tolerably well, I think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought. He is continually among his books, since he has no other society." I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but I could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder. "Among his books!" she cried, confounded. "And I dying -- I on the brink of the grave! My God! does he know how I'm altered?" continued she, staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite wall. "Is that Catherine Linton? He imagines me in a pet -- in play, perhaps. Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest? Nelly, if it be not too late, as soon as I learn how he feels I'll choose between these two -- either to starve at once (that would be no punishment unless he had a heart), or to recover, and leave the country. Are you speaking the truth about him now? Take care. Is he actually so utterly indifferent for my life?"[…] "If I were only sure it would kill him," she interrupted, "I'd kill myself directly! These three awful nights I've never closed my lids; and oh, I've been tormented! I've been haunted. […] She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr. Linton's philosophical resignation. Tossing about, she increased her feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth; then raising herself up, all burning, desired that I would open the window. We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the north-east, and I objected. Both the expressions flitting over her face and the changes of her moods began to alarm me terribly, and brought to my recollection her former illness, and the doctor's injunction that she should not be crossed. A minute previously she was violent; now, supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey her, she seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from the rents she had just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to their different species. Her mind had strayed to other associations. "That's a turkey's," she murmured to herself, "and this is a wild duck's, and this is a pigeon's. Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the pillows; no wonder I couldn't die! Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I lie down. And here is a moor-cock's; and this -- I should know it among a thousand -- it's a lapwing's. Bonny bird, wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming. This feather was picked up from the heath; the bird was not shot. We saw its nest in the winter, full of little skeletons.[…] "Don't you see that face?" she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror. And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl. "It's behind there still!" she pursued anxiously. "And it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! O Nelly, the room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone!" I took her hand in mine, and bade her be composed, for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass. "There's nobody here!" I insisted. "It was yourself Mrs. Linton. You knew it a while since." "Myself!" she gasped; "and the clock is striking twelve! It's true, then; that's dreadful!"
Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes. I attempted to steal to the door, with an intention of calling her husband; but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek. The shawl had dropped from the frame. "Why, what is the matter?" cried I. "Who is coward now? Wake up! That is the glass -- the mirror, Mrs. Linton; and you see yourself in it; and there am I too, by your side." […]Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy and free, and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words ? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide -- fasten it open! Quick! Why don't you move?" "Because I won't give you your death of cold," I answered. "You won't give me a chance of life, you mean," she said sullenly. "However, I'm not helpless yet. I'll open it myself." […]There was no moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness. Not a light gleamed from any house, far or near -- all had been extinguished long ago; and those at Wuthering Heights were never visible -- still she asserted she caught their shining. "Look!" she cried eagerly; "that's my room with the candle in it, and the tree swaying before it; and the other candle is in Joseph's garret. Joseph sits up late, doesn't he? He's waiting till I come home, that he may lock the gate. Well, he'll wait a while yet. It's a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go that journey! We've braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But, Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I'll keep you. I'll not lie there by myself. They may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with me. I never will!"
Vol. II, Chapter I
L’incontro di Heatchcliff e Catherine morente
"O Cathy! O my life! how can I bear it?" was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish -- they did not melt. […]
Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her. He attempted to rise, but she seized his hair and kept him down. 00
"I wish I could hold you," she continued bitterly, "till we were both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, 'That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I've loved many others since. My children are dearer to me than she was, and at death I shall not rejoice that I am going to her; I shall be sorry that I must leave them.' Will you say so, Heathcliff?"
"Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself," cried he, wrenching his head free and grinding his teeth.
The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and a scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other, and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.
"Are you possessed with a devil," he pursued savagely, "to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you; and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness that, while you are at peace, I shall writhe in the torments of hell?"
"I shall not be at peace," moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation. She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over, then she continued more kindly, --
"I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. I only wish us never to be parted; and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake forgive me! Come here and kneel
down again. You never harmed me in your life. Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words. Won't you come here again? Do!"
[…] "Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave! That is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet, and take him with me; he's in my soul. And," added she musingly, "the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. I'm tired of being enclosed here. I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there -- not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart, but really with it and in it. Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I, in full health and strength. You are sorry for me. Very soon that will be altered. I shall be sorry for you. I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all. I wonder he won't be near me!" she went on to herself. "I thought he wished it -- Heathcliff dear, you should not be sullen now. Do come to me, Heathcliff."
In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair. At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate. His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then how they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive -- in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible. He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species.
You teach me now how cruel you've been -- cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry, and wring out my kisses and tears; they'll blight you -- they'll damn you. You loved me; then what right had you to leave me? What right -- answer me -- for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart -- you have broken it; and in breaking it you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you -- -- O God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?"
"Let me alone! let me alone!" sobbed Catherine. "If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! You left me too; but I won't upbraid you. I forgive you. Forgive me."
"It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands," he answered. "Kiss me again, and don't let me see your eyes. I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer -- but yours! How can I?"
Vol. II, Charter V
La natura effeminata del piccolo Linton
He was asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, fur-lined cloak, as if it had been winter -- a pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been taken for my master's younger brother, so strong was the resemblance; but there was a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never had.
