Page Bridges · 2019. 12. 5. · IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges.Issue 4. November 2019 Page 4 From...

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IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 4. November 2019

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Copyright Notice

Copyright for whole issue IATEFL 2019. IATEFL retains the right to reproduce part or all of

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Published by IATEFL, 2-3 The Foundry, Seager Road, Faversham, ME13 7FD, UK.

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Disclaimer

Views expressed in Bridges are not necessarily those of the editors, of the IATEFL, the Liter-

ature SIG of IATEFL or its staff or trustees.


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Migrant narratives in the EFL and ESOL classroom

Jointly organised by the Global Is-

sues and Literature SIGs

17th April 2020 10 am - 5 pm

Manchester Central, Windmill St, Manchester, M2 3GX, UK

In our joint PCE, we want to address a phenomenon which is an ever more pressing part of our con-temporary world: migration. The reasons why people migrate are many and varied, and we shall try to include the narratives of as many kinds of ‘people on the move’ as possible, from emigrants and immigrants to refugees and asylum seekers, and even people who opt for ‘return migration’. Our day will include looking at migrants’ experiences as narrated in ‘diaspora literature’, works writ-ten by authors living outside their native country but whose writings are in some way related to their country of origin. But we intend to consider a wide range of media in our observation of expe-riences of migration: the novel, poetry and drama; film and television; visual arts; genre writing (popular literature such as thrillers and detective stories, and young adult fiction). Pedagogy will be an important feature of our day: how to bring migrant narratives into the class-room, and how to use literature, art and media to promote social inclusion. To this end we’ll talk about using and creating appropriate materials, and suggest techniques suitable for teaching that involves migrant narratives, notably storytelling and creative writing. In our pedagogical considera-tions we will bear in mind that the teacher might be teaching about migration, or teaching to mi-grants, or indeed both. In due course we will assemble a programme of speakers, but we hope that even now you’ll agree that the day seems very stimulating!

Book your place at the PCE

https://conference.iatefl.org/pce_gi_lit.html


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Contents

From the Editor ..........................................................................................................................4

North and South: A tale of two countries ..................................................................................5

Saltanat Adiyeva - Suleyman Demirel University, Kazakhstan ................................................5

Gaskell‟s powerful women ......................................................................................................10

Sabria El Idrissi - Université Libre de Bruxelle, Belgium .......................................................10

The importance of animal imagery in Wuthering Heights .......................................................14

Patricia Nieto Galvan - Universidad de Valladolid, Spain ......................................................14

Emily Brontë and the role of nature in Wuthering Heights .....................................................19

Aurora Trevisan - Università di Verona, Italy .........................................................................19

Hills and cliffs, rocks and heath ...............................................................................................24

Annabelle J. Paradis – Universitè Bordeaux Montaigne, France ............................................24

Poster: Shakespeare‟s Italian obsession ...................................................................................32

Valeria Cozzolongo – Italy ......................................................................................................32

Poster: A comparison between Romeo and Juliet and Peony Pavilion ...................................33

Tianwei Skyla Zhao – China....................................................................................................33

Poster: Understanding fools in Shakespeare‟s plays ...............................................................34

Zhuoning Wang – China ..........................................................................................................34

The Merchant of Venice and the question of genre..................................................................35

Marie Charue - Universitè Catholique de Louvrain at Louvrain-la-Neuve .............................35

Words and actions in the Hollow Crown and Henry V ............................................................41

Shen Chenxin - Shanghai International Studies University, China .........................................41

Witchcraft in Kunzel‟s Macbeth ..............................................................................................44

Esther Y. Chan - University of Leicester, UK .........................................................................44

Kurzel and Welles: how different generations recreate the Shakespeare they need ................47

Lucia Degli Esposti - Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy .................................................47

„You should be women and yet….‟:The witches in Kurzel‟s Macbeth ...................................51

Zhiqing Xie - University of Leicester, UK ..............................................................................51

Cover: Ponte di Rialto, Venice, Italy

Cover photo: Wikipedia Creative Commons


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From the Editor

First and foremost, I would like to apologize to our members for the tardiness of this year’s edition. Usually, Bridges comes out in the first semester of the year and we are now already in October. Editorial matters are largely responsible for that. Delaying this publication, however, allowed us to be able to include essays from students attending the January-March academic term in the UK, as well as posters produced by students attending the English for Humanities Summer School at the University of Leicester. This is quite a bulky edition with articles coming from European students, as usual, but also important contributions from China and Kazakhstan. The articles focus on the works of Elizabeth Gaskell, the Brontës and, inevitably, William Shakespeare. You will also find in this issue three different critical reviews of the 2015 film adaptation of Macbeth directed by Justin Kurzel and starred by Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotil-lard. The posters included in the middle of this publication focus on various aspects related to Shakespeare’s life and work and were designed and presented by students attending the 2018 and 2019 summer schools at the University of Leicester.

I would like to thank my co-editor, Carel Burghout, for his work on proofreading and editing the articles and the Coordinator of the Literature SIG, Robert Hill, for his pa-tience, understanding, and his belief that, sooner or later, this edition would see the light of the day. Above all, thanks to all the students who accepted contributing to this publication for their interest, effort, and commitment. Once again, I would like to invite fellow teachers working with Literature and English Language Teaching to give your students the opportunity to publish their academic work here. Please send your submissions to Issue 5 by 30 March 2020 Submit to: [email protected]

Happy reading!

Christina Wolf

LitSIG Publications Editor


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North and South: A tale of two countries

Saltanat Adiyeva - Suleyman Demirel University, Kazakhstan

North and South, written by Elizabeth Gaskell in the Victorian era, brings out several social

and political aspects related to the industrialization in 19th

century England. The novel‟s main

character is Margaret Hale, the daughter of a priest from the South, and Gaskell describes her

transformation „from daughterhood to womanhood‟. The author groups characters by their

geographical settings (Northerners and Southerners) and each place represents and portrays

different lifestyles, social patterns, and moral concepts (Van de Hoef, 2016, p. v). The novel

was adapted into a four episode drama series produced by BBC in 2004, with Daniela Denby-

Ashe as Margaret Hale and Richard Armitage as John Thornton (BBC, 2004). Even though

readers in general have different opinions on film adaptations, McFarlane (2007, p. 28) states

that films and literature should be seen not as close as siblings but as „first cousins‟, some-

times arguing but still sharing the same heritage. Similarly, north and south should not be

seen as opposite geographical settings but as aspects of a complex country. Locations play a

major role in this novel, especially Helstone and Milton as representatives of two cardinal

directions. In this essay, their portrayal in the novel and in the film adaptation are discussed

and compared.

The novel starts in London, then smoothly moves to Helstone, which is greatly ad-

mired by the main character Margaret Hale. The character describes Helstone as small, leafy,

picturesque, quaint and inspirational village with kind and lovely people, a place where life

moves slowly. Whenever Helstone is described throughout the book the main emphasis is

always made on the sun‟s „slanting sunbeams‟ (Gaskell, 1855, p. 20). The same portrayal is

made in the adaptation, Helstone is always shown in the summertime and as a sunny and

green place (Figure 1).

However, after living in Milton for some time, when Higgins mentions that he wants

to move to the South to find work, Margaret quite surprisingly says, „You must not go to the

South (…) you would not bear the dullness of the life‟ (pp. 157-158), which makes clear to

the reader that she has changed her mind about hometown. Brass (2004, p. 63) discusses why

a place which was previously shown as „a village in a tale‟ suddenly became less magical

(Gaskell, 1855, p. 12). He argues that before moving to her aunt‟s London house Margaret

was a just a little girl with fond memories of her careless childhood. However, after moving


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to the capital she is forced to mature earlier and faces difficulties and challenges that make

Helstone more precious in her memories than it was before. Helstone became some sort of

„escape from the haste‟, a simple desire of an adult „to return to the lost innocence of child-

hood (Empson cited in Brass, 2004, pp. 63-64). As a result, after returning to Helstone as an

adult, at the very end of BBC film adaptation, Margaret states that she feels „guilty of roman-

ticizing the South‟ and admits that Helstone is not as perfect as it was always presented by

her to others (BBC, 2004, episode 4).

Figure 1: Screenshot from the BBC adaptation - Mr Lennox, Margaret Hale and Mrs Hale in Helstone.

Unlike Helstone, Milton is described by Gaskell as a grey, industrial, polluted city in

the North of England. Long streets with terraced houses, air with the taste of paint, and „ob-

long many-windowed‟ factories which produce „black unparliamentary smoke‟ is the urban

landscape that Margaret Hale encounters upon entering Milton. Kelly (2006, p. 87) describes

Milton as „a place of dark satanic mills‟. In the BBC film adaptation, Milton is also shown as

a grey place where even in the outdoors scenes the sun never shines bright (Harris, 2006, p.

74). The contrast between light and dark, however, goes beyond the physical landscape and

extends into the social one. If Helstone is presented as a slow paced and lovely place, Milton

is a harsh place where work has to be done first and fast. In the novel, Northerners are pre-


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sented as a group in which individuals have different understandings of social class and of

women‟s role and place in society from those in the south. People have a „master and worker‟

relationship, which leads to the end of human work for the benefit of individuals and com-

munities and the consolidation of the age of human labour for „naked profit‟ (Kelly, 2006, p.

91). We can see children working in the factory amongst the fluff because parents‟ income is

not enough to keep the whole family. A striking scene is when Mrs Thornton tells a mother

with a sick child to go home and quickly swap the children to finish the task they had to do. It

lays bare the fact that profit and continuous work are more important to the masters than

moral and humanistic considerations (p.74). In in the film adaptation, the capitalist ideology

acquires a negative religious connotation with Margaret‟s voiceover as she reads her letter to

Edith and where she says, „I believe I have seen Hell − it‟s white. It‟s snow white‟ (BBC.

2004, episode 1).

Figure 2: Screenshot from the BBC adaptation - workers in Thornton‟s cotton mill in Milton.

On the other hand, there is another perspective on Milton. Brass (2004, p. 69) states

that Mr Thornton is a self-made person and all his accomplishments are the result of his ef-

forts. Therefore, Milton is not only a cruel and grey workplace, but also a place where there

are new opportunities for people to change their financial and social status, while in a tradi-

tional south only those who have inherited land could be considered rich.


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To conclude, there is a clear contrast between Helstone and Milton both in Gaskell‟s

novel and in the film adaptation. The former is the sunny and lovely South while the latter is

the competitive and dark-toned North. Although the first impression left by Milton is certain-

ly negative and the one left by Helstone positive, readers‟ perceptions may change by the end

of the novel since Gaskell shows the advantages and disadvantages of both places. Van de

Hoef (2016, p. 35) reminds us that Gaskell lived in Manchester − which carries the fictional

name „Milton‟ in the book − throughout her married life and saw all the hardships of the

North, which makes her writings more reliable. Understandably, there is a slight difference in

the representation of those places in the BBC adaptation because several descriptive passages

in the novel can be shown in just a couple seconds in a screen adaptation. Even though the

BBC scriptwriters shortened the plot and changed to a certain extent, the portrayals of the

Helstone and Milton were quite faithful to the original. Not only does Gaskell show through-

out North and South the political and economic concerns of an emerging capitalist society,

but she also highlights its social problems (Matus, 2007, p. 35). Through the comparison be-

tween two cities in different regions and with different lifestyles, she elucidates the ad-

vantages and disadvantages of industrial capitalistic societies and traditional agrarian ones.

References

Brass, D. (2004) Defining pastoral in „North and South‟. Sydney Studies in English. Vol.30,

pp. 63-69.

Gaskell E. (1855) North and South. 2nd

ed. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, [Online] Availa-

ble at:

https://literature.proquest.com/searchFulltext.do?id=Z000037224&divLevel=0&area=prose&

DurUrl=Yes&forward=textsFT&queryType=findWork (Accessed: 17 February 2019).

Harris, M. (2006) Taking bearings: Elizabeth Gaskell‟s 'North and South' televised. Sydney

Studies in English. Vol.32, pp.65-82.

Kelly, D. (2006) In Its Own Light: A View of the BBC's North & South. Sydney Studies in

English. Vol.32, pp. 87-91.

Matus, J. L. (2007) “Mary Barton and North and South,” in Matus, J. L. (ed.) The Cambridge

Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Com-

panions to Literature), p. 35.

Mr. Lennox, Margaret Hale and Mrs. Hale in Helstone, 2019. Screenshot. Retrieved from:

McFarlane, B. (2007) “Reading film and literature,” in Cartmell, D. and Whelehan, I.

(eds) The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen. Cambridge: Cambridge University


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Press (Cambridge Companions to Literature), p. 28.

North and South (2004) episode 1, 4. BBC iPlayer. [Online] Available at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007c8pz/north-and-south-episode-1 (Accessed: 15

February 2019).

Van de Hoef, E. (2016) From Travelling Heroine to Social Explorer: Discourses of Gender

and the Process of self-realisation in Elizabeth Gaskell‟s North and South. MA thesis. Uni-

versity of Leiden. [Online] Available at:

https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/37505/thesis%20North%20and%20S

outh.pdf?sequence=1 (Accessed: 18 February 2019).

Workers in the factory, Milton, 2019. Screenshot. Retrieved from:


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Gaskell’s powerful women

Sabria El Idrissi - Université Libre de Bruxelle, Belgium

As numerous other classic Victorian novels, Gaskell‟s North and South has joined the herit-

age drama industry. It was adapted for the small screen by the BBC in 2004, directed by Bri-

an Percival, starring Richard Armitage and Daniela Denby-Ashe. The novel narrates the

complex story of Margaret Hale‟s life as she finds herself in the Northern city of Milton fol-

lowing her father‟s defection from the Church of England. In her writing, Gaskell compares

the North and the South of England in their various aspects, such as the social classes, the

public and private spheres, and the moral and religious values of the Victorian period. She

focuses on people: workers and masters, men and women, country folk and city dwellers. She

scrutinizes the struggle of opposing worlds in conflict. It is through Margaret Hale, the nov-

el‟s protagonist, that Gaskell compares these two worlds and the ways in which they become

connected. For these reasons Dickens wrote: „North and South appears to me a better name

than Margaret Hale. It implies more, and is expressive of the opposite people brought face to

face by the story." (Storey et al., 1993, p. 378) This essay discusses the representation of two

female characters in the novel, Margaret Hale and Mrs Thornton, both in the written text of

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855) and in the BBC (2004) adaptation. It also dis-

cusses how and in what ways both the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries‟ views of these

two women are presented through these two different media.

Gaskell‟s writing gives us an intimate view of the daily life of her characters. Those

who had to overcome drastic changes and cope with the world that was changing as never

before in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. “[…] the main content of each novel is

simply the description and the exploration of the texture and feel, pressures and demands of

their day-to-day existence” (McVeagh, 1970, p. 1). In her novel, North and South, romance

and realism are intertwined in a charming way which is well represented in the adaptation.

Margaret Hale epitomizes the South, the educated and comfortable middle class, the

well-bred, „unmercantile‟ middle classes of England. She is depicted as “educated, refined,

with a taste for virtue and beauty. Then she is thrust into the ugliness and conflict of the

North.” (Ingham, 1995) At first, Margaret symbolizes the South in all its detachment and su-

periority "She handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave" (Gaskell,

2014, p. 175), then she is slowly transformed by her life in Milton into a different person both

as an individual and as a woman. She embodies the unbreakable link between southern pros-


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perity and northern misery. At the end, she goes „native‟, which is really unusual for that

time, by standing up for herself and choosing Milton as her new home. Joseph Kestner (1985,

p. 166) identifies that "with her experience of both the northern and the southern counties,

Margaret Hale functions as a reader surrogate in evaluating cultural differences".

Her counterpart Mrs Thornton represents the North with capitalistic values which

“cluster around the perceived virtues of entrepreneurial skill and unremitting self-interest.”

(Ingham, 1995, p. xiii) Her husband‟s suicide due to failed investments turned her and her

son into aggressive capitalists.

Mrs. Thornton is a very important figure in running the mill with her son and support-

ing him unconditionally. "I had such a mother as few are blest with; a woman of strong pow-

er, and firm resolve. I thank her silently on each occasion for the early training she gave me."

(Gaskell, p.186) She lives vicariously through her son whom she is proud of and wants him

to be successful. Mrs. Thornton sees herself in her son rather than her daughter:

Mrs. Thornton heard a step, like her own in its decisive character, pass the dining-

room door. Her son opened the door and showed himself." (p. 169) "[…] and Fanny

was weak in the very points in which her mother and brother were strong. […] she felt

instinctively that nothing could strengthen Fanny to endure hardships patiently, or

face difficulties bravely. (Gaskell, p. 209)

Nevertheless, Mrs Thornton does not only care about her son and the mill, this excerpt from

the book shows: „to use Martha‟s own expression, [they] would have been “lost” but for Mrs.

Thornton; who sought them out, and thought for them, and cared for them‟ (Gaskell, p. 765)

The same idea is conveyed by the additional scene in the BBC adaptation showing Mrs

Thornton‟s concern for a sick child. These examples denote a hidden side and a concealed

caring for others.

In a certain way, Mrs Thornton represents the older, northern version of Margaret.

Even though each considers the other as inferior and have received different education, they

share some personality traits. They are strong, brave, headstrong, outspoken women who are

loyal and devoted to their family and their loved ones. (Brown, 2000, p. 10) These two strong

women also control their emotions, which is to be expected from women of their class who

have to control their emotions „and are ashamed of showing them‟ whereas „poor women go,

and don‟t care if they are seen overwhelmed with grief" (Gaskell, p. 267). The novel empha-

sizes the influence of women as the ideal mediator of conflict by their understandings and


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compromises. This is what can be found in the adaptation with its last train scene, Margaret

and Mr Thornton had to meet once more "almost heading off into opposite directions and a

particular appropriateness that they should meet on what is in a sense neutral ground” (Harris,

2006, online).

The BBC adaptation, which consists of four episodes, remains close to the script of

the novel. Even if there are some scene alterations, the spirit of the novel is still present.

However, the interior analyses of the characters' inner reflections and "the intervention of the

third-person narrator […] to move in and out of her characters‟ minds, probing the nature of

consciousness in the aftermath of distress" (Matus, 2007, p.36) have disappeared in the adap-

tation.

To conclude, it can be argued that the faithfulness of the novel‟s adaptation has been

altered by the decision to adjust the story to the screen and to its contemporary audience. For

instance, Margaret‟s character is shown as even more powerful and valiant than in the novel.

The ending of the series reveals Margaret as a very free woman which would definitely have

shocked Victorian society. This stems from the way two different centuries view of women

and their social position. Gaskell‟s depiction of Margaret‟s journey of self-discovery and her

conflict with Victorian ideology reflects the process by which girls become women; a process

which includes both the internal and the external, the private and the public, the individual

and society, and the negotiating and renegotiating their boundaries (Wildie, 2007, p.72). Gas-

kell had already started to describe a new kind of woman, who desires both marriage and in-

dependence. As for the BBC‟s wishes to educate, inform and entertain, those have been ful-

filled. Notwithstanding, the discrepancies between the novel and the adaptation these two

pieces of art can be both appreciated at their fair value. Since women are still trying to find

their position and their role in the society.

References

Gaskell, E. (2014) North and South, Open Road Media Romance, Available from: ProQuest

Ebook Central. [15 February 2019].

North and South (2004) Directed by Brian Percival [Film]. United Kingdom: BBC produc-

tion

Brown, Pearl L. (2000) „From Elizabeth Gaskell‟s Mary Barton to her North and South:

Progress or Decline for Women?‟ (ed.) Victorian Literature and Culture. [online] Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, p.354


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Harris, Margaret. (2006) “Taking Bearings: Elizabeth Gaskell‟s „North & South‟ Televised”.

Sydney Studies in English 32. [Web].

Ingham, P. (1995) Introduction and notes: North and South, Gaskell. London: Penguin.

Kestner, J. (1985) Protest and reform, The British Social Narrative by Women 1827-1867.

London, p. 166

Matus, J.L. (2007) „Mary Barton and North and South‟, in Matus, J.L. (ed.) The Cambridge

Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell. [online] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.36

McVeagh, J. (1970) Elizabeth Gaskell. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Storey G., Tillotson K. and Eason E. (1993) The Letters of Charles Dickens. Oxford. p.378

Wildie, B. (2007) „A vigorous social conscience‟: Elizabeth Gaskell, industrialisation, and

the position of women in Victorian society. Honours thesis. University of New England.

p.72.


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The importance of animal imagery in Wuthering Heights

Patricia Nieto Galvan - Universidad de Valladolid, Spain

The importance of landscape is one of the main characteristics of the Romanticism, being

considered this characteristic as “crucial” for the movement (Kobelska, 2017, p. 163). This is

particularly present in the writing of some authors such as Emily Brontë, whose works are

one of the best instances of the importance given to landscape and nature during the Roman-

tic Movement. Even though it is present as well in her poetry, this is especially outstanding in

Brontë‟s only novel Wuthering Heights. The symbolism and imagery appearing in this novel

are vastly conformed by references of landscape and nature. This is especially noticeable in

terms of weather or indoor spaces; however, animal imagery plays an important role as well

in the novel, even though it may not seem so appreciable at first. Brontë probably based such

images in the fierce life of animals and of the natural elements to magnify the power of hu-

man feeling (Schorer, 1949, p. 545). Thus, animal imagery and symbolism are a key element

in the novel as it is an essential device in the portrayal of the main characters of Wuthering

Heights, and along with the other natural-themed symbols, “they are used predominantly to

explain and give significance to the protagonists and their emotions” (Gillman, 1994, p. 3).

Although most characters seem to be affected by this, the employment of animal images to

mirror the characters‟ actions and behaviour is particularly relevant in the description of

Heathcliff and Edgar Linton, even though Heathcliff‟s depiction through these images is ex-

tremely more frequent.

The portrayal of Edgar Linton, combined with the events that develop over the years

in the plot of the novel, is presumably the one that partially evokes or at least should evoke

more empathy towards him. This is due to the fact that his depiction is many times achieved

through the comparison of his character to animals that not only would bring out compassion

in readers but also pity. This is due to the fact that the animals used to picture him are usually

those in situations of inferiority, such as it is the case of a prey animal. As an instance of this,

Edgar is referred to as not even a “lamb” but only a mere “leveret” (Brontë, 1847, p. 68). As

such, he is then not only associated with the idea of a prey animal but also to only a litter of a

prey animal, which portrays him as even more inferior and poorly. This highlights the little

power Edgar has over the events happening in his life and even over Heathcliff himself, as

Heathcliff is usually the one portrayed as the predator in the novel.


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A further proof and probably one of the most important ones of this depiction of

Edgar as a weak character appears when Nelly thinks of Edgar as a “soft thing” that “pos-

sessed the power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed,

or a bird half eaten” (Brontë, 1847, p. 43). This instance reflects both ideas: how Edgar is

represented as an inferior when he is referred to as “a soft thing”, and how he does not have

any control over those issues that involve either Catherine or, to some extent, Heathcliff who

is here represented as a cat incapable of leaving a half-dead prey. Through these analogies,

“the image of Edgar as a weakling, underlined as it is by that detail, is enhanced to an ex-

treme level” (Tytler, 2017, p. 313). Thus, the image of Edgar may have been portrayed

through symbols that suggest inability and even weakness in an attempt to demonstrate how

he is just a victim of the love-hate relationship between both Catherine and Heathcliff, or at

least how he was innocent at the beginning of the novel.

Heathcliff is meanwhile usually described by using different terms related to the

animal world, carrying mainly evil connotations. Throughout the novel one finds instances of

him being referred to as a “fiend”. Although most dictionaries will give definitions of the

word fiend connected to behavior of people, the the following quotes show that in the novel it

is often used as „instead of human‟ and it is worth remembering that the word has been

used for millennia to refer to „an evil spirit generally; a demon, devil, or diabolical being‟

(OED, 2019). Isabella describes Heathcliff as “a lying fiend! A monster, and not a human

being!” (Brontë, 1847, p. 88) when she is trying to convince Nelly not no listen to Heathcliff.

Nelly also describes to Hindley the attack he suffered from Heathcliff by stating that “his

mouth watered to tear you with his teeth; because he's only half man: not so much, and the

rest fiend” (Brontë, 1847, pg.104). Even Heathcliff‟s everyday behaviour and customs are

labelled as “fiendish” (Brontë, 1847, p. 127). Several instances of his portrayal through dif-

ferent beasts can also be found in the novel. This is the case of the occasion in which he is

described to have “basilisk eyes” (Brontë, 1847, 104). A basilisk is “a mythical reptile whose

stare is lethal” (Herber, 2017, p. 8). This symbol can be interpreted as a premonition of the

deaths and also the pain that Heathcliff will cause in the future due to his nature and his be-

haviour. Another evidence of the view that Heathcliff is a wild and unconscious beast-self, a

self that he cannot suppress is when he is described as “foamed as a mad dog” (Brontë, 1847,

p. 93).


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Such fiendish representation leads to the notion of Heathcliff as almost non-human, an

aspect that is very much represented in the novel. For example, when Nelly says that she “did

not feel as if I was in the company of a creature of my own species” after Heathcliff and

Catherine meet each other and Catherine falls ill. (Brontë, 1847, p. 94). Another instance

where this can be observed is when Heathcliff finds out about Catherine‟s death. As Nelly

describes it, Heathcliff reacted to this by first cursing his beloved Catherine and then by “lift-

ing up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with

knives and spears” (Brontë, 1847, p. 97).

However, what probably is the most relevant instance for the depiction of this charac-

ter occurs in the scene in which Catherine is trying to convince Isabella that Heathcliff is not

a good man so as she does not feel attracted to him anymore. To do so, Catherine states that

“he's [Heathcliff] a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man” (Brontë, 1847, pg.60). It can be considered

then that Heathcliff is perceived as a wild and ferocious animal, which leads to the particular

perception of Heathcliff as a predator, just like a wolf is. This depiction is also illustrated

through some other expressions utilized by the author: for example, the previously mentioned

word “howled” (Brontë, 1847, pg.97) is used to attempt to describe the way in which Heath-

cliff reacts to Catherine‟s death by screaming, only that the scream he produces does not

seem proper of a human being but of a beast, a wolf instead.

This image of the wolf reinforces the previous depictions of Heathcliff as not human.

However, the fact that he is compared to a wolf suggests many other connotations than just

those associated to a wild animal. In many cultures, wolves have traditionally been seen as

the default wind enemy. As Ferber states, “the wolf seems to be the most feared and despised

mammal in literature; a good wolf was extremely rare until recent times” (2017, p. 250).

Heathcliff is then represented as the enemy of all the rest of the characters. However, wolves

are enemies not only of human beings but also the enemies and predators of other animals,

such as sheep and deer (Ferber, 2017, pg.251). This gives further significance to the idea that

Edgar Linton is symbolically represented in the novel as a lamb. With the representation of

Heathcliff as a wolf and Edgar as a lamb, Gaskell conveys the idea of both males as natural

enemies respectively preying and longing for Catherine‟s love. Moreover, wolves are often

described in literature as individualists and loners, which Heathcliff eventually fully becomes

at the end of the novel. Wolves are hunters, and this is especially relevant due to the fact that

Heathcliff in some way ends up “hunting” every other character in the novel so as to obtain


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revenge for all the times he was outcast and hurt. In the novel, the verb “hunt” is even used

by the other characters, and this is especially true of Nelly, who uses this term to describe

how the cruel events provoked by Heathcliff make her feel pursued.

The portrayal of Heathcliff and Linton through symbols and images from the animal

world is relevant for the novel and the plot. However, the reasons why Emily Brontë intro-

duced this aspect in the novel can only be guessed but Bowen (British Library, 2018) high-

lights the influence of the Yorkshire Moors on the Brontës‟ works. Homans also suggests that

“Brontë presents us a novel which makes the reader feels a sensation of having experienced a

realistic portrayal of the Yorkshire landscape” (1978, p. 13). Although wolves have been ex-

tinct in England since medieval times, it is possible that Emily Brontë‟s memories of her

childhood were filled with the sense of wilderness. Therefore, Brontë could have introduced

this aspect in order to make the reader experience the roughness of the northern landscape in

a more faithful manner. Another reason that can be suggested is that the author represented

the animal aspects in her characters in an effort to demonstrate the different approaches each

character takes towards their interpersonal relationships, or more precisely, their love rela-

tionships since animals play an important role in the development of people‟s capacity to

form relationships (Tytler, 2002, p. 128). Hence, it is possible that the representation of the

characters through different animal imagery is intended as a demonstration of each one‟s ca-

pacity − and incapacity − to love and be loved. This way, it can be inferred through Edgar‟s

portrayal that, even though his docile personality can make him appear as the weak partner in

a relationship, it is possible for him to engage in a mutually beneficial relationships whereas,

showing Heathcliff as a lone wolf suggests that he is not capable of achieving such a bond.


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It is easy to encounter, as the plot of the novel evolves, several animal symbols that

make reference to both Edgar and, more often, Heathcliff. This representation through animal

imagery is in both cases very useful to reach a more developed understanding of these two

characters‟. As complex characters displaying intricate emotions they need to be more meta-

phorically illustrated in order to deepen of understanding of their personalities and motiva-

tions. This is especially true in the case of Heathcliff. His constant mirroring as an untamed

force of nature may be a result of an attempt to make the reader understand such complex

character, or, at least, to try to justify his horrendous actions. However, it is likely that the

importance of animal imagery applied to these two characters might be a consequence of

Emily Brontë‟s effort to not only define both of them but also to contrast them: while Edgar

is the prey and the victim, Heathcliff remains as the wild and ferocious predator that rules

over the rest of the characters.

References

Bronte, E. (1847) Wuthering Heights. Edited by Nestor, P. (2003). London: Penguin.

Ferber, M. (2017) A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

"fiend, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2019,

www.oed.com/view/Entry/69955. Accessed 27 June 2019.

Gillman, K. Symbol and Theme: A Study of Natural Imagery in Selected Novels of Emily,

Charlotte and Anne Bronte. PhD Thesis. University of Cape Town. Available at

https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/21769 (Accessed 11 December 2018)

Homans, M. (1978) Repression and sublimation of nature in Wuthering Heights. PMLA,

93(1), pp. 9-19.

Kobelska, A (2017) The “regional” in Polish literary studies before 1939: From Romantic

local colour ro interwar literary regionalism. Przeglad Filozoficzno-Literacki, 2(47), pp. 161-

173.

Schorer, M. (1949) Fiction and the matrix of analogy. The Kenyon Review, 11 (4), pp. 539-

560.

Tytler, G. (2002) Animals in Wuthering Heights. Brontë Studies, 27(2), pp. 121-130.

Tytler, G. (2017) The presentation of Edgar Linton in Wuthering Heights. Brontë Studies,

42(4), pp. 312-320.


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Emily Brontë and the role of nature in Wuthering Heights

Aurora Trevisan - Università di Verona, Italy

Romanticism is an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Eu-

rope toward the end of the 18th century. It was characterized by the emphasis on emotion and

individualism. In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism

of the past, the isolation of the artist and the respect for nature (Rosenthal, 2012, pp. 8-9).

Nature is where the writer‟s feelings occur; indeed, it was seen as a pure and spiritual source

of renewal. Emily Brontë and her novel Wuthering Heights (Brontë, 2007) are considered

cornerstones of Romantic literature.

Nevertheless, critics have often reduced the role of nature in Emily Brontë‟s work by focus-

ing on human actions. Nature has been overshadowed by a greater interest on character anal-

ysis, thus it is fascinating what may be discovered by giving landscape the right importance

and considering it from a natural viewpoint of matter and physicality. Brontë‟s sensory and

physical bond with nature is the key to fully understand Wuthering Heights, a novel based on

the development of the ecological self (Defant, 2017, p. 1).

Having experienced a deep connection with nature all her life, the author grew up in

Haworth, a small Yorkshire mill town surrounded by moors, where she used to go whenever

possible in order to escape the industrialized community (Bowen, 2014). However, this is not

the place she describes in her book. Instead, she creates a combined landscape made of two

different areas outside Haworth, geographically and geologically distinct, that are conflated

into a single setting. While in the first part of the story the location is characterized by a lime-

stone mountain landscape of the northern Pennine moors, in the second one there is a moor-

land of the south. These areas are two parts of the old Pennine West Riding, running from

Sheffield to Sedbergh (Heywood, 1998, p. 1). The moors are open, wild, infertile places as it

may be seen in Fay Godwin‟s photograph of a ruined farmhouse located on the Pennine

moors (Godwin, 1979), that is thought to have inspired Emily Brontë‟s to write Wuthering

Heights, which perfectly reflects the imaginary place that comes up in the reader‟s mind

while going through the story. The moors mattered particularly to Emily, who was fascinated

by their austere beauty and by the destructive and consoling powers of the natural world that

they embodied (Bowen, 2014). The aim of this essay is to emphasize the similitudes between

characters and landscape, highlighting the theme of intense passion and wild behaviour.


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The moors are much more than a simple feature of the scenery: the wildness that

characterizes this landscape is personified in the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathe-

rine, and in their reciprocal affection for playing there. They are made of the same wild

matter as the landscape in which they live and for them there is no difference between love,

hate, passion, and revenge. Heathcliff, for example, is fueled by jealousy and vengeance,

forces that will drag him into a self-destructive pattern. For the entire novel he is, first of all,

a victim of himself. While Heathcliff is dominated by destructive impulses, Catherine is ruled

by natural urges which become destruction when they are not satisfied with a physical con-

nection. Even though the ruthless deeds they do to each other, they share an unconditional

love, as Catherine said in the novel „My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks be-

neath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff!‟ (Chapter IX).

However, the passion they mutually feel is so fierce and absolute that it leads to the total an-

nihilation of happiness of both Earnshaw and Linton.

Emily Brontë portrays nature as a physical space where human bodies are bound by a

sense of natural place, where they miss or learn to retrieve a sensory corporeal communica-

tion with the environment (Defant, 2017). This is confirmed by the sister, Charlotte Brontë,

who wrote: „My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the

blackest of the heath for her; - out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill - side, her mind could

make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the least and

best-loved was – liberty‟ (Chapter VIII). These feelings are also part of Catherine as she em-

braces nature and expresses her physical desire for it. An example of this connection with the

natural world is given in the weeks before Catherine‟s death, when she begs Nelly to open the

window because, forced to stay inside the house, she misses breathing in the winds. Indeed,

the nature-disconnected behaviour she starts adopting at Thrushcross Grange, enveloped in

domestic comfort, causes her physical and psychological malaise.

The relationship between the individual and nature is always a main theme in the

novel, but this connection makes the characters realise their loneliness and they end losing

their minds, coming out vanquished. In Wuthering Heights, as Emily Brontë herself declared

in the letter to her sister Charlotte, there is the willingness to express the person‟s solitude in

front of nature: an essential „topos‟ in the romantic culture of that time. It needs to be clari-

fied that this theme, when developed in the novel up to the final consequences, is at the same

time also radically overturned. In the Romantic conception loneliness is a form of freedom,


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the inner place in which the elation of „I‟ takes the place of „other‟. In Wuthering Heights,

instead, we do find the celebration of this Romantic ideal but also its failure. Being lonely is a

way to easily access emotions, but the implications of this existential and psychological di-

mension are often ambivalent.

At the beginning of the novel, Mr Lockwood admits to wish for peaceful loneliness

by saying that he is tired to search pleasure in society and that a sensible man should find

company in himself. Later, however, he will not hesitate to leave everything behind and go

back to London when Nelly‟s tale shows him the dangers that come with being in the compa-

ny of oneself in the dark solitude of the moors (Brontë, E., 2007). Similarly, when loneliness

is taken as a refuge for a broken heart, is the case of Heathcliff and Hindley after the loss of

their respective beloved women, the ruthless and inclement confrontation with their emotion

will generate feelings of hate and cruelty, and then death. Their own deep sense of belonging

to the moors is a source of terror and estrangement for others. Belonging is the way not to

belong.

As mentioned in Charlotte‟s letter, the moor is also seen as a symbol of freedom. The

same freedom that Emily has always longed for. The link between Sublime landscapes and

ideas of liberty was forged in the eighteenth century when enclosed gardens symbolized aris-

tocratic confinement and control and the wild and untamed landscapes beyond the country

house represented freedom and release. This is the case of Isabella‟s escape. After the dan-

gerous, abusive encounter with Heathcliff she runs away to the moors where she finds salva-

tion and liberty (Brontë, E., 2007).

Yet while earlier poets sought to accommodate the potency of the Sublime within

manageable and picturesque settings, later Romantic writers seem more willing to explore the

radical implications of extreme natural phenomena, such as the weather. One of the most

meaningful aspects of Wuthering Heights is the essential realism of Emily‟s treatment of the

weather, manifestations as such realism can be found in the variety of weather conditions de-

picted in the novel and in the contradictions and incongruities she shows us to exist between

weather and seasons in a northern climate (Tytler, G., 2016).

The fierce weather is strictly related to the landscape. Indeed, as it is explained at the

beginning of the novel, „wuthering‟ is a „significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the

atmospheric tumult to which it‟s (the Heights‟) station is exposed in stormy weather‟ (Brontë,

E., 2007, Ch. I). „Stunted‟, „gaunt‟, „craving‟ are only some of the adjectives used to describe


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the viciousness of the weather that not only creates the atmosphere of the novel but also re-

flects the feelings and the attitude of the characters. Changes in the weather directly effect

changes in the characters. When the weather is bad, tensions are high between them, and

when it is a sunny day – a rare occurrence - all is well on the earth between Wuthering

Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

In the novel, nature is often portrayed as deeply inhospitable, not easily subdued to

human purpose, comfort or design. The weather in Brontë‟s work is thus never simply a set-

ting or something to be contemplated, but an active and shaping presence in the lives of its

characters (Bowen, 2014). For example, in Chapter IX, weather influences the plot when the

storm causes Catherine to become ill and when Edgar is not able to visit the churchyard on

Cathy‟s birthday because of the rain. Therefore, bad weather may deter the movements of the

characters, such as when Lockwood is trapped at Wuthering Heights by the snow. On the

other hand, the weather is meant to serve not only the plot but it is also bound to perform

some sort of symbolic function. Lockwood‟s detailed account of the snowstorm, for instance,

may be intended to symbolically underline the low morale of the Heights household under

Heathcliff‟s cold and rigid jurisdiction (Tytler, 2016).

Nowadays, the places walked by Emily Brontë have become a sort of sanctuary for a

multitude of readers who, passionate about her work, want to trace her steps. This shows how

these physical spots still represent a map of the traces of her contact with nature even long

after she had trodden there (Defant, 2017). As Defant argues, walking is a state in which

body, mind and environment may come together,

The natural world was for Emily a way to stretch out her mind and body alike. By

stretching out her mind on the moors she could create her imaginary worlds, by

stretching out her body she could relish the wonders of nature, the source of her poet-

ic inspiration (Defant, 2017, p. 39).

This experience of sensorial connection with the earth creates a link between Emily Brontë

and her readers, who may re-experience her feelings and renew the contact with the natural

landscape that inspired her a long time ago. The final stanza of one of the Brontë‟s most cel-

ebrated poems begins with the line: „I‟ll walk where my own nature will be leading‟ (Inman,

2014, p.29). The poem is concerned with the essential human „nature‟ and it evokes an abso-

lute freedom, which was considered incredibly important by Emily Brontë and which goes

beyond any particular individual, time and space.


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References

Bowen, J. (2014) Walking the landscape of Wuthering Heights, available at

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/walking-the-landscape-of-wuthering-

heights

Brontë, E (2007) Wuthering Heights. The Project Gutenberg eBook, available at

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/768/768-h/768-h.htm

Defant, I. (2017) Inhabiting Nature in Emily Brontë‟s Wuthering Heights. Brontë Studies,

42(1), pp. 37-47.

Gaskell, E (2005) The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1; available at

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1827/1827-h/1827-h.htm

Godwin, F. (1979) Howarth Parsonage and Top Withens. The British Library; available at

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/walking-the-landscape-of-wuthering-

heights

Heywood, C. (1998) "Yorkshire landscapes in 'Wuthering Heights.' Essays in Criticism,

48(1), pp. 13-34.

Inman, L. (2014) Poetic World of Emily Brontë: Poems from the Author of Wuthering

Heights. Sussex Academic Press.

Rosenthal L. (2012) Romanticism. New York, NY: Parkstone Press International.

Tytler, G. (2016) Weather in Wuthering Heights. Brontë Studies, 41(1), pp. 39-47.


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Hills and cliffs, rocks and heath

Annabelle J. Paradis – Universitè Bordeaux Montaigne, France

Emily Brontë wrote a single novel and it is unique for many other reasons including its singu-

lar narrative structure, its chaotic love story, its duality, and last but not least, its landscape.

Nowadays, Wuthering Heights is considered as a Romantic and Gothic masterpiece and the

talent of its author is undeniable. However, at the time of its publication Wuthering Heights

was received as a “completely wild, uninhibited book, disgusting, horrible and violent”

(Bowen, 2014) due to the detailed and omnipresent physical and verbal violence which can

be found in it. Not only the story and its characters are harsh and violent, but also the envi-

ronment which is described is wild and inhospitable. However, as wild and inhospitable as it

can be, it remains the dear landscape in which the author lived most of her life and with

which she felt a strong connection. Those moors are isolated, windy, and dangerous. Their

function in the novel is so important that some scholars argue that they should be considered

as a separate character. As a result, and despite all its violence, Emily Brontë‟s readers still

consider her novel intelligent and beautiful.

This essay addresses the following questions: To what extent can the harsh and unfor-

giving landscape of Wuthering Heights be a source of delight? Can we find the Sublime in

the landscape of Wuthering Heights as well as in paintings of the same period? I begin by

looking at the positive and elevating features of the landscape which represent the Naive Sub-

lime (Schiller, 2005). I then argue that the sublime is also present in what is perceived as the

negative features of the landscape. In a last part of this paper, I compare Emily Brontë‟s

moors to some iconic paintings of the American Romantic period in an attempt to show that

even though it seems to be very different, the landscape in Wuthering Heights possesses

numerous features of the Romantic Movement.

Among the many violent scenes of the novel - including Hindley‟s beatings, Heath-

cliff‟s cursing and Cathy‟s hysteria - Emily Brontë sprinkled in a few beautiful touches of the

landscape which was close to her heart. Here and there the narrators, Nelly and Lockwood, as

well as other characters, give the readers a glimpse of the moors, with is necessarily always

tinged by their own perspective. That subjectivity of the narrators helps readers grasp the

beauty of the landscape through the emotions it evokes in them. While Nelly gives a deroga-

tory view of the landscape near the Heights to convince young Cathy not to wander there by


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describing it as “masses of stone, with hardly enough earth in their clefts to nourish a stunted

tree” (p.158), Edgar Linton gives his wife the opposite idea when he says “the sky is blue,

and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full” (p. 112) and even sug-

gests that its wind could have curative benefits for her.

Readers are thus given an idea of the potential beauty of the landscape. The author

goes even further by telling the readers what we should consider as beautiful. Indeed, in the

passage where young Cathy tells Nelly her argument with Linton about their notion of the

ideal scenery, it feels as if two painters were opposing the ideas of the classic and the Roman-

tic landscape.

One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of

spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the

middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and

the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily

and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven‟s happiness: mine was

rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds

flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets,

and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, bro-

ken into cool dusky dells; but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves

to the breeze; and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild

with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance

in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine

would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in

mine, and began to grow very snappish (Brontë, 1870, pp 206-207).

Contrary to Linton‟s view of the outdoors, the scenery which Cathy describes is not perfect

or ideal. Her sky is not blue but cloudy, the environment not quiet and still but noisy and in

rebellious motion. Her idea of “heaven‟s happiness” echoes Des Pres‟ view when he criti-

cizes “commentators who cannot see the sublime except in glorious terms” (1983, p. 144).

We could now wonder whether the moors and Cathy‟s landscape appeal to our sense of

Beauty or to our sense of the Sublime. According to Quinton, who studied Burke‟s Enquiry

(1757), “our sense of the sublime which is that which terrifies and astonishes us” while “our

sense of beauty” is influenced by what evokes “affection and tenderness” (Quinton, 1961, p

72). Therefore, it could be argued that while Linton longs for simple beauty in which he

would feel peaceful, Cathy looks for delight in the Sublime as she uses strong adjectives and

superlatives such as “most perfect idea” (p. 206) and “glorious jubilee” (p 207). To be able to

find more of the Sublime in Wuthering Heights, it is essential to turn towards elements which


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evoke stronger feelings than peace and pleasure. In other words, it may be within the violence

of the novel itself that it is possible to find elevating feelings.

Burke (cited in Des Pres, 1983, p 135) gives his definition of the Sublime, which dif-

fers considerably from the concept of the Naive Sublime,

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say,

whatever is in any sort terrible [...] is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive

of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.

Burke‟s definition makes it possible for the landscape, the weather and the impossible love

between Cathy and Heathcliff to be a source of the Sublime in the novel. As mentioned earli-

er, the landscape in Wuthering Heights is harsh and inhospitable. The terrain is made of hills

and cliffs, and rocks and heath. The harsh weather is either rainy or snowy, if not stormy, and

is usually used as a reflection of the feelings and emotions that are being unleashed in the sto-

ry. For instance, when Heathcliff hears Catherine telling Nelly that it would degrade her to

marry him, and leaves without listening to Catherine‟s declaration of love for him, we can

only imagine the emotional torment he must be going through. That night when he leaves is

an important turning point in the novel, embodied by the violent storm which strikes them “in

full fury”. In this scene Catherine braves the danger of the storm even though “there was a

violent wind, as well as thunder” (Brontë, 1870, pp. 69-70).

If terror can be considered as a source of the Sublime, there is no way to avoid men-

tioning the Gothic elements of the novel. Indeed, the plot is set in an isolated landscape in the

moors, where the characters wander here and there. It is both described as a dangerous place

where they “run a risk of being lost” (Brontë, 1870, p 9), and a place of freedom where Cath-

erine and Heathcliff wander all day long far away from Hindley‟s patriarchal oppression.

However, the moors are also mysterious, as Heathcliff − both as a child and as a grown-up

man − disappears there for hours without anyone knowing where he exactly is or what he is

doing. He sometimes “carried his ill-humour on to the moors; [and] fasting and reflection

seemed to have brought him to a better spirit” (Brontë, 1870, pp. 44-45). The landscape

seems to embody supernatural abilities of regeneration at several occasions, including the one

mentioned above and when Catherine asks Nelly to open the windows to let her breathe the

winds of the Heights.

Wuthering Heights also represents the Gothic “gloomy castles” where supernatural

events such as the “apparition” (Wright, 2015, p. 60) of Catherine‟s ghost take place. It is a


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scary, unwelcoming place, where Heathcliff is beaten up, Cathy is kept against her will and

several people die. Des Pres explains that the Gothic becomes prominent exactly when “the

category of the sublime became central to art and philosophy” (Des Pres, 1983, p. 144). Ter-

ror gives characters the possibility to transcend their fear in their quest for identify. They

overcome it and become more powerful than the source of the terror, which allows the Sub-

lime to happen.

The Sublime, aa a key element of the Romantic Movement, is a concept which ap-

plies not only to Literature but also to the Visual Art. Brontë scholars frequently remind us

that the landscape in Wuthering Heights was inspired by the moors surrounding Haworth

where the Brontës grew up. Therefore, it is possible to visually compare the Yorkshire Moors

to Romantic paintings which depict similar landscapes. The paintings from the Hudson River

School are here used to illustrate such similarities because the feelings of awe and admiration

(Grandjeat, 2017) they convey through the visual representation of the American landscape

are particularly striking. According to Des Pres, the feeling of terror or awe can be found in

any “vastness in heights and depths” (1983, p. 137). In the two paintings (Figures 1 and 2),

the mountains, lake and trees in the background as well as the taller trees in the foreground

give a vertiginous impression of deep verticality and horizontality (Kelly, 2003).

The places are isolated by natural barriers such as mountains and the forest, and the

stormy clouds and the mist give both a feeling of mystery and of a supernatural presence.

This feeling is emphasized by the presence of an isolated small dwelling in Cole‟s painting

(Figure 1) and the deer in Bierstadt‟s (Figure 2). When viewers look towards ground, they are

likely to be filled with admiration for the beauty of the scene of uncorrupted greenery, bathed

with natural light. As the eyes move upwards to the mountains and the sky, viewers are

stricken by the feeling of awe while becoming aware of their own insignificance. The simul-

taneous experience of those feelings is likely to generate the experience of the Sublime.

Comparing the paintings to a photograph of The Yorkshire Moors by Pete Barnes

(https://www.flickr.com/photos/petebarnesphotography/5886596795 ), it is possible to identi-

fy the same features as mentioned above: the fields are filled with light and seem to extend

endlessly, the single vertical tree in the foreground is also present of those Romantic paint-

ings, and the stormy sky is particularly threatening but the light shaft in its centre suggest

some supernatural divine presence. The ruins of a simple dwelling testify of a past human

presence, not only suggesting that nature is now fully in control of the place, but also generat-


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ing a feeling of mystery.

Figure 1: Cole, T. (1839) A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford

Notch) [oil on canvas]. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Source: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-

object-page.50727.html This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work

of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain. Wikipedia Commons


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Figure 2: Bierstadt, A. (1868) Among the Sierra Nevada, California [oil on canvas]. Smithsonian American Art

Museum, Washington DC. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Bierstadt_-

_Among_the_Sierra_Nevada,_California_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg This is a file from the Wikimedia Com-

mons. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository

In the eighteenth century, some authors “declared their books means of reintroducing

readers to nature, after reams of improbable fictions had diverted them from it” (Lynch, 2008,

p 50). This may have been due to a need to come back to primary and powerful feelings such

as the sublime, which can only be found in nature. At the same time, some Americans influ-

enced by movements such as the Hudson River School started to become aware of the intrin-

sic value of nature and tried to preserve it (Grandjeat, 2017)

The aim of this essay was to investigate the harshness and violence of the landscape

in Wuthering Heights and analyse how it raises elevating feelings in the readers. It has been

argued that besides such harshness, it is possible to find in the novel elements of beauty in the

description of the landscape and the feelings it generates in the characters. However, it is also

possible to experience the Sublime through the experience of terror. It has also been argued

that the sense of the Sublime conveyed by the Yorkshire Moors described by Brontë in the

novel can be compared to some iconic landscapes of the Hudson River School of American

Romantic painting. Although this essay only presented a brief analysis of the landscape in

Wuthering Heights, it would be interesting to follow with an investigation of how seasonal

cycles are related to death and tragedy, more likely to happen in the harshness of winter, and

while happiness and peace, usually linked to for spring.

References

Bowen, J. (2014) Wuthering Heights: Violence and Cruelty, video recording, The British Library,

Youtube. Viewed 17 December 2018.

Brontë, E. (1870) Wuthering Heights. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

Burke, E. (1757) A philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.

London: printed for R. and J. Dodsley.

Des Pres, T. (1983) „Terror and the Sublime‟, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol 5, No 2, pp 135-146.

Grandjeat, Y. (2017) Environmental History in the US, L3 LLCE, Université Bordeaux Montaigne,

lecture notes.

Kelly, F. (2003) Hudson River School. Viewed on 23 November 2018 at https://doi-

org.ezproxy3.lib.le.ac.uk/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T039290

Lynch, D. S. (2008) “Gothic fiction,” Maxwell, R. and Trumpener, K. (eds) The Cambridge Compan-

ion to Fiction in the Romantic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 47–64

Quinton, A. (1961) „Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful‟, Philosophy, Vol 36, No 136, pp 71-73.


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Schiller, F. (1795) On naïve and sentimental poetry. Translated from German by Wertz, W.F., Jr.

[online] Available at https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/transl/Schiller_essays/naive_sentimental-

1.html

Wright, A. (2015) „The Gothic‟, Looser, D. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Women's Writing in

the Romantic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 58–72.


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COME TO LEICESTER IN AUGUST 2020


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Poster: Shakespeare’s Italian obsession

Valeria Cozzolongo – Italy


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Poster: A comparison between Romeo and Juliet and Peony Pavilion

Tianwei Skyla Zhao – China


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Poster: Understanding fools in Shakespeare’s plays

Zhuoning Wang – China


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The Merchant of Venice and the question of genre

Marie Charue - Universitè Catholique de Louvrain at Louvrain-la-Neuve

Shakespeare‟s The Merchant of Venice is one of the playwright‟s works that appears to be

highly problematic (Wells, 2008, pp.1-13) as it raises issues that have become increasingly

sensitive to address. Successive historical events have raised awareness of the dangers of

anti-Semitism, which culminated with the Holocaust during the World War II. Moreover,

even though the play has been officially classified as a comedy since its publication in the

First Folio (Swinden, 1973, pp. 65-76), its affiliation to the genre has been discussed and

questioned by many critics and scholars (Truxler, 1992). The debate is so persistent that

The Merchant of Venice has been occasionally classified among Shakespeare‟s “problem

plays” (Margolies, 2012), that is, plays whose understanding and classification into a genre

are continuous areas of concern.

In the present paper, I consider how Shakespeare, while keeping most of the comic

formal features, wrote a complex tragicomedy that plays with the audience‟s expectations.

The analysis will first consist of an examination of the main comic characteristics that can

be found in the play. Then, the focus is put on the tragic aspects that are present in The

Merchant of Venice, most particularly in the character of Shylock. This is followed by a

discussion of how the work can be considered as a hybrid play and an experiment on genre

boundaries. This aspect will be discussed specifically by drawing parallels between the

third and fifth act and their two contrasting “endings”.

The legitimacy of the controversy about whether The Merchant of Venice is a com-

edy cannot be denied given the considerable number of academic works that discuss its bit-

ter ending and disturbing characters. However, the play fulfills most of the features that are

commonly associated with the comedic genre since Antiquity. A comedy distinguishes it-

self first and especially by the fact that it ends better than it started; as noted by Smith,

“comedies begin in trouble and end in peace; tragedies begin in calms and end in tempest”

(Heywood, 1612, cited in Smith, 2007, p.92). This main aspect allows readers to identify a

comedy as such and to oppose it to a tragedy. A straight and impartial overview of the plot

shows that the situation of some characters does improve throughout the play, compared

with their opening circumstances: couples are married, friends are reunited, and the threat

that Shylock poses is overcome. There is thus a general movement “towards social cohe-


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sion”, as it is frequently the case in Shakespearean comedies (Smith, 2007, p.94).

Furthermore, another distinguishing feature of the genre concerns the characters

who must be from a lower social class than tragic figures, who are usually of noble back-

ground (Galbraith, 2002, pp.7-15). In The Merchant of Venice, most the characters are ei-

ther servants or merchants who, albeit wealthy, do not have a noble standing. The excep-

tions are the noble Portia and her suitors, the princes of Morocco and Aragon. Bassanio is a

gentleman (TMOV, 3.2.253-254) and we would expect Antonio to be one as well. Shylock

is wealthy enough to be able to lend money to enable Jessica to steal two caskets filled with

ducats while escaping, and yet he needs Tubal to gather three thousand ducats to lend to

Antonio (TMOV, 1.3.54-55). However, all of them are facing the experience of lack of

money at one point or the other in the story. The impact of money upon relationships and

bonds is one of the main implied themes, which is a “vulgar” topic very unlikely to be cen-

tral in a tragedy.

Nevertheless, the comic aspect of the play has been regularly put into question

since the middle of the eighteenth century (Swinden, 1973, p.67). Most notably, the charac-

ter of Shylock could be considered a tragic figure trapped in a comedy. He has a complex

personality that cannot be reduced to his threatening role towards the happy ending. Alt-

hough he only appears in five scenes, his importance is such that he is often regarded as the

main character of the story (p.66). One generally considers a tragic hero or figure to even-

tually be subjected to an ill-fated outcome that is partly due to his own misjudgment, but

not fully deserved. In The Merchant of Venice, both the disastrous aspect of Shylock‟s sen-

tence and his responsibility in the latter raise contradictory arguments.

On the one hand, his position as an unequivocally mean character is challenged by

his own discourse about himself. The famous “Hath not a Jew eyes?” soliloquy (3.1.50-69)

is the apogee of his humanization and of his emotional potential. This speech is strategical-

ly placed at the beginning of the third Act, in the core of the play (Smith, 2007, p.92). It

shows Shylock in a very vulnerable position, since he has just discovered the flight of his

daughter and the theft of his fortune. In the first instance, the fact that Solanio reports Shy-

lock to put at the same level the loss of Jessica and that of his ducats (“My daughter! O my

ducats! O my daughter! Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats” (2.8.15-16)) shows

him as a venal person. However, two instances challenge this picture. The first one is when

he is particularly devastated by the fact that Jessica gave away her mother‟s ring, which is


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symbolically very important to Shylock (“Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was

my turquoise. I had it left of Leah when I was a bachelor” (3.1.113-114)). The second one

is when he rejoices he will not be repaid by Antonio. As bankrupted as he is at this mo-

ment, Shylock wants revenge more than he wants money, about which he was yet com-

plaining just a few moments before. Accordingly, at the same time the scene “poses Shy-

lock as the challenge to the romantic comedy of the play” (Smith, 2007, p.92). The charac-

ter is presented as complex, but above all, driven by strong emotions. Eventually, the solil-

oquy itself is a desperate demand for being allowed humanity, even though this is a human-

ity that is fraught with revenge: “If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew,

what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge” (3.1.63-69).

The disdain he seems to provoke is apparently shared amongst all the other charac-

ters as even his daughter claims that their house “is hell” (2.3.2). Antonio never denies that

he hates him, has insulted him, spat at him, and would do it again. Portia addresses him

throughout the count scene only by scornfully calling him “Jew”. When Shylock claims

that he hates Antonio only for the sake of his Christianity and shows his thirst for revenge,

he may entirely erase the sense of empathy he created in the famous soliloquy.

In the last decades, however, Shylock‟s fate has been considered so cruel that it

seems the play actually belongs to the tragic genre. Most of Shakespeare‟s comedies end

with a deviant figure being re-integrated into society (Berry, 2006, p.125). Forcing Shylock

into converting to Christianity seems to follow this rule, but this happens in a very unset-

tling way for 21st century audiences: he is denied any free will; the humanity that he re-

claimed in the preceding act and the mercy that was required of him by the court (“Then

must the Jew be merciful” (4.1.179) are not granted. The other characters seem to consider

his conversion a happy outcome and an integration of a marginalized person into society.

Yet, Shylock‟s language, “monosyllabic and fraught with heaviness” (Wells, 2008, p. 54)

clearly shows his uneasiness: “I am not well. Send the deed after me, And I will sign it”

(4.1.392- 393). His last words he utters in the play are the ironic “I am content” (4.1.389).

According to Smith (2007), the comic and tragic genres can be considered, rather

than a duality, to be on a spectrum where The Merchant of Venice would appear in an in-

between position. Smith argues that, “[w]hen Portia arrives at the Venetian courtroom dis-

guised as the lawyer Balthazar, she is fighting for the play as comedy; Shylock, whetting


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his knife on the sole of his shoe, is trying to wrest it from the comic” (p.93).

However, the play could be seen as more than a comedy where a tragic figure is

trapped but as an experiment with genre. The dimension where this experiment is the most

prominent is its structure. It has been argued, notably by Smith (2007), that the third act of

any Shakespearean play is their decisive turning point. She claims that at this point of a

story we can perceive the elements that will eventually make the play either go towards the

tragedy‟s appalling ending or towards the comedy‟s happy outcome (p.90-93). According-

ly, the beginning of the third act of The Merchant of Venice is crucial because it shows

Shylock in the most humane manner. Nevertheless, another important aspect of the act is

that it presents a very stereotypical comic ending, that is, a festive celebration of love and

marriage. A double marriage, or declaration of marriage, between Bassanio and Portia and

Graziano and Nerissa, reminds audiences of the last acts of more conventional comedies

such as Twelfth Night or Much Ado About Nothing.

The caskets plot, where Portia‟s suitors must choose between a golden, silver and

lead casket to earn the right to marry her, bears resemblance with a fairy-tale and it is in

fact based on folklore (Wells, 2008, p.17). Smith even considers that Bassanio‟s success in

choosing the lead casket, although very unlikely given the character‟s personality, might

have been partly led by Bassanio‟s awareness of the codes of old tales, where he is sup-

posed to choose the less attractive chest in order to win the sought-after princess (Smith,

2012, 1:40-19:50). The issue of the “quest” remains, however, a typical ending of a come-

dy, “with weddings and feasts” (Gay, 2008, p.5). It is the highest point of the play in terms

of celebration and will be directly followed by turmoil: just after Grazanio‟s declaration of

marriage (3.2.189-213) a letter from Antonio arrives announcing his misfortune. This piece

of news instantly puts an end to the cheerful atmosphere which will ever be recovered af-

terwards:

There are some shrewd news in yon same paper

That steals the colour from Bassanio‟s cheek.

Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world

Could turn so much the constitution

Of any constant man. What, worse and worse? (3.2.241-245)


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In comparison, the fifth and last act, where all disorder is over, and the threat is withdrawn,

seems unusually inadequate and of lesser festive effect. Shylock is no longer mentioned: the

Act is dedicated to the plot on the token rings and broken promises. The importance of the

dispute, compared to the rapidity of the reconciliation, leaves an uncomfortable climate to the

latter, and suggest that the confidence between the couples will never been restored. Besides,

even the weather seems to embody this unpleasant atmosphere:

This night methinks is but the daylight sick.

It looks a little paler. „Tis day

Such as the day is when the sun is hid. (5.1.124-126)

Likewise, Michael Radford‟s adaptation (2004) of the play clearly illustrates this aspect, as

the Act 5 takes place mainly in an enclosed and somber room. Another sub-plot that takes

place in the final act and suggests the same uncomfortable (un)happy closure is a last dia-

logue between Jessica and her husband Lorenzo. A sharp contrast can be observed between

the moods of both lovers‟: their comments about the night and the situation have conflict-

ing undertones – a positive view for Lorenzo, a negative one for Jessica. Moreover, Jessica

accuses Lorenzo of having made “many vows of faith / And ne‟er a true one” (5.1.18-19).

This scene, once again, darkens the love story between the two. Even if the scene does not

mention Shylock, it could be interpreted as a sign that Jessica regrets her escape from her

father‟s home for what she considers then as false vows. This also seems to be Radford‟s

interpretation since he chooses to show in his film adaptation a final melancholic scene

where Jessica watches Shylock from a distance.

To conclude, the play ends on a confusing note. Although the conflict in the main

plot is apparently resolved, the introduction of Shylock as a quasi-tragic figure and the use

of the act structure and dark undertones establish the play as a having a more complex

dramatic construction that it would be expected to be found in a comedy. It is nonetheless

important to keep in mind that the perception of any work of art is heavily biased by the

epoch of its reception (Swinden, 1973, pp.1-21), and that some scholars argue that we

might consider Shylock, notably, as much more tragic now than he would have been in-

tended by Shakespeare in the 16th

century. The play, however, can still be viewed as a “ma-

jor experiment in expanding the parameters of comedy” (Gay, 2008, p.124) that displays


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deep and dark themes in the Venetian society.

References

Berry, E. (2006) „Laughing at others‟, in Legatt, A. (ed) The Cambridge companion to

Shakespearean comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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