Product Description

The extraordinary creativity of the Brontë sisters, who between them wrote some of the most enduring fiction in the English language, continues to fascinate and intrigue modern readers. The tragedy of their early deaths adds poignancy to their novels, and in the popular imagination they have become mythic figures. And yet, as Patricia Ingham shows, they were fully engaged with the world around them, and their writing, from the juvenilia to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights , reflects the preoccupations of the age in which they lived. Their novels, which so shocked their contemporaries, address the burning issues of the day: class, gender, race, religion, and mental disorders. As well as examining these connections, Patricia Ingham also shows how film and other media have reinterpreted the novels for the twenty-first century. The book includes a chronology of the Brontës, suggestions for further reading, websites, illustrations, and a comprehensive index.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36885 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Craig Raine
'A dazzling, unobtrusive, true work of criticism - what a rarity that is.'

Review
A dazzling, unobtrusive, true work of criticism - what a rarity that is (Craig Raine )

From the Back Cover

(The Brontes – Blurb)

The novels, poetry and prose of the Bronte sisters have proved a rich resource for twentieth century literary criticism. Their texts are a source of diversity in themselves, full of conflictual material which different schools of criticism have freshly analysed and interpreted. This Reader provides a wide ranging selection of essays on the works of the Brontes, starting with their contemporaries and reaching to the present day. Patricia Ingham’s clear and readable Introduction traces the development of interpretations to reveal how the early reactions indicate concerns in the areas of gender and class and race which modern critics have now unpacked further.

This volume shows how the Brontes writings engage with the major issues which dominate twentieth century theoretical work . The essays are grouped under broad schools of theory such as feminist; marxist; psychoanalytic and postcolonial.

This collection will be suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate students working on nineteenth century literary and cultural theory, particularly in relation to gender, class and race.

Patricia Ingham is Senior Research Fellow and Reader at St Anne’s College,Oxford.