THE BRONTE SISTERS FOLLOW UP SPLENDID PATTERNS ON UNIVERSAL LITERATURE

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	• The Bronte Myth Lucasta Miller Anchor, 2005 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Who were the Brontes?

The Bronte myth consists of preconcieved ideas of the Bronte family, wherein Elizabeth Gaskell's boigraphy of Charlotte's life is somewhat erroneous. She portrays the Bronte family as brooding and depressed, their father as a villian. She implies they have a secluded childhood, and Charlotte is basically sexless and pious. The myth of the Bronte family has survived down to our day.
I did enjoy the book, reading about the Bronte's early life, the difference between who they truly were, and what the preconcieved notion of them has been. My great fault with the book is that while Charlotte, the Bronte who perhaps the most is known about, is discussed at length, we hear less of the other sisters, though a large portion is devoted to the elusive Emily. I have always wished to know more about the lesser known, seemingly forgotten Bronte, Anne, but in this book she is as overshadowed by her sisters as she has been these past 150+ years. And in that way I feel as if I know as little about Anne as I did before reading this book. It makes me seem as though we are all content to pass over and not acknowledge this very talented woman from a very talented family.

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More than halfway decent

I needed this book for an upper-level university course on the Bronte sisters. It is adequately well-written, and my passion for the subject has kept me intrigued enough to finish it (as well as the requirement for class, of course!). Miller's writing style, however, is just a bit annoying--the tone is rather informal, treading somewhere between the "novellized history" of Irving Stone, and the usual voice found in English texts. I found that she carries off neither effectively, though if she had just chosen one or the other she surely would have been able to.

Definitely a worthwhile read overall, though--very insightful for anyone who has an interest in the Brontes.

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A New Wrinkle in Biographies

Will the real Bronte sisters please stand up.

A biographer has to put something of himself into the book he writes. We see in people a reflection of ourselves, of our family, of the people we know. In the case of the Bronte's they were doing things that young ladies simply didn't do, like write books, and particularily they didn't write books like these. After all, the books that these ladies wrote talked about, dare I say it, yes, I will, sex.

This book, called a metabiography is an analysis of the biographies of the Bronte's. The first biography, written by Elizabeth Gaskell two years after Charlotte's death spun the sisters into picturesque myth -- family tragedies, Yorkshire moor, and all. All families have tragedies particularily in a time when so little was known about medicine. And the image you can write of the moor is different than the land really looks.

In attempting to do away with the myth to get to the women underneath, this book takes an entirely new approach to the Bronte's and to biographies in general.

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THE BRONTE SISTERS FOLLOW UP SPLENDID PATTERNS ON UNIVERSAL LITERATURE

THE BRONTE MYTH - THE BRONTË SISTERS FOLLOW UP SPLENDID PATTERNS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE, March, 2007. Reviewer: Waldir Freitas Oliveira (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil). March 10, 2007. The Brontë Sisters - Charlotte, Emily and Anne - remain, even nowadays, with their reputation of remarkable persons in universal Literature. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights continue as habitual readings in numerous countries all over the world. They were published in 1847, 160 years ago, but they have been marked as good samples of classic novels. Charlotte, the eldest of the three sisters, became certainly the most famous of them, as a result of the publishing, in 1857, of her biography, written by Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell - The Life of Charlotte Brontë --, two years after her death and ten years after the edition of Jane Eyre, revealing an unknown author - Currer Bell, a male name elected by Charlotte Brontë, for the purpose of not disclose her identity, and, consequently, her female condition. Emily remains, although, in spite of the large acceptation of Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte, as the most loved of the Brontë sisters, according to the opinion of a large number of critics and historians of the English Literature in the nineteenth century, even though having been the authoress of a few poems and a sole novel - Wuthering Heights. Each year, however, one hundred or more books and articles are published, in many countries, on Wuthering Heights, and especially on the Brontë Sisters, mainly Charlotte and Emily. A myth flowers and
persists ever since a true history is repeated, endlessly, and finally woven into culture.
A myth was created, without doubt, involving the Brontë Sisters and their family - their
father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, and their brother, Edward. In her study The Brontë Myth
(published in 2005), Lucasta Miller, an English authoress, with formation at Oxford, deputy literary editor, for many years, of The Independent, and appearing, frequently,
in the pages of The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, and The Sunday Telegraph, the most famous British journals, with elegant and precise style, throws light over the daily life of the Brontë, at Howarth, in Yorkshire, wasting out the excessive importance given by many critics and historians to the arid landscape around the Brontë's homeland - the inhospitable moors, - with its strong winds and mighty storms. She reveals, in an opposite manner, the good education provided by the Rev.Patrick to his daughters in their childhood and youth She aims, with this approach, at considering the mythic components that surround their lifes, aside from the real value of the conditions allowing the performance of the Brontë sisters, three young rural spinsters, as women writers who produced literary works with an evident talent, good taste, a fine style, and large acceptance. The Brontë Myth is a notable study in the area of History of English Literature in the nineteenth century. Lucasta Miller reveals in it, by and large, the common life of a traditional English family living, at that age, in Yorkshire. Someone has mentioned this book, with good reason, as a bewitching 'metabiography`, on account of the capacity of its authoress to rescue the bright and vivid figures of the Brontë Sisters from the distortion of legend around them. Lucasta Miller's study certainly deserves a large attention by scholars interested in understanding the English mind, the proper manner of a people many times ill-considered by other people who live in the British isles especially when they are not glad or happy with the reality of daily life there. The Brontë Myth is, for sure, a precious contribution to the acquisition of a pervasive knowledge about the History and the Literature of Great Britain in the Victorian Age.

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Beyond informative

This book turns out to be the Holy Grail when it comes to the Brontes. The writer goes beyond the misty moors and sheds a bit of light into the reality of the Brontes. It's refreshing and new and the writer leads you to other books, recently published, that open an entire new view of the Brontes. This is a wonderful book.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

In a brilliant combination of biography, literary criticism, and history, The Bronté Myth shows how Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronté became cultural icons whose ever-changing reputations reflected the obsessions of various eras.

When literary London learned that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights had been written by young rural spinsters, the Brontés instantly became as famous as their shockingly passionate books. Soon after their deaths, their first biographer spun the sisters into a picturesque myth of family tragedies and Yorkshire moors. Ever since, these enigmatic figures have tempted generations of readers?Victorian, Freudian, feminist?to reinterpret them, casting them as everything from domestic saints to sex-starved hysterics. In her bewitching ?metabiography,? Lucasta Miller follows the twists and turns of the phenomenon of Bront-mania and rescues these three fiercely original geniuses from the distortions of legend.

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