I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights

zaterdag 4 juli 2009

portrait

We are fortunate that this, the only portrait of the three sisters together, has survived. Shortly after Patrick's death in 1861, Charlotte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, took the portrait back to Ireland with him where he placed it, folded, on the top shelf of a wardrobe; and there it lay (along with the Emily fragment from the 'Gun Group Portrait') for the next fifty three years, being discovered, and subsequently sold in 1914, by his second wife, Mary Anne Nicholls, after Arthur's death in 1906. Charlotte's friend and eventual biographer, Elizabeth Gaskell, was shown the portrait by Charlotte during her first visit to the Parsonage in September 1853 (several years after Anne and Emily, whom she had never met, had died). In her biography, 'The Life of Charlotte Brontë', written two years after Charlotte's death, she described the event, and the portrait, thus:

'. . . there could be no doubt about Branwell's talent for drawing. I have seen an oil painting of his, done I know not when . . . It was a group of his sisters, life size, three-quarters' length; not much better than sign-painting, as to manipulation; but the likenesses were, I should think, admirable. I could only judge of the fidelity with which the other two were depicted, from the striking resemblance which Charlotte, upholding the great frame of canvas, and consequently standing right behind it, bore to her own representation, though it must have been ten years and more since the portraits were taken. The picture was divided, almost in the middle, by a great pillar. On the side of the column which was lighted by the sun, stood Charlotte, in the womanly dress of that day of jigot sleeves and large collars. On the deeply shadowed side, was Emily, and Anne's gentle face resting on her shoulder. Emily's countenance struck me as full of power; Charlotte's of solicitude; Anne's of tenderness. The two younger seemed hardly to have attained their full growth, though Emily was taller than Charlotte; they had cropped hair, and a more girlish dress. I remember looking on those two sad, earnest, shadowed faces, and wondering whether I could trace the mysterious expression which is said to foretell an early death. I had some fond superstitious hope that the column divided their fates from hers, who stood apart in the canvas, as in life she survived. . . . They were good likenesses, however badly executed.'

dinsdag 30 juni 2009

This is the schoolroom where all three of the Brontë sisters taught

Patrick Bronte was a passionate believer in educating children, particularly poor children.This no doubt came from his own impoverished background growing up in Ireland, the eldest of ten children. Through his own talent and sponsorship, he was able to rise from these humble beginnings to enter St John's Cambridge to study for the ministry.

Patrick and his family arrived in Haworth in 1820, determined to improve the lives of his parishioners. In 1831 he persuaded the Church Trustees to release a small parcel of land on Church Street for the building of a Sunday School. He then requested and was granted £80 from the National Society to contribute towards the building of the school. The Sunday School building was opened in the summer of 1832 The commemorative plaque over the door was composed by Patrick, and reads:

'This National Sunday School is under the management of trustees of whom the incumbent for the time being is one. It was erected AD1832 by Voluntary Subscription and by a grant from the National Society in London. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Prov. XII.6'

In 1843 Patrick secured a further grant from the National Society to enable a salaried master to teach at the school on weekdays. In 1843 the first of three extensions were built, the second in 1850-3, and the third in 1872. The later extensions are still extant and form the two gable ends opposite the Parsonage.

The building remained a school until it was replaced by a larger building in 1903, but still continues to serve the community for which it was built.


a sampler of Emily Bronte

This is a reproduction of a sampler which Emily Bronte worked when she was ten years old. The reproduction is authorized by the Bronte Society, and the original may be seen at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, England.

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BRONTË PARSONAGE MUSEUM RECEIVES £50,000 FROM HERITAGE LOTTERY FUND TO SUPPORT NEW DEVELOPMENT

Monday, June 29, 2009
BRONTË PARSONAGE MUSEUM RECEIVES £50,000 FROM HERITAGE LOTTERY FUND TO SUPPORT NEW DEVELOPMENT
The Brontë Parsonage Museum has been awarded a grant of £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to support a programme of exciting new developments.

The museum has ambitious plans to completely refurbish the historic interiors of the Parsonage over the next two years. This will involve researching and introducing a new decorative scheme to the Parsonage rooms, the renewal of interpretation giving visitors of all ages information about the house and the family, and installing new object cases and displays. The project will also seek to create a greater focus in the museum on Haworth’s history and the social-historical context in which the Brontës lived. As part of this initiative there will be a programme of community activity to involve local people in the project. The Heritage Lottery Fund grant will fund stage 1 of the project which will involve the introduction of new interpretation, object cases and displays and the community programme of events which will begin with a local residents’ free admission day on 15 August.

The museum, which was home to the famous Brontë family for over forty years, and is where Charlotte, Emily and Anne’s great novels were written, recently completed a major refurbishment to its permanent exhibition space located in an extension to the original Brontë house. The refurbishment was the first major development at the museum in over twenty years and the new exhibition space, Genius: The Brontë Story, which includes the treasures of the museum’s collection as well as fun interactive displays for children, has proved a big hit with visitors. This latest project will see further improvements to the museum.

Fiona Spiers, Head of HLF, Yorkshire and the Humber Region, said:
This fantastic project will really bring the museum’s collections to life for everyone to explore. HLF is dedicated to supporting projects that open up our heritage for locals and visitors to learn about and enjoy.
We are delighted that the Heritage Lottery Fund is supporting us with this work. The Brontës are the heart of Haworth but they were part of a broader community when they lived and wrote here and the museum has an important role in reflecting that and in forging links with the twenty-first century Haworth community. This project will hopefully allow us to work in partnership with that community to reinterpret the Brontës and the Parsonage for the next generation.

Andrew McCarthy, Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum
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maandag 29 juni 2009

De foto van Patrick Brontë

De foto van Patrick Brontë, die 29=-6=2--9 is geveild voor 1476 pond, gaat terug naar Haworth. De anonieme koper van het portret, een vrouw uit het zuiden van Engeland, schenkt het aan het Brontë Parsonage Museum. “Dit moet niet in particuliere handen blijven”, liet zij weten in een reactie. De foto was sinds 1898 ‘vermist’, toen deze werd verkocht voor 5 pence uit de boedel van The Museum of Brontë Relics. Onlangs dook het portret op tijdens een antiekmarkt. De koper heeft bijna drie keer meer betaald dan verwacht. Eerder schatte het veilinghuis de waarde van het portret op maximaal 600 pond.




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Wat betekent Gothische literatuur?

Ik kom regelmatig de term Gothic tegen i.v.m. Emily Bronte. Ik ben op zoek gegaan naar de betekenis. Het betekent "Horror". En uit Wikepedia haal ik het volgende:

De invloed van Byronic Romanticism duidelijk in het werk van de zusters Brontë. Emily Brontë 's Wuthering Heights (1847) het Gotische zit hier in de Yorkshire Moors, spookachtige verschijningen en een Byronic held in de persoon van de demonische Heathcliff. Terwijl Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre (1847) een krankzinnige vrouw op zolder toevoegt. The Brontës' fiction is door sommige feministische critici als voorbeelden van vrouwelijk Gothic.
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The Parlour

The Parlour

Parsonage

Parsonage

Charlotte Bronte

Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked about various things; the character of the people, - about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring... ------------------- "She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in Villette was so exactly like what I had experienced, - vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, - wondering what it was like, or how it would be, - till at length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. ----------------------She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgement for her use of some of the faculties she had, - not the best, - but still the only ones she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgement on her from such a world?" elizabeth gaskell/charlotte bronte



Poem: No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.


O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!


Vain are the thousand creeds
That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,


To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.


With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.


Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.


There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.


--
Emily Bronte

Family tree

The Bronte Family

Grandparents - paternal
Hugh Brunty was born 1755 and died circa 1808. He married Eleanor McClory, known as Alice in 1776.

Grandparents - maternal
Thomas Branwell (born 1746 died 5th April 1808) was married in 1768 to Anne Carne (baptised 27th April 1744 and died 19th December 1809).

Parents
Father was Patrick Bronte, the eldest of 10 children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor (Alice) McClory. He was born 17th March 1777 and died on 7th June 1861. Mother was Maria Branwell, who was born on 15th April 1783 and died on 15th September 1821.

Maria had a sister, Elizabeth who was known as Aunt Branwell. She was born in 1776 and died on 29th October 1842.

Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell on 29th December 1812.

The Bronte Children
Patrick and Maria Bronte had six children.
The first child was Maria, who was born in 1814 and died on 6th June 1825.
The second daughter, Elizabeth was born on 8th February 1815 and died shortly after Maria on 15th June 1825. Charlotte was the third daughter, born on 21st April 1816.

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls (born 1818) on 29th June 1854. Charlotte died on 31st March 1855. Arthur lived until 2nd December 1906.

The first and only son born to Patrick and Maria was Patrick Branwell, who was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848.

Emily Jane, the fourth daughter was born on 30th July 1818 and died on 19th December 1848.

The sixth and last child was Anne, born on 17th January 1820 who died on 28th May 1849.

Top Withens in the snow.

Top Withens in the snow.

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