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By Root 2017 0

sentiment we may reckon not only Lucy Snowe and Jane Eyre, but, to some extent, Shirley, and, even more decidedly, Rochester. When they speak we are really listening to her own voice, though it is more or less disguised in conformity to dramatic necessity. There are great differences between them; but they are such differences as would exist between members of the same family, or might be explained by change of health or internal circumstances. Jane Eyre has not had such bitter experience as Lucy Snowe; Shirley is generally Jane Eyre in high spirits, and freed from harassing anxiety; and Rochester is a really spirited sister of Shirley’s, though he does his very best to be a man, and even an unusually masculine specimen of his sex.

—from Cornhill Magazine (December 1877)

Anthony Trollope

In Villette, too, and in Shirley, there is to be found human life as natural and as real, though in circumstances not so full of interest as those told in Jane Eyre. The character of Paul in the former of the two is a wonderful study. [Brontë] must herself have been in love with some Paul when she wrote the book, and have been determined to prove to herself that she was capable of loving one whose exterior circumstances were mean and in every way unprepossessing.

—from his Autobiography (1883)

QUESTIONS

1. A contemporary reviewer in the Spectator remarked that Villette, even more than Jane Eyre, reads like a bitter complaint against the destiny of those women who have to work. Do you see this in the book? What is the relationship between women and work in Brontë’s novel?

2. Matthew Arnold asked, “Why is Villette disagreeable?” He answers by saying, “Because the writer’s mind contains nothing but hunger, rebellion and rage, and therefore that is all she can, in fact, put into her book.” Is this a fair interpretation? Can you, from a novel such as this, make valid inferences about an author’s character or state of mind?

3. Harriet Martineau says that “the book is almost intolerably painful,” that “an atmosphere of pain hangs about the whole.” What produces this atmosphere of pain? The heroine’s disappointments ? Incidental imagery? Lucy Snowe’s view of life? Something metaphysical?

4. Many men have admired this novel. What is there in it for a man to admire?

For Further Reading

BIOGRAPHIES AND LETTERS

Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. An extensive and comprehensive study of the Brontë family.

Bentley, Phyllis. The Brontës and Their World. New York: Viking Press, 1969. An illustrated biographical portrait of the Brontës.

Brontë, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë. The Belgian Essays, edited by Sue Lonoff. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. Essays the sisters wrote while studying at the Pensionnat Héger in Brussels, the model for Madame Beck’s school in Villette.

Brontë, Charlotte, and Anne Brontë. Agnes Grey, with a Memoir of Her Sisters by Charlotte Brontë. New York: Penguin, 1988. Charlotte’s short memoir written to commemorate her sisters’ lives and careers is included in this edition of Anne Brontë’s novel.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. 1857. New York: Penguin, 1975. The first biography of Charlotte Brontë, written by her friend the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell.

Gérin, Winifred. Charlotte Brontë: The Evolution of Genius. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. A compelling and well-researched biography.

Gordon, Lyndall. Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. A lively and readable portrait of Charlotte Brontë and her world.

Shorter, Clement K. Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle. 1896. West-port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970. A short biography that includes some interesting letters.

Smith, Margaret, ed. The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volumes I-III. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995-2004. The standard scholarly edition of Brontë’s correspondence; expertly researched, with excellent notes. Anne Thackeray Ritchie’s memoir appears in volume II.

Spark, Muriel, ed. The Letters of the Brontës. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954. A