{"id":943,"date":"2017-03-01T19:32:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T19:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/?p=943"},"modified":"2025-02-24T17:44:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T22:44:17","slug":"charlotte-bronte-an-independent-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/2017\/03\/01\/charlotte-bronte-an-independent-will\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte Bront\u00eb: An Independent Will"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignfull has-base-background-color has-background has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-258e4d99 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--30);padding-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--50);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--30);padding-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--50)\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide has-base-2-background-color has-background has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-da4c956d wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"border-radius:16px;padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40);padding-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--50);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40);padding-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--50)\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-5eaea892 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-center is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><h1 class=\"wp-block-post-title\">Charlotte Bront\u00eb: An Independent Will<\/h1>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-template-part\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide has-contrast-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-1 is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-3f968af1 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:600\"><div class=\"has-text-align-left has-link-color wp-elements-2 wp-block-post-date has-text-color has-contrast-color\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/2017\/03\/01\/charlotte-bronte-an-independent-will\/\"><time datetime=\"2017-03-01T19:32:14-05:00\">March 1, 2017<\/time><\/a><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-contrast-color has-text-color wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-contrast-color has-text-color has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">by<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"has-link-color wp-elements-3 wp-block-post-author-name has-text-color has-contrast-color\"><a href=\"\" target=\"_self\" class=\"wp-block-post-author-name__link\">Larry Sullivan<\/a><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category has-link-color wp-elements-4 wp-block-post-terms has-text-color has-contrast-color\"><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__prefix\">in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/category\/reviews\/exhibition-review\/\" rel=\"tag\">Exhibition review<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><figure class=\"alignright wp-block-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" src=\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Exhibition_Stock-Photo-scaled.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Open books inside a glass case inside a room. Photo by Photo by mali maeder.\" style=\"border-radius:25px;object-fit:cover;\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Exhibition_Stock-Photo-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Exhibition_Stock-Photo-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Exhibition_Stock-Photo-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Exhibition_Stock-Photo-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Exhibition_Stock-Photo-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Exhibition_Stock-Photo-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Exhibition_Stock-Photo-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\"><strong>Charlotte Bront\u00eb: An Independent Will<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\">Morgan Library and Museum, New York City<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\"><em>9 September 2016\u20132 January, 2017<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Charlotte Bront\u00eb: An Independent Will\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uSw--rhEtrI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI am no bird, and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you\u2026it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God\u2019s feet, equal,\u2014as we are. \u201d Who can forget Jane Eyre furiously taking her stand against Rochester after he railed that she was behaving like a \u201cwild frantic bird\u201d in proto-feminist passages where Jane demanded equal recognition of the sexes in this eponymous novel? For the 200<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of Charlotte Bront\u00eb\u2019s birth the Morgan Library and Museum presented American viewers for the very first time the bound manuscript of <em>Jane Eyre<\/em>, on loan from the British Library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Accompanying this manuscript is Charlotte\u2019s presentation copy of this seminal novel (1847, published under the pseudonym Currer Bell) to her friend Mary Taylor, and also the first American edition (1848).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Morgan has the most extraordinary collection in America of Bront\u00ebiana, thanks to J. P. Morgan himself, Mrs. Henry Houston Parnell of Philadelphia, the late Gordon Ray, and other Morgan purchases and gifts. Henry Parnell was a competitor of Morgan\u2019s for Bront\u00eb materials, and during his lifetime much of his collection went to the U.K.\u2019s Bront\u00eb Society and eventually found a home in the Haworth Parsonage Bront\u00eb Museum in Leeds, near a wild moor in Yorkshire, where the family moved in 1820.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The exhibition offers a dazzling array of manuscripts, books that features all the Bront\u00ebs, including sisters Emily and Anne, brother Branwell, and father Patrick. The Bront\u00ebs were an extraordinary literary family. The father published poetry and essays and lived into his 80s (the mother died in 1821 and two older sisters in 1825). In their youth the three surviving Bront\u00eb sisters, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily, produced an extraordinary number of novels, as well as drama, poetry, and other writings. They \u201cpublished\u201d their books, however, not in print but in a neat, tiny handwriting with title pages and other publishers\u2019 devices that imitated the printed page. In 1830 Charlotte wrote out a list of the 22 novels she had finished by the age of 14. She was intensely fascinated and creative in her \u201cbookmaking\u201d; her writings mirrored the printed page but in tiny, minuscule \u201ctypeface.\u201d Just observe the manuscript \u201cThe Poetaster: a Drama by Lord Charles Wellesley,\u201d written in 8-12 June 1830 and measuring only 5 x 3 centimeters including title-page borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not only did they write and \u201cpublish\u201d at a young age, but their creativity was informed with indefatigable reading. The exhibit features books they read, many inscribed and\/or with marginal annotations, and correspondence about reading. For example, they read Milton, Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Byron (think of Rochester), <em>Blackwood\u2019s Magazine<\/em> and newspapers. One of Charlotte\u2019s favorite books was Thomas Bewick\u2019s <em>History of Birds<\/em> (1804), from which the \u201cRazor Billed Auk\u201d makes an appearance in <em>Jane Eyre<\/em>. Branwell also wrote voluminously about his fantasy world of Angria, just as his sisters wrote about their Gondal, all in the same minuscule script. He did not achieve the same literary fame as his siblings. The exhibition does, however, include Branwell\u2019s portrait of his sisters on which he tellingly painted over his own image. He died before knowing of the publication (in type) of his sisters\u2019 famous novels. Given the sensibilities of their time, the Bront\u00eb sisters published under a male pseudonym Currer Bell (<em>Jane Eyre<\/em>, <em>Wuthering Heights<\/em>, <em>Agnes Grey<\/em>, for example). The exhibit features a dazzling array of first and other editions of all the Bront\u00eb novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The \u201cauthor\u201d Currer Bell\u2019s name could be gender ambiguous, but after <em>Jane Eyre<\/em> and <em>Wuthering Heights<\/em> became bestsellers at home and in America, the reading and publishing world exhibited intense curiosity about the author, most assuming she was a man. In 1848 the Bront\u00eb sisters boarded a train to London and arrived at Charlotte\u2019s publisher, Smith, Elder, &amp; Co., to reveal not only their sex, but that the novels were written by the sisters, not one person. After the revelation a relieved Charlotte wrote a letter to William S. Williams of Smith\u2019s firm, stating that she must be taken for \u201cwhat I am, neither more nor less.\u201d She continued that she had removed \u201cany false expectations [that] may have arisen under the idea that \u201cCurrer Bell\u201d had a just claim to the masculine cognomen, he perhaps, somewhat presumptuously, adopted \u2013 that was, in short, of the \u201cnobler sex.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The exhibit traces Charlotte\u2019s legacy, especially after her death in 1855 and the publication of Elizabeth Mary Gaskell\u2019s biography her. Charlotte was already famous, but Gaskell\u2019s book made her a popular sensation. The Morgan show traces her literary influence and also discusses the many film and television adaptations based on Charlotte\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The exhibition is accompanied by the excellent catalogue, <em>The Bront\u00ebs: A Family Writes<\/em>, by Christine Nelson. The Morgan has given us an extraordinary explication of reading, writing, and publishing in nineteenth-century England. And of course&nbsp;<em>\u2013&nbsp;<\/em>CELEBRITY!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right wp-block-paragraph\">Larry Sullivan<br><em>City University of New York<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Charlotte Bront\u00eb: An Independent Will at the Morgan Library and Museum, New York City (9 September 2016\u20132 January, 2017).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"wp-custom-template-post-template-reviews","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1891],"tags":[1896,1938,1955],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition-review","tag-19th-century","tag-manuscript-culture","tag-reception"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4978,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions\/4978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}