Apocalypse When? Shirley's Vision and the Politics of Reading
1994; University of North Texas Press; Volume: 26; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-1512
Autores Tópico(s)Poetry Analysis and Criticism
ResumoAmong essays, or devoirs, that Charlotte Bronte wrote in French for Constantin Heger while she studied with him in Brussels is one entitled Fall of Leaves (1843). A response to a poem by Charles-Hubert Millevoye, it speculates on nature of poetic inspiration. Following tenets of romanticism, Bronte writes, I believe that all real poetry is only faithful impression of something which happens or has happened in soul of poet; it is a matter of genius, co-operating with some sentiment, affection or passion. In discussion that follows, genius becomes paired with the heart as twin springs of perfect unity that is a poem. But just as she has reached this conclusion--a digression from work she has set out to analyze--Bronte announces it is time ... to cease, for she has sinned and strayed from plan she meant to follow.(1) Heger's marginal comments are punctuated with praise, hinting at reasons behind affection that Bronte is widely known to have felt for him. His assessment is not entirely positive, however. First, he brings her essay to a conclusion that explicitly recognizes her need to now to [her] subject. Second, he is moved to record an even stronger reaction in a response of his own. The point of his brief essay is that art requires cultivation. Without study, there is no art ... Genius without study ... without knowledge of what has already been done, is strength without lever. Accordingly, Heger concludes, Whether you are a poet or not ... study form.(2) Thus is sinning Bronte taken to task. The message to her own poetic muse is subtle but clear: art may be inspired by irrational forces of soul, but it ultimately must manifest itself within social world, whose expectations are firmly set. Whenever artist is tempted to break out into uncharted fields of expression, she should be conscience-bound to pull back. She must return to her subject; she must stay true to form. The tension between Bronte's essay and Heger's response was to find greater expression within Bronte's subsequent career. Several years later, as she was finishing Shirley (1849)--her one arguably social novel--she edited text to include a French devoir similar in content to Fall of Leaves, and she placed it similarly within context of a relationship between a female student and a male teacher. In a key confrontation that takes place long after their student-teacher relationship has ended, Louis Moore recites for Shirley Keeldar an essay she had written for him years earlier. Titled First Blue-Stocking, it incorporates a revision of marriage of genius and the heart, working it into a longer narrative that focuses not on poetic impulse but on a larger topic: biblical origin of family, and particularly woman's part in story. Young Eva, alone in a world before Flood, is rescued by Genius, one of sons of God heralded in Genesis as groomsmen for daughters of men. This, the bridal-hour of Genius and Humanity, marks beginning of a life's journey that culminates in Genius' gaining for his bride the crown of Immortality.(3) Like Heger, Moore had registered some objections to his student's speculative essay. What they are, however, Bronte declines to say. The reader is told only that Moore's 'censor-pencil scored it with condemnatory lines, whose signification [Shirley] strove vainly to fathom' (p. 554). Shirley's essay presents an interpretive puzzle to all its readers, some of whom may wish (like Heger) to rewrite it. Certainly, its portrayal of Creation's first marriage, with an emboldened Eve neatly sidestepping this Adam's rib and taking her place more like an equal beside him, is an unorthodox rejection of form prescribed by patriarchal Christianity. Louis Moore's unfathomable objections may well have had to do with fact that this story more closely resembles Cupid and Psyche's story, as one critic has noticed,(4) than it does scriptural version. …
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