Thank you Lola! For me, the appeal of Rochester (and Heathcliff, to some degree) is their high Byronic nature -- these are men unafraid to express their passions; unafraid of convention & past sins; and willing to devote themselves 110% to the women they love. They are also literate, poetic, sensitive -- really the ideal poetic hero. Tho I dearly love Mr. Darcy of Austen's P&P, I think you could say the difference is that while Darcy agonizes for several months without expressing his feelings to Lizzy, omeone like Rochester would have simply grabbed her and blurted it all out.

Oh yes, Rochester has nooo problems about grabbing what he wants...;-) I agree with you, Amy, what I find so appealing about Rochester is the way he feels about Jane and how he goes out of his way to win her heart (although her heart was his from the start). The way he talks about her character, as if he had grown to know everything about her, I find that very attractive and also when he confesses to having watched her while she was with Ad�le. I mean, you can tell that not one minute goes by without him hinking about her and wanting to hold her, protect her. Isn`t that amazing love?! And, of course, Rochester is a manly, impetuous, dashing character. The (almost) perfect romantic hero. Besides being intelligent, which I find great as well. I haven`t read Wuthering Heights, so I can�t say much on Heathcliff.

It's interesting to note the incredible differences between the two romantic heroes, Darcy & Rochester. The former barely even _speaks_ his actual feelings until that first proposal scene, then retreats for months to experience silent agony. Rochester, on the other hand, isn't afraid to voice his feelings for Jane, & continues to do so even after the humiliating episode of the near-marriage. I think that Rochester has a more modern sensibility, in that he SAYS what he feels, rather than exercising all t at Austenish restraint. This hero personally appeals to me more because he isn't such an enigma -- you always know where you stand with him. Healthcliff is a bit more brutal, but his intense love of Catherine Earnshaw is right up there!

After all those Austen books I read (and liked, most of them), I found it lovely to read Jane Eyre, where the hero is blunt and honest. I must confess, I find it much more attractive. I liked Darcy, but it�s really hard to compare them both, cause they are given a character in such different ways.

I think the two heroes reflect the differing sensibilities of the authors. Jane Austen seemed to put a great premium on restraint & proper social conduct, whereas Charlotte was a much more passionate creature who couldn't hold it all in. I was just re-watching the Tim Dalton v. of JE last night (a birthday present from my sister!) and boy! -- some of that language. It really is sheer poetry, especially when he is talking about, "fresh sweet pleasure...as sweet as the honey the bee gathers from the moor " (bad paraphrase, sorry). What I love about the Brontes is their ability to incorporate lush poetic language into prose.

"Jane, you strange, almost unearthly thing"-that MUST be my absolute favourite line. It shows Rochester�s protectiveness towards her and also his confusion over the effect she has on him. I also love when he keeps calling her changeling and fairy, etc. I find it so sweet. ;-)

That is a great touch; and how she's waiting for "the men in green" before she "bewitches his horse." Now the scene in the TD adaptation after Jane saves him from fire, and he won't let go of her hand. Baby! You can keep your Mr. Darcy!

Just in from Austenville by laptop carriage! Here's my IdyllWild, if you take my meaning, Amy2 and Luisa. ;-) Let me just pull up one of those rustic chairs to sit upon and get down to Yorkshire business... From Herriot to Brontes, I love the downs and the moors and the earthy men and women living there! True, the London Season with its arts and allurements does appeal to me at times, but my heart belongs in those wide/wild open spaces. (sorry to have to say all that, but I feel like I REALLY shift gears when I come here) Listen, about these men: before I ever read Austen in my teens, I'd read the B-sisters and loved their male leads like a first crush, I guess. As the years and books went by, I read many a more polished piece but never ones that shook me to my soul the way JANE EYRE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, & VILETTE did. Same with the guys I dated: some like Austen types were well attired, etc., but the best one or two inevitably had the real substance of a Rochester, etc. A man's gotta have total love/passion or t won't last, through all the storms that life kicks at couples. Talk about last- look at Edward, Heathcliff, and Hareton- all 3 waded through guff from their girls/women but stayed in for "the long haul" anyway. -SIGH- Back here later; love, Cecily

Cecily, _thrilled_ to have you! Sounds like you're one of the True Faithful! Yes, all that Austenish refinement & repression is OK for a time, but I've got to have an occasional dose of Bronte passion mixed in to get the full effect of the cocktail! There is something so stirring in Rochester & Heathcliff's speeches to their beloveds that absolutely makes my hair stand on end... What Austen hid behind veils, Charlotte put squarely on the table. She risked the wrath of a highly repressed society by doing so, but she couldn't help it -- the passion was there, and she had to let it out. Hope to see you here at virtual Haworth frequently, Cecily!

Amy: good ideas are in this essay also- http://www.albion.edu/Fac/engl/diedrick/jeyre.htm

Thanks! I just bookmarked -- that looks very interesting. I just finished a good bio, Rebecca Fraser's THE BRONTES - CHARLOTTE AND HER FAMILY.

What I note and like about the Bronte heroes is their "darkness"; they have the wildness of a gypsy, the smoldering looks, and the explosiveness of speech and emotions. Dorothy Van Ghent did a great critique of WH once that talked about the "light" vs. the "dark" people and how they intertwined (or failed to). Not at all the "milquetoast" sort of guy, the Bronte man!

You can say that again, Lola! That sounds like an interesting critique -- where can that be found? Thanks!

Gosh I really really really hate to say this but... I didn't like WH am I banned? Do I have to reread it? was I too young, too inexperenced? I suppose it was a very brutal novel, almost heartless in a way. I have to admit, I feel like the only person who has read Bronte, Austen, Dickens that has not like WH...

Anne: believe me, this Board is about tolerance. Everyone's opinion will be respected, I earnestly hope & desire... I'm not that gaga over WH either, truth be known. I appreciate its raw power &intensity, but all that inter-generational stuff kind of leaves me cold after Cathy dies. I guess I'm just a sucker for the love story, and once she's gone, it's more or less over for me. Not the most astute literary opinion in the world, but I'm being honest here....

i think what i liked about heathcliff the first time i read about him, was that he was not accepting of his misfortune. and he had a passionate nature that he did not easily reveal.

What about his cruelty & lust for vengeance? It seems to me he's quite cruel to Catherine after she marries Linton -- he really is horrible to Isabella, marrying her for spite instead of love. I do love him as a romantic hero, though; begging Cathy's ghost to haunt him. This is someone who would turn down Heaven in favor of love...

I haven�t read the book, I did see the movie version with Ralph Fiennes (I didn`t like it). On a very superficial judgement, Heathcliff seemed to me, like you said, Amy, cruel and vindictive, though usually, when the story is about undying and against-all-odds love, the lovers are never really worried about others` feelings. That`s one of the things that`s always bothered me, I�m afraid. But I am definitely willing to read Wuthering Heights and get some new insight.

Luisa, I'd like to re-read it again too. I belong to a Bronte Listserver, and the people there have raised some really intelligent points about the book which have raised my interest. I'd LOVE to see that version with Ralph Fiennes -- is it out on video? Thanks.

there's a great essay on wuthering heights by georges bataille in a book called Literature and Evil. in that essay, bataille suggests that the reason for heathcliff's cruelty towards catherine is rooted in his awareness that she was distancing herself from their relationship on account of her aspirations to a middle class social station, which it appeared to her that heathcliff could not provide. you will see some evidence for that line of reasoning in the book, in the parts where heathcliff attempts to create a middle class identity for himself, and uses, to some extent, isabella linton's feelings for him to achieve that. it is a line of reasoning that suggests that in its own way, wuthering heights anticipates the "breakdown of social class" theme that d.h. lawrence spoke to so nicely in lady chatterley's lover.

That is a very interesting theory. This is kind of a strange comparison, but in some ways, Heathcliff reminds me of Jay Gatsby in the way that both men "remade" themselves through wealth. Unfortunately, Gatsy ended up dead in his swimming pool, & Heathcliff suffers a kind of spiritual death as long as he's alive without Catherine.

Reading Wuthering Heights will give you a much more complete and likely sympathetic understanding of Heathcliff and others. As in all films, no matter how great the cast and director, it is never the same extent of inside information we can cull when reading. What I love about all the Bronte novels is the ruminative thought and speech of the main characters and often minor ones as well. In the text, the nearly mythic and mystic level of the exchange between Catherine and Heathcliff is ntense, especially when Heathcliff grapples with her more and more constant "presence" (truly ghostly near the end when he cannot eat, etc.). And the description of Heathcliff's "risus sardonicus" fixed victoriously on his dead face the moment he could finally "go to the other side" where she waited is not morbid but a relief to the reader (who's witnessed his/her struggles. Jane Eyre is a sweeter love story, yes, but then Emily was a far different personality from Charlotte. I cherish both for their differences.

Amy, yes, I think Wuthering Heights with Ralph Fiennes is out on video. It has Jeremy Northam in it as well (very minor role) and Juliette Binoche as Cathy. The film was done in 1994, I think.

I'll have to look for that. Cecily, I haven't read WH for some years, & I am planning to re-read shortly (after VILLETTE & SHIRLEY). I've been reviewing some of Emily's poetry -- she truly was amazing. It just blows my mind that someone as mediocre as Elizabeth Barrett Browning was getting all the accolades during the Victorian era, and here was arguably the greatest woman poet in the history of the English language, totally ignored (THE POEMS OF ACTOR, CURRER, & ELLIS BELL sold all of 2 ccs). Your comments do make me want to re-read WH, though, so I can try to view it through Victorian eyes & determine what all the fuss was about.

I`m thinking of reading Shirley in the near future. I`ve already read Villette and I truly loved it. Jane Eyre is my favourite story, but Villette comes pretty close. Anyone read Shirley? What about Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte? Is it good?

YES! AGNES GREY is great. It's kind of deceptive -- at first, you think that Agnes might be kind of Fanny Pricelike in her piety, but then you start to hear Anne's satiric voice emerge. It's really a very gentle love story, in its way (maybe not compared to Jane Austen but certainly compared to WH). Definitely worth reading, as is TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.

I�ve read Tenant Of Wildfell Hall-I read it at the same time I saw the series. It is very dark and tragic. You can`t wait for Helen to get away from that horrible house and that drunkard of a husband. It was a good read. I�m still waiting for a Bronte novel that I DON�T like... ;-) They`re all terrific!

this is ralph fiennes as heathcliff? pre english patient? that is most interesting. emily bronte's poetry is tremendous, and suggests an experience of passion that one doesn't usually connect with maidenladies lost in northern england. i wonder who she was in love with?

I get the impression that Emily wasn't in love with anything earthly. She seemed to have a mystical connection with Nature/the Divine that comes through in her poems.

Ralph Fiennes plays Heathcliff, yes. For me it was a bleak and disappointing performance and I didn`t much care for Juliette Binoche as Cathy either. She had just this faint trace of a French accent that didn`t quite sound right. I was always waiting for her to slip... ;-)

Luisa, that's too bad, because I dearly love both actors. Fiennes seems a little old for Heathcliff though (in his younger days) -- was this a recent production? Re; Accents. That was al;so my problem with Charlotte Gainsborough in JE -- she was so obviously French, and Jane is so obviously _English._ Can't they find any good English actresses? How about Jennifer Ehle, or is she too pretty for Jane?

Well, Amy, I adore Jennifer Ehle (ever since I saw Pride), but, IMO, she has this wholesomeness about her that wouldn`t be quite right for Jane. When I think of Jennifer, I think of Pride and of Camomile Lawn. She looked very attractive in both productions--in no way plain. ;-) But I�m sure there are all these young actresses, looking for a chance, that would make great Janes. And, of course, I think the actress playing Jane should be 100% English. I didn`t like Charlotte Gainsbourg at all-I couldn`t warm to her and her accent, well, let`s just say, that I felt a bit uncomfortable when she had big speeches. The Wuthering Heights thing is from the year 1994, so it�s fairly recent.

I MUST find this somewhere! There's a videostore down the street which stocks 25,000 titles, so maybe it's lying somewhere on a shelf. If not, I may just have to order!

Since the publication of WH, critics have been at a loss as to how to interpret Heathcliff. The initial responses were confused - as many have been since. Some have merely dismissed Heathcliff as brutal and unredeemed. Some have suggested the remorseless bitterness of the character is redeemed by his transcendental love for Cathy. I have have read fascinating essays where it has been argued that he is an agrarian communist, others in which he is held to be a classic example of the emerging industrial capitalist, inspired by Emily's observations of the effects of the industrial revolution (both are a bit of a reach, but have some validity). I've always been rather taken by the "storm and calm" model,i.e. like is attracted to like, and it's when the natural union of Cathy and Heathcliffe is thwarted that the storm spills over into destructiveness. Of course, this doesn't take into account the fact that Healthcliffe is an "out and outer" from the beginning. "Elemental" is the word that comes to mind with WH - that and "passion" and "powerful", and it seems to sum him up. And then he commits petty acts of vindictiveness! No, there's never anything simple about WH.

I like your take on Heathcliff, Elena. He does seem as elemental as Nature in many respects. I can't think of a more powerful novel in the English language, either. Emily was a rarity -- she was as strong in prose as she was in poetry. Isn't it bizarre to think that E. Barrett Browning, whom most critics dismiss today, was the Rage of London, whereas here was arguably the world's greatest woman poet, almost completely ignored...

Oh, I was going to refrain from posting here but I just can't! EBB's life story is one of my favorite real romances, and while I love Emily Bronte's poems, I have to stick up for her a bit. While some of her poetry (and certainly the "popular" items of her day) isn't admired today, I've always found it lovely. And Browning was defending her in her own time from critics who didn't admire her work -- see his poem, "My Star" for his defense and a romantic thrill (oh to be loved by a poet). And to respond to a much earlier posting by someone who didn't like the multi-generational aspects of WH, a critic I read suggested that EB was writing a story of origins -- how civilization rises and falls, how nature will triump for a while and then be beaten back again. That explains some of the repetitive names, too. And makes me endure it more, since I've always been a "get to the point of the story" person, at least the first time through any book.

It's great to see Emily's poetry getting the appreciation it deserves - most people who read it seem to concur with Charlotte's assesment of its worth. I have an anthology of Victorian poetry somewhere that has an excellent introduction centering around the idea that the Victorians were an "orphaned" generation of poets. Unlike other eras, the Victorians were denied the opportunity of a dialogue with their "parent" generation, the Romantics. They were also denied the opportunity of having the Romantics' later views on their early work. This was because so many of them - Byron, Keats, Shelly and so on died young. Interestingly, the writer deliberatly extended this to include Emily. While I wouldn't be quite comfortable in placing Emily in either the Romantics or Victorians exclusively, it was superb to see Emily placed in the forefront of that age of poetry - and the tremendous loss to poetry due to her early death duly noted.

Yes!!! Poetry in the Victorian age simply didn't sell well -- even Wordsworth couldn't get a book published, if you can believe that. And THE POEMS OF CURRER, ELLIS & ACTOR BELL famously sold just 2 ccs. in its first run. It seemed it was much more the Age of the Novel, when that form came into its maturity, and boy, did it ever! As far as EBB -- I guess I'm holding a grudge since she called Charlotte "a savage freethinker." I have to confess, I like Robert Browning's poems better!

I'd sort of take being called "a savage freethinker" a compliment - which just goes to show how attitudes have changed! It almost has an Emily ring to it.

I would have thought that EBB might be more sympathetic to the Brontes, since she too suffered from an overbearing father who opposed her marriage, etc. But she still led more of a "conventional" life on Wimpole Street, I guess (if you can discount that long, long (???) psychosomatic illness)...

Speaking of psychosomatic illnesses, how about my pet theory that Charlotte's death was more related to what having a child would do to her free time and ability to create than to any phsyical problems? I know she was a small person and that many women died of childbirth complications, but when you think about her reaction to children when teaching them, I can't believe she was terribly happy about having her own. And I think I read that she had severe morning-sickness, which can be seen as an attempt to expel the child. Maybe someone who's read more about her life can tell me if I'm way off base?

Lorie -- The theory that Charlotte hysterically rejected the fetus was in vogue for a long time. But most modern doctors agree that Charlotte's main symptom -- extreme vomiting (sometimes of blood) all day & night -- doesn't happen during pregnancy. So the cause of her death is a real mystery. One biographer had a good point though -- Tabby died right before Charlotte - of an infection of the digestive tract. Did she transmit the disease to Charlotte? We'll never know, esp. since the cause of death i listed as "consumption."

Thanks! I obviously haven't read far enough in any of her biographies (actually, the ones I've read concentrate on the four children and didn't get into Charlotte's later life much). I wonder if Tabby's infection is the real cause of death among the whole family? Perhaps they were being poisoned by something in the environment of the parsonage, not consumption at all.

Tabby didn't really get sick until right before Charlotte. But the general sanitary conditions in Haworth were terrible - the average lifespan was 25!! Water was being contaminated from the privies & even the graveyard. And of course so many deadly diseases of the 19th c., like T.B., cholera, & typhus went unchecked. The state of medicine was pretty apalling. We have a lot to be thankful for today!

I've just read through this topic, and would quickly like to take discussions back to Emily's Heathcliff. I have just read another very interesting work, an epic, nothing to do with the Bront�s, but, though it is much more primitive, it somehow helped me understand Emily's 'heroes', Heathcliff and Linton, a bit better. The work is african in origin (as am I!), was written in the late 1930's, and is called 'Raka'. Here, a quick summary of the story: It is about a small tribe somewhere in the heart of Africa. For years they have lived in peace near a beautiful pond with crystal clear water, the men hunting for food, the women looking after the children, the evenings spent around a large fire, where they would dance and sing and tell stories - thereby keeping Culture, for them the highest form of civilisation, alive. They are presented to the reader as a group of people who have achieved moral and social perfection. Responsible for it, is the leader of the tribe, Koki. Then one day, as the women are bathing in the pond, they notice a dark figure on the other side, a figure possessing great beauty, but at once that of man and animal. The women find themselves sexually attracted to him, they run away, laughing, and at night he plagues them in their dreams. Next he appears where the children are at play, making little animals and other objects from the clay by the pond. The half-man makes a figure so much bigger and better than theirs, that they instantly come to admire and talk about him. Lastly he appears where the men are hunting. Again, he hunts so much better than they do, that they can't help but stand in awe of his great skills. And so he infiltrates the minds and activities of the once so peaceful tribe. They end up quarrelling and pulling away from one another. It comes to a point where Koki has to prove himself worthy of being their leader by fighting Raka. Raka wins and destroys their homes, rapes the women and kills many men and children. Basically it is a story about the cycle of life - the rise and decline of the human spirit, or nations. I was strongly reminded of Heathcliff by the half man, half beast, Raka, while the protagonist, Koki, reminded me of Linton who was defeated by Heathcliff. Were there any heroes in WH, I think Linton was perhaps more likely to be it. For, even though he is physically the weaker man, he possesses the Goodness we expect of a hero, while Heathcliff is the antagonist. Raka, because the message was so much straight-forward, and therefore more suitable for my little brain!, made me understand that Wuthering Heights carries a much more universal message than the shallow 'some are by nature evil'-message that I had previously read into it. It is about a happy, content family who has reached the 'top' of the cycle where they live in harmony at Wuthering Heights. The father then allows himself to take home 'something he doesn't know', Heathcliff. In doing so, the peace of the family is slowly dissolved until nothing more is left. We all know how Catherine is fascinated by him, but marries Linton, how this learned 'Raka', despite his new education comes back to destroy also their peace, how it reaches the low point where Catherine's daughter is captured and forced to marry Heathcliff's evil son, but then also how slowly, the circle continues to be drawn, how the name 'Catherine' changes from Catherine Earnshaw, to Catherine Linton, from Linton to Catherine Heathcliff (where the story reaches an absolute low-point), but then rises to change back to the original name, Catherine Earnshaw, and so completing the circle, and ending with the promise of happiness - but also a hidden promise that another 'Heathcliff'-element (be it circumstances or people) will in time return to the family. Because Emily had such a strange twist of mind, I think one should always try to look beyond what she writes, just as she was able to look beyond where most other people were able to see. It also explained to me why I found the Tenant of WH, pleasant, but some- how weak. Anne intended it as an answer to Wuthering Heights, but because she didn't possess the same way of thinking as Emily (which is not necessarily bad!), she missed the point somehow. Her character, and her heroes are very literal, where as Emily's characters are mere symbols of other things. In that sense Jane Eyre is much more simple and pleasant to read. One can just read and enjoy it as it is. Rochester is a hunk, and represents a hunk; Jane is plain, and represents any woman with brains and the capacity to love.

A lot of people might disagree with this but I think that Catherine was really more of a bad person than Heathcliff. She set out to munipulate people by bringing on the illness that she eventually died of. She got ill as a kind of atention thing, just thinking about how sad Edgar and Heathcliff would be if she really died and not thinking about the death part of dieing. She even told Heathcliff at their last meeting it was his fault she was going to die, this was one of the main factors in him getting s messed up. Catherine was able to plan her ideas before she carried them out while Heathcliff was driven by pure passion. Another idea is that after Catherine died Heathcliff was not only getting revenge on the people he blamed for her death (the Lintons) but he was also getting revenge on Caterine by being horrible to some of the people who she had liked. One more idea is that Heathcliff as a boy had been so starved of kindness that when he recieved it when he was older he did not accept or trust it.

I defenitely agree that Catherine was bad; with her it was just more refined, more subtle than with Heathcliff. And perhaps what Emily was trying to demonstrate as well, was that how people turn out isn't necessarily the result of their upbringing. We would expect Heathcliff to be dysfunctional in some way or other, because he was starved of kindness as a child. Yet Catherine, having been raised in a privileged position, turned out no better than he did. What brought them together was perhaps this mu ual recognition which surpassed the material world around them, and took no note of their opposite circumstances.