Abstract
This introductory chapter examines the intersections between embodiment, material culture, and Charlotte Brontë’s life and writing. It charts the evolution of Brontë studies following the rise of New Historicism and seminal scholarship from the 1990s and early 2000s by critics and biographers such as Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars, Juliet Barker, Lucasta Miller, Sally Shuttleworth, and Margaret Smith. The chapter goes on to discuss how the “material turn” and recent theories of embodiment inform twenty-first -century approaches to the presentation and reception of Brontë’s art, life, and legacy. Focusing on the interdisciplinary conversations that comprise the volume, the editors discuss how book history, cultural heritage, the history of dress, literary criticism, and museum curation prove vital to understanding the ways in which readers have responded to Brontë’s work from its original publication to the present day.
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Notes
- 1.
Michael Frank, “The Four Brontës: Myth vs. Reality.”
- 2.
Elizabeth Gaskell, Life of Charlotte Brontë, 124.
- 3.
Gaskell, Life of Charlotte Brontë, 124.
- 4.
Lucasta Miller, The Brontë Myth, 57. For more on the mythologizing power of Gaskell’s work, see Tom Winnifrith, The Brontës and Their Background and Frank, “The Brontë Biographies: Romance, Reality, and Revision.”
- 5.
Elaine Freedgood, Idea in Things, 2. Subsequent citations are referenced by page number in the text.
- 6.
Freedgood, Idea in Things, 2.
- 7.
Freedgood, Idea in Things, 11.
- 8.
Peter Miller, “Introduction,” in Cultural Histories, 6.
- 9.
Cleanth Brooks, “New Criticism,” 598.
- 10.
Miller, Brontë Myth, 57. For an exemplary discussion of Romantic influence and “passion” in Brontë’s work see David Lodge, “Fire and Eyre.”
- 11.
Frank Trentmann, “Materiality in the Future of History,” 283–4.
- 12.
Trentmann, “Materiality in the Future of History,” 284. Here Trentmann draws heavily on Bill Brown, “Thing Theory” and Sense of Things.
- 13.
Rens Bod, Julia Kursell, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn, “Practical and Material Histories,” 1–2.
- 14.
Brown, “Thing Theory,” 7.
- 15.
Asa Briggs, Victorian Things, 4.
- 16.
Briggs, Victorian Things, 53. On the connection between cultural studies, critical interest in the Great Exhibition, and the material turn see Lyn Pykett, The Material Turn. Representative studies of material and exhibition culture include: Tony Bennett, Birth of the Museum; Thomas Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England; Jeffrey Auerbach, The Great Exhibition of 1851.
- 17.
Trentmann, Empire of Things, 193. See also Porter, Oxford History of British Empire, 1–3.
- 18.
Andrew Miller, Novels Behind Glass, 6. Subsequent citations are referenced by page number in the text.
- 19.
Eva Badowska, “Choseville,” 1510. See also Charlotte Brontë to Revd. Patrick Brontë [31] May 1851, in Margaret Smith, Letters, vol. 2, 625.
- 20.
Heather Glen, Imagination in History, 234.
- 21.
Terry Eagleton, Myths of Power, 3. See also Lucasta Miller, ix for an explanation of Eagleton’s influence on her work.
- 22.
Miller, The Brontë Myth, 2.
- 23.
Miller, The Brontë Myth, 104.
- 24.
Miller, The Brontë Myth, 105.
- 25.
Charlotte Brontë to Revd. Patrick Brontë, 9 June 1849, in Smith, Letters, vol. 2, 219. See note on “Text.”
- 26.
Lucasta Miller, 1994.
- 27.
Eagleton, Myths of Power, xxix.
- 28.
See also Christine Nelson, The Brontës: A Family Writes with images from the extensive manuscript collection at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York and published to coincide with the 2016 exhibition Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will.
- 29.
Karen Harvey, “Introduction—Practical Matters,” 3.
- 30.
Juliet McMaster, “Art of the Brontës,” 205–6.
- 31.
Brontë to William Smith Williams, 16 August 1849, in Smith, Letters, vol. 2, 235.
- 32.
William A. Cohen, Embodied, 27. Subsequent citations are referenced by page number in the text.
- 33.
Sally Shuttleworth, Charlotte Brontë and Victorian Psychology, 33. Subsequent citations are referenced by page number in the text.
- 34.
“The First Shilling Day at the Exhibition,” Illustrated London News, 501. See also Richards, 37 and Chris Otter, The Victorian Eye, 56–7.
- 35.
Bennett, Birth of the Museum, 9.
- 36.
Lauren Goodlad and Andrew Sartori, “The Ends of History: Introduction,” 592. Subsequent citations are referenced by page number in the text.
- 37.
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York’s exhibition, Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will, curated by Christine Nelson, ran from 30 September 2016 to 2 January 2017. The National Portrait Gallery, London’s exhibition, Celebrating Charlotte Brontë: 1816–1855, curated by Rosie Broadley and assisted by Lucy Wood, ran from 22 February to 14 August 2016. The Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth’s exhibition, Charlotte Great and Small, curated by Tracy Chevalier, was on view from 1 February until 31 December 2016.
- 38.
Brontë, Jane Eyre, 338.
- 39.
Brontë to Ellen Nussey, 20 November 1840, in Smith, Letters, vol. 1, 233–4.
- 40.
Brontë, Shirley, 439.
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Pizzo, J., Houghton, E. (2020). Introduction. In: Pizzo, J., Houghton, E. (eds) Charlotte Brontë, Embodiment and the Material World. Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34855-7_1
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