Abstract
Anne Brontë’s radical critique of literary tropes makes her a surprisingly subversive commentator on gender roles in the 1840s. Substituting realism and rationalism for the dangerous cocktail of romance and violence that is arguably the hallmark of Emily Brontë in particular, Anne also avoids the conservative strictures of writers such as Sarah Stickney Ellis, achieving a degree of autonomy for her heroines that is achieved through rational behaviour and moral integrity rather than open rebellion. Like other novels of the decade, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) position women as moral educators, but this role operates as a means of autonomy and agency, making their author ‘the quietest of rebels’.
To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light, is doubtless the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest?
Anne Brontë, Preface to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall [1848] 4
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Le Veness, K.A. (2018). Anne Brontë: An Unlikely Subversive. In: Gavin, A., de la L. Oulton, C. (eds) British Women's Writing from Brontë to Bloomsbury, Volume 1. British Women’s Writing from Brontë to Bloomsbury, 1840-1940, vol 1. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78226-3_8
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