In search of the Brontes Part 1 - 1/6

[lavenderparfume1]

brilliant women, ahead of their time.... is too bad in this country all the women i encounter are gossipers, selfish, vain people.

[kristao66]

@lavenderparfume1 Maybe you just don't know some modern women well enough!

[Shatnersbosson]

Margo the lost sister

[Charlieee23]

Thank you for uploading this! I have been looking for this documentary for ages as I was sure I saw a drama/documentary about the Brontes a few years ago and now I've found it :)

[PoetryETrain]

Thanks, this has been added to our playlists here, and on facebook....

[Redshoes531]

Not one mention of their real nationality and forced exile from Ireland. Even to this day the English cannot bring themselves to own up and tell the truth regarding Ireland!

[HumbleAsTheDust]

@Redshoes531 Please explain 'their' forced Exile. Don't think any of the children were born in Ireland.

[JeanneLaHaine]

you just saved my day :DDDD

[teslagirl007]

I just noticed the Garcia Marquez video - wow! Nicely done! He's one of my favorite writers along with Jane Austen. Bravo!

[teslagirl007]

Thank you for posting these wonderful videos!  Your work is appreciated. - from a big fan of the Brontes and other Victorian writers.

[ksotikoula]

@teslagirl007

Thank you for your kind words :)

[RushTheSilver]

As far as Anne's concerned, how can you say than she did not possess that certain quality of writing to be distingushed? - Say rather, she couldn't find readers who could truly sympathise with her work. Charlotte (and Emily) portrayed characters that in most part, if not completely, were too improbable to be real. How often do you find a mad woman in your attic? Jane Eyre is a rare case while Helen Graham is almost universal, the latter tribulations and sufferings were more genuine.

[RushTheSilver]

Even though Charlotte was the most prolific (and more renowned during her life) of the trio, she was rather jealous of both her sisters. There's evidence showing that Charlotte allegedly burned a manuscript that Emily wrote after Wuthering Heights. But the writings of all three have a character of their own, though Anne's true worth has not yet been fully recognized. Charlotte<Anne<Emily

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

There is no evidence that Charlotte burned anything. We are not sure that a manuscript existed save a letter of Emily's publisher says that he would be glad to receive from her a new work but that doesn't prove she had really written anything, let alone that if the manuscript existed it could have been destroyed by Anne (being closer to Emily) or Emily herself when she realized she was going to die.

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

If Charlotte were so jealous of her sisters, she would never have shared an ambitious plan like this with them. She could proceed alone in the pursuit of fame and it is quite certain that Emily especially, but Anne too, would never have ventured to publish a line.

For me Charlotte and Emily are both geniuses although personally I'm more moved by the former. Anne although she had qualities of her own, she did not possess that certain quality of writing to be distinguished.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula Allow me to clarify, when I said Charlotte was jealous I didn't mean it the negative way, but that it was creative jealousy. And I distinctly remember it mentioned in another documentary that Charlotte did destroy something that EMily had been working on having compeleted WH. It was that documentary I have been trying to search on Youtube.

And its really wrong to suggest that Emily (or Anne) could have destroyed something because she was going to die.

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

I am positive that there is no evidence of the existence of Emily's manuscript and even if that documentary mentioned something like it, it was clearly based on supposition because neither the Saga of the Gondal has survived and Charlotte was the last remaining sister. I don't see why it is wrong to suggest that Emily or Anne could have destroyed the hypothetical manuscript. Emily was very keen on her privacy and if it was half finished she may not want anyone to see it.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula Parts of Gondal and Angria have survived, I have read them, search the net and you'll find it too. And it is absurd, if not wrong, to believe that anyone would destroy anything just because they were going to die. But your comments about Anne's incompetence really stung me! Have you read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? If you have, compare Helen Graham with Jane Eyre. The latter is a romance while the former is reality

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

Part of Angria have survived but only some poems of the Gondal. There is no absurdity in destroying personal stuff that you don't want the world to see yet. Painters do it all the time. Emily would not try to publish anything considering it too private,if Charlotte hadn't convince her of the merit to the world.

If Jane Eyre is just romance to you then you have missed all the point of the novel. An article in a newspaper is reality too but doesn't make it great literature.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula What points of the novel? That one should not hit a child (a female child) with a book? that a masochistic demon can be you prince charming in disguise? that you should scourge the attic of your lover's house to see if has a wife who's mad and whom he's keeping a secret? that you should leave him to his torment just because you found it against social norms, even though at first you crossed the line of immorality?

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

This is seriously what you got out of Jane Eyre? I am not surprised about the opinion you have about the novel. I wonder though why you took the bother to read the book. You could say as much by the abstract. In the same light Helen was a fool who married a fiend only because auntie told her not too and she had the super power of love. And after tolerating all with super-christian morality took the sole good decision of leaving him only to return and then marry colorless Gilbert.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula I know that was really spiteful, which I apologize for. I was angry because you belittled Anne's worth as a writer, which I would never calmly accept, but must and would retaliate. As for Jane Eyre, I do not like it nearly as well as, say, Villette, or Shirley.

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

That doesn't say much as you don't like Charlotte anyway. Lol! So you don't fool me, but I am as sensitive about Charlotte as you are about Anne. And remember it was you who started it :) I have nothing against Anne but I am tired of defending Charlotte because Anne's works do not enjoy the same recognition.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula Don't say I do not like Charlotte, just that I do not like Jane Eyre as well as you do - but I feel for Anne

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

Now don't think that I don't like Anne at all as a writer.I have read her books.Agnes Grace is didactic but not very interesting The tenant is better but it suffers due to its structure.After the diary part I could not connect easily to the story again.And Helen sometimes irritated me with her piousness (I mean how cliche to go back to her husband) but still she was a brave woman&I understand the value of Anne's advice to the youth but she did not possess the poetry of her sisters

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula Life is not all poetry, as it is not all hard prose. You're biased towards Charlotte I see, as it appears, I am towards Anne and Emily. For me, Charlotte masterpiece is Villette, because it offers psychological analysis of a character that neither Emily nor Anne achieved during their short life.

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

Life is not all poetry but literature is not all realism either. I agree about you on Villette. I admire Charlotte even more about it. Although Jane Eyre still amazes me that can pass so many strong feelings and thoughts with that outrageous plot. In the hands of any other author it would be doomed.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula Right there, you are! Well all this arguing felt good, anyway, because I never get a chance to speak to someone who shares my interest. Hey, how about George Eliot? I like her very much (I am currently reading Middlemarch) do you?

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

I can not express a general opinion about George Eliot since I have read only Middlemarch & The mill on the floss. The Floss didn't impress me much because after Jane Eyre I thought that she left kind of unresolved the dilemma. I would really liked Maggie to have taken a decision. Middlemarch was a slow reading at first but I liked the balanced way she moves the characters and creates society. She is a realist so you will like her.I have a documentary about her too in my channel.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula Yeah, I saw the documentary about George Eliot. It surprised me, really, to know how scandalous a life she had led (to be sure, I read somewhere that she was "unusual" to conform to expectations of Victorian society). I have read Adam Bede, another of Eliot masterpieces (it was the one that brought her fame). Middlemarch is really, really long! The length of a novel is never an evil for me (the lengthier the better) but Middlemarch is definitely a challenge

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

I was more surprised by how much emotionally insecure that woman-genius must have felt to make such disastrous affairs (like the one with her publisher) to tolerate all that. And the fact that her literature is not shocking at all while Charlotte's who lived her life more conventional was more shocking to the Victorians.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula Stopped by a book shop today (my Wuthering Heights is withering like leaves in autumn). Imagine my disgust when on the shelf I see WH - not a english masterpiece, but as the book "loved by Bella Swan and Edward Cullen" (you know the Twilight couple) the urge to rip off the cover was so strong!

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

Unfortunately Bella and Edward tend to be rather more important persons in this world than more pithy characters. I wonder what Meyer's readers make out of Wuthering Heights anyway. They are difficult enough to fathom as they are, let alone having in mind totally romantic sugary situations. They are up for some serious disillusions Lol!

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula I'm curious - are you an author or something? I mean, anyone so obsessed with literature must have some kind of recourse to literary pursuits. Am I right?

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

No, I simply read a lot because I like it, but secondary you can say that it helps me in my work. I'll explain in a message.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula And Lastly, as much as I enjoyed reading Charlotte (including her poetry), I prefer Emily, mainly because her writing is far more "unconventional," passionate and wild than her elder sisters - all the more evident in her poetry. Emily's poetry has more depth, sympathy, sensibility than her ambitious sister's.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula As far as Anne's concerned, how can you say she did not possess certain quality of writing to be distinguished? - say rather, she could not find readers who could truly sympathise with her work. Consider, for instance, Helen Graham of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Jane Eyre. The former had more genuine tribulations and sufferings than Jane, bore it with greater fortitude, and turned out to be in true sense "independent"

[ksotikoula]

@RushTheSilver

I admire Anne's realism and common sense but that alone does not make her a great writer. There is not a piece of writing of hers that I could read and immediately say "Oh, yes this is definitely Anne Bronte". She has not a distinguished style. While I can laugh with Jane Eyre being the incredibly story that it is but every time it manages to move me and Charlotte's style can be spotted by a mile.

[RushTheSilver]

@ksotikoula That's why I said her worth hasn't been fully recognised! I loved reading Jane Eyre (it was the first book I read, ever) but now I find it nothing but a fairytale enveiled by Gothic elements. It's an impassioned account by a frustrated author (again, not in an offensive way). Conjuring a griffin is more easy than delineating a real lion, you know.

[Nymphaie]

I don't buy into the account of Branwell Bronte in this and other (similar) documentaries. History has portrayed him as incompetent and a failure and his story was tragic but not like this. There is an excellent book by Juliet Barker called simply The Brontes for anyone wanting the full picture.

[BeholdTheCircusFreak]

Thanks gia to upload, LOL p exei ellinikous ipotitlous!

Great upload :)

[ksotikoula]

@BeholdTheCircusFreak

Euxaristo polu patrida! To youtube den me eidopoiise gia to sxolio sou allos tha sou milousa noritera :)

[BeholdTheCircusFreak]

@ksotikoula No matter! Vlepeis , kai gw twra meta apo 5 mines to eida! Poli endiaferoda ta video sou, keep it going! ;)

[WELLBRAN]

So much is said about the BGrontes but most of it is rubbish, how do I know this? i am related to them My name is Branwell, so many "hangers on" in the literary world

[AllErikaEclectica]

I must thank you again so much for posting this documentary.

[okideo]

Thank you for posting this documdentary, I have enjoyed it immesly. Thanks again.

Oki

[xARMINIUSx]

the day after i found jane Eyre. i found the omnibus with al three the books.

[BeeWilla4]

i love their books.

i went to their house and my name is Bronte and the lady who gave us leaflets before we went in said for all the years that she has worked with the Bronte society she has never come across a Bronte coming to visit the home but she has come across many ann, emilys and charlottes but never a Bronte

[ksotikoula]

Which one is your favorite?

[takeanumbertobeme]

I love Anne's poetry

[JaponLights]

@ksotikoula Emily and Ann by personality and Charlotte for writtings

[ksotikoula]

@JaponLights

You don't like Charlotte's personality? Why? I know many people who feel that they love her even though they never met her.

[JaponLights]

@ksotikoula I just love Charlotte's personality, but I like her writtings more. You asked what is you favourite, so I said Emily. I like her personlaity more, but I like Charlotte's writtings the best ( I don't say, I don't like Charlotte. She's magnificant)

[ksotikoula]

@JaponLights

Ok! Now I got it! Lol! Thanks for clarifying!

[JaponLights]

@ksotikoula Thanks for uploading ;D

[xARMINIUSx]

you know what i like about them ? its the same thing what Goethe, Tolkien, C.S.Lewis etc did, they where when they where little obcessed by little worlds, people and animals, complete kingdoms and animals made out of carbon paper. drawing maps of the worlds, imagining the key-players. its a shame children of today dont do that anymore ! Cuz we carry our 'head'' / ''imagination'' everywhere we go :-). and as the german philosophers say: reality is ur interpretation, hence the world.

greetz !

[xARMINIUSx]

two books who gives a good example of it are hesses books glasperlenspiel and unterm rad.

But that doesnt mean one must stop with imagining ! afcourse not. But u have to understand it must not become the ''a second world'' that interfers, and damage ur life in reality. It supposed to make you a better person IN reality, it has to enriched reality, and pushing you 2 higher limits, etc etc.

Greetz !

[xARMINIUSx]

i think their storys are wonderfull. But it also shows , what goethe also pointed out often, that to much idealism, or fleeing in ur imagination is risky. A writer who handled this subject much is Hermann Hesse in his 'Glasperlenspiel', and 'unterm rad', about what happend with someone who live to much in isolation, with only books, and only living in their imagination. after a while they cannot take real life anymore. Nietzsche pointed that out 2. But nevertheless a beautifull story

[Seidkhonis]

That is a ridiculous thing to say. Most of the best writers and artists flee into their imagination and develop very complex and amazing worlds. Most of our reality is created through imagination, and the hardships we experience as well. Whether something is misplaced or not is a matter of perspective. Our lives are very short anyways, why waste it on being boring.

[ksotikoula]

On the contrary I believe that the Brontes were saved by their imagination. The fascination that they create in people's minds has to do with the fact that they lived totally flat lives on the outside but very rich and complex inner feelings. If they were to write only by experience they wouldn't have much to say. They were poor, obscure spinsters. Instead they set an example that even the most boring of lives can be made into something valuable. And that leaves hope for anyone.

[xARMINIUSx]

yes afcourse, but to much idealism isnt good. You have to stay in contact with reality at all times. But afcourse imagination is one of the highest if not THE highest primair 'tool'to understand poetry and prose to the fullest. thats why every book is different for everybody.

But for example: Hölderlin went mad, cuz of his imagination. Novalis rushed his death cuz he was convinced the afterlife was waiting, also his sophie, Rimbaud, Also (acc 2 goethe) Schillers death cuz of 2 much idealism.

[ksotikoula]

No they weren't as fanatical as that! Lol! You may be pleased to learn that Charlotte Bronte gave up her imaginary world when she was 23 because she was tired of "it's burning clime" and wanted to face a "gray dawn" (her words).

They knew the distinction and only used it as fountain of courage and support when the ugly reality was too much to bear.

[koljenny]

poor woman! to die so young , to leave behind her children ,without her presence! to bring them to life ,but not live and see them grow !

[guv859]

I repeat, from another Bronte post, Patrick Bronte did not have an Irish accent once he had reached maturity.  Read Mrs Gaskell.

[fiendinhumanform]

Such tragedy in their lives. Thank modern medicine.

[ksotikoula]

Yes, it is so sad to know that they all would continue living if they lived in our century. Such a premature waste of talent!

[iamme611]

you are welcome. i will respond to the others. Regarding Southern and Northern accents, they were so different to me because I am American that for awhile, I would be confused if Northerners I heard speak were from Scotland. For a slight example of the difference, listen closely to the accents of Margret and Mr. Thorton in the film North and South. However, I probably would not be able to tell the difference in Greek accents!

[IceBarrier]

This is wonderful, I've seen part of it long ago, I'll enjoy seeing the whole documentary finally! thank you so much! 5*

[ariannahiggins]

*two thumbs up*

[portialynne]

thanks for this!

[ksotikoula]

You are welcome!

[iamme611]

I agree. Great job. My favorite part is the siblings playing on the moors. But why do these films always have characters/people from Northern England speaking with Southern English accents? I was glad in the recent 2009 film version of Wuthering Heights on Masterpiece Theatre that Cathy had a Yorkshire accent.

[ksotikoula]

I have not much experience with accents so I didn't notice it at all.

I also want to say that it was a great pleasure reading and answering your comments. Thanks for participating!