The Brontës are often dismissed as up-market Mills & Boon. But with the release of two films this autumn, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, they look set to rival even Jane Austen in the public's affections
Ours is supposed to be the age of instantaneity, where books can be downloaded in a few seconds and reputations created overnight. But the Victorians could be speedy, too, and there's no more striking example of instant celebrity than Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë posted the manuscript to Messrs Smith and Elder on 24 August 1847, two weeks after the publisher had expressed an interest in seeing her new novel while turning down her first. Within a fortnight, a deal had been struck (Charlotte was paid £100) and proofs were being worked on. In the 21st century a first novel can wait two years between acceptance and publication. Jane Eyre was out in eight weeks, on 17 October, with Thackeray...
Ours is supposed to be the age of instantaneity, where books can be downloaded in a few seconds and reputations created overnight. But the Victorians could be speedy, too, and there's no more striking example of instant celebrity than Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë posted the manuscript to Messrs Smith and Elder on 24 August 1847, two weeks after the publisher had expressed an interest in seeing her new novel while turning down her first. Within a fortnight, a deal had been struck (Charlotte was paid £100) and proofs were being worked on. In the 21st century a first novel can wait two years between acceptance and publication. Jane Eyre was out in eight weeks, on 17 October, with Thackeray...
- 9/9/2011
- by Blake Morrison
- The Guardian - Film News
Wordsworth a secret agent and Coleridge a traitor? Pandaemonium may be entertainment, says John Sutherland, but as history it's pure travesty
Pandaemonium highlights a problem familiar to teachers of English literature. You have this class. They've spent the weekend (you suspect) popping ecstasy and watching MTV. How do you make the 1802 Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, with all that high-toned stuff about "poetic diction", sexy? Pandaemonium falls back on Oscar Wilde's axiom: "Lies are more beautiful than truth." What director Julien Temple and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce have created is visually striking - stunning at times. But these effects are achieved at the cost of biographical and historical truth. Does it matter? No, says the movie's producer, Michael Kustow. Yes, says Professor Dryasdust.
Temple's movie opens with a wholly imaginary gathering. It is the election of the Poet Laureate, in 1813. Bizarrely, the Lord Chamberlain has decided to announce the...
Pandaemonium highlights a problem familiar to teachers of English literature. You have this class. They've spent the weekend (you suspect) popping ecstasy and watching MTV. How do you make the 1802 Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, with all that high-toned stuff about "poetic diction", sexy? Pandaemonium falls back on Oscar Wilde's axiom: "Lies are more beautiful than truth." What director Julien Temple and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce have created is visually striking - stunning at times. But these effects are achieved at the cost of biographical and historical truth. Does it matter? No, says the movie's producer, Michael Kustow. Yes, says Professor Dryasdust.
Temple's movie opens with a wholly imaginary gathering. It is the election of the Poet Laureate, in 1813. Bizarrely, the Lord Chamberlain has decided to announce the...
- 9/7/2001
- by John Sutherland
- The Guardian - Film News
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