Brontë Society Conference 2016

Maddalena De Leo writes:

Helen MacEwan, Maddalena De Leo, Marina Saegerman, Akiko Higuchi, Marcia Zaaijer

The Brontë Society Conference 2016 was held in Manchester at the luxurious Midland Hotel between 19 and 24 August, this year being particularly relevant because of the bicentennial celebration of the birth of Charlotte Brontë. The Italian Section was of course present with a mini-delegation consisting of Maddalena De Leo, its representative, and Caterina Lerro.

Christine Alexander

The three days event was completely dedicated to Charlotte and was entitled '... the business of a woman's life', Charlotte Brontë and the Woman's question. Among its speakers the were some of the best and most famous world scholars of the moment - for example Christine Alexander, Germaine Greer, and Sally Shuttleworth. Beside them were many other academics from all over the world.

On Friday afternoon, after the superb reception of the nearly one hundred and fifty delegates from various nationalities in the multi-starred hotel, there was the introductory lecture during  which Christine Alexander focused on the literary ambitions of the young Charlotte, referring also to her mother Maria Branwell Brontë’s libretto recently found and bought by the Society; immediately afterwards there was the introduction of the powerful book written by her and Sarah Pearson Celebrating Charlotte Brontë: Transforming Life Into Literature in Jane Eyre, the major Brontë Society publication 2016 for the bicentennial. The toast offered by Brontë Studies publishers ensued then, followed by the first dinner in the very elegant Derby Suite located on the first floor and adjacent to the conference room. After it another brilliant paper was given by the representative of the Belgian section, Helen Mc Ewan, based on the point of view of the mid-nineteenth century Belgian citizens in regard to our Brontës.

Sally Shuttleworth

Saturday 20 August saw the debut of 'key-note speaker' Germaine Greer with an original and very personal paper, full of inputs and questions about Charlotte's personal and social life, a speech that clearly attracted a lot of questions and created an animated discussion in the hall, afterwards followed by a 'visual panel’ dedicated to the cinema and TV drama adaptations of Charlotte’s novels.

In the afternoon a small group of delegates went to the nearby Manchester Central Library while almost all the others took part in the excursion previously organized by the Brontë Society which included a visit to the recently restored Elizabeth Gaskell’s house at number 84, Plymouth Grove. It was there that Charlotte’s biographer lived from 1850 until her death in 1865, writing all her novels and the Life, and it was in that same living room that she talked by night with her friend in the three times that she was her guest.

Germaine Greer

Back at the Midland Hotel and after more lectures on the role of women in Victorian times, there came the highlight of the Conference, the gala dinner with its sophisticated salmon menu, followed by Claire Harman’s dissertation in which  she - Charlotte’s latest biographer - outlined the strengths and weaknesses present in the long friendship of the three former classmates, Mary Taylor, Ellen Nussey and Charlotte Brontë.

On Sunday morning, after the report of Prof. Shuttleworth about the sense of injustice denounced in Jane Eyre and the other novels by Charlotte, the topic was instead the economic aspect of the women’s question in the Victorian era. Then there followed the comments and thanks to the Vice-President of the Brontë Society Patsy Stoneman for the excellent organization of the event, and farewells to all participants after the rapid final lunch.

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Flagship event at the Gaskell House

Lesley-Jane Rogers

Elizabeth Gaskell's House announce their flagship event in the Brontë Bicentenary commemorations: 

"LOVE, LOSS AND LONGING"  -  

Charlotte and Emily Brontë: contemporary visions of love and troubled genius expressed through the power of music and the spoken word

September 17th at 7pm, 84 Plymouth Grove, M13 9LW   Tel: 0161 273 2215 

www.elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk/events

First Performances of song settings by Robin Walker: 'Letter to Brussels' & 'Self-Interrogation'

John Joubert: 'Six Poems of Emily Brontë'

New poetry by Edwin Stockdale 

Lesley-Jane Rogers, soprano

Janet Simpson, piano

Suzanne Casey, violin

Philip Watts and Edwin Stockdale, readers

--

Pamela Nash, Artistic Director

TICKETS :

www.quaytickets.com/elizabethgaskellhouse/Online/default.asp?doWork%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle=Load&BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Aarticle_id=A7539EFB-192A-4787-BAEF-6B0057A754E6

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Charlotte's birthday at Mirfield Arts Festival

We have just received photos (thanks Huddersfield Examiner) from the Mirfield Arts Festival, which took place on 16 July in good weather.

The birthday celebration flag was flown by Society stalwart Angela Crow-Woods - who talked about Charlotte Brontë's first novel The Professor to an appreciative audience, after she had finished the opening ceremony. 

Angela writes: "Young people started the festival in the morning with music and dancing, and then I officially opened the whole festival, which will hopefully be the first of many.

"This one was organised brilliantly by Jenny Tomlinson, Chair of the Friends of Mirfield Library. We also celebrated four hundred years of William Shakespeare with a performance of parts of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Mirfield has strong connections with the Brontës, and the Brontë Society should not forget it."

Brontës in Bloom - in Kirklees

Poetry at the Parsonage

Richard Wilcocks writes:
It was certainly a turn-up for the books: I can not recall any events even similar to this one in my experience, and I am guessing it was unprecedented. It should be made to happen again, and not just because it links with the Parsonage's well-established and enlightened stance on contemporary arts, and because all the Brontës wrote poetry but because festivals like this should be essential items on both the Parsonage and the Haworth annual calendar. It should be repeated. Perhaps an annual poetry weekend could grow to become as significant as a Forties weekend.

The organising geniuses were Matthew Withey and Joanna Sedgwick with other members of staff and volunteers from the Parsonage, together with Mark Connors from the Leeds-based Word Club, well-used to rounding up poets of all kinds, and a poet and novelist himself. They spent many happy hours planning everything, drinking plenty of lattes in 'Cobbles and Clay' (on Main Street) to help things along. Some ideas never materialised: the marquee in which performances were going to be situated did not appear because the Health and Safety people from Bradford Council did not like the sheep droppings they discovered on the chosen field, so the poets were sent to either the old school room ('Charlotte's Stage') or to the West Lane Baptist Church ('Emily's Stage') to hold forth.

"Poetry at the Parsonage was a two day celebration of the vibrant poetry scene that stretches across all corners of Yorkshire and we were blessed with contributions from Leeds, Bradford, York, Wakefield, Sheffield, Hull, Otley, Ilkley, Huddersfield, Halifax, Horsforth, Hebden Bridge, Sowerby Bridge, Filey, Marsden....and many other places where poetry thrives in 2016," said Mark Connors on his Facebook page, and audiences were exposed to just about every variety of it. Some was Brontë-related, most of it not, and poets were of every age. My own ten-minute contribution was delivered to an audience which included the magnificent Queensbury Ladies on the front row, and if I was asked to pick out memorable individual performances I would choose Antony Dunn (www.antonydunn.org) at the young end and Patrick Lodge (www.valleypressuk.com/author/47/patrick_lodge) at the senior end. I missed the workshops, but on evidence from a participant, can say that the one led by veteran poet and creative writing coach Char March (www.charmarch.co.uk) was brilliant.

There was a bar on the grass behind the Parsonage which attracted few drinkers on the Saturday, mainly because of the cold, blustery weather, but more on the Sunday, when there was more sunshine - and musicians.

Here are two glowing reviews:

http://www.yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poetry-At-The-Parsonage

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=58496

Barry Simmons - Scrambled Eggheads

 IS writes:
The annual gathering at the Old White Lion on the Sunday evening is always something to look forward to in the programme of the Brontë Society June Weekend. Friendships are renewed, new ones are made and excellent food is available. This year members, in teams of four, replete with choices such as scampi, chicken, garlic mushrooms, sticky toffee pudding and in my case a humble cheese sandwich which was delicious, prepared to pit their wits in a quiz compiled by Barry Simmons (pictured). 

Resplendent that evening in a sparkling, red sequined jacket - which would have done Liberace proud - he can be regularly seen on our television screens in the quiz programme 'Eggheads'. He is a quizzer par excellence - he has been a winner of 'Brain of Britain' and he is a researcher at the text question and answer service. So it was probably with some trepidation that the teams - with names such as Chapter, Keeper’s Friends, Heathcliff’s Revenge - prepared to do battle.

Barry, who lives in Leeds, asked his brain teasing questions with humour and patience, and when the winner was declared there was only one mark between the top two teams.

The evening ended on a high note with Audrey Hall (pictured in a recent post), one of the Society’s vice- presidents, telling about some Brontë items she has recently acquired for the museum via her family connection with the Nusseys and also with Oakwell Hall. It was so good to hear about Audrey’s latest project - she has worked so hard over many, many years for the good of the Brontë Society and I thank her for all she has done and continues to do.

The Great Charlotte Brontë Debate

Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Katherine Langrish, Maxine Peake, Tracy Chevalier, Joanne Harris and Claire Harman

Helen MacEwan (Brussels Brontë Group) writes:

A highlight of the weekend was The Great Charlotte Brontë Debate on the Saturday evening (11 June) of the Summer Festival. Which is Brontë's greatest novel, Jane Eyre or Villette? Claire Harman (who had given that morning's lecture) and Joanne Harris argued for Jane Eyre, Lucy Hughes-Hallett and Katherine Langrish for Villette, expertly chaired by Tracy Chevalier.

Each writer's defence of her chosen novel was preceded by readings given by Maxine Peake, in which we heard, for example, about Jane in the Red Room, Jane in the early days at Thornfield longing for a more fulfilling and intellectually stimulating life, and Lucy, at the Pensionnat, similarly yearning for a fuller life to lead her 'upwards and onwards'.

For Claire Harman, Jane Eyre is 'a book that has everything and has fed generations of readers imaginatively, emotionally, intellectually and erotically', while for Joanne Harris it can be read at different times of life and mean different things. Katherine Langrish described Villette as 'a pressure-cooker of a book, boiling with suppressed passion', while Lucy Hughes-Hallett explored the theme of surveillance in the novel, the subject of her talk to the Brussels Brontë Group in 2014. Everyone spies on everyone else in Villette. This was illustrated by passages in which Lucy watches Mme Beck and M. Paul rummaging through her belongings, though the two have very different motives in wanting to know more about her: Hughes-Hallett described M. Paul, a hero she finds more convincing than Rochester, as 'someone with the generosity to look at someone else and see them as they are, and love them.'

This first round of presentation was followed by a lively debate in which further points were discussed, after which it was over to the audience. Jane Eyre came out top in the votes taken both before and after the debate, but the second vote revealed a significant swing in support for Charlotte's last novel. All four speakers were so eloquent, however, it's difficult to say which of them mounted the best defence. And I imagine many of us find it almost impossible to choose between Charlotte's best-seller, a novel first read and loved in youth, and the more complex novel we appreciate when we're a little older. As Katherine Langrish put it, if Jane Eyre is Pride and Prejudice, Villette is Persuasion.

This was a wonderful event, professionally presented, with six high-calibre performers and a great format. Could we please have many more such debates at Haworth in future?

Claire Harman's lecture

The Annual Brontë Society Lecture this year was delivered by Claire Harman in a venue relatively new to the occasion - the Hall Green Baptist Chapel. The annual church service followed it, in the same place. This was because St Michael's and All Angel's is currently still being reordered and reroofed.

Charlotte Brontë - A Life seems to have been read by a large percentage of the appreciative audience, though the queue for signed copies stretched around the church. "Her protagonist is both fervent dreamer and cool realist, imaginative artist and clear-eyed professional," wrote Kathryn Hughes in her Observer review last year, and the clear-eyed Claire Harman showed just why that is an accurate assessment of her work, which moves on significantly from Gaskell (naturally) and also from more recent biographers like Juliet Barker.

In the photo, she is sitting with Audrey Hall, a leading authority on Ellen Nussey, and who recently became one of the Society's Honorary Vice-Presidents.

Charlotte - The Movie!

Lip Service

Charlotte - The Movie is a film commissioned for Charlotte's bicentenary, and it premiered at West Lane Baptist Church on the Friday evening of the June Weekend/Summer Festival. Performed by Lip Service Theatre Company , an outfit very well known to most of the substantial audience because of its live shows (there was a call for hands up), it was made in the Parsonage and nearby with the enthusiastic assistance of the staff. Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding (pictured), who in various guises took all the main parts, from Mrs Gaskell to Robert Redford, have been writing and performing together since 1985, with eighteen original comedies for the stage, a comedy series on Radio 4 and a number of television appearances to their credit. They more than lived up to the description of them by a Guardian reviewer a few years ago - "The Laurel and Hardy of literary deconstruction".

There were excerpts from their long-running stage show Withering Looks, but this was several steps on from all that. The laughter at the introduction (in English followed by Japanese) and the opening scene in the Parsonage Dining Room ("Don't sit on that couch!") continued right through to the final gags about submitting the film for the Sundance Festival. The studied naivety, the in-jokes and the child-like glee went down well, and the quiz papers dished out afterwards (sadly, hardly anyone knew that Queen Victoria's middle name was Alexandrina) provided a good excuse to chat with the audience, to soak in a few comments. Both Maggie and Sue were certainly on edge before the screening, but much more relaxed after they had heard the reactions. The only (slight) irritation appears to have been that people laughed too much, which meant that they sometimes missed the witticism which was next in line. These things can be timed better with the punters live in front of you.

The Story of the Withins Farms

Top Withins - 1920s 

Friday 10 June was the first day of what used to be called either 'AGM Weekend' or 'June Weekend' but which has now been renamed 'Summer Festival'. At 3pm first Steve Woods, then Peter Brears gave their illustrated talk 'The Real Wuthering Heights: The Story of the Withins Farms', which was a bigger and better version of a talk given on the same subject three years ago. It began with a brief reference to the letter from publishers Smith, Elder & Co to Ellen Nussey, who was being asked for clues about locations. They wanted to know what the Brontë Sisters had in mind because they were producing the first illustrated edition of the collected works, and Volume Five (1873) of this was Wuthering Heights along with Agnes Grey. As Ellen Nussey's reply has been lost, we do not know much for sure, but the book included an illustration of Top Withins by E M Wimperis which she seems to have suggested to him, so there is some evidence that it was one of the places in Emily's imagination - along with others.

The talk was the result of years of careful study, and covered Top, Middle and Lower Withins, three farms which made up about a hundred acres, much of it rough pasture and much of it probably never used - too rough perhaps. Most farms in the area were dairy, producing milk, butter and a little cheese. Two hundred years ago this would have been consumed by the many weavers and spinners in the area - and because it was not much of a living, the farmers and their families would have done plenty of carding and spinning themselves. There were some sheep, and about half a dozen cows at each farm.

It would have been an isolated life, with long walks down to Stanbury or Haworth, unpleasant and hazardous in bad weather, especially in heavy snow, and especially for any children on their way to school and back in the later years of the nineteenth century. The ruined Lower Withins was finally demolished in the 1930s ("There were plenty of Brontë enthusiasts taking away souvenirs") and Top Withins was fixed into its present state fairly recently, though it seems to have been still quite substantial in the 1920s.