Emily Bronte- Biography

 

So, this globe is an embryo of a new heaven and a new earth.

Though Earth and Moon were gone,

And suns and universes ceased to be,

And thou were left alone,

Every existence would exist in thee.

- EMILY BRONTE.

‘Wuthering Heights’ was Emily Bronte’s sole novel,

AND

One novel changed the course of English Literature,

AND

 Emily Bronte changed everything…

THIS BIOGRAPHY COMES AS A TOKEN OF LOVE, ADMIRATION, AND REVERENCE FOR THE MOST MYSTIC BRONTE OF THE BRONTE SISTERS:

EMILY JANE BRONTE

When 'Wuthering Heights' was published in 1848 one reviewer wrote: 'the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance, and anon come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love—even over demons in the human form.'

It was one of the most astonishing reviews in English literary history. Nothing like it had ever been published before. Nothing has been published since.

How did Emily Bronte, daughter of a country clergyman, grew up to produce some of the most powerful and dramatic novel in the English language?

(Citation from www.bronte.org.uk)



Shocked by the review! Well, readers, despite the harsh critics ‘Wuthering Heights’ received in the initial year of its publication, the literary world couldn’t ignore the metaphysical passion shown in the novel, and it regained scholarly attention later, and new sensational discoveries about the novel and the enigmatic novelist were made, and

REST IS HISTORY.

 

PREFACE

Creativity and art have no caste, no religion. The geographical boundaries made by man cannot clutch it. Creativity is free, spirited, full of buoyancy, and loaded with imagination. Our mind is an amazing tool God has given us. Creativity and imagination form the greatest pillars of our mind. Can you imagine where our mind can take us? It can make us roam worldwide while we are in one place. That’s the power of imagination! The word ‘imagination’ will be frequently used in this write-up as the person’s biography I am going to place in front of you readers celebrated her imagination: her passionate, boundless imagination. Yes, dear readers, once the words ‘passionate imagination’ breeze in, only one personality stands before me. EMILY BRONTE. A phenomenon in herself.

She used her imagination so efficiently that she became one of the greatest English literature authors with her sole novel ‘Wuthering Heights.’

Now, you must be wondering why should a soul born in the 21st century in India and completely in love with Indian culture write about an English author of the Victorian era. What’s the connection? What is so fascinating about Emily Bronte? Rather, what is it which made me write about her? I can offer no explanation for this part as some feelings are hard to express in words, but I assure you, readers, her biography was one thing I longed to write.

For me, Emily Bronte entered my life in the lockdown. During the lockdown, due to a lack of physical activity, I became a bit insomniac and decided to reinvent my lost hobby of reading. After reading a lot of Sidney Sheldon, John Grisham, Mills and Boons, and other contemporary writers, I decided to read some classics, and so I surfed our Google Baba for the greatest classic books, and it’s there where I stumbled upon a book called ‘Wuthering Heights,’ authored by Emily Bronte. Why did I pick ‘Wuthering Heights’ amid the other classics? When I surfed for ‘Wuthering Heights’, I sprawled upon so many varied reviews. The critics called it a savage novel- wicked, full of revenge, some named it highly passioned, cruel, immoral, and evil, while some called it a highly imagined novel that was strangely original, and others liked the poetic and emotional drama exposed in the novel. Some even compared the forbidden love story to a spiritual level. The sole novel of Emily was a controversy and a mystery in itself. I wondered what the author must have written? It's fascinating that her solo novel was criticized when it was published. It shocked the moral principles of the Victorian era with its forbidden and immoral story, and yet, becoming the iconic and the most sensational novel of the Victorian era and many centuries after that.

It's been two hundred years, and literary experts are still digging inside the novel's crux; dear readers, such is the hullabaloo of the novel, and readers, while it's considered a classic in English literature, it remains a mystery to date. Well, so, I got the paperback and read the book.

Two things personified Emily Bronte- ‘Imagination’ and ‘Death.’ And those are my preferred topics too. So thereby, an instant connection happened between her and me. Why should a person be living (in a state of an embodiment of a body) for connection? Souls can connect with writings. I feel I am connected with her, and I know her. I wish she would read this biography, or rather, I know somewhere in the infinite space where she resides today; she is reading this biography. I can feel an eerie existence of hers around my space as I pen her life today. That’s what ‘AURA’ is called. Isn’t it? A feeling of hers has crept in every cell of my body as I search for her information. My mind is racing with wild thoughts and imagining her in that Victorian attire penning her imagination on that white sheet of paper. Goosebumps are crawling on me now, so let me quote a brilliant quote of hers:

‘There has to be an existence of yours beyond you.’ Wuthering Heights. 

Yes, Emily, you still exist with us in your writing, and you will reside in my heart as my mentor, my Guru. My sole purpose in writing her biography is to let the world know about the enigmatic Emily. The interesting part of this biography will be that her published poems and her sole novel convey a lot more information about her personality, as Emily was a reserved person, and very little is known about her. For centuries she has remained the enigmatic and mysterious Emily, and it’s said she had twin personalities. One was stoic and the other wild and savage. I was a bit hesitant to write about her because of her mysterious nature and the contradictory life portrayed by various writers. But this biography comes just out of respect and love for how she wrote. Oh, readers, she just wrote: Bindaas.

Scarce resources available about her was the most challenging part, and so any information which may not be a perfect fact about her should be kindly excused. While gathering information about Emily Bronte, it seemed as if I went back in time and tried to enter the most unconventional and isolated life of Emily Bronte. Wow! Creating a write-up about her was a fascinating journey for me and gave me inestimable pleasure. I thoroughly enjoyed my arduous task, and I hope my readers will enjoy the reading too.

Emily Bronte's unconventional life, the outstanding creative talent she was born with, her untimely tragic death, and last but not least, an aura of mystery that surrounds her will make this biography enthralling.

It’s important to note the Bronte family as Emily’s biography will revolve around them:

Emily Bronte – the central characterCharlotte Bronte- Emily’s elder sisterAnne Bronte- Emily’s younger sisterBranwell- Emily’s brotherPatrick Bronte- Emily’s fatherMaria Bronte – Emily’s motherElizabeth Branwell- Emily’s auntTabby- Emily’s housekeeperMrs. Gaskell, Ellen Nussey- Charlotte’s friendKeeper- Emily’s dog

Let's start by mentioning her death day first (an unconventional way to start a biography, but be rest assured, as you will know by the end of this biography, why I mentioned her death date first.)

Emily Jane Bronte died on 19th December 1848 at the tender age of thirty.

 

THE BIOGRAPHY:

 

EMILY AND HER LIFE- A GREAT POET AND A FEROCIOUS NOVELIST:

1818- Birth of enigmatic and tragically genius, EMILY:

Emily Jane Bronte was one of the Bronte sisters born in the chaotic, mysterious Bronte family. She is recognized as the world’s greatest Victorian woman writer as Emily (along with her sisters: Charlotte and Anne) changed the literary world with her exceptional and rebellious writings. The way Emily created her imaginary world in her Gondal poems was extraordinary. She is better known as the author of her sole novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ (which is considered as a classic in English literature).

Emily was born on 30th July 1818 in Thornton Market Street in Yorkshire to the Irish Reverend Patrick Bronte and Maria Bronte. She was the fifth of their six children (two of whom died in childhood), and she was the only one who was given a middle name- ‘Jane’. It can be said that Emily must have inherited her writing skills from her parents, as both Patrick Bronte and Maria Bronte showed writing pursuits. In fact, Patrick Bronte’s novel ‘The Maid of Killarney’ was published in the year when Emily was birthed.

1820- Bronte’s shift to Haworth 

Shortly after the birth of Emily’s younger sister, the youngest of the Bronte siblings, Anne, Patrick Bronte was appointed as the curate of St. Michela and All Angel’s Church in Haworth, so Patrick Bronte moved to the Haworth parsonage with his wife and six children. Emily’s father was appointed as a perpetual curate – meaning his appointment as a curate was for life, and he and his family would live in the parsonage as long as he worked as a curate. The Haworth parsonage had a peculiar location. It stood at the top of the hill between the church and its graveyard. On the one hand, behind the parsonage were the barren moors and on the other side was a working town. It was actually a mix of rural and industrial town. It was quite an unhealthy place to live in, but the Bronte family lived in the Haworth parsonage for the rest of their lives, and the moorland stretching along with the parsonage greatly influenced Emily's writing. Later, as we go deep into Emily’s life, we will realize that she was a homely person who loved to stay in her isolated parsonage. She often became homesick, and to depict her feelings for her ‘parsonage,’ she wrote this beautiful verse in one of her Gondal poems titled ‘A Little While’:

‘There is a spot, ‘mid-barren hills,

Where winter howls, and driving rain;

But, if the dreary tempest chills,

There is a light that warms again.

The house is old, the trees are bare,

And moonless above bends the misty dome,

But what on earth is half so dear—

So longed for-- as the heart of home?’

 The parsonage of Haworth stood at the highest point of the village and though an unhealthy and diseased place to live in, it had the highest zenith in Emily’s life.

Emily’s Haworth home had flagstone flooring. There were minimum curtains and carpet in Emily's house as her father, Patrick Bronte, feared fire. Winter must have been harsh, but the Bronte family were happy in their Haworth home. Little did they know of the troubles ahead. As stated earlier, Emily’s Haworth parsonage was situated at the hill, which had a graveyard. It was this graveyard that shortened the life of all the Bronte members. The condition in which the Haworth residents lived was very unhealthy, and the dominance of the graveyard added more septic. It made the parsonage dreary as funerals occurred at regular intervals. In the 18th century, the life expectancy of Haworth inhabitants was around twenty-five to twenty-seven years, so the graveyard got jammed with bodies. This poisoned the local water supply, and the public wells and pumps were situated below the level of the churchyard. As a result of the contaminated water, Maria Bronte, mother of Emily, suffered poor health at Haworth and all her six children contracted scarlet fever in 1821.

1821- Emily and her childhood, and the start of the Death chain:

By May, 1821, it was apparent that Maria Bronte was very sick. She was dying of cancer. It was obvious that she would depart this world, leaving behind her six small children. Maria was in deep agony as her eldest child was only seven and the youngest, Anne, was not even two.

A good older woman was appointed to nurse Mrs. Bronte and she stated that: 

‘All of Maria’s children were good children. But they were grave and silent beyond years, probably, by the presence of serious illness in the house, I used to think them spiritless, they were so different to any children I have ever seen. They were good little creatures. Emily was the prettiest.’

(Snippet from Life of Charlotte Bronte by Mrs. Gaskell)

On 15th September, 1821, Maria Bronte lost her battle with cancer, and her melancholic dying words were, “Oh, God, my poor children. Oh, God, my poor children.”

Maria Bronte became the first Bronte to be buried at Haworth church.

Elizabeth Branwell, Maria’ sister, came from Cornwall to the Haworth parsonage to tend to six motherless children and to care for the isolated family of Patrick Bronte. For her entire life, Elizabeth Branwell didn’t fail in her duty to look after Maria’s household and her six children.

Soon after Maria died, Patrick tried to remarry but in vain. After a few marriage refusals, he became very withdrawn, so much so that he started dining alone in his room. Such miserable isolation shaped him into a stern father who was unapproachable by his little children, though, undoubtedly, deep in his mind, he loved his children.

1824- Emily goes to school

Patrick Bronte sent his two eldest daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, to the clergy’s daughter’s school named Cowan Bridge. Charlotte soon joined and Emily, who was just six years old, joined her sisters in November, 1824 and became a darling pet child of the school.

Soon, eleven-year-old Maria Bronte became ill in Feb, 1825 with the typus fever, the typus fever epidemic that had plagued the Cowan Bridge school. She was sent home to Haworth. She died on the 6th of May, 1825. Immediately after Maria Bronte’s death, Emily’s second sister, Elizabeth, fell sick with the same deadly typus fever and died on 15th July,1825.

Charlotte and Emily contracted typus fever too, but fortunately, they recovered. Patrick Bronte was disturbed by his daughter's death, so he immediately withdrew Charlotte and Emily from the Cowan Bridge school. Maria and Elizabeth were buried in the Haworth graveyard near their mother.

So, finally, only four of the Bronte children survived. Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne. The death of their dear ones made the Bronte siblings impenetrably close. They started seeking comfort with each other. One can say that sorrow bonded the siblings together, and when sorrow bonds humans together; well, the bond becomes inseparable. That’s exactly what happened with the Bronte siblings. They became interdependent on each other, and became a family tenderly bound with each other.

In the meantime, aunt Elizabeth taught the girls about the household work while Patrick Bronte focused on his only son, Branwell. In fact, Patrick Bronte had lots of expectations from young Branwell, as he was the only son who Patrick expected to educate well and provide for his sisters. Emily, as a child, started spending time with nature where her only company was her solitude and the Haworth moors. Her childhood was molded by the strange and isolated surroundings of Bronte parsonage. She knew no other children, played with only her siblings. Emily and her writing displayed a peculiar disposition due to her queer childhood.

Well, a few months passed and the Bronte family adjusted to their new life.

1826- And then came 5th June, 1826- which can be marked as a historic day in the literary world. The birth of the imaginary Gondal world with the aid of twelve toy soldiers.

On 5th of June, 1826, Patrick Bronte had travelled to Leeds. He decided to bring gifts for his children as he knew he would not be travelling so far again. So, he bought twelve toy soldiers and gave them to Branwell. Since it was night, Branwell kept the box of twelve soldiers with him and decided to surprise his sisters the following morning. The sisters were thrilled when they saw the toy soldiers and were enticed by them so much that each one of them claimed the soldiers they liked and created characters with them; which became an essential part of their imaginary world.

Now this is a very interesting snippet which was written in Charlotte Brontë, The History of the Year, and Charlotte wrote as follows:

“Papa bought Branwell some wooden soldiers from Leeds, and when Branwell came to our door with a box of soldiers Emily & I jumped out of bed and I snatched up one & exclaimed this is the Duke of Wellington it shall be mine!! When I said this, Emily likewise took one & said it should be hers when Anne came down, she took one also. Mine was the prettiest of the whole & perfect in every part, Emily’s was a Grave looking fellow we called him Gravey. Anne's was a queer little thing very much like herself. He was called Waiting Boy. Branwell chose Bonaparte.”

These soldiers inspired the Bronte children to create imaginary worlds and made the toy soldiers their heroic characters. Soon, the twelve wooden soldiers became a world of imagination for the Bronte children. Emily’s brother, Branwell (who was a great painter) drew the fictional map of the countries which the twelve soldiers had conquered. This visionary land which Branwell drew was used by the children for their exploring pursuits. They named the imaginary country ‘Glasstown.’ They started inhabiting the fictional Glasstown with their soldiers, poets and politicians, hero and heroines, dukes and princess and started recording their writings in small almost ineligible writings. This is how they weaved their imaginary stories about the world in which toy soldiers lived and played games within themselves. They deboard all the books from Patrick Bronte’s small library and altered the books into their imaginary town of ‘Glasstown’. All the debated issues of politics were discussed by their father with them. The children discussed all the topics with their father with what Charlotte described as ‘with breathless anxiety’. Copies of Blackwood magazine were very popular with the Bronte siblings, and so, the Bronte children started writing their stories of their ‘Glasstown’ (with the twelve toy soldiers as their characters) as if they were creating a magazine.

Soon, Charlotte and Branwell created the fictional Angria Island, while Emily and Anne created the fictional Gondal Island. Each island had the same fictional capital i.e., Glasstown, which later came to be known as ‘Glasstown Confederacy,’ Well, the separation of islands happened because Emily and Anne, as the youngest siblings, were often demoted to inferior positions within the game. Therefore, Emily staged a rebellion and established the imaginary world of Gondal with her sister Anne. The Gondal world of Emily and Anne continued for many years. They exchanged the manuscripts with the letters and wrote poems in their diaries. In fact, Emily continued writing her Gondal poems till her death.

Emily’s Gondal handwriting still remains a source of fascination for many people. All Gondal manuscripts were written in tiny handwriting almost illegible to a good eye, and all of the Gondal tales were recorded in little books. It is said that Emily wrote in small scripts for two reasons. One to save paper, second to discourage anybody to read it; specifically, to keep her Gondal manuscript a secret from her father. Emily knew that her father was short-sighted. It would be difficult for him to read the manuscripts if they were ever found. Emily dreaded that her stern Victorian father would not take her Gondal writing in a thoughtful way and with benevolence.

EMILY AND GONDAL WORLD

For Emily, Gondal was her escapist world. Gondal was everything to Emily. She existed in her imaginary world of Gondal than the world she actually lived in.

So, what exactly was Gondal?

What was Gondal?

Gondal was a fictional north and south pacific island invented by 12-year-old Emily with her younger sister Anne. The Gondal stories which Emily wrote, taking toy soldiers into consideration, were set on two islands: the Northern pacific and South pacific. The northern island or the Gondal Island which Emily created was a land just like her Haworth moors, while the southern island, Gaaldine, was more of a tropical nature. There are four parts of Gondal Island – Angora, Alcona, Exina, Gondal. The two soldiers which Emily and Anne picked up became the Gondal Island explorers and they named them as Parry and Ross. So, Parry and Ross discovered Gondal Island. Later, Gaaldine was attacked by Gondal, and the soldiers of Gondal won the battle. Now, these fragments of stories related to the period when Britain was expanding its empire and so the stories which Emily created were filled with war and its aftermath. The Gondal stories were believed to be bursting with melodrama, conspiracy and loss and death.

Gondal characters

The early part of Gondal's history followed the life of the warlike Julius Brenzaida, and the Prince of Gondal's primary kingdom of Angora. The two loves of Benzaida's life were Rosina, who became his wife and queen, and Geraldine Sidonia, who gave birth to his daughter, Augusta Geraldin Almeda (A.G.A). Julius was a deceitful and two-faced personality. After sharing a coronation with Gerald, King of Exina, Julias imprisoned Gerald and later executed him. Julius was ultimately assassinated during a civil war and was succeeded by his daughter, A.G.A., (she is the Queen of Gondal, and the majority of Emily’s later Gondal poems are written taking A.G.A, in consideration) who was similar to her father in disposition. She had many lovers, including Alexander of Elbë, Fernando De Samara, and Alfred Sidonia of Aspin Castle, all of whom died. She was finally murdered during a civil war.

Gondal themes

Human passion, imprisonment, death, loss of loved ones, and the wilderness of nature were some of the themes on the basis of which Gondal poems were created.

Gondal poems:

Emily’s Gondal poems will be cited here as per the categorisation of her life made in this biography. All her poetries are so intense, wild, dark and passionate (I can say her poems are stunningly ghastly) that it would be difficult for the reader to actually digest such themes; so, let’s start with a very soothing and gentle poem of hers:

How beautiful the Earth is still (June 2, 1845)

Charlotte Brontë wrote "Never was better stuff penned." in the manuscript of this poem.

How beautiful the Earth is still

To thee–how full of Happiness;

How little fraught with real ill

Or shadowy phantoms of distress;

How Spring can bring thee glory yet

And Summer win thee to forget

December's sullen time!

Why dost thou hold the treasure fast

Of youth's delight, when youth is past

And thou art near thy prime?

When those who were thy own compeers,

Equal in fortunes and in years,

Have seen their morning melt in tears,

To dull unlovely day;

Blest, had they died unproved and young

Before their hearts were wildly wrung,

Poor slaves, subdued by passions strong,

A weak and helpless prey!

"Because, I hoped while they enjoyed,

And by fulfilment, hope destroyed

As children hope, with trustful breast,

I waited Bliss and cherished Rest.

"A thoughtful Spirit taught me soon

That we must long till life be done;

That every phase of earthly joy

Will always fade and always cloy--

"This I foresaw, and would not chase

The fleeting treacheries,

But with firm foot and tranquil face

Held backward from the tempting race,

Gazed o'er the sands the waves efface

To the enduring seas–

"There cast my anchor of Desire

Deep in unknown Eternity;

Nor ever let my Spirit tire

With looking for What is to be.

"It is Hope's spell that glorifies

Like youth to my mature eyes

All Nature's million mysteries--

The fearful and the fair–

"Hope soothes me in the griefs I know,

She lulls my pain for others' woe

And makes me strong to undergo

What I am born to bear.

"Glad comforter, will I not brave

Unawed the darkness of the grave?

Nay, smile to hear Death's billows rave,

My Guide, sustained by thee?

The more unjust seems present fate

The more my Spirit springs elate

Strong in thy strength, to anticipate

Rewarding Destiny!

 

The lost Gondal histories

Though we have the manuscripts of the Gondal poems, unfortunately, Gondal prose was never discovered. The disappearance of Gondal prose remains a mystery. Some say that Charlotte destroyed them after Emily’s death. While there is a very weird theory that Emily and Anne destroyed it themselves. Emily and Anne kept their Gondal work in ‘the tin box.’ When the Parsonage well was cleaned in September 1847, as Patrick Bronte recorded in his notebook, (see Joselyn Kellett, Haworth Parsonage (Haworth, 1977), the cleaner got eight tins in a state of decomposition. The whole ‘epic’ was published. As stated in see (Joselyn Kellett, Haworth Parsonage (Haworth, 1977):

‘I have thought about other methods of destroying it, such as burning it. Wads of paper are hard to burn and might leave traces. Burying would be symbolic, but perhaps not final enough. As the tin boxes were not really tin, they would oxidize quite quickly.’

For us, the only surviving fragments of the Gondal works are made up of Gondal poems, diary entries, and letters exchanged by Emily and Anne. Emily’s fascinating and dark poetries reveal a lot of her Gondal work which the readers will understand as we go ahead in the biography.

1835- EMILY AND HER TRAVELS FOR EDUCATION 

In July, 1835, Patrick Bronte thought it would be a good opportunity for Emily to join Roe Head School in Mirfield. Charlotte was working as a teacher there, so Emily went as a student to Roe Head School. But from a young age, Emily was a complex character. Just within two months, Emily became homesick and fell ill. Her shyness and spirit didn't fit well in the Roe Head School, so Charlotte decided to send her back to her Haworth parsonage and her beloved moors. Charlotte stated that:

“My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; —out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill-side, her mind could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the least and best-loved was—liberty. Liberty was the breath of Emily’s nostrils; without it she perished. The change from her own home to a school, and from her own very noiseless, very secluded, but unrestricted and unartificial mode of life, to one of disciplined routine (though under the kindest auspices), was what she failed in enduring. Her nature proved here too strong for her fortitude. Every morning, when she woke, the vision of home and the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the day that lay before her. Nobody knew what ailed her but me. I knew only too well. In this struggle her health was quickly broken: her white face, attenuated form, and failing strength, threatened rapid decline. I felt in my heart she would die, if she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall. She had only been three months at school; and it was some years before the experiment of sending her from home was again ventured on.”

(Snippet from Life of Charlotte by Mrs. Gaskell)

Emily gets back to her home

Finally, after staying at the Roe Head School for about three months, Emily returned home. Anne took her place at the Roe Head School. Back home, without Charlotte and Anne, Emily kept to herself and continued writing her Gondal poems.

1835 to 1839- Emily becomes a teacher at Law Hill School but comes to her cherished moor home again.

In the meantime, Branwell, who had gone to London to pursue his painting career, was not doing well. His artistic career had been suffocated by Patrick Bronte’s high expectations or perhaps due to his weak and fragile nature. He returned to Haworth in disgrace, depressed, and wasting Patrick Bronte’s hard-earned money on drinks and drugs.

So, perhaps to support Patrick Bronte financially, Emily went to Law Hill School, Southowram, near Halifax, as a teacher. However, once again, Emily missed her home and described her teaching job as slavery.

Charlotte wrote about Emily in a letter to Ellen Nussey, who was Charlotte's friend; in the letter, 'her' means Emily:

“I have had one letter from her since her departure,” wrote Charlotte, on October 2nd, 1836: “it gives an appalling account of her duties; hard labour from six in the morning to eleven at night, with only one half-hour of exercise between. This is slavery. I fear she can never stand it.”

Emily wrote a poem named ‘A Little While,’ which describes her slavery and how she longed to go home. A small snippet of this poem is mentioned earlier in the biography. Here goes the complete poetry:

A Little While

A little while, a little while,

The weary task is put away,

And I can sing and I can smile,

Alike, while I have holiday.

Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart--

What thought, what scene invites thee now

What spot, or near or far apart,

Has rest for thee, my weary brow?

There is a spot, 'mid barren hills,

Where winter howls, and driving rain;

But, if the dreary tempest chills,

There is a light that warms again.

The house is old, the trees are bare,

Moonless above bends twilight's dome;

But what on earth is half so dear--

So longed for--as the hearth of home?

The mute bird sitting on the stone,

The dank moss dripping from the wall,

The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,

I love them--how I love them all!

Still, as I mused, the naked room,

The alien firelight died away;

And from the midst of cheerless gloom,

I passed to bright, unclouded day.

A little and a lone green lane

That opened on a common wide;

A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain

Of mountains circling every side.

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,

So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;

And, deepening still the dream-like charm,

Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.

That was the scene, I knew it well;

I knew the turfy pathway's sweep,

That, winding o'er each billowy swell,

Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.

Could I have lingered but an hour,

It well had paid a week of toil;

But Truth has banished Fancy's power:

Restraint and heavy task recoil.

Even as I stood with raptured eye,

Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,

My hour of rest had fleeted by,

And back came labour, bondage, care.

 

Emily, the free, spirited, untamed girl, was never happy with her distasteful duties as a teacher, and perhaps that made her write this yearning poem in 1937.

The night is darkening round me.

 

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me,

And I cannot, cannot go.

 

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow;

The storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

 

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

 

Clearly, through this poem, Emily expressed her frustration and desperation as she felt trapped at Law Hill School. She thought there was no escape from school.

But finally, because of her health (which could be revived after she embraced her moorland), Emily resigned from Law Hill School in 1839, thrilled and delighted to return to her home.

Following her return from Law school, Emily spent three years at home, and since Anne and Charlotte came only during Christmas, it was Emily who handled the household work with Bronte’s housekeeper, Tabby. During this time, Emily spent her time writing Gondal poetries and performing household duties. She was joined occasionally by one or more of her siblings, but her most continual friend was her dog, Keeper, and her trained hawk, Nero, and this was her best period of life.

Housework and Emily:

Snippet from Life of Charlotte- by Mrs. Gaskell. Mrs. Gaskell describes how Emily loved her domestic work.

When at home, she took the principal part of the cooking upon herself, and did all the household ironing; and after Tabby grew old and infirm, it was Emily who made all the bread for the family; and any one passing by the kitchen-door, might have seen her studying German out of an open book, propped up before her, as she kneaded the dough; but no study, however interesting, interfered with the goodness of the bread, which was always light and excellent. Books were, indeed, a very common sight in that kitchen; the girls were taught by their father theoretically, and by their aunt, practically, that to take an active part in all household work was, in their position, woman’s simple duty; but in their careful employment of time, they found many an odd five minutes for reading while watching the cakes, and managed the union of two kinds of employment.

(Tabby is Bronte’s housekeeper)

Emily was an excellent cook. Haworth stationer John Greenwood reported that the villagers tasted Emily's bread as the best.

The kitchen formed an integral part of Emily's life, and a glimpse of her love for the kitchen can be seen in her novel Wuthering Heights. All the drama in the book happens in the kitchen.

Emily was an Animal Lover- Keeper was her favorite dog.

Apart from being a baker and a good housekeeper, Emily was an animal lover. More than humans, she loved animals.

She infamously informed her Law Hill School pupils that she preferred dogs to any of them. She kept pets all her life, some of them she mentioned in her diary papers.

A snippet from her diary papers:

“Victoria and Adelaide are ensconced in the peat-house – Keeper is in the kitchen – Nero in his cage –"

“We have got Flossey, got and lost Tiger – lost the Hawk Nero which with the geese was given away and is doubtless dead for when I came back from Brussels I enquired on all hands and could hear nothing of him – Tiger died early last year – Keeper and Flossey are well also the canary acquired 4 years since-“

Of all the dogs Emily kept as her pets, Keeper was her most adorable pet. Keeper was gifted to Emily, and the dog remained Emily’s most faithful companion till her last breath of life. But Keeper was a huge and menacing dog, half mastiff, half bulldog. The man who gave Keeper to Emily commented:

“Though he is faithful to the depths of his nature as long as he is with friends, yet who strikes him rouses the relentless nature of the brute who flies at such man’s throat, therewith, and holds him there until one or the other is at the point of death.”

So, he was a dog with many bad habits, and Emily handled him courageously. Only Emily could take his savage nature, for she was ferocious too. It’s said that once Emily gave a harsh punishment to Keeper. When Keeper disobeyed her, she struck him brutally with a stick. After the brute punishment, Emily nursed the dog’s wound, and they became the most faithful and loving pair. Keeper owed no grudge against his stubborn mistress and loved her dearly, and Emily, though an unforgiving master, adored Keeper’s wild nature. The relationship between Keeper and Emily was profound, intense, and sympathetic, perhaps, because both weren’t comfortable in civilized society. Both were wild and tumultuous.

The day before Emily died, she bathed Keeper (even though she could barely walk), and petted him dearly, and Keeper’s loyalty to Emily was beyond the grave. Keeper walked first among the mourners to Emily’s funeral; after she was buried, Keeper went straight to the door of the room where his mistress used to sleep and lay down on the edge. He kept moaning for nights at the door of her empty room and slept near Emily’s sofa till the time of his death.

Pianist and Artist 

Emily was the most talented of the Bronte sisters. She was an excellent pianist and was exceptional in her drawing. Though she received tuition from John Bradley, a local artist from Keighley, her drawings and sketches were inspired from what she saw and from nature. Her observation of Haworth's birds, animals, and scenic moors inspired her sketching. Her sketches are kept in the Bronte parsonage museum and are known as ‘pencil on paper.’ She sketched her beloved dog Keeper (Original water color drawing), a pencil sketch of a ring ouzel bird, a drawing of Nero, Emily’s tame hawk, grasper from life- pencil sketch of Charlotte’s dog, Flossy, Anne’s dog, and many more sketches of moors, trees, and landscapes.

Emily was a good pianist too. Playing piano made her feel feminine and she loved her piano. Here is the first-hand account of Ellen Nussey, Charlotte’s friend, on Emily as a pianist:

‘Emily, after some application, played with precision and brilliancy.

Emily was so good at the piano that when she travelled to Brussels to study at Heger’s School with Charlotte (we will see later in the biography) she became a music teacher and taught music and piano lessons to the students there.

Emily as a shooter

Patrick Bronte had kept a gun for his safety. Instead of selecting the depressed and fanatic Branwell, Patrick Bronte chose Emily and taught her how to shoot. Emily loved her shooting practice sessions with her father and, in a few days, she excelled the art of shooting and rarely missed the centre point. They say that Patrick Bronte was very proud of Emily’s shooting skills.

Relations with siblings

Anne

Anne was eighteen months younger than Emily, who became her partner in fantasy. Emily and Anne were simply companions and playmates, like twins. Emily and Anne created the world of Gondal together.

A snippet from Life of Charlotte by Mrs. Gaskell says of the bonding between the sisters:

‘Emily and Anne were bound up in their lives and interests like twins. The former from reserve, the latter from timidity, avoided all friendships and intimacies beyond their family. Emily was impervious to influence; she never came in contact with public opinion, and her own decision of what was right and fitting was a law for her conduct and appearance, with which she allowed no one to interfere. Her love was poured out on Anne, as Charlotte’s was on her. But the affection among all the three was stronger than either death or life.’

Charlotte

Charlotte was Emily’s elder sister. She was like Emily’s motherly friend and a guardian, though she tended to influence Emily. They were serious about their education, travelled as students, and later took up teaching positions together. They wanted to open a private school, which didn’t materialize. We will see a slight dominating antagonist streak in Charlotte’s character later in this biography.

Charlotte wrote a novel titled ‘Shirley,’ which she claims to be loosely based on her sister, Emily.

Branwell

Branwell was the only brother of three sisters. He was loved by Emily dearly. There was an unusually close relationship between Emily and Branwell. There are a lot of weird speculations about their relationship, but for me, Emily loved Branwell as a sister loves her brother and nothing else. Unfortunately, Branwell, who himself was a genius writer and artist, lost everything to alcohol and addiction. However, Emily loved her alcoholic brother, and she nursed him during his last painful days when he contracted tuberculosis (then known as consumption). While nursing Branwell, Emily caught consumption, leading to her untimely death.

Housemaid, Tabby

Tabby

Tabby was Bronte's elderly housemaid and profoundly impacted Emily's life. The character, Nelly Dean, the unreliable narrator of Wuthering Heights, was inspired by her housemaid, Tabby. During the 1838-39's, Tabby broke her leg, and Emily volunteered to work in the kitchen under Tabby's guidance.

Wild Emily- a reclusive and shy Emily hated humans and loved nature and animals. 

Emily was an isolated individual, completely introverted, who derived happiness from her solitude. She loathed humans and preferred staying close to her home. She hated getting imprisoned in the structured clutches of prejudiced society, and so,

Once while Emily was sitting in the parsonage window, she said to Anne,

“Why couldn’t we be left in peace to be ourselves? Better to shut from the outside world and know the eternal world inside us. I wish time would stand still and live this evening forever. It would be better to forget human beings altogether.”

When Anne asked her, “Now Emily, what would be left? A world without humans?”

She replied, “Everything.”

Now, readers, you can conjecture why Emily fell sick when she left her Haworth parsonage. She loved to be alone in her moorland.

Her perfect life was walking on the moors, playing piano, and spending hours writing. She hated the structured world. It is said that Emily, who loved dogs, was once bitten by a rabid dog frothing at the mouth. Not wanting to worry others, Emily took a red-poker from the fire and seared her own flesh to the bone to treat the wound. This incident is recalled in Charlotte Bronte’s novel ‘Shirley.’

 Emily and her appearance:

Ellen Nussey was Charlotte’s best friend, and her recount of Emily showed that she rated Emily far more genius and stronger than Charlotte.

(From my first account of Emily Bronte- by Ellen Nussey)

‘Emily had by this time acquired a lithesome, graceful figure. She was the tallest person in the house, except her father. Her hair, which was naturally as beautiful as Charlotte’s, was in the same unbecoming tight curl and frizz, and there was the same want of complexion. She had very beautiful eyes, kind, kindling, liquid eyes; but she did not often look at you: she was too reserved. She talked very little. She and Anne were like twins – inseparable companions, and in the very closest sympathy, which never had any interruption.’

‘Her extreme reserve seemed impenetrable, yet she was intensely loveable. She invited confidence in her moral power. Few people have the gift of looking and smiling, as she could look and smile – one of her rare expressive looks was something to remember through life, there was such a depth of soul and feeling, and yet shyness of revealing herself, a strength of self-containment seen in no other. She was in the strictest sense a law unto herself, and a heroine in keeping to her law.’

‘A spell of mischief also lurked in her [Emily] on occasions. When out on the moors she enjoyed leading Charlotte where she would not dare to go of her own free will. Charlotte had a mortal dread of unknown animals and it was Emily’s pleasure to lead her into close vicinity and then to tell her of what she had done, laughing at her horror with great amusement.’ 

‘She could be really vivacious in conversation, taking pleasure in giving pleasure.’

‘I have at this time before me the history of a mighty and passionate soul, whom every adventure that makes for the sorrow or gladness of man would seem to have passed by with averted head. It is of Emily Brontë I speak, then whom the first 50 years of this century produced no woman of greater or more incontestable genius.’

In the year 1840 – all the Bronte children were at home except Anne

The sisters often sat in their room around a round table and talked over their lives and the prospects they afforded for employment as they wished to help Patrick Bronte financially. So,

In 1841- Charlotte and Emily discussed the idea of opening a school in Haworth so that the family could stay together and earn income.

In 1842- Emily and Charlotte went to Brussels to learn foreign languages and school management at the Pension Héger in Brussels, Belgian, hoping to learn the skills to open their school in Haworth.

Charlotte quoted while leaving the Haworth parsonage:

‘I am sad very sad to leave home and so more far sad was Emily who for ten years had never been away from her moors and home.’

Emily thought that if Charlotte’s plan of learning foreign languages in the hope of opening a school in Haworth worked out well, she would never be made to leave her beloved Haworth moors again, and so reluctantly, she agreed to go with Charlotte.

But as predicted, the nine months she spent in Brussels was awful for Emily because of her unsocial and reserved disposition. The girls in Brussels often teased Emily for her old-fashioned dress she wore. However, Emily determinedly coped with this bullying by dedicating her time to her studies and impressing her teachers quite well, and in return, the teachers at Brussels appreciated Emily more than Charlotte. The teachers at Brussels found Emily’s rebellious and passionate nature quite more intriguing than Charlotte’s modest temperament.

Constantin Heger, Emily’s French teacher in Brussels, quoted: 

‘She should have been a man – a great navigator. Her powerful reason would have deduced new spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old; and her strong, imperious will would never have been daunted by opposition or difficulty; never have given way but with life.’

But Brussels never provided Emily with a source of inspiration, and her heart longed for her moors.

Charlotte quoted:

‘She was never happy till she carried her hard-won knowledge back to the remote English village, the old parsonage-house, and desolate Yorkshire hills.”

In October 1842, Aunt Elizbeth died, and Emily permanently returned to Haworth and quickly decided to be the daughter to remain at home. The trip to Brussels was the last journey Emily made outside of Haworth. She stayed in her wild Haworth moor home till she died.

In her isolated home, the year 1842 was the start of Emily's profound writing journey. Her real journey within herself gave the literary world the most singular writing work. 

EMILY’S WRITING JOURNEY 1843 to 1848

1843- 

After her reluctant travels, Emily finally stayed at her home as a housekeeper till her death. The idea of Charlotte and Emily opening a school of their own was doomed, and everything seemed gloomy with just one silver lining; she was at home breathing the air of her beloved moors.

1844

In February 1844, Emily Brontë copied her poems into two notebooks, one containing Gondal poetry and one containing non-Gondal poetry. Several of Emily's poems are presumed to be metaphors for personal experiences, and are shown in the Gondal saga.

She wrote plays and stories about the fictional land of Gondal; the prose sadly couldn’t survive, for in most cases, Emily destroyed her notes after transcribing the poems into a fair-copy manuscript. Thankfully, she kept her poems. Her other works consisted of essays in French, a few diary entries, and letters she exchanged with Anne.

1845 - Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell 

By 1845, the sisters were living with their brother, Branwell, who had failed miserably and was under constant addiction. All girls were unemployed, unmarried, and unsatisfied with what life offered them. Just when the Bronte family was in despair, Charlotte came across some poems written by Emily, which led to the discovery that all three sisters had written poems.

Emily’s manuscripts and poems were remarkable, so Charlotte suggested their publication. But Emily was furious and angry with Charlotte’s offer as she felt Charlotte attacked her privacy, and by God, what a fury she showed! It took a lot of Charlotte's time and patience to calm Emily. Anne gave her set of poetries, and Charlotte had a few in her name, so after constant persuasion, Charlotte convinced Emily for publication.

Charlotte’s snippet on Emily’s discovered poetries from the Life of Charlotte by Mrs. Gaskell:

“One day in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse, in my sister Emily’s handwriting. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me—a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music, wild, melancholy, and elevating. My sister Emily was not a person of demonstrative character, nor one on the recesses of whose mind and feelings even those nearest and dearest to her could, with impunity, intrude unlicensed: it took hours to reconcile her to the discovery I had made, and days to persuade her that such poems merited publication . . .”

The girls thought of concealing their gender, so they used male pseudonyms to publish the poetry.

 Charlotte's quote:

‘I thought that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.’

Therefore, Charlotte became Currer Bell, Emily became Ellis Bell, and Anne became Action Bell. 

1846 

So, in the year 1846, the girls published jointly a volume of their poems, called ‘Poems by Curer, Ellis and Acton Bell,’ the initials of these pseudonyms being those of the sisters; it contained twenty-one of Emily’s poems, accepting the fact that Emily’s verse alone reveals true poetic genius. The venture cost the sisters about £50; alas, it sold only two copies.

Collaborative writings with her sisters:

Around this time, the sisters began to write their novels, and Emily started to write Wuthering Heights. They used to walk around their dining table and discuss new ideas. They sat together at the kitchen table and wrote novels. Emily, inspired by her Gondal stories, wrote Wuthering Heights. 

1847- THE HISTORIES OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Wuthering Heights is a novel that can spark controversy even today.

 

By midsummer of 1847, the publisher J. Cautley Newby accepted Emily's Wuthering Heights and Anne's Agnes Grey for joint publication, but the publication of the novels was delayed a bit as their sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre became immediately and hugely successful. Wuthering Heights was published in December 1847 under the pen name 'Ellis Bell.'

How to start writing about Wuthering Heights? 

By God, what did Emily think when she wrote Wuthering Heights? I wish I could sneak inside her heart and mind to understand the hormones that led to the writing of Wuthering Heights. I daresay I want to get inside her soul because, for sure, Wuthering Heights was not a brainy logical work. Had she used her rational brain, Wuthering Heights wouldn't be Wuthering Heights today. Emily wrote Wuthering Heights with her instinct, unrefined passion, which Emily had suppressed for so many years inside her heart. She wrote Wuthering Heights with passion, only boundless passion.

By God, what a novel it is! Either you will love Wuthering Heights or hate it; there is no mid-way. 

A divinely devilish novel is what I call Wuthering Heights!

Wuthering Heights-Introduction 

An animalistic, savage novel about fierce love and passion. Emily’s pen didn’t look at rationality or morality when it wrote Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights is beyond human law (beyond human understanding) and is an absolute contravention of all the norms of Victorian writing. It’s based on human instinct, which is animalistic; yes, we are all animals. Our first natural reaction to any situation is unreserved, unrestricted, shameless, if one can call it so, because our impulse doesn’t care for judgments, our impulse doesn’t know society’s prejudices or sophistication. Our reflexes come naturally, but we tame and suppress our instincts because we must fit in this society. We often bury our first reflex deep in our hearts to please the community. Wuthering Heights defied society because Emily didn’t bury her instinct. 

Many adjectives describe the story of Wuthering Heights, such as revenge, gothic, haunting, human horror, abuse, diabolical, devilish, doleful, manic, vengeful, mad, boorish, somber, immoral, feminist, obsessive, violent, wicked, anti-social, anti-religious, tragical, metaphysical, spiritual and romantic, (well readers the list will be too long). Now one can imagine the varied spectrum of emotions thrown and pitched in the writing of Wuthering Heights. For me, all the good/bad emotions presented in Wuthering Heights are derived from the primary emotion, i.e., LOVE. So, for me, Wuthering Heights is an obsessive love story; full of violent, painful love.

What can presumably be your first reaction when you know your love will be unfulfilled in this life? Without thinking of society or who you are, you will desperately seek to get your love back and what will happen to you when you see your lover dying in your arms (I mean, imagine the agony a soul can face). Readers, the first reaction will be instinctive and unrefined. Your heart will wish to do anything to get your lover back. And how will a soul depart without unifying with the lover? Can it depart in peace? No way, dear readers, it will remain hungry for love. Now, if you consider such emotions savage and wild, they are. But that is what is felt when you know your love is destroyed. And that is what Wuthering Heights is about!

And as I term Wuthering Heights as a strange story full of cruelty, passionate, immoral love, a baffling book, yet, readers, I openly say it’s a beautiful novel. It conveys metaphysical love: spiritual love. For me, Wuthering Heights is a story of two lovers craving and longing to be together, and as they yearn to be united, one can profoundly feel the cry of their souls. Finally, their love is gratified after their death. Emily has written the most melancholic dialogues to show their unrequited love.

Wuthering Heights- the plotline:

Wuthering Heights is a saga of love, passion, yearning, and revenge set in the Yorkshire moors. It's about Heathcliff, the novel's anti-hero, who is the adopted gypsy boy of the Earnshaw family and lives in the moor house of the Earnshaw, called ‘Wuthering Heights.’ He is raised in his adopted family, then is reduced to a servant status as Hindley (Earnshaw's biological son) treats him badly. Cathy is Earnshaw’s daughter. An intense relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff develops right from childhood. Cathy loves Heathcliff, but as they both become young, Cathy feels that if she marries Heathcliff, Hindley, her biological brother, will destroy them. The social status of Heathcliff is seen as a major hindrance and so, to gain social status, Cathy befriends a rich man named Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff becomes manic and obsessed when he overhears that Cathy Earnshaw, his soul mate, has decided to marry Edgar. He runs away from Wuthering Heights to make a fortune and comes back with a fortune and a lunatic, vengeful mind that only wants revenge. Cathy marries Edgar but she dies during her childbirth. Heathcliff is haunted by Cathy’s ghost. After that, he takes revenge on the people who stood against their pure love and didn’t allow Cathy to unite with him: physically, emotionally and mentally. He extends the revenge to the next generation of the Earnshaw and Linton family. But an older Heathcliff gradually realizes that revenge can’t get his Cathy back. The only way he can get his Cathy is when their souls can meet (without the hassles of earthly biases and societal pressures), i.e., in the afterlife. The novel ends with Heathcliff sacrificing his life (he stops eating food) to finally get united with Cathy’s soul. The souls of Heathcliff and Cathy happily live tighter and together in their after-life in their beloved moor house named ‘Wuthering Heights’.

Wuthering Heights- the unreliable narrators:

The story is about real emotions and the divine chemistry between Heathcliff and Cathy. But the most thrilling and interesting part of this novel is the narration. Two main first-person narrators of Wuthering Heights are Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean. The back story is narrated to Mr. Lockwood (a tenant of Wuthering Heights) by the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean. 

Nelly Dean, Wuthering Heights's housekeeper, goes with Cathy to Thrushcross Grange. Nelly is everywhere in Wuthering Heights. She is where the drama happens. All the characters of Wuthering Heights intertwine Nelly. She is the one who retells the story of Heathcliff and Cathy to Mr. Lockwood. Nelly’s narration is melodramatic. Apart from being the narrator, she plays an important character in the novel and has an aversion to every character; she especially loathes Cathy. Nelly is a wicked and biased narrator because she tells the story of Wuthering Heights from her point of view. She is clever and observant, and she narrates the story in a witty manner. Who knows if Nelly is just telling a tall and gossipy tale to Mr. Lockwood? So, basically, Nelly’s narration can’t be trusted. 

Lockwood narrates as a bystander. He is not present in most of the dramas and events in Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Mr. Lockwood is an observer and the one who listens to the story of Wuthering Heights, which Nelly Dean retells to him. The story of Wuthering Heights starts with media res. Lockwood enters media res when the next generation of Earnshaw’s and Linton’s come into play. He narrates to the readers what he observes and whatever he listens to from Nelly. He tells the readers whatever Nelly tells him. He is a recorder of Nelly’s narration.

So, Wuthering Heights is a complex book to read with multiple narrators and strange characters embodied together.

Wuthering Heights- the sensational dialogues 

It has to start with the most haunting dialogue:

Mr. Lockwood, the tenant of Wuthering Heights, is relaxing in Cathy’s room, and he stretches an arm out of the window to seize the annoying branch of the tree; instead of the branch, his fingers get closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand. Mr. Lockwood narrated:

‘The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed,

“LET ME IN-LET ME IN!”

“Who are you? I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.

“Catherine Linton,” it replied.’

What a dialogue! Cathy’s ghost pleading to get in her own room!

There is an interesting story with regard to this dialogue.

Once, little Branwell had said to Emily that he had heard his mother crying outside the windows at night soon after her death. Maybe this inspired Emily to write the most GOTHIC scene of Wuthering Heights, when the ghost of Catherine disturbs the tenant of Wuthering Heights, Mr. Lockwood.

Here are the other dialogues:

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Cathy talking to Nelly about Heathcliff.

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.” Cathy talking to Nelly about Heathcliff.

“I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.” Cathy to Nelly.

“Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you-oh, God! Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?” Heathcliff says to Cathy when she is on her death bed.

“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you--haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” Heathcliff talks after Cathy dies.

“I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.” Cathy talks with Nelly about Heathcliff.

“I got the sexton, who was digging Linton’s grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again- it is hers yet-he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change, if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up- not Linton’s side, damn him! I wish he’d been soldered in lead- and I bribed the sexton to pull it away, when I’m laid there, and slide mine out too. I’ll have it made so, and then, by the time Linton gets to us, he’ll not know which is which!” “You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!” I exclaimed; “were you not ashamed to disturb the dead.” Heathcliff talks with Nelly Dean after he asks the sexton to open Cathy’s coffin.

“In my soul and in my heart, I am convinced I am wrong.” Cathy to Nelly

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Cathy to Nelly. 

Wuthering Heights: the metaphysical love of Heathcliff and Cathy 

Wuthering Heights expresses all kinds of love: violent, passionate, wild, supernatural, romantic, erotic, gothic, soft, tender, platonic, etc., but the most impactful form of love shown in the story is the mystic, spiritual, and the metaphysical love between Heathcliff and Cathy. A sense of oneness that they are the one soul in two different bodies. When Cathy says, ‘I am Heathcliff. His miseries are mine.’ It denotes that Heathcliff and Cathy are one soul asunder and are trying to unite. The love shown in the novel is transcendental, other-worldly, on a spiritual level. It has devotion towards each other which forcefully defies the social norms. Heathcliff and Cathy are soulmates and death can’t destroy their love.

Wuthering Heights: Connection with Gondal poems.

Interestingly, many of Emily's Gondal poems are reflected in her sole novel, Wuthering Heights. Maybe, though the prose of Gondal poems was mysteriously lost, if one can understand with what earthly mud Emily’s soul was made of, it can be said that Wuthering Heights is the prose of Emily’s Gondal poems. For e.g., let’s take the Gondal poem: The Two Children (May 28, 1845)

Emily's name for these two poems in the Gondal saga was "A. E. and R. C". Later, Charlotte named it ‘The Two Children.’ The image of two children appears several times in Emily Brontë's poetry and in Wuthering Heights, portrayed by Heathcliff and Cathy. In this poem, the "melancholy boy" resembles Heathcliff and Hareton, while the "Child of Delight” with sun bright hair" resembles Catherine Earnshaw and Cathy Linton. The same theme appears in the novel and the Gondal saga.

“Part I

Heavy hangs the raindrop

From the burdened spray;

Heavy broods the damp mist

On Uplands far away;

Heavy looms the dull sky,

Heavy rolls the sea -

And heavy beats the young heart

Beneath that lonely Tree -

Never has a blue streak

Cleft the clouds since morn -

Never has his grim Fate

Smiled since he was born -

Frowning on the infant,

Shadowing childhood's joy;

Guardian angel knows not

That melancholy boy.

Day is passing swiftly

Its sad and sombre prime;

Youth is fast invading

Sterner manhood's time -

All the flowers are praying

For sun before they close,

And he prays too, unknowing,

That sunless human rose!

Blossoms, that the west wind

Has never wooed to blow,

Scentless are your petals,

Your dew as cold as snow -

Soul, where kindred kindness

No early promise woke,

Barren is your beauty

As weed upon the rock -

Wither, Brothers, wither,

You were vainly given -

Earth reserves no blessing

For the unblessed of Heaven!

Part II

Child of Delight! with sunbright hair

And seablue, sea-deep eyes;

Spirit of Bliss, what brings thee here,

Beneath these sullen skies?

Thou shouldest live in eternal spring,

Where endless day is never dim;

Why, seraph, has thy erring wing

Borne thee down to weep with him?

"Ah, not from heaven am I descended,

And I do not come to mingle tears;

But sweet is day though with shadows blended;

And, though clouded, sweet are youthful years -

I, the image of light and gladness,

Saw and pitied that mournful boy;

And I swore to take his gloomy sadness,

And give to him my beamy joy -

"Heavy and dark the night is closing;

Heavy and dark may its biding be;

Better for all from grief reposing,

And better for all who watch like me -

"Guardian angel, he lacks no longer;

Evil fortune he need not fear;

Fate is strong–but Love is stronger,

And more unsleeping than angel's care.”

 

Wuthering Heights: the message

The most immoral and evil novel gives us an important moral message. It tells the readers not to behave like Heathcliff, the anti-hero of the novel. It has a situational irony at the end where Heathcliff feels a bit redemptive, and becomes soft. He spends his entire life taking revenge and bringing misery to the people who have wronged him, but ultimately, he understands that hurting others can’t bring happiness to him. Revenge cannot get his Cathy back. Vengeance may superficially make you feel satisfied, but eventually, it leads to your destruction, whereas love, though unfulfilled, can give you salvation. Love, however painful it is, is the ultimate liberation, love is redemption. Love is the eternal resurrection.

Wuthering Heights gives a sublime message that love is painful, but love is the only energy that can go beyond graves!

Finally, Wuthering Heights is a hard, unpleasantly beautiful book to read. A brutal masterpiece which left the literary world baffled! It’s the greatest book ever written.

Wuthering Heights- The Critics, Jane Eyre accepted; Wuthering Heights rejected. 

Charlotte’s Jane Eyre got immediate credit and acclamation, while the rough and violent passion shown in Wuthering Heights stumped the readers and critics. The initial publication of Wuthering Heights received critical and harsh reviews.

It was difficult for Victorian society to accept such a novel full of violence and passion, though Emily used a male pseudonym, ‘Ellis Bell,’ to write it.

Some of the scathing reviews Wuthering Heights received:

“18th Dec,1847; Publication: Spectator:

An attempt to give novelty and interest to fiction, by resorting to those singular 'characters' that used to exist everywhere, but especially in retired and remote places. The success is not equal to the abilities of the writer; chiefly because the incidents are too coarse and disagreeable to be attractive, the very best being improbable, with a moral taint about them, and the villainy not leading to results sufficient to justify the elaborate pains taken in depicting it. The execution, however, is good: grant the writer all that is requisite as regards matter, and the delineation is forcible and truthful.

25th December,1847, Publication: Athenaeum

In spite of much power and cleverness; in spite of its truth to life in the remote nooks and corners of England, 'Wuthering Heights' is a disagreeable story. The Bells seem to affect painful and exceptional subjects: – the misdeeds and oppressions of tyranny – the eccentricities of "woman's fantasy". They do not turn away from dwelling upon those physical acts of cruelty which we know to have their warrant in the real annals of crime and suffering, – but the contemplation of which true taste rejects. The brutal master of the lonely house on "Wuthering Heights" – a prison which might be pictured from life – has doubtless had his prototype in those ungenial and remote districts where human beings, like the trees, grow gnarled and dwarfed and distorted by inclement climate; but he might have been indicated with far fewer touches, in place of so entirely filling the canvas that there is hardly a scene untainted by his presence.

Original source: Wuthering Heights (Barnes and Noble)

Publication: Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper

Date: 15 January 1848

Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book, —baffling all regular criticism; yet, it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossible to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about it. In the midst of the reader's perplexity the ideas predominant in his mind concerning this book are likely to be—brutal cruelty, and semi-savage love. What may be the moral which the author wishes the reader to deduce from his work, it is difficult to say; and we refrain from assigning any, because to speak honestly, we have discovered none but mere glimpses of hidden morals or secondary meanings. There seems to us great power in this book but a purposeless power, which we feel a great desire to see turned to better account. We are quite confident that the writer of Wuthering Heights wants but the practised skill to make a great artist; perhaps, a great dramatic artist. His qualities are, at present, excessive; a far more promising fault, let it be remembered, than if they were deficient. He may tone down, whereas the weak and inefficient writer, however carefully he may write by rule and line, will never work up his productions to the point of beauty in art. In Wuthering Heights, the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance, and anon come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love—even over demons in the human form. The women in the book are of a strange fiendish-angelic nature, tantalising, and terrible, and the men are indescribable out of the book itself. Yet, towards the close of the story occurs the following pretty, soft picture, which comes like the rainbow after a storm….

We strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them that they never have read anything like it before. It is very puzzling and very interesting, and if we had space, we would willingly devote a little more time to the analysis of this remarkable story, but we must leave it to our readers to decide what sort of book it is.

Publication: Paterson’s Magazine

Date: March 1848

“We rise from the perusal of Wuthering Heights as if we had come fresh from a pest-house. Read Jane Eyre is our advice, but burn Wuthering Heights….”

Unknown Reviewer wrote:

“How a human being could have attempted such a book without committing suicide is a mystery.”

Emily read each of the critical reviews but said nothing. Nevertheless, gradually Wuthering Heights increased its sales. Perhaps it found a loyal audience, especially young ladies.

After seeing the growth in the sale of Wuthering Heights, a reviewer wrote:

“If we didn’t know that this book had been read by thousands of young ladies in the country, we would have considered it our first duty to caution them against it.”

Yet, Charlotte republished Wuthering Heights in 1850 (two years after Emily’s untimely death) and wrote a preface to the novel as she felt the need to explain to the critics. The romantics and many genuine readers critically acclaimed the second publication of Wuthering Heights, perhaps the reading audience changed their perspective and liking. Eventually, Wuthering Heights received a grand success and became a novel admired for its fierce imagery. Emily’s wild imagination, powerful narration, and blazing writing finally got recognition. Alas! Emily knew nothing of the success of Wuthering Heights that was finally bestowed.

It’s been two centuries, yet Wuthering Heights remains warm in the hearts of millions of readers. It is one of the most highly interpreted novels as people are still analysing the complex characters of the novel, the narration, the symbolism used, and the most sensational love displayed in its writing. It’s a classic which is still studied and read widely across the world and will be read for many, many years to come.

Emily and her wild nature: – An enigma to the literary mind.

Aunt Elizbeth often warned Emily to talk sensibly and control her rebellious nature.

Charlotte wrote about her sister in the preface of the second edition (1850) of Wuthering Heights:

“My sister’s disposition was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favoured and fostered her tendency to seclusion; except to go to church or take a walk on the hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home. Though her feeling for the people round was benevolent, intercourse with them she never sought; nor, with very few exceptions, ever experienced. And yet she knew them: knew their ways, their language, their family histories; she could hear of them with interest, and talk of them with detail, minute, graphic, and accurate; but WITH them, she rarely exchanged a word.”

Life of Charlotte Bronte by Mrs. Gaskell states:

“Emily was impervious to influence; she never came in contact with public opinion, and her own decision of what was right and fitting was a law for her conduct and appearance, with which she allowed no one to interfere. Emily hardly ever uttered more than a monosyllable.”

Emily was a shy, reserved person but strong-willed and with a stubborn personality. It is said, that as a child, Emily used to hide behind the doors if visitors came to her parsonage.

According to some literary biographers, Emily may have suffered from a mental illness called ‘Asperger’s Syndrome,’ maybe, because she gave all the text-book symptoms of this disease- her reclusive nature, self-isolation, difficulty to adjust socially, loving her own fantasy world. She had a forceful nature, a fanatic genius she was. The chains of the death of her dear ones must have triggered her erratic temperament.

Literary scholars claim that Emily was a lifelong anorexic (a mental condition where a human starves to death). She had starved at boarding school and later in her teaching job too.

Her uncanny disposition bears resemblance to the characters in Wuthering Heights. The primal characters of Wuthering Heights suffered from unspecified mental disorders. Secondly, both Catherine and Heathcliff starve themselves to death.

Piteously, it was an era which didn’t understand the plight of a patient suffering from mental illness. Mental illness is so deep-rooted and the suffering so very internal, it cannot be expressed in words. It must have created a macabre chaos in Emily’s brain. Oh, what pain she must have gone through!

Having said that, Emily was an incredibly creative person and is loved by many people today. If her disturbed mind made Emily singular in all ways, and gave the literary world her poetic writings, then we must probably thank her eccentricity.

Impious yet spiritual Emily 

Emily rarely attended Sunday church, which was unconventional during the Victorian era when girls who didn’t attend Sunday church were looked down on. She had an unorthodox religious belief. In Wuthering Heights, she criticized the pious ‘Joseph’ who is a religious man and gave more importance to anonymous nature’s eternal energy (the highest supreme power: God). She believed in the soul and after-life. She believed in God but in her own spiritual way and the poetry below explains her devout respect for the supreme power.

The Old Stoic

Riches I hold in light esteem,

And Love I laugh to scorn;

And lust of fame was but a dream

That vanish’d with the morn:

And, if I pray, the only prayer

That moves my lips for me

Is, “Leave the heart that now I bear,

And give me liberty!”

Yea, as my swift days near their goal,

‘Tis all that I implore:

In life and death a chainless soul,

With courage to endure.’

In this poem, Emily doesn’t give importance to wealth, lust or fame and considers them worthless. She doesn’t want to be a slave of such worldly possessions. Instead, she prays to God to free her from the chainless circle of life and death so that she can be a free soul, so that she remains stoic in future and gets connected with God.

Only a person whose soul directly connects with God can write such beautiful lines.

As Charlotte said:

“Emily was stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone.”

Without a doubt, Emily’s nature stood alone!

Emily and Gothic:

The entire life of Emily Bronte was Gothic. Also, she read many Gothic novels so she could make Wuthering Heights electrifyingly Gothic. It was more Gothic than Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. Emily created wild unlikeable characters, death, graves, decay, human horror, the atmospheric tumult, gothic symbolism, and supernatural scenes; Wuthering Heights fitted the Gothic genre impeccably.

Many prominent writers fail to understand the fragile line between the Gothic and Horror genres of writing. But Emily perfectly knew the Gothic genre of writing. Indeed, Emily was the Queen of Gothic fiction.

 

Emily and her love life:

Emily never got married and, apparently, she didn’t have any romantic attachments. It can be said that Emily loved her moors more than any human. But it’s hard to believe that Emily never fell in love because she understood all the spectrum of love like a dream. It’s disbelieving that a writer who was never in love wrote the most incredible love story in Wuthering Heights.

Well, her private life was a mystery and will always remain a mystery, yet, there are assumptions that Heathcliff, the antihero of Wuthering Heights, was her imaginative lover. Her Gondal poems are full of love affairs, and one of the most heartfelt is Remembrance.

The poem is an elegy that expresses the grief of the speaker, whose only lover died fifteen years ago. But she still misses him, remembers him, and mourns for him. The poem's melancholy narration can stab one’s heart with its lamenting words.

“Remembrance.

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,

Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!

Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,

Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

 

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover

Over the mountains, on that northern shore,

Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover

Thy noble heart forever, ever more?

 

Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers,

From those brown hills, have melted into spring:

Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers

After such years of change and suffering!

 

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,

While the world's tide is bearing me along;

Other desires and other hopes beset me,

Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

 

No later light has lightened up my heaven,

No second morn has ever shone for me;

All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,

All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

 

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,

And even Despair was powerless to destroy,

Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,

Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.

 

Then did I check the tears of useless passion—

Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;

Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten

Down to that tomb already more than mine.

 

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,

Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;

Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,

How could I seek the empty world again?”

Emily and Imagination 

Emily was a highly imaginative person who lived in her wild imagination for her entire life. She preferred fantasy to reality. She was attracted to nature and animals and loved wandering on the moors alone, which boosted her already imaginative mind.

The imaginative world which she and Anne created in Gondal was more real to her than the actual world she lived in. The power of fantasy was so strong in this fanciful world or universe which Emily created that many literary scholars often say that the Gondal world created by Emily was the beginning of the fan-fiction and speculative fiction genres. Some thinkers find Emily’s Gondal world as an early form of fantasy and science fiction genres.

For Emily, her imagination gave her hope to live and saved her from the depths of despair. Imagination was her necessity, her breath, her only companion she wanted in her solitude and a friend who enlightened her sorrowful life. She wrote a beautiful poem called ‘To Imagination’ where she personified her imagination, which has undisputed power, and called it ‘her only true friend.’ She expressed her gratitude for her imagination through her poem. Here goes the poem:

“To Imagination 

 

When weary with the long day's care,

And earthly change from pain to pain,

And lost, and ready to despair,

Thy kind voice calls me back again

0 my true friend, I am not lone

While thou canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without,

The world within I doubly prize;

Thy world where guile and hate and doubt

And cold suspicion never rise;

Where thou and I and Liberty

Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters is that all around

Danger and grief and darkness lie,

If but within our bosom's bound

We hold a bright unsullied sky,

Warm with ten thousand mingled rays

Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason indeed may oft complain

For Nature's sad reality,

And tell the suffering heart how vain

Its cherished dreams must always be;

And Truth may rudely trample down

The flowers of Fancy newly blown.

But thou art ever there to bring

The hovering visions back and breathe

New glories o'er the blighted spring

And call a lovelier life from death,

And whisper with a voice divine

Of real worlds as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,

Yet still in evening's quiet hour

With never-failing thankfulness I

welcome thee, benignant power,

Sure solacer of human cares

And brighter hope when hope despairs.”

 

1848- The end of a great writer, Emily Bronte. 

Emily and Death – 

For Emily, death was her bliss, her liberation. Her union with God. The death of her mother, then her two elder sisters, and finally her beloved brother Branwell influenced Emily’s writing. She had an ecstasy of death. In many of her Gondal poems, she wrote that humans live to die. The sole purpose of life is to die. Such was her perception of death. Emily didn’t birth to live; she was birthed to die. She wrote around two hundred poems and many of her poems had a theme of death. In Wuthering Heights, there is death in every chapter. She said in one of her poems that death liberates one’s soul from the clutches of life.

“O for the lid that cannot weep,

The Breast that needs no breath–

The tomb that brings eternal sleep–

For Life's Deliverer, Death!”

Emily died on 19th December 1848 at the tender age of thirty. 

Soon after the publication of Wuthering Heights, Emily’s health began to fail rapidly. At Branwell’s funeral, Emily caught a chill and developed tuberculosis (called consumption in the Victorian era). She refused to take any medicine or see the doctor for her treatment, saying that all doctors had ‘quackery’ and continued her life as usual. Charlotte commented:

“She is a real stoic in her illness. She neither seeks or accepts sympathy. To offer Emily any help is to annoy her.”

She suffered great pain, and steadily, her breathing became difficult, yet, she refused to see a doctor or rest. With great agony, Anne and Charlotte watched Emily do her daily chores as if nothing was wrong with her. Emily fed her dog ‘Keeper’ till her last breath.

Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights had responded to his illness in the same apathetic way.

“I have to remind myself to breathe. Almost remind my heart to beat. Oh, God! It was a long fight and I wish it was over.”

Did Emily foresee her death? Well, a question which only she can answer.

Finally, on 19th December, 1848, Emily collapsed on her sofa. At noon, Emily was worse; she could only whisper in gasps. She said her last audible words to Charlotte, "If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now, " but it was too late. Emily, the literary genius, died that same day at about two in the afternoon on her sofa with Anne holding her hands and her dog, Keeper, whining beside her.

More than consumption, her anorexia (her wilful starvation) must have contributed to her death. The carpenter who built Emily’s casket claimed that it was the narrowest coffin he had ever made for an adult and measured only 16" wide. Her remains were buried in the family vault in St. Michel and Angel’s Church, Haworth.

After Emily’s death, Charlotte revealed her agony in this letter to her friend, Ellen Nussey:

‘Emily suffers no more either from pain or weakness now. She never will suffer more in this world – she is gone after a hard, short conflict. She died on Tuesday, the very day I wrote to you. I thought it very possible then she might be with us still for weeks and a few hours afterwards she was in Eternity – yes, there is no Emily in Time or on Earth now. Yesterday, we put her poor, wasted mortal frame quietly under the church pavement.’

 

Yes, there is no Emily in time or on Earth, but can such a mesmerizing soul be forgotten? A strong soul not afraid of death and the one who embraced her death willingly can never be forgotten. And how can her poetry ‘No Coward Soul is Mine’ be missed? It would be a sin on the writer's part if Emily’s biography didn’t mention this poetry.

The poetry below is an abridgment of all the spiritual lectures and courses we do to attain peace and serenity. To get that inner peace, we have to understand the eternal, undeniably blissful poetry made.

“No coward soul is mine (Jan, 2, 1846)

Charlotte Brontë noted, "The following are the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote."

No coward soul is mine

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere

I see Heaven's glories shine

And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

0 God within my breast

Almighty ever-present Deity

Life, that in me hast rest

As I Undying Life, have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,

Worthless as withered weeds

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by thy infinity

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of Immortality

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though Earth and moon were gone

And suns and universes ceased to be

And thou wert left alone

Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death

Nor atom that his might could render void

Since thou art Being and Breath

And what thou art may never be destroyed.”

This poetry is about the poetess’s unwavering faith and belief in God. The speaker has ultimate faith in God, so much that she declares Death as void. Her faith in God doesn’t make her soul a coward. Such deep faith in God assures the speaker that though she lives in a world full of suffering, she won’t feel despair because she believes in God. She says God is ‘the steadfast rock of immorality,’ the one who ‘animates eternal life.’ She feels a spiritual connection with God. She tells the reader that God's love is ‘wide embracing love,’ so she thinks that even if the universe ceases to exist, there will be an existence of hers, as she feels that after her bodily death, her soul will get merged with her God. Well, she is still existing, isn’t she? Otherwise, why this biography?

Emily and her unfinished novel:

It was an untimely death of Emily as she was writing her second novel. A letter from Emily’s publisher, Thomas Cautley, dated 15th Feb, 1848, proves it:

‘I am much obliged by your kind note and shall have great pleasure in making arrangements for your second novel. I would not hurry its completion, for I think you are quite right not to let it go before the world until well satisfied with it, for much depends on your new work if it be an improvement on your first you will have established yourself as a first-rate novelist, but if it falls short the Critics will be too apt to say that you have expended your talent in your first novel.’

The above letter was found on Emily’s writing desk after her death, so it’s clear that she was indeed writing her second novel.

Can one imagine what could have been her second novel? Oh, if it were published it would have created the same uproar as ‘Wuthering Heights.’ But it was not destined and it is believed that Charlotte, Emily’s beloved sister, played a villain. It is rumored that Charlotte notoriously burnt Emily’s unfinished manuscript, fearing the critics. What must have gone through Charlotte’s mind when setting Emily’s passionate writing ablaze? A question only Charlotte could answer. The fact of this rumor will remain a mystery. Nevertheless, one thing was sure, Emily did leave her second unfinished novel. A myriad loss to the world of English literature.

Emily and her unreliable biographies:

Many biographies are written about Emily's life. However, some biographies evaded some facts about her, while others showed Emily as an obnoxious personality. Emily’s biographers have tried their best to portray Emily’s life, but with very little material available on her, Emily’s biographies remain unreliable. She was an obscure person for everyone and biographers tried to analyze her personality from her only novel, poems, her diary papers, and letters she and Anne exchanged. Her life will always be hunted and will continue to fascinate people to dig about who the real Emily Bronte was.

Mrs. Gaskell’s book: Life of Charlotte Bronte is regarded as the most authentic telling of the life of the Bronte sisters. However, it was Charlotte who was Emily’s principal biographer. After Emily’s death, Charlotte wrote letters to her friend, Mrs. Gaskell, motivating her to write about them. Charlotte had a perception of Emily’s character, so she wrote about Emily from her point of view. Mrs. Gaskell, already a novelist, wrote the Bronte sisters' biography based on information provided by Charlotte. So, whatever Charlotte said was written by Mrs. Gaskell. How much Charlotte edited or concealed will be unknown unknowns?

Emily and her Famous Quotes:

Such a dark biography, isn’t it? Readers, you must be wondering or must have tagged Emily as a pessimist person who was wild, immoral, abhorring, who imagined death and glorified it. But every pessimism has a tinge of optimism in it. Though she was a dark personality and her imaginary world revolted, she was a human who lived a victimized and mourning life. Her life was full of sorrow and loneliness, and it was this sorrow which germinated her prodigious writings. I must admit that great writers become great because of their sorrows. 

Nevertheless, let’s shake off the sorrow and read some of her inspiring quotes:

 

‘Any relic of dead is precious, if they were valued living.’

‘Honest people don’t hide their deeds.’

‘Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.’

‘I will walk where my own nature would be leading.’

‘A person who has not done one half his day’s work by ten o’clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.’

‘Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort them worse than their enemies.’

‘It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.’

‘A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly.’

‘I never told my love vocally, still.’

‘If I could, I would always work in silence and obscurity; and let my efforts be known by their results.’ (Seamlessly fits into the Gita’s saying: ‘Karm kar; phal ki asha mat kar.)

 

As Emily has written in Wuthering Heights ‘She burned too bright for this world.’ This quote of hers suits Emily the best. 

Emily’s Legacy and Inspiration: 

It’s been two hundred years now since Emily has left this world. Nonetheless, a person sitting in one corner of the world is toiling day and night to write about her beloved author, Emily Bronte, and the person knows that, like her, there will be thousands of Emily’s admirers who are writing something about her or reading her work. How further can you explain and define a legacy?

A person’s legacy is what they have given to this world, which will be valued and treasured even after the individual’s death.

Emily’s quote in Wuthering Heights tells us accurately what legacy is:

‘There has to be an existence of yours beyond you.’

Emily’s only novel: “Wuthering Heights” which, when published, received some awful reviews. But it had some infinite mystical potential, so it was ranked as the finest novel in English literature. It still ranks in the English language's top 5 best-selling classic novels. There have been dozens of film adaptions, stage performances, operas and TV series of Wuthering Heights made all over the world.

Emily continues to inspire many writers and artists:

Kate BushIn 1978, Kate Bush- singer and song-writer came up with a song called ‘Wuthering Heights,’ which captivated its gothic and melancholy love.

Wuthering Heights TV adaption first captivated Kate Bush and compelled her to read the book. This is what Kate Bush said,’ I am deeply affected by it, and I decided I wanted to write a song about its incredible imagery.’

Here goes the song:

‘Out on the wily, windy moors

We'd roll and fall in green

You had a temper like my jealousy

Too hot, too greedy

How could you leave me

When I needed to possess you?

I hated you, I loved you, too

Bad dreams in the night

They told me I was going to lose the fight

Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering

Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy

I've come home, I'm so cold

Let me in your window

Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy

I've come home, I'm so cold

Let me in your window

Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely

On the other side from you

I pine a lot, I find the lot

Falls through without you

I'm coming back love

Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream

My only master

Too long I roam in the night

I'm coming back to his side, to put it right

I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering

Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy

I've come home, I'm so cold

Let me in your window

Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy

I've come home, I'm so cold

Let me in your window

Ooh, let me have it

Let me grab your soul away

Ooh, let me have it

Let me grab your soul away

You know it's me, Cathy

Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy

I've come home, I'm so cold

Let me in your window

Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy

I've come home, I'm so cold

Let me in your window

Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy

I've come home, I'm so cold’

 Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood was asked on Twitter which book changed her life? Well, she replied that it was Wuthering Heights that changed her life. She read when she was in eleventh grade. She told a newspaper that:

‘When I hit high school, I read Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights, and developed what was, in those days before rock stars, a standard passion for Mr Darcy and Heathcliff.’

 

Emily Dickinson:

She was an American poet from the Victorian era, and there were strange similarities between Emily Dickinson and Emily Bronte. Emily Bronte inspired Emily Dickinson. Before her death, Emily Dickinson requested that Emily Bronte’s poetry ‘No coward soul is mine’ be read at her funeral.

The Bronte Parsonage Museum:

The Bronte parsonage at Haworth is a museum now. It is a museum maintained by the Bronte Society in honor of the Bronte Sisters. The museum collections consist of materials, writings, and papers that belonged to the Bronte family.

Every soul keeps behind their legacy, and though what Emily left behind for us is written above, I feel the following Bollywood song beautifully explains Emily as a person and what legacy Emily left behind:

‘Ek Din Bik Jayega, Maati Ke Mol,

Jag Mein Reh Jayenge Pyaare Tere Bol,

Dooje Ke Hothon Ko Dekar Apne Geet,

Koi Nishani Chhod, Phir Duniya Se Dol,

Ek Din Bik Jayega, Maati Ke Mol,

Jag Mein Reh Jayenge Pyaare Tere Bol.’

She dared to write whatever she wished to write, not caring what the world would think of her. According to me, there has to be passion in your writing, otherwise, you are just writing sentences. And Emily wrote only with passion; her singular, brave boundless, passion.

 

Bibliography and References

It was an extremely difficult task to search for information on Emily: firstly, because very little is known about her and secondly, whatever is available about her was difficult to find.

However, here are some links and citations from where the information was obtained:

Wikipedia’s.Gondal poems – Poetry foundationWuthering Heights- paperback novelMrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Bronte – e-BookPreface to Wuthering Heightswww.annebronte.org.ukwww.bbc.comThe Bronte’s of Haworth- series on You Tube.The Bronte Sisters’ documentary on You Tubewww.bronte.org.uk 

LAST WORDS

I went a bit against the standard form of writing biography because if you wish to write about a person so deviant and passionate as Emily, there must be a bit of aberration in writing too.

Emily Bronte is a mystery to all, and it was really a challenging task to distinguish between fabrications and facts about her. Writing about her Gondal saga was the toughest part for me. With fragmentary information available on her Gondal poems, it was difficult for me, though I did my best to exhibit Emily’s Gondal world to the readers. Though Gondal was a collaborative writing of Anne and Emily, it’s more known for Emily’s writing because she was the one who continued writing the Gondal poems in her adulthood. It is said that Anne gave up writing the Gondal poems once she turned her attention to writing her novel ‘Agnes Grey,’ but Emily didn’t give up. In fact, the last writing of Emily before her death is one of the Gondal poems.

This biography about Emily Bronte will leave readers a bit in bewilderment, and contradictory views may exist. Having said that, I have portrayed my ‘Emily’ to the readers, Emily, as a human being, a woman, a beautiful soul, a ferric writer, and my only Guru.

Usually, biographies start with the date of birth, but I started with Emily’s death date, and readers, you all must have understood by now why I wrote her death date first. I think she lived to die and she came in this earthly attire to write ‘Wuthering Heights’. From a spiritual point of view, every human has a deed to do, so it takes the form of a body, and Emily Bronte was only born to write Wuthering Heights.

I can never show who the true-life Emily Bronte was, but I can feel her and sense her through her writings.  So, readers, with a heavy heart, I put my pen down. I can go on like insane and write about Emily. But I have to end it somewhere, and so I end here.

Nonetheless, Emily sternly refused the notion of ‘the end’ throughout her life. Even death, according to her was not to be the end in itself, and so, readers, Emily existed beyond her grave.

Emily was born creative; she was indeed a fearless poetic writer. An antiromantic writer who infused a different level of romance into her writings. Though she is remembered as a novelist, she was a great poet, nature-lover, spiritual person, painter, pianist, good baker, shooter, a girl who knew different languages (French and German), and a dog trainer. Though Emily is known for her wild nature and manlike immoral writing, deep inside, she was a loving person, a homely woman who cared for her family, and a much, much better human being because she never wore any façade. She was what she was. Raw yet pure. 

‘I wish to be the way God made me,’ she said.

Emily never wrote for publication, money, or fame,

She wrote because she wanted to write.

Emily never knew the fame Wuthering Heights received. She died embracing its critical reviews.

I take this opportunity to salute the most artistic soul ever born-on Earth,

EMILY,

Whatever my soul is made of, you are its essence.