ABSTRACT
A suggestive image with which to begin depicts the young Brontës - Branwell, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne - secluded in Haworth and lost in reverie on two dominant themes. The first was the heroism of Wellington, who had not yet suffered the embarrassments of historical revision. The second was the poetry of Byron. It is one thing for us to designate the period as an age of Romanticism. Indeed, the Angrian tales reflect a tendency, which belongs to adolescence as much as to romance, to indulge the imagination, to release instinct, and to withdraw into a world in which law is subordinate to desire. Zamorna epitomizes the sexually dangerous ideal which dominates Brontë's early imagination. Political struggle is simply an occasion for the exercise of individual desire, and political conquest always leads to romantic love.
