ABSTRACT

The novels of Charlotte and Emily Bronte have become canonical texts for the application of twentieth century literary and cultural theory. Along with the work of their sister, Anne, their texts are regarded as a sources of diversity in themselves, full of conflictual material which different schools of criticism have analysed and interpreted. This book shows how the Brontes writings engage with the major issues which dominate twentieth century theoretical work. The essays are grouped under broad schools of theory- biographical; feminist; marxist; psychoanalytical and postcolonial.

chapter |23 pages

Introduction

chapter |24 pages

A Dialogue of Self and Soul

Plain Jane's Progress

chapter |21 pages

The Sultan and the Slave

Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of Jane Eyre

chapter |16 pages

Shirley

chapter |25 pages

Villette

‘The Surveillance of a Sleepless Eye’

chapter |14 pages

Words on ‘Great Vulgar Sheets’

Writing and Social Resistance in Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey (1847)

chapter |23 pages

The Profession of the Author

Abstraction, Advertising, and Jane Eyre

chapter |19 pages

The Other Case

Gender and Narration in Charlotte Brontë's The Professor