Selected Poems
Published on 27. July 2012
128 pages
978-1-84777-985-4 (ISBN)
Description
Although The Brontes have long fascinated readers of fiction and biography, their poetry was all too little known until this pioneering selection by Stevie Davies, the novelist and critic. Charlotte (1816-1855) is certainly a competent poet, and Anne (1820-1849) developed a distinctive voice, while Emily (1818-1848) is one of great women poets in English.
All three sisters, as Stevie Davies remarks in her introduction, were Romantic in inspiration, writing poetry of passionate personal feeling and of pure imagination. They share certain themes - liberty, loneliness, love - and harbour the myth of a lost paradise. Read together with their novels, the poems movingly elucidate the ideas around which the narratives revolve. And they surprise us out of our conventional notions of the sisters' personalities: Emily's rebelliousness, for example, is counterbalanced here by great tenderness.
This selection gives an idea of the variety of thought and feeling within each author's work, and of the way in which thepoems of these three remarkable writers parallel and reflect each other.
All three sisters, as Stevie Davies remarks in her introduction, were Romantic in inspiration, writing poetry of passionate personal feeling and of pure imagination. They share certain themes - liberty, loneliness, love - and harbour the myth of a lost paradise. Read together with their novels, the poems movingly elucidate the ideas around which the narratives revolve. And they surprise us out of our conventional notions of the sisters' personalities: Emily's rebelliousness, for example, is counterbalanced here by great tenderness.
This selection gives an idea of the variety of thought and feeling within each author's work, and of the way in which thepoems of these three remarkable writers parallel and reflect each other.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Carcanet Press Ltd
File size
1,21 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-84777-985-4 (9781847779854)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Book
01/1996
Fyfield Books
€32.34
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Persons
Anne Bronte was the youngest Bronte, and like her siblings was educated at home.Her religious melancholic tendencies are thought to have been influenced by her Aunt Branwell.She was especially close to Emily as a child and they created Gondal, an imaginary world, where many of their dramatic poems were set.She often drew inspiration from her own experiences, this is particularly clear in the novel Anne Grey.Her pseudonym was Acton Bell and a number of poems were published under this name. Charlotte Bronte is best known for her novels, Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Villette (1853) and The Professor (1857). A collection of poems by Charlotte and her sisters Emily and Anne was published in 1846. Emily Bronte is best known for her only novel Wuthering Heights (1847). Due to her tendancy towards shyness, fairly little is known about her; she made few friends outside of her family and spent much of her time within the vicinity of their moorland home. Steve Davies is a literary critic, novelist, historian and biographer. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1998, and now works as the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Wales in Swansea, her home town. She taught English Literature at Manchester University before becoming a full-time author in 1984. She has written four distinguished books on Emily Bronte and edited Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for Penguin Classics. Her history of the seventeenth century, A Century of Troubles (2001), accompanied a Channel 4 TV series. Stevie Davies' first novel, Boy Blue, won the Fawcett Prize in 1989 and her latest novel, The Element of Water (Women's Press, 2001) was longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Content
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Brontes as Poets
Charlotte Bronte
Emily Jane Bronte
Anne Bronte
Poems by Charlotte Bronte
Lines Addressed to 'The Tower of All Nations'
Written upon the Occasion of the Dinner Given to the Literati of the Glasstown
Home-Sickness
fromRetrospection
The Wounded Stag
'Turn not now for comfort here'
The Teacher's Monologue
Diving
Gods of the Old Mythology
Parting
Preference
Morning
Master and Pupil
Reason
'He saw my heart's woe, discovered my soul's anguish'
On the Death of Emily Jane Bronte
On the Death of Anne Bronte
Poems by Emily Jane Bronte
'High waving heather, 'neath stormy blasts bending'
'All day I've toiled, but not with pain'
'I am the only being whose doom'
'Only some spires of bright green grass'
'Now trust a heart that trusts in you'
A.G.A. ('Sleep brings no joy to me')
'I'll come when thou art saddest'
'I'm happiest when most away'
Song ('King Julius left the south country')
'And now the house-dog stretched once more'
'Shed no tears o'er that tomb'
A.A.A. ('Sleep not, dream not; this bright day')
Song ('O between distress and pleasure')
'There was a time when my cheek burned'
'"Well, some may hate, and some may scorn"'
'It is too late to call thee now'
'Riches I hold in light esteem'
'Shall Earth no more inspire thee'
'Aye, there it is! It wakes to-night'
How Clear She Shines!
'In the earth, the earth, thou shalt be laid'
A.G.A. to A.S. ('This summer wind, with thee and me')
'Come, walk with me'
To Imagination
'O thy bright eyes must answer now'
The Philosopher's Conclusion
R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida ('Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!')
'Death, that struck when I was most confiding'
'Ah! Why, because the dazzling sun'
'How beautiful the Earth is still'
from Julian M. and A.G. Rochelle
8'No coward soul is mine'
'Why ask to know what date, what clime?'
Stanzas ('Often rebuked, yet always back returning')
Poems by Anne Bronte
A Voice from the Dungeon
The North Wind
Verses to a Child
Retirement
Despondency
To Cowper
A Word to the 'Elect'
Past Days
A Reminiscence
A Prayer
Night
Dreams
If this be All
Song ('We know where deepest lies the snow')
Song ('Come to the banquet; triumph in your songs!')
Oh, They Have Robbed Me of the Hope
Domestic Peace
Severed and Gone
Farewell to Thee! But Not Farewell
Index of Last Lines
Notes
Introduction
The Brontes as Poets
Charlotte Bronte
Emily Jane Bronte
Anne Bronte
Poems by Charlotte Bronte
Lines Addressed to 'The Tower of All Nations'
Written upon the Occasion of the Dinner Given to the Literati of the Glasstown
Home-Sickness
fromRetrospection
The Wounded Stag
'Turn not now for comfort here'
The Teacher's Monologue
Diving
Gods of the Old Mythology
Parting
Preference
Morning
Master and Pupil
Reason
'He saw my heart's woe, discovered my soul's anguish'
On the Death of Emily Jane Bronte
On the Death of Anne Bronte
Poems by Emily Jane Bronte
'High waving heather, 'neath stormy blasts bending'
'All day I've toiled, but not with pain'
'I am the only being whose doom'
'Only some spires of bright green grass'
'Now trust a heart that trusts in you'
A.G.A. ('Sleep brings no joy to me')
'I'll come when thou art saddest'
'I'm happiest when most away'
Song ('King Julius left the south country')
'And now the house-dog stretched once more'
'Shed no tears o'er that tomb'
A.A.A. ('Sleep not, dream not; this bright day')
Song ('O between distress and pleasure')
'There was a time when my cheek burned'
'"Well, some may hate, and some may scorn"'
'It is too late to call thee now'
'Riches I hold in light esteem'
'Shall Earth no more inspire thee'
'Aye, there it is! It wakes to-night'
How Clear She Shines!
'In the earth, the earth, thou shalt be laid'
A.G.A. to A.S. ('This summer wind, with thee and me')
'Come, walk with me'
To Imagination
'O thy bright eyes must answer now'
The Philosopher's Conclusion
R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida ('Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!')
'Death, that struck when I was most confiding'
'Ah! Why, because the dazzling sun'
'How beautiful the Earth is still'
from Julian M. and A.G. Rochelle
8'No coward soul is mine'
'Why ask to know what date, what clime?'
Stanzas ('Often rebuked, yet always back returning')
Poems by Anne Bronte
A Voice from the Dungeon
The North Wind
Verses to a Child
Retirement
Despondency
To Cowper
A Word to the 'Elect'
Past Days
A Reminiscence
A Prayer
Night
Dreams
If this be All
Song ('We know where deepest lies the snow')
Song ('Come to the banquet; triumph in your songs!')
Oh, They Have Robbed Me of the Hope
Domestic Peace
Severed and Gone
Farewell to Thee! But Not Farewell
Index of Last Lines
Notes
