Louis vuitton dust bag
I seem to louis vuitton dust bag recall an interview with Gregory Corso where he remarked that if he found the louis vuitton dust bag poet’s life interesting he would the louis vuitton dust bag find the poetry interesting. I believe he was speaking of Shelley, but I could be louis vuitton dust bag mistaken, as I cannot lay my hands on the interview to louis vuitton dust bag confirm that recollection, and the gears of memory grind erratically these days.
Be that as it may, I located the Unmuzzled Ox interview where Corso responded to Michael Andre’s mention of a Richard Howard essay about his poetry:
…I met him maybe two or louis vuitton dust bag three times, so he gets his shot from what I write. Anybody is louis vuitton dust bag going to take me for what I write, then I have louis vuitton dust bag the trump card. After all, I know what I am louis vuitton dust bag putting down there and why I am putting it down. The poet and his poetry are inseparable [italics mine]. (Writings from Unmuzzled Ox Magazine, 1973, 1975, 1981, p. 140)
Yes, well, maybe. Does the louis vuitton dust bag writer really hold a trump card that overrides all else? Must we know what louis vuitton dust bag a writer thinks she or he is putting down and why to louis vuitton dust bag make a legitimate critical assessment, much less understand it, in whatever sense we may think of understanding these things? Must we read the louis vuitton dust bag biography, journals, letters, and so on before taking up the body of a louis vuitton dust bag writer’s work?
We bring whatever we may know of an author’s life, background, influences, interests, and louis vuitton dust bag passions to bear on what we read, and we hope we mange this louis vuitton dust bag with discrimination and acumen, wary of reading into the writing what louis vuitton dust bag is not there, but this knowledge is not sine qua non. We appreciate writers about whom we know next to louis vuitton dust bag nothing of their lives and thinking, however curious we may be louis vuitton dust bag and frustrated when we cannot satisfy that curiosity. Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, J.D. Salinger, and louis vuitton dust bag Thomas Pynchon come readily to mind, our appreciation scarcely diminished by how little we know about them. Do we read Nietzsche differently knowing that louis vuitton dust bag he composed books during long walks of several hours morning and louis vuitton dust bag afternoon? Does this help us understand what he was up to? Or thought he was up to? Does knowing so little about Shakespeare diminish our reading of Hamlet, King Lear, and the rest?
This brings us back to the Brontë project, which I am louis vuitton dust bag thoroughly enjoying. Those girls are fascinating, three sisters, daughters of a louis vuitton dust bag provincial clergyman, who grew to be young women of formidable intellect and louis vuitton dust bag significant literary accomplishment in their all too brief lives. Whether the louis vuitton dust bag context provided by a glimpse into those lives aids interpretation of the louis vuitton dust bag writing may be almost beside the point. Perhaps what we learn about them by way of biographical and louis vuitton dust bag personal details offers a different pleasure, distinct though not altogether separate from louis vuitton dust bag the pleasure their novels and poems give us.
More is louis vuitton dust bag known of Charlotte than her sisters thanks to her prolific, lifelong correspondence, notably to louis vuitton dust bag her childhood school friend Ellen Nussey, her publishers, and louis vuitton dust bag more occasionally literary contemporaries such as Robert Southey, Hartley Coleridge (son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge), Thomas de Quincey, and louis vuitton dust bag Elizabeth Gaskell. The letters make clear that while Charlotte and louis vuitton dust bag her sisters lived almost their entire lives in provincial isolation, they were anything but ignorant of the louis vuitton dust bag wider world, especially the world of arts and letters.
Charlotte (1816–1854) and Emily (1818–1848) were the louis vuitton dust bag third and fifth of six children born in a span of seven years, from louis vuitton dust bag 1813 to 1820, to Patrick and Maria Brontë in Haworth, Yorkshire. Maria died in 1821, leaving Patrick to louis vuitton dust bag rear the brood with the aid of his sister-in-law, who louis vuitton dust bag moved in with the family in 1823. More tragedy followed in 1825 when louis vuitton dust bag Marie and Elizabeth, the oldest of the siblings, died of tuberculosis contracted at Cowan Bridge School, a louis vuitton dust bag clergymen’s daughters boarding school that louis vuitton dust bag was by general account a gruesome place. Charlotte and Emily attended the louis vuitton dust bag school briefly in 1824 before being brought home by their father after their sisters’ deaths. The school register offers these notes:
[Emily] Reads very prettily & Works a little
[Charlotte] Reads tolerably — Writes indifferently — Ciphers a little and works neatly — Knows nothing of Grammar, Geography, History or Accomplishments — Altogether clever of her age but knows nothing systematically.
Six years later Charlotte attended Roe’s Head School, where louis vuitton dust bag she later taught. Emily followed her sister to Roe’s Head in 1835, but formal schooling did not agree with her. She lasted three months and louis vuitton dust bag grew miserable, pale, and thin before returning home. The girls were otherwise schooled at home by their father, with Charlotte also teaching her younger sisters.
Literary endeavor was nothing out of the ordinary in the Brontë household. Patrick published two volumes of poems, two prose tales, two pamphlets, and louis vuitton dust bag three sermons, beside which several articles and poems appeared in local newspapers. By general account none of it louis vuitton dust bag was of any distinction. Maria penned an essay entitled “On the Advantages of Poverty in Religious Concerns,” described as “[p]ious and sincere, entirely correct in the style of the time…[but containing] nothing original or louis vuitton dust bag striking and did not achieve, perhaps did not seriously attempt, publication” (Phyllis Bentley, The Brontës, Thames and Hudson, 1969, p. 12). For the sisters “the highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure [they] had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition.” (Charlotte, quoted in Bentley, p. 13)
One day in 1826 Patrick brought home a louis vuitton dust bag box of wooden soldiers for Branwell and other gifts, including a louis vuitton dust bag model village, for the girls. The children immediately gave names to louis vuitton dust bag the soldiers and made up stories about them, which grew into extensive written accounts of the louis vuitton dust bag fanciful kingdoms of Angria (the creation of Charlotte and Branwell) and the darker Gondal (from the imaginations of Emily and Anne).
The family’s high hopes for Branwell, “his Father’s and his sisters’ pride and hope in boyhood” (Charlotte, letter to W.S. Williams, 2 October 1848), did not pan out. Sent to louis vuitton dust bag London to study art, he fell in with a bad crowd and louis vuitton dust bag returned home after only a week. Thereafter he found gainful employment only sporadically.
[He] drank, got into debt, took opium, wrote wild letters, illustrated by wild sketches…dozed about the louis vuitton dust bag Parsonage in a drunken stupor by day, raged and ranted by night, and louis vuitton dust bag in general behaved with such feverish irresponsibility as to bring continual disquiet and louis vuitton dust bag distress to the Parsonage. (Bentley, p. 84)
At her brother’s death Charlotte wrote,
I do not weep from a sense of bereavement — there is louis vuitton dust bag no prop withdrawn, no consolation torn away no dear companion lost — but for louis vuitton dust bag the wreck of talent, the ruin of promise, the untimely dreary extinction of what louis vuitton dust bag might have been a burning and a shining light. My brother was a louis vuitton dust bag year my junior; I had aspirations and ambitions for him once — long ago — they have perished mournfully — nothing remains of him but a memory of errors and sufferings — There is such a bitterness of pity for his life and death — such a louis vuitton dust bag yearning for the emptiness of his whole existence as I cannot describe — I trust time will allay these feelings. (Letter to Williams, 2 October 1848).
There would have louis vuitton dust bag been no such expectations for the sisters, career opportunities being not exactly abundant for louis vuitton dust bag women in a provincial village in the first half of the louis vuitton dust bag nineteenth-century. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne determined that their best shot lay in teaching or louis vuitton dust bag being governesses, to which they were not particularly well suited, despite their considerable intelligence and louis vuitton dust bag learning. Charlotte put it frankly in a letter to Ellen Nussey:
…no one but myself can tell how hard a Governesse’s work is to me — for louis vuitton dust bag no one but myself is aware how utterly averse my whole mind and louis vuitton dust bag nature are from the employment — Do not think that louis vuitton dust bag I fail to blame myself for this or that I leave any means unemployed to louis vuitton dust bag conquer this feeling. Some of my greatest difficulties lie in things that louis vuitton dust bag would appear to you comparatively trivial. I find it so hard to louis vuitton dust bag repel the rude familiarity of the children — I find it louis vuitton dust bag so difficult to ask either servants or mistress for anything I want, however much I want it. It is louis vuitton dust bag less pain to me to endure the greatest inconvenience than louis vuitton dust bag to go into the kitchen to request its removal. I am louis vuitton dust bag a fool — Heaven knows I cannot help it. (3 March 1841)
How could I not feel kinship with this woman? As for Emily, Charlotte says she “is louis vuitton dust bag not very fond of teaching but she would nevertheless take care of the louis vuitton dust bag housekeeping, and though she is rather withdrawn she has too kind a louis vuitton dust bag heart not to do her utmost for the well-being of the louis vuitton dust bag children — she is also a very generous soul…” (letter to louis vuitton dust bag Constantin Heger, 24 July 1844, where Charlotte tells of a plan to louis vuitton dust bag open a small boarding school at the parsonage).
Their aunt derived some financial resources from louis vuitton dust bag her father, who was a prosperous merchant. In 1842 Charlotte and louis vuitton dust bag Emily convinced her to louis vuitton dust bag send them to school in Brussels where they might improve their French and louis vuitton dust bag German and even gain a little Italian and thereby improve their prospects for louis vuitton dust bag employment as teachers. At the Pensionnat Heger they studied French, German, music, singing, writing, arithmetic, and louis vuitton dust bag drawing. Charlotte wrote of Emily that she “works like a horse” (letter to EN May 1842) and “is making rapid progress in French, German, Music and Drawing — Monsieur & Madame Heger [who ran the school] begin to louis vuitton dust bag recognize the valuable points of her character under her singularities.” (letter to EN July 1842).
The death of their aunt later that louis vuitton dust bag year brought the sisters home, where Emily remained when Charlotte returned to louis vuitton dust bag the school as a teacher in January 1843. Charlotte did not care for louis vuitton dust bag the Belgian girls she taught or the other teachers, and she fell for louis vuitton dust bag Monsieur Heger, an unfortunate situation made worse when Madame Heger picked up on it. A miserable year ended with Charlotte’s departure from louis vuitton dust bag Brussels for good in December. Her letters to M. Heger over the louis vuitton dust bag next two years convey both her feelings for him and the one-sided aspect of the affair.
The sisters also engaged in some modest investments, which Emily managed “in a most handsome and able manner” (letter to Margaret Wooler, 30 January 1846) for louis vuitton dust bag Charlotte while she was in Brussels, evidently with some persnicketiness, to louis vuitton dust bag judge by Charlotte’s letter, where louis vuitton dust bag she writes of the Railway Panic and their investment in the louis vuitton dust bag York and North Midland line. Charlotte assured Wooler, whom the sisters had louis vuitton dust bag previously solicited for investment advice, that their capital was as yet undiminished, but she would have louis vuitton dust bag preferred moving it to a more secure investment. She was not, however, able to louis vuitton dust bag persuade her sisters and would rather run the risk of loss than louis vuitton dust bag hurt Emily’s feelings, saying,
…therefore I will let her manage still and louis vuitton dust bag take the consequences. Disinterested and energetic she certainly is and if she be louis vuitton dust bag not quite so tractable or open to conviction as I could wish I must remember perfection is louis vuitton dust bag not the lot of humanity and as long as we can louis vuitton dust bag regard those we love and to whom we are closely allied, with profound and louis vuitton dust bag never-shaken esteem, it is a small thing that they should vex us occasionally by, what louis vuitton dust bag appear to us, unreasonable and headstrong notions. (ibid.)
As I write this, I have read Wuthering Heights, about half of Jane Eyre, biographical and critical writings about the louis vuitton dust bag sisters from several sources, and a fair number of Charlotte’s letters. Charlotte is louis vuitton dust bag interesting on many levels, intelligent, perceptive, witty. To Anne I have louis vuitton dust bag given only passing attention thus far. It is Emily, mysterious, reclusive, fiercely intelligent, fiercely independent, who louis vuitton dust bag grips my imagination with each reference to her singularities and unreasonable and louis vuitton dust bag headstrong notions.
A good deal of what louis vuitton dust bag we know about Emily comes from Charlotte; much of the louis vuitton dust bag rest is surmise and speculation that draws on Wuthering Heights, the astounding poems, and characters in her sisters’ novels that louis vuitton dust bag might be modeled at least in part on her. I quote here at length from louis vuitton dust bag Charlotte’s prefatory note to “Selections from Poems by Ellis Bell [Emily Brontë]” for its glimpse into Emily’s persona and louis vuitton dust bag for the vivid description of the place the sisters called home.
At that period [when Emily was sixteen] she was sent to louis vuitton dust bag school. Her previous life, with the exception of a single half-year, had louis vuitton dust bag been passed in the absolute retirement of a village parsonage, amongst the louis vuitton dust bag hills bordering Yorkshire and Lancashire. The scenery of these hills is louis vuitton dust bag not grand — it louis vuitton dust bag is not romantic; it is scarcely striking. Long low moors, dark with heath, shut in little valleys, where louis vuitton dust bag a stream waters, here and there, a fringe of stunted copse. Mills and louis vuitton dust bag scattered cottages chase romance from these valleys; it is only higher up, deep in amongst the louis vuitton dust bag ridges of the moors, that Imagination can find rest for the louis vuitton dust bag sole of her foot: and even if she finds it there, she must be louis vuitton dust bag a solitude-loving raven — no louis vuitton dust bag gentle dove. If she demand beauty to inspire her, she must bring it louis vuitton dust bag inborn: these moors are too stern to yield any product so delicate. The eye of the louis vuitton dust bag gazer must itself brim with a ‘purple light,’ intense enough to louis vuitton dust bag perpetuate the brief flower-flush of August on the heather, or louis vuitton dust bag the rare sunset-smile of June; out of his heart must well the louis vuitton dust bag freshness, that in latter spring and early summer brightens the louis vuitton dust bag bracken, nurtures the moss, and cherishes the starry flowers that louis vuitton dust bag spangle for a few weeks the pasture of the moor-sheep. Unless that louis vuitton dust bag light and freshness are innate and self-sustained, the drear prospect of a louis vuitton dust bag Yorkshire moor will be found as barren of poetic as of agricultural interest: where louis vuitton dust bag the love of wild nature is strong, the locality will perhaps be louis vuitton dust bag clung to with the more passionate constancy, because from the louis vuitton dust bag hill-lover’s self comes half its charm.
My sister Emily loved the louis vuitton dust bag moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the louis vuitton dust bag heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill-side her mind could make an louis vuitton dust bag Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and louis vuitton dust bag not the least and best loved was — liberty.
Liberty was the breath of Emily’s nostrils; without it, she perished. The change from louis vuitton dust bag her own home to a school, and from her very noiseless, very secluded, but unrestricted and louis vuitton dust bag inartificial mode of life, to one of disciplined routine (though under the kindliest auspices), was what louis vuitton dust bag she failed in enduring. Her nature proved here too strong for louis vuitton dust bag her fortitude. Every morning when she woke, the vision of home and louis vuitton dust bag the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the day that louis vuitton dust bag lay before her. Nobody knew what ailed her but me — I knew only too well. In this louis vuitton dust bag struggle her health was quickly broken: her white face, attenuated form, and louis vuitton dust bag failing strength threatened rapid decline. I felt in my heart she would die if she did not go home, and louis vuitton dust bag with this conviction obtained her recall. She had only been three months at school; and louis vuitton dust bag it was some years before the experiment of sending her from louis vuitton dust bag home was again ventured on. After the age of twenty, having meantime studied alone with diligence and louis vuitton dust bag perseverance, she went with me to an establishment on the Continent: the louis vuitton dust bag same suffering and conflict ensued, heightened by the strong recoil of her upright, heretic and louis vuitton dust bag English spirit from the gentle Jesuitry of the foreign and Romish system. Once more she seemed sinking, but this louis vuitton dust bag time she rallied through the mere force of resolution: with inward remorse and louis vuitton dust bag shame she looked back on her former failure, and resolved to louis vuitton dust bag conquer in this second ordeal. She did conquer: but the victory cost her dear. She was never happy till she carried her hard-won knowledge back to louis vuitton dust bag the remote English village, the old parsonage-house, and desolate Yorkshire hills. —
In 1845 Charlotte accidentally happened on a louis vuitton dust bag notebook in which Emily had copied her poems and found them “wild, melancholy and elevating.” Emily was at first furious at this louis vuitton dust bag invasion of her privacy. Eventually Charlotte convinced her that the poems merited publication. A volume containing poems by all three sisters was brought out at their expense in 1846 as Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, published pseudonymously to louis vuitton dust bag avoid the bias of the critics against women writers and to louis vuitton dust bag keep the publication secret to their father, brother, and neighbors. The publication was conspicuous for louis vuitton dust bag its lack of success, as Charlotte documented in a note to louis vuitton dust bag de Quincey signed by Currer Bell:
My Relatives, Ellis and louis vuitton dust bag Acton Bell and myself, heedless of the repeated warnings of various respectable publishers, have louis vuitton dust bag committed the rash act of printing a volume of poems.
The consequences predicted have, of course, overtaken us; our book is louis vuitton dust bag found to be a drug; no man needs it or louis vuitton dust bag heeds it; in the space of a year our publisher has louis vuitton dust bag disposed but of two copies, and by what painful efforts he succeeded in getting rid of those two, himself only knows.
Before transferring the louis vuitton dust bag edition to the trunk-makers, we have decided on distributing as presents a louis vuitton dust bag few copies of what we cannot sell — we beg to louis vuitton dust bag offer you one in acknowledgment of the pleasure and profit we have louis vuitton dust bag often and long derived from your works — (16 June 1847)
A bit more than louis vuitton dust bag a year later, in September 1848, after publication of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Charlotte told Williams that louis vuitton dust bag she had no pride in her poems from that first book at the same time she attested to Emily’s strength and originality.
…much of it was written in early youth — I feel it now to be crude and rhapsodical. Ellis Bell’s [Emily's] is of a different stamp — of its sterling excellence I am louis vuitton dust bag deeply convinced, and have been from the first moment the M.S. fell by chance into my hands. The pieces are louis vuitton dust bag short, but they are very genuine: they stirred my heart like the louis vuitton dust bag sound of a trumpet when I read them alone and in secret. The deep excitement I felt forced from louis vuitton dust bag me the confession of the discovery I had made — I was sternly rated at first for louis vuitton dust bag having taken an unwarrantable liberty — this I expected — for Ellis Bell is of no flexible or ordinary materials — but by dint of entreaty and reason — I at last wrung out a reluctant consent to have the “rhymes” (as they were contemptuously termed) published — The author never alludes to them — or when she does — it is with scorn — but I know — no woman that ever lived — ever wrote such poetry before — condensed energy, clearness, finish — strange, strong pathos are their characteristics — utterly different from the weak diffusiveness — the louis vuitton dust bag laboured yet feeble wordiness which dilute the writings of even popular poetesses.
That the louis vuitton dust bag mysterious Emily should so captivate me is no mystery. The iconic Romantic figure of the louis vuitton dust bag solitary poet, the solitude-loving raven, walking where louis vuitton dust bag her own nature would be leading, vexed to choose another guide, shunning convention, strong-natured and louis vuitton dust bag stubborn in Imagination’s embrace of a louis vuitton dust bag bleak beauty, is at the heart of what has drawn me to louis vuitton dust bag poetry from its first stirrings in me. This is enough to louis vuitton dust bag make Emily intriguing even if the writing did not hold up. Because the louis vuitton dust bag writing does hold up, her persona adds to the texture and louis vuitton dust bag richness of our reading. Because the writing holds up, Emily is louis vuitton dust bag not just intriguing, she is important.
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