Cold in the Earth and Fifteen Wild Decembers
I just finished listening to this live on BBC Radio 4. Before I can collect my thoughts and post an entry, I simply have to say this:
I can't understand why people force themselves to assume that experiencing love-as in romantic love as we know it-is the only way Emily Bronte could have writtten Wuthering Heights. Why is Imagination not given enough credit? I agree with Juliet Barker 110%: It is preposterous to even assume that Emily Bronte would have fancied a weavers's son, when she has much more interesting men in her own head!
SERIOUSLY!! Why the hell are people so wrapped up in thinking that one needs to love in order to write such a passionate story??? And Wuthering Heights can be read as something that has little to do with "love", but rather all to do with power and control, as Juliet Barker argues. I think it depends on how one defines "love". But really, Emily Bronte is EMILY BRONTE. I really think she would have demanded more of a man than what was portrayed in this drama. The Robert/Emily affair wasn't even 0.00001% as intense as the Catherine/Heathcliff affair.
I am really sorry she (and the power of her Imagination)is being treated so. Why do people find it so hard to admit that Imagination can be so powerful? Why do people want to reduce this power to the puny effects of conventional romance??
Don't get me wrong...I do think it is possible she might have entertained a love affair, even with a weaver's son. But what I don't like is how little weight Imagination is given. Imagination is better than every living thing. It is the only REAL thing we know about Emily's romantic fancies (she even wrote an Ode to it!). Everything else is mere speculation. Instead of elevating the Imagination, people are trying to lower it by comparing it with earthly-albeit conventional-love.
1 comment:
Thank you Frankengirl :)
Exactly! I agree with you. From Homer and Virgil to Thackeray to Wordworth, people tend to praise their works and their Imaginations, whereas women writers are questioned more on their "experience". Emily's Gondalian tales and poems fascinating..because she also fantasized about herself as both men and women. And Wuthering Heights is a living testimony to the power of the Imagination.
It is interesting that while current society seems to be technologically advancing, it still fails to recognize the power of abstraction in art, specially literary Imagination. I think this is a sign that the magic of stories are at risk of being lost..
(I do hope I am wrong though..)
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