Sunday, 29 January 2017
Monday, 16 January 2017
Charlotte and her Sisters: On the Death of Emily Jane Brontë and On the Death of Anne Brontë
In May 1849, a 33-year-old
Charlotte Bronte, who had cared for her younger sisters and brother as the
eldest since her older sisters’ deaths in 1825, found herself sibling-less.
Branwell Bronte had died the previous September, Emily followed in December and
now Anne succumbed in Scarborough, where she was buried apart from the Bronte clan.
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Branwell's portrait of his sisters (with painted over self portrait) |
Charlotte had turned to writing
poetry on the death of Emily. Penned five days after her sister’s death, On the Death of Emily Jane Bronte concentrates on the pain Emily has been spared, but her sisters have to endure
in grieving for her – ‘My darling, thou
wilt never know/The grinding agony of woe/That we have borne for thee’ – and
ends with traditional Christian joy at the better world Emily has gone to (‘We will not wish thee here again’) and
the hope afforded by the promised reunion in the afterlife (‘give us rest and joy with thee’).
A month after Anne’s death,
Charlotte’s second poem on grieving reads very differently and is much more
raw. While her poem for Emily starts with a direct address (‘My darling’), the initial focus of the
latter poem is the bleakness of Charlotte’s own existence: ‘There’s little joy in life for me,/And
little terror in the grave;/I’ve lived the parting hour to see/Of one I would
have died to save.’
It is much harder for her to rely
on religious comfort when losing Anne also means losing the last of her
siblings and continuing her existence alone: ‘And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,/Must bear alone the weary strife’.
The poem’s central two stanzas dramatise Charlotte’s internal struggle at her
sister’s deathbed – wishing for an end to Anne’s suffering, as she had for
Emily, and fearing to go on alone. She is horrified at the ‘stillness that must part/The darling of my
life from me’ in the same breath as she expresses her thanks to God for not
extending Anne’s pain.
There is no question of which
emotion will win out. Charlotte knows that ultimately she is not given a
choice. Her life may be ‘weary strife’ but it will continue for as long as God
decides (in reality another six years, before she died in the early stages of
pregnancy, barely nine months after her marriage).
What would you like to see the
Secret Victorianist blog about next? Let me know – here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.
Wednesday, 4 January 2017
Theatre Review: Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, Imperial Theatre, NYC
“No single English novel attains the universality of Leo
Tolstoy's War and Peace,”
Encyclopedia
Brittanica
Reading Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 War and Peace is a mammoth undertaking.
The story of love, death and philosophy against the backdrop of Napoleon’s
invasion of Russia sprawls across four volumes, encompassing nearly 600
characters, and you soon feel immersed in its detailed and vibrant world.
![]() |
Josh Groban with the cast of The Great Comet |
New Broadway musical, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
(hereafter The Great Comet), achieves
a similar feat, even with its much more limited scope. New York’s Imperial
Theatre has been transformed from a traditional proscenium arch into an
interactive space, with many spectators sat on the stage, gangways for the
performers to cavort through the audience and red velvet hangings and paintings
over the walls, allowing you to feel like you have really stepped into a
nineteenth-century drawing room.
Dave Malloy’s play dramatises a
few chapters of Tolstoy’s novel — the period just prior to the appearance of
the comet, including Pierre’s duel and Natasha’s seduction and thwarted
abduction. The focus is helpful in terms of improving accessibility (during the
first song the chorus even tells you that you should be looking at your
programme and consulting the family tree) and creating emotional payoff in a
short space of time, although the production was most affecting for me during
Pierre (Josh Groban)’s solos, which touched most explicitly on the novel’s
broader existential themes.
![]() |
Denee Benton and Brittain Ashford |
There is little dialogue and the
music ranges from traditional Russian tunes to old school Broadway ballads to
rave and electronica, whatever will best convey the plot and mood, to which the
play strives to be loyal. Many of the chorus members play instruments as they
move through the crowd and Pierre often frequents the central orchestra pit,
taking over at times from the musicians. Groban, along with Denee Benton’s
Natasha, Brittain Ashford’s Sonya and Gelsey Bell’s Mary, really is the
emotional heart of the drama, but the audience also responds well to the
eccentric caricatures – mad Prince Bolonsky (Nicholas Belton), proud Muscovite
matriarch Marya (Grace McLean) and ‘hot’ Anatole (Lucas Steele).
If you’re in NYC and up for a
riotous night, The Great Comet is
definitely a show to watch. Plus it might even help you bluff your way through
a conversation about War and Peace…
Do you know of any other shows
you think the Secret Victorianist should see next? Let me know – here, on
Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.
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