The Edinburgh Companion to the Brontës and the Arts

Abstract

This book situates the life, work and legacies of the Brontë family in relation to the visual, musical, plastic and performing arts. The volume identifies and explores networks of influence and engagement between the Brontës’ creative practice and artistic precedents, the broader context of mid-Victorian aesthetics, and the politics and ethics of adaptation from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. It forms a significant contribution to Brontë studies and scholarship on Victorian women’s writing more broadly; and looks beyond and behind the myth of three sisters and their wayward brother isolated on the Yorkshire moors, locating their work at the heart of vital debates concerning ‘ways of seeing’ and representing the world and self, both in their present and in ours. The subject of the Brontës’ relation to the arts is approached broadly and inclusively, with chapters exploring: the influence of the arts on their creative practice; the representation of the arts in their work; the role played by the arts in the heritage, tourism and creative industries built upon their lives, images and reputations; the appropriation and adaptation of their life stories and work across a range of artistic genres and media.