‘A Just and Liberal Landlord’: Manliness, Work, and the Landed Gentleman in the Brontës’ Novels

Abstract

AbstractThe Brontes’ many striking depictions of landowners are rife with ambiguities, particularly as these characters are seldom presented at work in their traditional roles as landlord and magistrate. While the Victorian landed gentleman’s status was partially predicated on not having to work for money, both the new Victorian professional ideal and traditional conceptions of paternalist care affected the ways this class was viewed by middle-class commentators at mid-century. In the Brontes’ novels, traditional paternalist responsibilities are fused with aspects of the professional ideal in depictions of reformed landed gentlemen, but even this new, ideal figure is represented as unsatisfactory. In this article, I consider how landowners were written about in contemporary periodicals and how the Brontes engage with these expectations. The Irish tenant and landlord problem, which was covered extensively in the periodical press, shaped Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights in a profound way, as the novel serve...