Early Ambitions: Charlotte Brontë, Henry Kirke White and Robert Southey

Abstract

This essay explores Charlotte Brontë’s early ambition to enter what was still essentially a male world of authorship. Although there is evidence that for several years she intended to be a visual artist, the essay suggests that from the age of fourteen Charlotte Brontë was conscious of the possibility of a writing career, despite the fact that she was a young woman and famously discouraged by Robert Southey. This can be seen in an examination of her literary models, in the pseudonyms she adopted and in her experimentation with various genres. In particular, this essay focuses on the stimulus provided by the memory of her mother, Maria Branwell Brontë, and her newly discovered copy of The Remains of Henry Kirke White (1810), a volume of youthful poetry containing Brontë family annotations and two tipped-in manuscripts by Charlotte. The book is significant not only for its associations with both her parents (the Reverend Patrick Brontë knew Henry Kirke White at Cambridge) and the inserted unpublished manuscripts, but also for its association with a tradition of successful juvenilia inspired by the Romantic poets and encouraged by Robert Southey, Poet Laureate and editor of the Kirke White poems, cogent reasons why Charlotte Brontë should write to Southey for advice on a literary career.