The Heroine as Reader: Jane Eyre

Abstract

As Fanny Ratchford showed in her study of the Brontës’ ‘Web of Childhood’(1941), close analysis of Charlotte’s juvenilia reveals much about her early reading and the influence of literary sources on her writings. However, Charlotte Brontë’s early work is devoid of literary and biblical allusions which have an important function in their adoptive texts. Even in her later Angrian novelettes, most literary allusions are shorthand notations through which she merely classifies characters or makes some general comment on them. Their use is always local, having no pervasive controlling effect in the texts. The years between the ‘Farewell to Angria’, written in her diary late in 1839, and the completion of the fair copy of The Professorin June 1846 marked a period of personal and literary maturing for Charlotte Brontë, during which she had to cope with the stress which resulted from her experiences at the Pensionnat Heger and from Branwell’s self-destructive behaviour at home in Haworth. Although The Professor was rejected by six publishers in 1846–7 and was not in fact published until after her death, in 1857, she wrote a new preface for the novel soon after the publication of Shirley in October 1849.KeywordsEarly ReadingParallel TextParadise LostFavourite BookBritish BirdThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.