Reviews for The Brontës selected poems

The average rating for The Brontës selected poems based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-10-14 00:00:00 Stella Bautista The Brontë Sisters played an essential role during my teenage days and my early years of womanhood only to become the person I am today. Her dramatic works nurtured my capacity for daydreaming and added a vastly new dimension to the possibilities of expression through the art of writing that ignited the burning spark for my ensuing passion for romantic poetry. Charlotte, Emily Jane and Anne have earned distinction among the most famous Victorian women writers mainly because of their novels, but the fact that the sisters were also gifted poetesses has been mainly ignored and their poems unfairly underrated. It was in 1845 that Charlotte accidentally discovered a volume of written verse in her sister Emily’s handwriting and, sensing unprecedented originality, she determined to elevate them to the public along with Anne’s and her own verses. In order to avoid prejudice they published their collection of poems naming it “Poems” under the male pseudonyms of Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë), Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë) and Acton Bell (Anne Brontë). It was difficult for poetry by unknown authors to achieve any success and, despite some favorable reviews, “Poems” sold just two copies. Encouraged by seeing their work in print, the sisters realized that novel writing was more likely to sell, resulting in them abandoning poetry. This fact makes of this collection a unique testimony of the Brontës’ condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine, but mostly, unknown verses. A gem to treasure and to keep for posterity. Close in age, motherless, and having suffered from traumatic experiences of loss and death during their childhood, the Brontës influenced each other deeply, both emotionally and imaginatively. This has led to many scholars to approach them as a single literary phenomenon rather than as three separate individuals. It is obvious that the Brontë siblings share literary influences and not surprisingly they show similarities in theme and style, but I see hints of different nature in each one of them, a distinctive note that strikes a different chord in my multilayered inner being, calling out to different parts of myself. Charlotte and the long narrative poem Charlotte’s poems are longer than those of her sisters and they are often connected through continuing narrative lines and consistencies in character. She usually addresses themes of loyalty to her faith and links it with romantic love, including some Gothic elements like those that made Jane Eyre so popular. Bereavement is a common theme in most of Charlotte’s poems, becoming most palpable in the verses she wrote after the death of her sisters Emily and Anne. “Then since thou art spared such pain We will not with thee here again; He that lives must mourn. God help us through our misery And give us rest and joy with thee When we reach our bourne!” On the Death of Emily Jane Brontë” “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.” On the Death of Anne Brontë Charlotte’s dramatic and solemn poetic style and her use of archaisms, over regular metre, calls to my earthly loneliness and loss with the promise of redemption through the ideal of romantic love. Emily, the spirit of Nature and her perception of Immortality To my ear, Emily’s poems have a peculiar music, wild, melancholic and elevating. Rejecting conventional religion as an answer, she pursues her own mystical vision of wholeness, finding in Nature both an expression of the Divine and the Sacred place where man is reunited with his true spirit making him eternal. Immortality then can only be accomplished in the death of the body when it gradually and literally merges with the soil whence it came, becoming an indivisible and everlasting unity. “Though Earth and moon were gone And suns and universes ceased to be And thou wert left alone Every Existence would exist in thee There is no room for Death Nor atom that might could render void Since thou art Being and Breath And what thou art may never be destroyed.” No Coward Soul Is Mine Emily’s verses shine with musical glow transpiring melodic notes in the cadences and the subtle use of the language, but her poetry refuses easy classification. Her impassioned voice gives insight into the nature of the universe and man’s attempt at finding permanence therein, making of her poems the most appreciated of the Brontës’ collection. Emily’s voice revives my imagination and elevates it as an alternative faculty to reason, connecting with my burning self, making me restless in breaking my spiritual yearning free from conventional frames. Anne and lost innocence The least notorious of the Brontë sisters, yet the one who published one of my favorite novels ever -close to Jane Eyre - the most undervalued “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall". Anne’s simple eloquence and fervent voice could have taken a place beside Jane Austen if she hadn’t died at the tender age of 29. Her poems are primarily concerned with morality, showing preoccupation with the ethical principles which, for good or ill, govern human behavior. Her modesty and humility oozes through her quiet voice, which is tinged with a ringing melancholy for lost childhood and despair for future uncertainty. “If Life must be so full of care, Then call me soon to Thee; Or give me strength enough to bear My load of misery.” If This Be All Anne’s modest composure calls out to my most empathic and compassionate self, humbling me with her selfless gentleness. The Brontë Sisters are my personal Trinity, they are all at once in me. Charlotte, Emily and Anne’s soloist voices sing together creating a harmonious melody, striking the spiritual chords of the symphony buried in the depths of my being. My discordant and sharp-edged inner contradictions find soothing and reprieve in the Brontës’ stanzas while their voices arise as a miraculous merging of the souls composing the most otherworldly hymn to life, love and imagination.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-03-06 00:00:00 Jeffrey Stieglitz I am not the most competent to judge poetry to write an objective critique of this collection, but that does not prevent me from realising that I have read something beautiful. In this collection the Brontë sisters express their poetic talent by providing the reader with beautiful melancholic moments, opening a window to their souls.