Jane Seymour Henry's Third Queen

 Jane Seymour was the third wife of Henry VIII and the only one to give him a surviving son.  But she is a rather shadowy figure.  Most of Henry’s wives are strong personalities in their own right.

Jane was born in Wiltshire to Sir John Seymour and his wife Margery and was one of a large family.  Her family were distantly related to Henry….Her eldest brother Edward and another brother, Thomas were both courtiers who were involved in politics during the reign of Edward VI.

Her birth date is unclear but its probably around 1507 or 1508.  Like Anne Boleyn she was a lady in waiting to Katherine of Aragon.  Unlike Anne, she does not seem to have had much education nor did she travel abroad. Little is known of her early life.  She was said to have had a romance with a young country gentleman called William Dormer but he married another woman.  

Jane seems to have been a conservative minded Catholic and to ahve been loyal to Katherine, when she was queen and afterwards.  She remained at court, and was a maid to Anne Boleyn… but it is probable that she never gave the new queen full loyalty.

In the last months of Anne’s reign, stories emerged of Henry’s having a flirtation with Jane, and Anne attacking both of them for kissing. Anne was increasingly hysterical and frightened after her miscarriage in January 1536 as she feared that having lost another child, Henry might now try to put her aside as he had done with his first wife.

Jane seems to have been coy with Henry, telling him that she would not be his mistress and saying that if he wanted to give her a present, he should do so when she had received a good offer of marriage. 

End Part I

Lord Byron part III

 Byron visited Malta and Greece, which was of interest to him since like most English upper class boys he had been schooled in the classics, learning Latin and Greek and studying their ancient cultures.   He  developed a  friendship with a young lad who may have become his lover…

He spent 2 years travelling and then returned to England in 1811, and his experiences brought him material for long dramatic poems….On his return he published Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, whose hero is like Byron, a young man sated and bored with his homeland, who seeks diversion in travelling and love affairs in foreign lands. Byron sympathised with the Greek people, and supported the cause of Greek independence… and he found the Ottoman Empire’s culture interesting as well, particularly since there was greater sympathy for homoerotic relationships.  He seems to have been sexually attracted to women but to have disliked them and preferred  male company. 

On the publication of the first Parts of Childe Harold, Byron as he put it, awoke to find himself famous.  The poem was a seminal one, exemplifying tee new Romanticism, the interest in the exoticism of foreign lands.  It had a great influence on future writers and painters. Byron had the entree to Regency society, due to his birth and his poem made him adored and lionised in the highest social circle.

He seemed rather bored with social events and concentrated on writing more poems, including the Bride of Abydos which had a Turkish theme.  He became involved in a very public love affair with the rather unstable socialite Lady Caroline Lamb.. who fell madly in love with him, and followed him about to parties, making scenes.  He grew bored with her and continued to have affairs with other women, and to live extravagantly, running up debts.

Byron’s mother had died in 1811 and he began to think of trying to find a wife, who might have some money and help with his financial problems.  He began to court an heiress, Annabella Milbanke, who was unusually intelligent and interested in mathematics.  Byron was attracted to her but his chief motive in thinking of marriage was probably to sort out money problems. He did not have a high opinion of women’s intelligence.

During his courtship of Annabella, he renewed contact with his half sister, Augusta Leigh who was the daughter of his fathers first marriage.  He and Augusta had not known each other well until this time  so they met almost as strangers.  It seemed that a mutual attraction flared up which may have led to an incestuous affair. The half brother and sister were certainly very close and fascinated with each other.  It didn’t bode well for Byron’s marriage. 

Within a short time of the marriage, it was obvious that it had been a mistake.  Byron was depressed and gloomy, he drank heavily and was so erratic that Annabella feared he was mad and began to fear for her life.   He insinuated to her that he had been having an affair with Augusta... and talked so wildly that she was afraid of him...

Scottish names

 Scottish names are mainly derived from Scots Gaelic a Celtic language which is similar to Irish.  

There are some distinctive names which have passed into general UK culture and become popular overall.

Alison is a variant of Alice which was used in the Middle Ages.  It is the name of a character in the Canterbury Tales and was very popular in Scotland.

Another girls names is Kirsty which is a Scottish abbreviation of Christine and which has now become an independent name.  The name means “Christian”.

Maisie is now quite a popular name with no Scottish overtones but it was originally an abbreviation in Scotland for Margaret (which means pearl).

Jean comes from the medieval French name Jehane (for Jane) but has been much used in Scotland.  However Janet is the Scottish version of Jane….

Jessie was often used as a nickname for Janet but can also be an abbreviation of Jessica...

Fiona is a very popular name which was invented by the Scottish writer William Sharp in the 19^th century..  He wrote as Fiona Macleod, and the name was meant to be a feminine version of Finn or Fionn which means “fair”.

There are also several male names, including Innes which means island…

Another is Keith which means forest and has become very popular all over the UK.  Kelvin is the name of a Scottish river and was taken as a title by William Thompson, who was a pioneering scientist and engineer.  Thomson was born in Ireland but worked in Scotland and when he became the first scientist to be ennobled, he took the title Kelvin after a river he knew.  It has become popular and lost its Scottish associations.

Kenneth which means handsome was a royal Scottish name and is well known all over the English speaking world..  Its also famous as the name of Kenneth Grahame, author of the Wind in the Willows.

Kyle which means a narrow channel, has become more popular in the US.

Hamish is the Scottish version of James which means “Supplanter”.  Douglas is a very popular Scottish name, In the Middle ages it was also a name used for girls, one particular female Douglas was Douglas Sheffield, a lady of Queen Elizabeth’s court, who was the mistress of Robert Dudley.  The name means “dark water” and was originally a surname, the name of one of the great Scottish noble families.

I hope to write a bit more about Scottish and Gaelic names….

 

George Lord Byron part II

 During his teens, he fell in love with a young woman who was a little older than him, Mary Chaworth. However he overheard her remarking “Do you think that I could care for that lame boy?” which hurt him desperately.  During his years at Harrow though he also had many emotional attachments to other boys… which may have had a sexual component. He went later to Cambridge and also formed close friendships with young men of his own class. Although he was sexually attracted to some women, he did not seem to like women very much and found more pleasure in the companionship of his men friends..   His bad relationship with his mother may have accounted for this ambivalent attitude towards women. 

He developed liberal political views and sought out friends who shared them.  He also continued to enjoy sports such as boxing and horse riding which he pursued eagerly.

At college he was happy but annoyed his mother by gambling and spending too much money.   In 1809, he followed tradition by going on a Grand Tour, which was the custom for rich young men and which was supposed to educate them in the ways of foreign countries.  The ongoing Napoleonic wars restricted where he could travel.. He started out from Portugal and planned to go to the Eastern Ottoman Empire.

 

George Gordon Byron

 Lord Byron is famous as a poet, aristocrat and radical activist in the Regency era.  He was a talented man, but had a wild streak which led him into self indulgent behaviour and scandal and he ended up living in exile…

His father, Jack Byron was a naval officer who also led a somewhat scandalous life.  Jack Byron was married twice, once to a divorced aristocrat Amelia Lady Camarthen.  Amelia had an affair with Jack and was divorced by her husband because she became pregnant by her lover.  A few weeks after the divorce, Jack married her and their first child was born shortly afterwards.  However Amelia died a few years later leaving him with only one living child, a daughter Augusta.

In 1785, he married again to a Scottish heiress Catherine Gordon probably for her money.  She had inherited an estate but within a short time, the estate had to be sold to pay Jacks debts.  Their son George was born in London in January 1788, and the couple were now comparatively poor….Their marriage was far from happy and Jack died a few years later.  Catherine was unhappy, had a difficult temperament and was struggling with poverty… and trying to pay off her husband’s debts.

Jack was heir presumptive to a barony and so the young George had some prospects of inheriting a title and some property. However when the old Lord Byron (known as the wicked Lord Byron) died in 1798, Catherine took her son to the ancestral property, Newstead Abbey, only to find it was run down and uncomfortable.

She leased it to various tenants, in order to find money to give her son the usual upper class education.  She was a foolishly indulgent mother but Byron did not care much for her.  He was embittered by the fact that he had been born with a damaged foot and was lame.  Byron was spoiled and lacked discipline. - which probably led to his problems in later life.

  He went to Harrow in 1801 but in spite of being intelligent, he was a poor student.  Due to his lameness, he had difficulties with games but he threw himself into sports in an attempt to compensate for his disability.. He liked cricket, and was later to take up boxing.  He frequently over exercised.. finding it difficulty to do anything in moderation.

 

Anne Bronte V

 Anne's Tenant went to a second edition, though it was not as popular as Jane Eyre..  Charlotte continued to believe that her sister had been wrong to undertake such a gloomy work.. but Anne believed she was right.  In 1848, the sisters realised that there were rumours going around that all the Bell books had been written by the same person and to stop gossip in the publishing world, Charlotte felt that they had to go to London and let themselves be seen and known by their publisher.  Emily refused to go but Anne and Charlotte made a trip in the summer and spent a few days in London.  They tried to maintain their anonymity but rumours leaked out that the Bell books were the works of the daughters of Patrick Bronte, curate of Haworth.. and none of them liked the loss of privacy.  

A few months after their visit, Branwell fell ill and died suddenly probably from TB exacerbated by his drinking.  Then Emily caught a cold at his funeral and developed TB which killed her within a short time.  She refused medicines and doctor.  Anne's health began to weaken - she fought against the illness... and took the medicines offered but she was obviously mortally ill..  She and Charlotte and Ellen Nussey, Charlotte's friend, took a trip to Scarborough a town which Anne loved.. and she died there at the age of 29.  She left very few writings, her poetry, and her 2 novels.. both of which were rather heavily moralistic.. but given time, her gifts might have developed.  She is buried at Scarborough.....

Anne Bronte Part IV

 Anne's novel was short and in my own opinion not that interesting, compared  with Charlotte's or Emily's work.  Emily's novel got some good critical attention but did not sell well and was also criticised for its violence and amoral characters.  

Anne was working on her second novel, Tenant of Wildfell hall.. which was largely written as a warning against drink and debauchery.  It was very popular but many were shocked by the subject matter.  It is the story of a young girl who marries a rake believing that she can improve him.. and she finds that he becomes a drunkard, has mistresses and begins to teach their son to drink as well.  Helen, the wife leaves her husband.. and Anne Bronte makes it clear that she thinks she was right to walk out on him.  Eventually she does return to look after him when he is dying and then she makes a second marriage to a young respectable gentleman farmer, Gilbert Markham....  Anne's depiction of the husband's drunken ways, and Helen's leaving him roused a lot of criticism.  Charlotte felt that her sister was wrong to choose such depressing and sordid subject matter but believed that Anne had done it with the best of intentions, in order to show that rakes don't usually reform and to portray the evils of drink.. based loosely on the problems suffered by Branwell Bronte....

Charley Pride RIP

 Charley was born in Mississippi to a family of share croppers and was one of the few African Americans to become a famous country singer and a member of the Grand Old Opry.  He has just died at the age of 86 of  Corona complications.  He went on performing till late in life... 

Some of his biggest  hits were Kiss an Angel Good Morning and "Is there anyone going to San Antone.."

Anne Bronte Part III

 Anne returned home to look for another job, and met Willie Weightman her father’s new curate. Willie was a lively but sweet-tempered young man.  Mostly, the girls didn’t like their father’s curates, finding them narrow minded, and pompous, but all of them liked Weightman.  He was pleasantly flirtatious and sent the sisters their first Valentines….  It seems that Anne was attracted to him and may have fallen a little  in love with him. Its not clear if he was interested in her but he was a poor curate and not in a a position to marry.  He seems to have been the only young man that Anne was interested in. Sadly he died young.

Anne found another position as governess with the Robinson family, in Yorkshire.  She seems to have been happier in this job than in her previous one.. although the children were not easy to manage.  She persevered and began to get on well with them, and became fond of the young daughters of the house and respected by their parents.  However, Branwell then secured a position as tutor to Edmund the son of the family and during his time there, he fell in love with Mrs Robinson, who was 17 years his senior.  Its not clear if Mrs Robinson returned his love or if they engaged in an actual affair but when Mr Robinson found out that something was going on, he dismissed Branwell.  Always prone to violent emotion and somewhat unstable, Branwell went to pieces after his dismissal, drinking and moaning about his love to everyone.

Anne left her job having inherited a little money from Miss Branwell.. She was unhappy about her brothers relationship with Mrs Robinson, and she now had some money to keep her while she remained at home.  She and her sisters published a book of poetry but it failed.  However it spurred them on to try to publish novels.

They all worked on serious pieces of fiction..  Emily was writing Wuthering Heights, Charlotte was working first on the Professor and then on Jane Eyre.. and Anne contributed a slighter novel called Agnes Grey. It was a short work, which would be published in a 3 volume set with Wuthering Heights and was based on Anne’s first experiences as a governess.

 

Anne Bronte Part II

 All four children wrote their stories together at first, based on the toy soldiers that Mr Bronte had brought for them..  Then when Anne was around 11, she and Emily broke away from the world created by the 4 of them and they developed their own fictional world, Gondal.  Emily and Anne were very close, though Anne was much gentler and less hot tempered and emotional than her sister.

Charlotte and Branwell continued with the world of Angria, where Branwell wrote militaristic stories and Charlotte began to write romances and love stories.   Anne and Emily created  a world where women were more powerful..  and when Emily wrote her one novel it was one where the women characters were passionate and dominant. Anne moved into the social realm.  

Emily spent a short time at Miss Woolers’, with Charlotte, and then when her health broke down, Anne replaced her at school.  She did well at school academically but she did not make any friends. Although she was much less powerful a character than Emily she had a quiet strength and determination that made her keep on with difficult and distasteful tasks.  She took her first job as governess at the age of 19…

Emily and she seem so very different that it is strange that they became allies, but I believe that Emily used Anne as a model for the more worthwhile traits of the Linton family, in Wuthering Heights.  She could see that her little sister had a good heart, a gentle nature, and a  strong moral sense and that these were valuable traits, even if she lacked the passionate nature that other characters had.  

Anne’s first job as a governess did not go well. The children were spoiled and foolish and their parents let them do as they pleased.  Anne could not teach them and found them impossible to deal with but she stuck the job out until dismissed, because she knew that she would have to work for a living.  She showed more determination, in her quiet way, than Emily could muster....

 

Anne Bronte part I

 Anne Bronte is the youngest of the Bronte sisters and she’s not one of my favourite writers.  Some have claimed that she was more talented than her sisters but I can’t agree.

She was probably a little closer to Jane Austen in her style of writing… in that she did not give us scenes of passion and drama but concentrated on the quieter aspects of social life.

She was born in 1820 near Bradford, where her father was curate.  Her mother had given birth to six children in about 6 years and when Anne was a baby, she died of what was probably uterine cancer. So Anne had no memory of her mother.  The family had by then moved to Haworth where they were to live most of their lives.  Her father was deeply grieved by the death of his wife and with his large family (He later called it a "small but sweet family") he felt the need of a new wife to look after them.  However his attempts to remarry ended in failure as he was in many ways a man who was socially clumsy.. and he offended the lady that he proposed to.   He seems to have then given up on trying to find a new wife and relied on his sister in law Elizabeth Branwell, to keep house and look after the children.  

Aunt Branwell as she was known, was a strict woman with a sense of duty and the children respected her rather than loved her.  Anne who was the quietest and most “normal” of the family, seems to have been her favourite.

Anne was too young to go to school at Cowan Bridge like the other children, so she stayed home and was educated there by her father, Miss Branwell and later a local art teacher.  So she missed the tragic experience that Charlotte and Emily had had, of being at a school where the children were half starved and badly treated....

Arthurian names II

 Some male Arthurian names have become popular but many of them are too long, and hard to pronounce and "medieval sounding" to have any attraction for people nowadays.  However there are a few that are still liked.  The name Arthur is still popular and was very much more so in Victorian times.  The Arthurian legends were a big part of Victorian literary and artistic culture.  Most Pre Raphaelite painters used the stories as subjects for their work and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King cycle of poems was massively popular.   

The name’s meaning is obscure however.  It may be from the Celtic word Artos meaning Bear or possibly, since Arthur may have been descended from Roman stock, it may be from the clan name Artorius…

It can be abbreviated to Art or Artie… and is still used.  In the Victorian era, the Duke of Wellington was called Arthur, which promulgated the use of the name.  He was the godfather to Arthur Duke of Connaught, one of Queen Victoria’s sons…

Lancelot is the faulty knight who in spite of great talents and virtues, is unable to resist his love for Guenevere, Arthur’s queen.  His name is also obscure, it may be derived from L’ancelle, meaning “servant” or it may be a Celtic name which has been altered beyond recognition through the French language.  It is less popular than Arthur but in modern times the variant Lance has been used.

One of Arthur’s nephews is Gawain who is a hero in his own right.  Although Gawain is supposed to be from Scotland, the name is Welsh in origin.  It is probably dervied from Gwalchmai meaning Hawk of May… However in modern times the Scottish version Gavin has been very popular.

Geraint and Gareth are also names of Arthur’s knights, and may come from the same origin possibly meaning “old”…

One of the less attractive knights in the story is “Sir Kay”, who is in most versions Arthur’s foster brother. Kay is something of a bully…  But his name may come from the Roman name Caius which has been occasionally used in recent years.

 

M/F

Arthurian names

 There are many names in the Arthurian story cycle that are rarely if ever used, such as Galahad, the name of Lancelot's son.. but there are others which have become popular. 

Its hard to decipher where the names come from as they may be Celtic names which were altered when the stories were written down in French..  There is a Welsh name  Elain which means fawn or hind, which may be the original name of the character Elaine.  Elaine itself is a version of the French name Helene, which in English is Helen or Helena.  Elaine is the name of the Maid of Astolat who falls in love with Lancelot but he does not care  for her because of his illicit love for Guenevere.  In some versions of the story she tricks him into a sexual encounter and conceives Galahad, or he marries her which makes Guenevere jealous).

Guenevere's name means White (Gwyn) and "smooth or yielding". and has never been all that popular as a name.  However its sometimes abbreviated to Gwen.  Other variants which were more popular are Jennifer (a Cornish version) or Gaynor or Ginevra. 

Another woman character is Nimue, the enchantress who lures Merlin into imprisonment and sleep.  In some versions of the story she is portrayed as a girl who falls in love with Merlin and learns his secrets of wisdom and magic.. and looks after him till he dies.  In modern stories, her name is often given as Ninian which was the name of a Pictish saint.  Nimue is one of the names which is rarely if ever used.

Ironically the most unsympathetic woman character in the Arthurian saga has a name which has become quite popular in modern days, particularly in the US.  Morgan is a name used by girls and boys, though I think its now more common as a girls name.  Another variant of it is Morgana.  Morgan le Fey was portrayed particularly in the 19th century as the evil enchantress who hated Arthur and tried to destroy him who learned Magic from Merlin but used it for bad purposes.  The name comes from Mor, meaning sea and "Cant" meaning circle or edge.. so it is related to the sea... 

Morgan is Arthur's older half sister in some versions who lures him unwittingly into a liaison which produces Mordred his illegitimate son who hates his father and tries to take over power from him.... 

I hope to write some more about Arthurian names in another blog post....

Emily Bronte Part V

 Emily seems to have been a lot happier once she came home and devoted herself to keeping house and to her writing.  Charlotte's second spell in Brussels was not successful.  She fell in love with M Heger, the husband of the mistress of the school and although the relationship was quite innocent, she ended up coming home, and being miserable for some time afterwards.  She was so inexperienced in matters of the heart that she may not have realised that she was falling in love with a married man.  Emily however never seems to have cared for any real life man or anyone apart from her sisters and her father and brother. She observed the few people that she knew well and mulled over their emotional attachments. She dwelt on the intense passionate loves that she saw or heard about, and what she read in books and heard in stories about the Yorkshire people.. so that while inexperienced in love, she pondered on it and wrote about it. 

She heard stories of the past in Yorkshire, from her father and Tabby Ackroyd, the housekeeper who had nursed most of the children... about family feuds and love affairs and these all went into the cauldron out of which she created Wuthering Heights. 

Emily's family were going through a difficult time in the years after her return from Brussels.. but she herself was contented with her work as housekeeper and writing more and more.  Charlotte was unhappy about her friendship with Heger having ended in disaster and while the girls still tried to set up their school, they didn't get any interest.  The parsonage was small and remote and it was clear that the school scheme would never come to fruition. The girls discussed their writing at the end of each working day, talking and walking around the parlour, but Emily was secretive and did not share all her poetry even with her sisters.  One day Charlotte accidentally came across some of her poems and was struck by how good they were, as she said “ they were unlike the poetry women generally write”.  Emily’s work was rough hewn and intensely emotional.

With the failure of the school project, Charlotte was desperate for something active to do, and she tried to persuade Emily that the poems were good and should be published.

Emily was angry at her privacy being intruded on, but Anne produced some of her poems and indicated that she would be interested in trying to get them published.  Emily took some persuasion but she gave in and the girls began to work on their poetry, editing their work and choosing the best ones of all three of them.

They found a publisher but the work failed.  It attracted a little critical attention but only sold 2 copies.  Emily was by now working on Wuthering Heights, her one serious work, and was less bothered by the disappointment than was Charlotte.  Charlotte was always the ambitious sister, willing in spite of her shyness, to engage with the world and to try and make her work public.

Emily Bronte Part IV

 Charlotte had taken jobs as a governess and knew how difficult it was, for a woman of her intelligence to live in someone else's home, to put up with spoiled children, and to be snubbed by the parents who were often rude to governesses and saw them as social inferiors to be exploited and overworked. Emily stayed home most of the time, not taking any jobs, outside, but she did earn her keep by helping with the housekeeping.

However the girls decided that if they were to be able to set up their own school, they needed more accomplishments which they could teach and they thought it would be a good idea to go and work and learn at a school abroad, where they could learn French.. and experience life in a foreign city. Charlotte had made friends at Miss Woolers with Mary Taylor, the daughter of a rich businessman, who was now attending a school in Brussels and she longed to have some similar experience.

So she asked her Aunt Branwell to lend them some money to go to a school there.  It was decided that Emily should go with Charlotte and that Anne might attend later.  Emily probably knew that she would not really enjoy living abroad and going away from her home.. but she agreed to it, to try and help Charlotte to avoid the misery of being a governess.  

Its not clear how practical was the scheme.  Charlotte said that Emily might not want to teach but she would run things and keep house.  The plan might have worked but the parsonage was not very big and Patrick was reclusive in his habits, and Branwell was not likely to be any help. So its possible that the school might not have done very well.  However, Aunt Branwell was willing to lend money and the girls went off to Brussels. 

Emily does not seem to have been happy in Brussels.  She took advantage of the opportunity to learn more, she worked hard and won some admiration from the husband of Madame Heger who owned the school for hard work and intelligence. In spite of her intelligence, she had been a terrible speller, and she probably benefitted from a more rigid teaching scheme.   She taught music to younger pupils, and wrote several essays in French which have survived.   However she did not seem to care for the city or the other pupils and was reluctant to go and meet other British people who lived in Brussels.  Charlotte went though she was shy but Emily clearly hated socialising and after a time refused to go.  She was abrupt and gruff with people and just wanted to use the time to study and improve her writing and other skills so she made no friends at the school or in the English community.  When Aunt Branwell became ill and died, the girls returned home.  Charlotte went back to Brussels for another term to work as a teacher but once she came home, Emily never left again.   She devoted herself to her writing and took over the housekeeping.. assisted by the aging Tabby and a couplee of young girls.. including one called Martha Brown. 

Emily Bronte Part III

 Emily’s short time at Miss Wooler’s school set a pattern for her life.  She rarely left home, and seemed to become ill and unhappy when she did so.  For a short time in 1838 when she was 20, she worked at a school as a teacher, but her health broke down and she returned to Haworth.  

The Brontes’ chief servant, their nanny and housekeeper Tabitha Ackroyd, was getting older, and Emily began to take over the work of housekeeping.  Aunt Branwell was getting older also, and Emily seemed to enjoy the practical side of keeping house, helping with the cooking and cleaning.  

However it had always been expected that the girls would go out as governesses or teachers and earn their living… as Patrick had little money to leave them.  Miss Branwell had made a will dividing her own small fortune among the 3 girls.

 Their brother Branwell was at first considered to be the cleverest of the children.  Patrick had taught him himself, and knew he was an intelligence boy, and he also had a talent for painting.  However when Branwell tried to set up as a painter in a nearby city, things didn’t work out well.  He got few commissions and began more and more to seek amusement in drinking and talking with his male friends many of whom were artists or budding writers.

The girls had always looked up to and made sacrifices for him, as he was meant to be the one who would be a success in life and might be able to help provide for his sisters when Patrick was gone.  However it was becoming apparent that in spite of his genuine intelligence, Branwell had personality problems which meant that he could not be depended on…and that he was not likely to make his fortune as an artist or writer.

The girls began to try to plan for some way of earning their living which was less difficult than governessing…  They thought of opening a school, which would mean that they were in charge and could control their lives and reap all the profits…

Emily Bronte Part II

 Emily continued her education at home after the disastrous time at Cowan Bridge.  She was intelligent and Patrick Bronte was a well educated man who allowed his daughters to read freely...  They loved books and reading and were eager to educate themselves.  Then they began to make up stories about a set of toys that Patrick brought them home from a trip to town.  They read the newspapers and were eager supporters of the Duke of Wellington, and they based the stories at first on what they read in the news.  

Creating a private world of fiction wasn't uncommon for some literary children in the 19th century.. but the Brontes took it to great lengths.  They not only wrote down and acted out their stories but they also created little magazines got up to look like printed ones.  It was obvious that all four of them were going to write....

After a time, where they all joined in writing stories of Angria, the world they had created, Emily and Anne withdrew from the partnership and created their own fictional island of Gondal... All the Brontes were interested in love and heroism and they lauded the wild and free world they had created over the narrow civilised world.  Most of Emily's poems from Gondal have not survived but her land was ruled by queens, and women were powerful and passionate in her fiction.... 

However in real life, Emily was shy and awkward and had little interest in other people outside her family.  All the Brontes were shy to a degree.  Branwell was the most sociable and he made male friends with whom he socialised in pubs.  The girls were more restricted and met few people.  Charlotte had gone to school in her teens, this time to Miss Wooler's school were she was happy and kindly treated.  However Emily went there for a short time and was so unhappy that she became ill and had to go home. 

Emily Bronte part I

 I’ve often toyed with the idea of writing a novel about Emily Bronte, but so little is known about her life that it is difficult.  There have been a few works but I haven’t enjoyed any of them.  Bronte left almost nothing after her early death but her one novel Wuthering Heights and some poetry.

She wrote very few letters, had no personal friends outside the family and seemed content with a very narrow and isolated life in Haworth Yorkshire.

She was born in 1818, to an Irish father Patrick Bronte and a Cornish mother, Maria Branwell.  The family moved to Haworth when she was a small child, and soon afterwards her mother died.

The loss of her mother may have been a trauma for her, as she was very young but just old enough to have memories of Maria…

Elizabeth Branwell, Maria’s sister, came to live in the parsonage to look after the 6 children and was a good but unimaginative woman. They were grateful for her help and care but she never seems to have become very close to any of them and probably found Yorkshire cold and isolated.  

She had come from a middle class family in Cornwall who had had  a reasonable social life..and in Yorkshire, the Brontes were not that well off and did not socialise much.  Patrick was an intelligent and unusual man, who also liked to try his hand at writing fiction and poems - but he had his oddities and became increasingly reclusive after the death of his wife. He worked hard and was devoted to his clerical duties but apart from some church related socialising he lived quietly.  He ate apart from the children who were all shy and who were somewhat nervous outside the family circle. Emily seems to have resembled her father to some extent in being intelligent but unusual and reclusive.

Then when she was only 6, another disaster overtook the family.  She was sent to school with her older sisters, to a small private school for girls which was cheap but promised education for the daughter of impoverished clergymen. Patrick was conscious that although his job as curate of Haworth brought in a modest income, he had no money to leave for his girls and so they would probably have to become governesses. He wanted them to get a good education, and sent them to Cowan Bridge school.  The school was badly run however and the children were ill treated, badly fed and cared for.  Within a few months the 2 older girls Maria and Elizabeth, became ill and both were removed from the school and died at home.  Charlotte and Emily were also brought home and Patrick was reluctant to send them away again.

Charlotte never forgot the school, and blamed the people who ran it for her sisters’ death and her own poor health.  Emily said nothing about it, but it may well have a been a second trauma in her life, to have seen her sisters grow ill and die, and seen the cruelty and neglect at the school.  Her one novel touches on cruelty to children In the harshness with which Heathcliff is treated as an orphan and a “gypsy” child..

M/F

 

Gatsby

 Fitzgerald originally intended the book to be called Trimalcho, after a freed slave in ancient Rome, who makes money.  It ended up as a modern morality tale about a poor boy who walks out on his impoverished family and re invents himself as a gentleman by becoming an officer in the Army and serving in the War.  He goes to Oxford for a short time and on his return to America, he makes a fortune.  However its clear that he has made his money by very dubious means, working with gangsters and the men who fixed the World Series in baseball, a shocking scandal at the time in America.  

He lives an extravagant life with vulgar loud parties and conspicuous consumption and hopes by befriending Nick Carraway that he can meet with and renew his affair with Daisy.  He does so, because Daisy is unhappy with Tom, who is unfaithful to her, and has never entirely forgotten Gatsby.. though her husband makes it clear that he thinks that Gatsby is vulgar and dubious...She is drawn back to Gatsby, and her attraction towards him is mingled with her materialistic desires.. He is now rich and glamourous as well as the man who has loved her.  

Nick is embarrassed to be embroiled in the affair but has grown fond of Gatsby, and wants him to be happy.  He is also drawn into a romantic flirtation with Jordan Baker even though he knows she is casually dishonest. 

Tom pursues his affair with Myrtle Wilson who lives with her husband, in a working class district near to the Gatsby house.  Myrtle is in love with him and desperate to get away from her dull husband but to Tom she is just an amusement.  Wilson becomes suspicious of his wife's behavior and to get away from him she rushes into the road.  She is knocked down by a car which doesn't stop.  Wilson is distraught at her death, he is a lonely man with no friends or family.. and loved his wife in his way.  Nick realises that the car that killed Myrtle was Gatsby's car and he finds out that Daisy was driving....

However Tom who is by now aware of his wife's relationship with Gatsby tells Wilson who owned the car.. He doesn't realize that Daisy was actually driving.  Wilson in a rage shoots Gatsby, and it is only then after his death that Nick finds out the details of Gatsby's past life, of how he came from a poor family, and got into crime and dubious behaviour to escape poverty.   Gatsby's elderly father turns up to see his dead son, but noone comes to the funeral although in the days of parties, there were hundreds of guests at the house.  Daisy seems to shrug off her affair with her lover and returns to her marriage to Tom.. 

Nick is shocked by  Tom and Daisy's indifference and carelessness, an illustration of Fitzgerald's maxim that the "very rich are different to you and me" because they can shelter from the consequences of their bad behaviour by using their money to protect them... and that as a result, they develop a callousness and lack of conscience.  He organises Gatsby's funeral, and is pained at the way that nobody turned up apart from old Mr Gatz, Gatsby's father...He feels that in spite of Gatsby's involvement in crime, he was at least capable of love for Daisy and was more generous than most of the people who hung off him.  He remembers Jordan's dishonesty and he decides to leave the East and go back West...where the old American values are still honoured.   

M/F

Harlan Howard Three Chords and the Truth

 Harlan Howard was one of the most prolific country song writers.  He was born in 1927 in Detroit, Michigan.  He was brought up on a farm and like most country children one of the few entertainments available was listening to the Grand Old Opry on the radio.  He loved the music and started to write his own songs at an early age.  He left school early, already and eventual joined the US army.

After his time in the army, he began to write songs and worked at various jobs, to earn a living while he tried to get them sold.  He's famous for defining country music as "three chords and the truth."  It was a simple form of music, but what made it special was that it was about the truth of human life and emotion......It was about ordinary people and  their problems and stories....

In the late 1950s after a few years of struggle, Harlan began to sell songs that were successful.  His first hit was Pick Me Up on Your Way Down, a jaunty love song about a girl who mixes with the rich but will return to her old lover when they fail her.... .  He then had another success when Ray Price had a big hit with Heartaches by the Number.  He moved to Nashville in 1960 and signed a writing contract and had a great deal of success in the 1960s.  He was married more than once and one of his wives was the country singer Jan Howard...

He understood music and loved country, because it was a truthful take on ordinary people's lives, about the problems that they had, not big ones but little ones like loving someone who didn't return your love, poverty and worrying about your children, infidelity, divorce, heartache and pain... Another of his big hits was Busted which was recorded by Johnny Cash, about a man who is falling into poverty...and one of his greatest songs was the Patsy Cline number I Fall to Pieces.  

He lived in Nashville and died there in 2002.  

F Scott Fitzgerald Part III

 Fitzgerald began to work on the Great Gatsby, a novel about a man who (Like himself) loves a girl who is from a richer family, and who sacrifices his whole life in order to try and win her love.  Gatsby is from the Mid west, from a poor family, but he tries to improve himself and make money.  Then like Fitzgerald he goes into the army, and he does serve in Europe during the War.  He meets Daisy Fay - a Southern Belle, whose family think he’s not rich enough or grand enough for her.  Daisy seems to return his love but she is volatile and swayed by her family.  While Gatsby is posted off to service in France, she marries Tom Buchanan, a rich member of the WASP elite.

They live abroad for a couple of years and have a daughter and are distantly related to Nick Carraway, the narrator of the book.

When Nick moves to New York, he rents a cottage on Long Island, and starts to work in the bonds business.  He reconnects with Daisy and her husband, but he is bewildered by their marriage which seems to be in trouble.  Tom is a former college athlete, not very clever, who has racist and right wing views.  Tom also has a mistress, a working class married woman called Myrtle Wilson whom he takes to New York and invites Nick to join them on their pleasure excursions.

Nick being a Mid Westerner from “provincial conservative America” is a little shocked by Tom’s behaviour.  He can see that Daisy is unhappy.  She has a friend, Jordan Baker, a well to do society girl who plays in golf tournaments.  He notes that there were rumours of Jordan cheating at her games, but he feels that “dishonesty in a woman” is not of much importance. In the early part of the novel, he is fascinated by the morals or lack of them of postwar America and New York, later he will become more moralistic. He has travelled some distance mentally from his family in the West, who had made a comfortable fortune from a business, which was based on solid goods and services.  However the bonds business is a new area of work.  He is learning about it as he goes along and is aware of its strangeness and fragility, and that it is not related to real life work and business. It is about the manipulation of money and selling bits of paper…and it will lead to the Wall St Crash at the end of the 20s.  

The book is a short one but the plot is complicated.  Nick finds that his neighbour is Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who holds parties in his fancy mansion every weekend.  He has all sorts of people at them, actresses, society people.  Nick wonders about him, as noone seems to know the source of his wealth.  Its rumoured that he’s a bootlegger or that his money has come from some other dubious source. He and Nick are similar in that their money comes from something that noone understands.....

Nick finds that Jay is using him to get to meet with Daisy, and that Daisy was the girl to whom he was engaged, when he was posted down south during the War.  Jay went on to serve in France, but on returning to America, he found that Daisy had broken with him and married Tom Buchanan.  He still loves her and wants her back.

Since Daisy left him because he was not wealthy or blue blooded, he acquires great wealth and creates a party social lifestyle in hopes that he will be able to attract her back and make her love him again.