If the Bronte sisters were alive and writing today, would we even notice their talents?
In screenwriting class you learn how to characterize using visions alongside words; how the location of a character can reveal much about them. My tutor would give Wuthering Heights as his classic example of 'characterization through setting'; in the novel the moor embodies wilderness in Heathcliff's character. At this point, reminded by his previous claim that genius is mostly luck, I ask "Couldn't Emily Bronte have just set her novel in a place that she knew - Haworth?"
It could just be my character, or just that I live near there too, but Haworth is a place I often find myself. It is a small but striking town surrounded by Moors that almost appear to be lying in wait, ready to reclaim the ephemeral little civilization that sprung up in their midst. At the top of the steep hill in Haworth is the Bronte's old house, now a museum.
Inside amongst various pieces of memorabilia: clothes, paintings, manuscripts, and toys belonging to the Bronte sisters and lesser-known brother, is a case containing locks of their hair - apparently it was an ancient tradition to keep such a thing, making it into jewelry if the person died. This got me thinking, and again influenced by the movies, I wondered if it would be possible to steal these locks of hair to clone the Bronte sisters in an act reminiscent of taking dinosaur DNA from fossilized insect blood in Jurassic Park. Only this time the adventure would have been just a hundred or so years in the making.
Dreaming of a call from Steven Spielberg, I imagined a theme park where the public could pay to see the ancient Bronte creatures in their natural habitat, the wild moors. I imagined a greedy curator, grown powerful from all the £6 entry fees to the old museum, turned mad through an insatiable thirst for coins. I imagined what would happen when the inevitable disaster came, would the Brontes break free from their park and run amok? Would they tear down trees and eat people or, simply, write? Would anyone even notice their presence in the modern literary world?
A real, live dinosaur trampling its way along Oxford street would sure draw attention. But the Bronte sisters and their writing reintroduced these days might not cause such a commotion. Plenty of exhibits at their museum suggest such a thing. For one, they had to publish their work under the names of men, for being a woman writer would not have been taken seriously. Only one of them was ever a success in her own lifetime. They also received plenty of rejection and bad reviews. One letter to Charlotte Bronte from the Poet Laureate of the time, Robert Southey, is particularly revealing:
You evidently possess and in no inconsiderable degree what Wordsworth calls 'the faculty of Verse'. I am not depreciating it when I say that in these times it is not rare. Many volumes of poems are now published every year without attracting public attention, any one of which, if it had appeared half a century ago would have obtained a higher reputation for its author. Whoever therefore is ambitious of distinction in this way, ought to be prepared for disappointment.
Perhaps that is the thing these days, more so even than in the Bronte's time. With the ever growing population on this earth there are far too many writers who are good enough, and possess the faculty, who in the past would have been lauded for their scarcity. But now their life work can amount to just another manuscript or two on the slush pile. Had they been brought back to life in the modern world, while the Bronte sisters would no doubt have been pleased that women can publish under their own names, they might not have enjoyed the crowded market place. They might not even have been published. There are plenty of examples of previous Booker prize winning manuscripts being rejected by modern publishers. Listen carefully and you might still just hear their fading growls across the moorland.
