then she lives on as a projection of his imagination. Lucy, the bodiless narrator, who gives flesh and blood to the past, is stuck when the past meets the present. The young version of Lucy vanishes along with the realism of her narrative, and the older phantom Lucy emerges in her place.
In a rarely cited letter to W. S. Williams, Brontë offers some advice on being a female celebrity for one of his daughters, Fanny, who was considering becoming a singer. She writes, “An inferior artist, I am sure you would not wish your daughter to be, and if she is to stand in the foremost rank, only her own courage and resolve can place her there; so, at least, the case appears to me. Fanny probably looks on publicity as degrading, and I believe that for a woman it is degrading if it is not glorious” (Shorter, Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle, p. 416). For Brontë, it was not worth being famous unless she could be superior. Lucy’s constant desire to manipulate her self-presentation echoes Brontë’s own wish to carefully shape her image as a visible literary figure and a dignified woman.
In the public world of the novel, Lucy is fiercely protective of her private thoughts and feelings. Yet behind the scenes she reveals her secrets to her readers through an intensely personal narrative. In these moments Brontë creates for Lucy a descriptive language for the inexpressible. In doing so, she explores the uncanny realm of being—the material reality of the body that competes with the desire for immortality, the intensity of memory versus the awareness of what will always be lost, the starkness of fact against the sensuality of what can only be imagined. While Lucy may be remembered as Brontë’s most autobiographical creation, she is, ultimately, Brontë’s map for female literary genius, an intangible authorial presence that remains perplexing, dynamic, and vividly invisible.
Laura Engel received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. She is an assistant professor in the English Department at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where she specializes in eighteenth-century British literature and drama. Her previous publications include essays on the novelists A. S. Byatt and Edna O’Brien. She is currently working on a book that explores the connections between women and celebrity in eighteenth-century culture. Engel also wrote the Introduction and Notes for the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
Villette
By CURRER BELL
AUTHOR OF “JANE EYRE,” “SHIRLEY,” ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOLUME ONE
CHAPTER 1
Bretton
M y godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton. Her husband’s family had been residents there for generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace—Bretton of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his neighbourhood, I know not.
When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street, where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide—so quiet was its atmosphere, so clean its pavement—these things pleased me well.
One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of, and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton, who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and handsome woman.
She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome, tall, well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing always the clearness of health in her brunette cheeks, and its vivacity in a pair of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous
In a rarely cited letter to W. S. Williams, Brontë offers some advice on being a female celebrity for one of his daughters, Fanny, who was considering becoming a singer. She writes, “An inferior artist, I am sure you would not wish your daughter to be, and if she is to stand in the foremost rank, only her own courage and resolve can place her there; so, at least, the case appears to me. Fanny probably looks on publicity as degrading, and I believe that for a woman it is degrading if it is not glorious” (Shorter, Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle, p. 416). For Brontë, it was not worth being famous unless she could be superior. Lucy’s constant desire to manipulate her self-presentation echoes Brontë’s own wish to carefully shape her image as a visible literary figure and a dignified woman.
In the public world of the novel, Lucy is fiercely protective of her private thoughts and feelings. Yet behind the scenes she reveals her secrets to her readers through an intensely personal narrative. In these moments Brontë creates for Lucy a descriptive language for the inexpressible. In doing so, she explores the uncanny realm of being—the material reality of the body that competes with the desire for immortality, the intensity of memory versus the awareness of what will always be lost, the starkness of fact against the sensuality of what can only be imagined. While Lucy may be remembered as Brontë’s most autobiographical creation, she is, ultimately, Brontë’s map for female literary genius, an intangible authorial presence that remains perplexing, dynamic, and vividly invisible.
Laura Engel received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. She is an assistant professor in the English Department at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where she specializes in eighteenth-century British literature and drama. Her previous publications include essays on the novelists A. S. Byatt and Edna O’Brien. She is currently working on a book that explores the connections between women and celebrity in eighteenth-century culture. Engel also wrote the Introduction and Notes for the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
Villette
By CURRER BELL
AUTHOR OF “JANE EYRE,” “SHIRLEY,” ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOLUME ONE
CHAPTER 1
Bretton
M y godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton. Her husband’s family had been residents there for generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace—Bretton of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his neighbourhood, I know not.
When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street, where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide—so quiet was its atmosphere, so clean its pavement—these things pleased me well.
One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of, and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton, who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and handsome woman.
She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome, tall, well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing always the clearness of health in her brunette cheeks, and its vivacity in a pair of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous
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