#47 - Bronte - Emily Bronte

Title:  Bronte

Author:  Emily Bronte

Genre:  Poetry

Publisher/Date:  David Campbell Publishers, LTD/1996

ISBN:  9781857157284

Dates read:  7/8/17 - 7/23/17

As the editor’s note says “Emily Bronte’s poems are a reader’s pleasure and an editor’s headache. Most were unpublished in her life-time, many appear to be unfinished, punctuation is either erratic or entirely absent, and it is sometimes hard to tell whether the verses are autobiographical, written for the ‘Gondal’ saga she composed with her sister, Anne, or prompted by other motives.” 

Not familiar with the ‘Gondal’ saga I googled it and found a list of poems that Emily wrote between 1838 and 1845, most of which can be found in this book of poetry.  It all makes one to read the stories behind Gondal that the two girls invented in defense of their sister and brother’s imaginative stories of Angora, Exina and Alcona.  Yet these written stories are lost.

I love the cadence of her work.  The subject matter drifts from seasons to death and war, from midnight moons to fragrant dewy mornings.  Most are short – only five or six verses though some range in length from four to five pages.   I love how the editor summarizes this work – “As readers of Wuthering Heights will recognize, the shifting border between fact and dream is a hallmark of this writer’s imaginative world.”