Thresholds of the sublime: Life, Death, and Nature in the Works of Emily Brontë

Isabel Luísa Ferreira Pinto Thresholds of the Sublime: Life, Death, and Nature in the Works of Emily Brontë dezembro de 2024 Thresholds of the Sublime: Life, Death, and Nature in the Works of Emily Brontë Isabel Luísa Ferreira Pinto UMinho|2024 Universidade do Minho Escola de Letras, Artes e Ciências Humanas Isabel Luísa Ferreira Pinto Thresholds of the Sublime: Life, Death, and Nature in the Works of Emily Brontë dezembro de 2024 Dissertação de Mestrado Mestrado em Língua, Literatura e Cultura Inglesas Trabalho efetuado sob a orientação da Professora Doutora Paula Alexandra Varanda Ribeiro Guimarães Universidade do Minho Escola de Letras, Artes e Ciências Humanas ii Direitos de autor e condições de utilização do trabalho por terceiros Este é um trabalho académico que pode ser utilizado por terceiros desde que respeitadas as regras e boas práticas internacionalmente aceites, no que concerne aos direitos de autor e direitos conexos. Assim, o presente trabalho pode ser utilizado nos termos previstos na licença abaixo indicada. Caso o utilizador necessite de permissão para poder fazer um uso do trabalho em condições não previstas no licenciamento indicado, deverá contactar o autor, através do RepositóriUM da Universidade do Minho. Licença concedida aos utilizadores deste trabalho Atribuição-NãoComercial-CompartilhaIgual CC BY-NC-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ iii Acknowledgements This dissertation has been both a testament to my resilience and an immensely rewarding journey. Along the way, I have been fortunate to receive support from many incredible individuals, without whom this work would not have been possible. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Paula Guimarães. Her brilliance, expertise, and unwavering belief in my potential were the cornerstone of this project. Her demanding yet invaluable guidance not only shaped the direction of my work but also elevated it. Her wit and encouragement carried me through the most challenging moments, and for that, I am forever grateful. I extend my heartfelt thanks to my friends, my classmates, and my colleagues at BabeliUM, particularly Eva Gonçalves, who cheered me on from day one. Her relentless strength and warmth provided the extra push I often needed to persevere. I am also deeply grateful to my daughter, Luísa, whose patience and sacrifice will always be remembered. Thank you, Luísa, for enduring countless hours without your mother’s full attention while she wrote about “Emily Jane.” Your love and understanding have meant everything. To my brother Ricardo, thank you for the engaging discussions on 19th-century topics, which enriched my perspective and contributed meaningfully to this work. Finally, I am and will be endlessly indebted to my parents, who have always believed in me; thank you for your unconditional support and love. This has been a long road, but it is finally done. To everyone who supported me along the way, this achievement is also yours. iv Statement of Integrity I hereby declare having conducted this academic work with integrity. I confirm that I have not used plagiarism or any form of undue use of information or falsification of results along the process leading to its elaboration. I further declare that I have fully acknowledged the Code of Ethical Conduct of the University of Minho. v Thresholds of the Sublime: Life, Death, and Nature in the Works of Emily Brontë Abstract Although not always duly recognised, Emily Brontë’s influence on the cultural, literary, and artistic world is undeniable. More than 175 years after the first publication of her works, hundreds, if not thousands, of critical studies have sought to unravel not only the intricate web of her narrative devices, structures, and characters but also the originality of her ideas and the complexities of her poetic creations. This dissertation examines the works of Emily Brontë, including both her poetry and her sole novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), intertwining them with the operational concept of the Sublime, in its various dimensions. The Sublime is considered transversal to the thematic categories of her work's poetic and narrative structures, not only with regard to the natural landscape—particularly the moors and the wind—but also to her times, characters, events, and dialogues. Drawing upon the theories of the Sublime proposed by thinkers such as Longinus, Edmund Burke, and Immanuel Kant, as well as the ensuing debates, including Mary Wollstonecraft’s critique of Burke, this study explores how the Sublime serves as a lens through which Brontë’s writing negotiates the boundaries (or absence thereof) of human experience. Through a detailed formal and structural analysis, this dissertation focuses on a selection of five paradigmatic poems, branching out into other related lyric compositions, and also her novel Wuthering Heights, thus emphasising how Brontë’s recurring exploration of thresholds—between the self, the Other, and nature—both represents and triggers the Sublime. The findings reveal that Brontë’s depiction of the Sublime interconnects with and emerges from the persistent conflict between life and death, with natural, physical, metaphysical, and psychological thresholds acting as powerful catalysts for this dynamic. This study not only illuminates the richness and complexity of Brontë’s works but also paves the way for further exploration of the intersections between the Sublime, liminality, and reader engagement in other works and literary traditions. Keywords: Sublime, thresholds, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, poetry vi Limiares do Sublime: Vida, Morte e Natureza na Obra de Emily Brontë Resumo Embora nem sempre lembrada, a influência de Emily Brontë nas diferentes facetas do mundo cultural, literário e artístico é inegável. Mais de 175 anos após a primeira publicação das suas obras, centenas, se não milhares, de publicações críticas tentaram já desvendar não só a sua teia intricada de recursos narrativos, estruturas e personagens, mas também a originalidade das suas ideias e as complexidades das suas criações poéticas. Nesta dissertação, analisamos a obra de Emily Brontë, tanto a sua poesia como o seu único romance, Wuthering Heights (1847), entrelaçando-a com o conceito operacional de Sublime, nas suas diversas dimensões. Considera-se o Sublime como transversal às categorias temáticas tanto das estruturas poéticas como narrativas da sua obra, e não só em relação à paisagem natural – particularmente as charnecas e o vento – mas também relativamente ao seu tempo, às suas personagens, eventos e diálogos. Com base nas teorias do Sublime postuladas por pensadores como Longinus, Edmund Burke e Immanuel Kant, e nos debates que se seguiram, incluindo a crítica de Mary Wollstonecraft a Burke, este estudo explora as diversas formas como o Sublime serve como uma lente através da qual a escrita de Brontë dialoga com os limites da experiência humana (ou a falta deles). Através de uma análise formal e estrutural detalhada, centra-se numa seleção de cinco poemas paradigmáticos, ramificando-se, depois, para outras composições líricas com eles associadas; e também no seu romance, Wuthering Heights, focando-se na forma como a sua reiterada exploração de limiares – entre o eu, o Outro e a natureza – não só representa como desencadeia o Sublime. Este estudo revela que a representação do Sublime em Emily Brontë se interliga e emana do persistente conflito entre a vida e a morte, com os limiares naturais, físicos, metafísicos e psicológicos a atuarem como um poderoso catalisador desta dinâmica. O seu resultado ilumina a riqueza e a complexidade das obras de Brontë, abrindo também a porta a novas investigações sobre as intersecções entre o Sublime, a liminaridade e o envolvimento do leitor noutras obras e tradições literárias. Palavras-chave: Sublime, limiares, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, poesia vii Contents Direitos de autor e condições de utilização do trabalho por terceiros ........................................... ii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. iii Statement of Integrity ............................................................................................................. iv Abstract .................................................................................................................................. v Resumo .................................................................................................................................. vi Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter I An Introduction to Emily Brontë’s Work and the Times of the Sublime ......................... 10 Chapter II On the Meaning and Different Concepts (and Applications) of the Sublime .................. 50 2.1 Longinus’s Peri Hupsos ................................................................................................... 51 2.1.1 Longinus’s Sublime and Sappho ................................................................................ 55 2.2 Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) .................................................................................................................. 57 2.2.1 Edmund Burke and the (a)gendered debate on the Sublime – Mary Wollstonecraft ..... 62 2.3 Immanuel Kant’s “Analytic of the Sublime” (1790) ........................................................... 66 2.4 Main Echoes and Types of the Sublime in Emily Brontë’s Work ......................................... 72 Chapter III The Sublime in Emily Brontë’s Poetry and Wuthering Heights .................................... 75 3. 1 A Comparative Analysis of the Sublime in Emily Brontë’s Poems and Wuthering Heights .... 80 3.1.1 “High waving heather ‘neath stormy blasts bending” ................................................. 80 3.1.2 “Sleep brings no joy to me” ...................................................................................... 87 3.1.3 “The night is darkening round me” ........................................................................... 94 3.1.4 “In summer’s mellow midnight” ............................................................................. 104 3.1.5 “Cold in the earth and the deep snow piled above thee!” ......................................... 116 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 130 Annex I Full text of the Poems Analysed in Chapter III of this Dissertation ................................. 139 References ........................................................................................................................... 146 Primary Works Cited ......................................................................................................... 146 Secondary Works Cited ..................................................................................................... 146 6 and dreams), metaphysical thresholds (between the realms of the dead and the living), and spiritual thresholds (by experiencing the collision between forces of heaven and earth). The question we pose here serves to broaden discussions of the Sublime in Emily Brontë’s studies. While many critics have noted the Sublime in Brontë’s work, this study foregrounds thresholds as essential to understanding her particular vision of the Sublime. This approach not only enriches interpretations of her poetry and Wuthering Heights but also offers insight into how liminality functions as a narrative and psychological device in 19th-century literature. Brontë’s writings have been extensively analysed from diverse critical perspectives, including structuralist, feminist, Marxist, and psychoanalytic approaches. These studies have illuminated relevant aspects of Emily’s themes, character psychology, and social contexts, demonstrating her complex relationship with the 19th-century’s social, political, literary, and cultural landscape(s). While references to the Sublime do appear in scholarship, they are rarely central to the analysis. Many critics have examined the novel’s complex structure, its dark and supernatural atmosphere, its depictions of gender and power, and its transgressive love story. In these interpretations, the Sublime is often acknowledged – such as through the wild landscape of the moors or the haunting intensity of Heathcliff and Catherine’s bond – but typically as a secondary aspect rather than a primary focus. As such, few studies treat the Sublime as an organising theme in Brontë’s work and even fewer examine how her treatment of the Sublime operates across her poetry in dialogue with Wuthering Heights or how it may involve specific structural and thematic devices, such as thresholds. Mary Visik’s The Genesis of Wuthering Heights (1958) and Chitham’s The Birth of Wuthering Heights (1998) do intertwine specific poems (particularly those pertaining to the Gondal saga) with narrative points of Wuthering Heights. And it is undeniable that Brontë’s poetry often serves as a foundation for the themes and imagery in her novel, as Wuthering Heights amplifies and extends many of the Sublime elements found in Emily’s poetry. Despite these efforts, critics typically focus either on the novel or her poetry, and few of these studies consider the Sublime as a unifying theme across both genres. 7 We intend to address this gap by analysing how Brontë uses the Sublime consistently across her novel and poetry, thus illuminating a thematic continuity in her work. A dual-genre approach will illustrate the consistency and complexity of Brontë’s exploration of the Sublime by linking it to the theme of thresholds, arguing that Brontë uses these liminal spaces to intensify characters’ and readers’ engagement with the Sublime. Therefore, this research opens a new line of inquiry that adds depth to interpretations of both her novel and poetry. It will not only enrich the understanding of her literary vision but also integrate her unique contribution into 19th-century representations of the Sublime. In Chapter I, we shall contextualise the social and economic climate of the first five decades of the 19th century and outline the significance of the French Revolution's aftermath. The Revolution, with its radical overturning of the old order, was itself an event of the Sublime. The upheaval of the masses, the vast scale of social and political transformation, and the terror that accompanied it all resonate with the concept of the Sublime as a force that both overwhelms and challenges human understanding. The Great Reform Act of 1832, while less violent than the French Revolution, can still be seen as a Sublime political moment. It was a massive shift in British society that broke down some of the barriers to political participation, as it expanded suffrage to previously excluded groups and addressed some inequalities in political representation. The act represented the vast and overwhelming forces of change and reform, which, though more gradual, still carried the weight of transformation, echoing the philosophical undercurrents of the Sublime. Other events include the Irish Question, concerning immigration and Ireland's nationalist struggle, and the Catholic Question, resolved partly by the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, which allowed Catholics to hold public office. These are also linked to the Sublime by portraying human suffering and the struggle for freedom. The pain and resilience involved in the Irish struggle and the Catholic struggle for civil rights invoked a moral and emotional response that could be considered Sublime. By situating these historical events within the context of the Sublime, we see how thresholds—whether political, moral, or ideological—generate not only transformations in society but also powerful emotional responses that are integral to the human experience. The threshold is a moment where individuals and communities confront vast, often uncontrollable 8 forces, leading to a Sublime encounter that transcends ordinary life and reshapes the way individuals perceive the world around them. Chapter I will also cover the potential literary influence in Emily’s work by writers such as Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as they explored the interplay between humanity and nature, the power of the imagination, and the value of emotional authenticity, themes that became central in Emily’s writings. It will also include a short section on the critical reception of her works both in her time and during the 20th and 21st centuries. In Chapter II, we shall move on to the definition(s) of the Sublime, by analysing, contrasting, and synthesising the concept in light of the above-mentioned writings on the subject; the precursor of the term 'Sublime', Longinus, who defined it as a feeling of grandeur and awe; Edmund Burke, to whom the Sublime and the beautiful were mutually exclusive, thus stating that what is "dark, uncertain, and confused" may well evoke awe and a degree of horror, the dual emotional quality of fear and attraction, which he called delight or "negative pleasure"; and Immanuel Kant, who sees the Sublime as evocative of not only awe but also a form of terror-inducing violence, when faced with "a formless object" in all its boundlessness. Chapter III shall include a detailed analysis of how the Sublime takes its shape in and applies to the works of Emily Brontë. By analysing a specific selection from the vast corpus (both published and unpublished) she left us with, we shall try to depict what lies on the threshold of the imagery of light and darkness, heaven and earth, one character and the Other. This analysis will include a variety of textual sources: not only poems from Emily Brontë's different stages in life, from her juvenilia to later poetry, but also compositions written in her own poetic voice and those portraying the imaginary world of Glasstown and Gondal, in which she lends her voice to different characters and narrators of such world(s). Other than their motifs, themes and narrative content, such poems will also be analysed as to their form and style, which also contribute to the description of Emily Brontë's particular, almost exclusive, style. From this point, we shall establish a bridge to her novel, Wuthering Heights, and, cumulatively, show how both the concept of the Sublime and Emily Brontë's poetry find an echo in the bursting lines of her narrative in its different categories: setting, time, characters, action, and dialogue. 9 We conducted a close textual analysis of the selected poems and extracts from Wuthering Heights, focusing on elements of prosody (rhythm, meter, stress, and alliteration, assonance, and consonance), structural analysis (arrangement, length, rhyme scheme, and pattern of stanzas), and rhetorical analysis (figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, and other rhetorical devices). We examined how these elements interact to create meaning and emotional depth, with a specific emphasis on identifying instances of the Sublime. This included analysing how language and imagery evoke grandeur, awe, or intensity and exploring thematic and stylistic connections that resonate with the concept of the Sublime. This dissertation makes an original contribution by combining insights from Longinus, Burke, and Kant, thus creating a nuanced framework that captures the sensory, emotional, and philosophical dimensions of Brontë’s Sublime. This multi-theoretical approach allows one to analyse how Brontë’s language, imagery, and character dynamics work together to evoke the Sublime in different layers. By integrating these theorists, we demonstrate that Brontë’s Sublime is both multifaceted and anticipatory of later literary and philosophical explorations of human psychology and existential boundaries. This approach not only deepens our understanding of Brontë’s aesthetic but also offers a valuable methodological model for studying the Sublime in other literary contexts. Ultimately, this research positions Emily Brontë as a pivotal figure in 19th-century literature, whose exploration of the Sublime continues to speak to universal questions about human nature, the limits of understanding, and the boundaries of existence. 10 Chapter I An Introduction to Emily Brontë’s Work and the Times of the Sublime It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities The first five decades of the 19th century in England were marked by significant social and economic changes, driven mainly by industrialisation, urbanisation, and political reform. We need, however, to go back at least a hundred years to truly understand how not only the English landscape but the entire European scene influenced the artistic and literary manifestations of the mid-19th century, of which Emily Brontë, along with her sisters Charlotte and Anne, were a part. Although the Brontë literary canon is more commonly associated with the three Brontë sisters, their brother Branwell Brontë was also a writer and an artist and contributed largely to their early creative endeavours. Branwell wrote poetry and prose, collaborating with his sisters in their fictional worlds of the Glass Town Confederacy and, later, with Charlotte in their kingdom of Angria. Despite his literary talent, Branwell’s work never achieved the same acclaim and “immortality” as his sisters' poetry and novels. A life of excess, addiction, and poor health overshadowed his potential and cut short his artistic aspirations. The county where they were born and lived most of their lives, Yorkshire, home to the Brontë family, played a significant role in the Industrial Revolution during the 19th century, contributing to the transformation of England's economy and society, namely in the textile industry. Cities such as Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, and Halifax, a mere 6 miles from Thornton, the birthplace of the Brontë children, and 10 miles from Haworth, where the Brontës lived their childhood and adult lives, became major centres for woollen and worsted cloth production. The mechanisation of textile manufacturing, including the invention of the spinning jenny, patented by James Hargreaves in 1770, and the power loom, by Edmund 11 Cartwright in 1785, revolutionised the production process and led to the establishment of large-scale textile mills in Yorkshire. The Industrial Revolution also led to the rapid urbanisation in Yorkshire, as rural workers migrated to industrial towns and cities in search of employment in factories and mills. The largest urban centres experienced dramatic population growth, leading to the expansion and, more often than not, degradation of housing, sanitation, and public services. In addition, these migration movements also brought about profound social changes to Yorkshire’s harsh landscape, including the emergence of a working-class population, the rise of industrial capitalism, and the development of class consciousness among workers. Industrialisation also led to significant environmental degradation, as pollution from factories and mines contaminated the air and waterways, with the exodus of rural migrants flocking to urban areas in search of work. This influx of people resulted in overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions in urban slums. Cities like Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool became centres of industrial activity. It is in the latter, Liverpool, that Wuthering Heights’ Mr Earnshaw travels for unspecified business affairs and brings back a foundling, Heathcliff, thus changing the course of literature. As industry reshaped the landscape, factories, railways, and urban expansion confronted individuals with new forms of overwhelming power and vastness, both physically and metaphorically. The Sublime, traditionally associated with nature’s grandeur—like mountains, storms, or oceans—found a new expression in these technological and societal shifts. The mechanical dominance and sheer scale of industrial innovation inspired a sense of awe at human ingenuity while simultaneously invoking feelings of insignificance, fear, and even alienation in the face of unstoppable progress. Writers of the time, such as Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, often grappled with these dualities, depicting dystopian sceneries and reflecting the tensions between technological advancement and the individual’s emotional and psychological response to the colossal forces of industrialisation. Thus, the Industrial Revolution, much like nature itself, became a powerful symbol of the Sublime in 19th-century literature. Charles Dickens’s Hard Times (1854) critiques the dehumanising effects of industrialisation on society. Describing on the fictional town of Coketown (a stand-in for industrial cities like Manchester or Birmingham), the author highlights the pollution and environmental degradation and depicts the monotonous, bleak lives of factory workers under 12 the oppressive power of factory owners, revealing the crushing social inequalities arising from industrial capitalism: It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next. 4 (p.32) Likewise, Elizabeth Gaskell, in Mary Barton (1848), explores the harsh conditions and class divides created by the Industrial Revolution. Gaskell, a Mancunian herself, portrayed both the grim realities of factory life and the struggles between workers and industrialists. The conditions of the poor people of Manchester are abject, and men like John Barton contrast these conditions with the lifestyles of the rich factory owners for whom time off work means a holiday rather than death and suffering. She took the bread, when it was put into her hand, and broke a bit, but could not eat. She was past hunger. She fell down on the floor with a heavy unresisting bang. The men looked puzzled. ‘She's well-nigh clemmed,’ said Barton. ‘Folk do say one mustn't give clemmed people much to eat; but, bless us, she'll eat nought.’ (p. 90). The living conditions of the poor extend beyond hunger and pain. They have so little that they cannot even bring themselves to eat when they are offered food. The woman is described as being "past hunger." The conditions of the people have extended beyond the uncomfortable and beyond the painful. Even sustenance can no longer help her because she is so far beyond hungry that she barely even recognises the sensation. Even though Burke's theory of the Sublime, as outlined in his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), primarily focused on nature's power to evoke awe and terror, his ideas can be projected to understand the urban and 4 Our italics. 13 industrial sublime that emerged during the Industrial Revolution. Burke argued that the Sublime arises from experiences that overwhelm the senses, confronting individuals with vastness, power, or danger that exceed their capacity to comprehend, provoking a mixture of admiration and fear. This provides a useful framework for interpreting the “urban Sublime” that emerged as industrial cities expanded and technological advances transformed the landscape. The vast factories, towering chimneys, and relentless pace of industrialisation paralleled the natural phenomena Burke associated with the Sublime. The scale and intensity of these man-made environments, filled with noise, pollution, and overcrowding, would overwhelm individuals in the same way that Burke described nature's Sublime effects. The experience of witnessing the seemingly boundless potential of industrialisation and its capacity for destruction and dehumanisation mirrored the emotional charge Burke considered akin to the Sublime: a mixture of fascination and dread. Amidst the interplay between the Sublime's natural and now urban instances, both captivating and overwhelming in their grandeur, Emily Brontë’s sensitivity to such experiences was evident from her earliest years. Born in Thornton, Yorkshire, on July 30th, 1818, her childhood was shaped by moments that echoed these sublime forces, for instance, when she witnessed the great Crow Hill bog eruption on September 2nd, 1824. After enduring the typical child illnesses of the time (whooping cough, chickenpox and measles, which struck all six Brontë children), Patrick Brontë delayed Emily’s entry into Cowan Bridge. That September afternoon, she was out on the moors with Branwell, Ann and Tabby (house servants) when a massive storm broke out. Talking shelter from the heavy rain in an abandoned stone farmhouse, they watched in awe and exhilaration as the day turned pitch black and the raging storm swept over the hills in a whirlwind of rain and loose branches. There was a small and short earthquake, and the Crow Hill bog exploded before their eyes in an eruption of peat, soil and boulders up in the air and then running down the hills. Emily was six years old. For her, this was, in Frank’s (1990, p.49) words, her very first “wuthering heights”, and doubtlessly this episode would always be in the back of her mind as the moment she connected almost at a spiritual level to the harsh, craggy landscape surrounding the family home: “In time, it became more of a home to her than the parsonage, permeating nearly everything she ever wrote. The natural world for Emily was a realm of unpredictable, superhuman forces compounded of equal parts of beauty and violence.” (49). 14 Not even a year later, the two eldest Brontë girls, Maria and Elizabeth, would be dead. The subhuman conditions the girls were subjected to at Cowan Bridge, where the nights were cold and food scarce, which left their bodies feeble and prone to illness, together with an epidemic of typhoid fever, proved fatal for the two sisters. Maria was the first to succumb, aged 11, in May 1825; Elizabeth followed soon after, aged 10, in June. After the traumatic death of their mother, the death of her little mother (Maria) and their sister, Elizabeth, had a massive impact on the young siblings. In fact, Haworth was a place where death and loss were permanently lurking as it faced a severe sanitation and water supply issue. The sewage system was barely existent, and the cesspools of stagnated water were the ideal ecosystem for the prosperity of all sorts of diseases: dysentery, typhoid, cholera. Toilets and other facilities were shared by up to a dozen families, rarely sanitised or disinfected, and the water supply was minimal and septic, especially in the summer. To make matters worse, the church graveyard, dangerously overcrowded, was located at the top of a slope. Rainwater would run down the slope, through the corpses, and deposit on the town’s supply system. This hygiene nightmare was one of the main causes of the catastrophic mortality rate: half of the children born in the village would not live beyond the age of six, and the average life expectancy was only about thirty years old. It was a town of poorly educated and humble weavers and labourers, and Mrs Gaskell (p.15) stated the Haworthians’ “accost was curt, their accent and tone of speech blunt and harsh”. 5 They were eerie of newcomers, particularly those with higher social and political status from places beyond the Yorkshire region, as it was the case of the Brontës (and Lockwood, in Wuthering Heights). One may say, even though their imagination had led them to establish their plays while lying in their shared beds, the Brontës' literary career began in the evening of June 5th, 1826, when Patrick Brontë arrived home from Leeds with a wrapped box for Branwell. Inside were twelve toy soldiers, which were quickly adopted by each of the children and given names: Charlotte’s was the Duke of Wellington (and, later on, his imaginary family, which consisted of 5 One cannot avoid thinking of the servant Joseph in Wuthering Heights, with his thick Yorkshire dialect, which Emily Brontë meticulously captures in its speech patterns, almost phonetic spelling and non-standard grammar. Understanding this dialect poses a high challenge to Lockwood, thus reflecting the isolation of the rural setting and creating an added sense of uneasiness both in the character and the readers who need to untangle the transcription of his lines of dialogue. William M. Sale, in the “Textual Commentary” to the Third Edition of Wuthering Heights (the one adopted in this work), states that, two years after the death of Emily, when Charlotte Brontë was preparing the second and revised edition of the novel, she wrote to her publisher saying: “It seems to me advisable to modify the orthography of the old servant’s Joseph; for though as it stands, it exactly renders the Yorkshire dialect to a Yorkshire ear, yet I am sure Southerns must find it unintelligible; and thus one of the most graphic characters in the book is lost on them” (p. 262) 15 two sons, one of them the wicked Duke of Zamorna), Branwell’s Napoleon (before creating his hero Alexander Percy, the Rogue, Lord Ellrington and the Duke of Northangerland), which provides further evidence that politics and warfare were common themes in the Brontë household. Emily and Anne set politics aside and chose the two Arctic explorers, Captain Edward Parry and Captain John Ross, respectively. The two youngest Brontë sisters seemed to admire the daringness and courage of the explorer more than the cunningness of the politician or the aggressiveness of the soldier. After embarking the four heroes on a long journey down the West Coast of Africa, where they conquered and colonised the territory, it was then divided into four kingdoms, the Great Glass Town Confederacy, where its capital Glasstown (later Verdopolis) was founded. The Brontë children had begun building their literary empire. What followed was hundreds of historical records, maps, lists, poems, snippets of tales, accounts of tyrannical power, conflict and bloodshed, and deep emotional bonds, all eternalised in tiny booklets only to be gazed upon by the eyes of the children and whose pages could be turned by their own small hands alone. After the Cowan Bridge tragedy in the 1820s, in 1835, Emily, now 17, is a student at Roe Head. Again, she does not adjust to the daily routine of the boarding school. Extremely homesick, she became silent and withdrawn, barely ate and grew thinner, languid, and unresponsive. Fearing for her life, her father sent for her to return. Emily returned home and Anne took her place. Charlotte (Gaskell, 2009, p. 141) wrote later: Liberty was the breath of Emily's nostrils; without it, she perished. The change from her own home to a school and from her own very noiseless, very secluded but unrestricted and unartificial mode of life, to one of disciplined routine (though under the kindest auspices), was what she failed in enduring. Her nature proved here too strong for her fortitude. Every morning, when she woke, the vision of home and the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the day that lay before her. Nobody knew what ailed her but me. I knew only too well. In this struggle her health was quickly broken: her white face, attenuated form, and failing strength, threatened rapid decline. I felt in my heart she would die, if she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall. She had only been three months at school; and it was some years before the experiment of sending her from home was again ventured on. For Emily, fasting became both a manner of personal expression and a weapon: to get her way, Emily would stop eating. There were many instances in her adult life, namely in her 22 and wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. (p. 188) In fact, religion does not fare well at all in Wuthering Heights. The old servant Joseph is a repulsive caricature of the uneducated religious zealot, and Reverend Branderham, in Lockwood’s dream, is ridiculed for his sermon. At the closing of the novel, even the church of Gimmerton is in ruins, and no one seems bothered enough to rehabilitate it. On another level, while not explicitly about Catholicism, the theme of exclusion and marginalisation in Wuthering Heights resonates with these struggles faced by Catholics in early 19th-century Britain. Heathcliff’s treatment and the discrimination he faces reflect the societal prejudices of the time. The imagery of the religious building in ruins is also frequent in Emily’s poetry, both in her own voice and within the Gondal saga. 13 In the composition “The old church tower and garden wall” (October 1837), the poet contemplates the decline of a familiar landscape, depicting not just the decay of the built and natural environment but also how it conveys their own internal melancholy, by highlighting the gradual passage from light and joy to darkness and desolation (the "glad and glorious day" is overtaken by evening, and "a deeper gloom"). The church is “old”, and the “garden wall" is described as "black with autumn rain," a dramatic image symbolising the deterioration and ageing of once sacred or beautiful structures. Autumn, often associated with the decline of life and the approach of winter, sets the scene for this decay, as the elements, such as rain and the "dreary winds," wear away at the physical world. Another example of this decay in religious buildings may be found in “A sudden chasm of ghastly light”, where the speaker, thought by Guimarães (2002, p. 415) to be the victorious Julius Brenzaida, describes the devastation the war brought not only in terms of casualties but to buildings religious or otherwise: while line 13 reads “In plundered churches piled with the 13 Gondal is Emily’s and Anne’s island-kingdom in the North Pacific, after seceding from Glasstown in 1835. It had the same climate and landscape as Yorkshire: extremely cold and windy winters, mild springs and blue-skied summers. Gondal was a female-dominated royalist world, and strong-willed woman sovereigns ruled tyrannically in Gondal. They would take and dispose of lovers and inevitably died violently at the hands of mercenaries in the desolate landscape of moors, covered in heath and bluebells. Its head of state, a beautiful, ruthless Queen named Augusta Geraldine Almeda (A.G.A.) may have been inspired by Princess Victoria, who was less than a year younger than Emily and destined soon to be Queen. Indeed, Augusta was one of the names put forward to christen the child but was dropped on the instructions of the Prince Regent. The Princess ended up receiving the name of Alexandrina Victoria. 23 dead”, line 25 tells of a “ruined Hall”, and the poem concludes with a “great cathedral discrowned. 14 The Brontë household shook again a couple of years later with the passing of the Reform Bill of 1831, also known as the Great Reform Act. This piece of legislation aimed to address widespread demands for political reform, as it sought to correct the unequal representation in Parliament by redistributing seats from "rotten boroughs" (areas with very few voters, prone to a feudalistic mindset, fraud and bribery) to more populous industrial towns and cities. It also expanded the electorate by lowering property requirements for voting, allowing a larger portion of the middle class, especially the rich bourgeoisie with no title (bestowed or purchased), to participate in elections. Though it did not grant universal suffrage, the Reform Bill was definitely a step towards a more democratic expression and representation in the Parliament. Frank (1990, p. 77) describes how this clash of forces was experienced in the parsonage: Patrick Brontë supported the reform bill but for pragmatic reasons: reform had been long time brewing and had to be contained and curbed since it was clear it could not be suppressed altogether. He endorsed the bill as a moderate concession to the public clamour for political change because he thought it would forestall more extreme measures and avert revolution. The French Revolution, the resulting years of terror, and the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars were still very present in everyone’s minds. The children, in their teens at the time, took sides and even intertwined real-life events with their poetic creations. Even though both Charlotte and Emily shared a conservative upbringing, the latter was somewhat more progressive. Emily sympathised with the oppressed and often placed them at the forefront of her work. While Charlotte opposed the reform, Emily supported it, which aligns with the poet's 14 The “discrowning” of the cathedral is significant to the Gondal narrative as it dialogues with another poem “The wide cathedral Aisles are lone” (March 1838), which reads “The wide cathedral Isles are lone, / The vast crowds vanished every one; / There can be naught beneath that dome / But the cold tenants of the tomb.” This piece describes how Julius Brenzaida enters into a treacherous pact with his fellow kinsman, Gerald Exina (the de facto king of Gondal), to become co-rulers (“Gondal’s monarchs”). This ceremony takes place at the altar of the cathedral and is witnessed by a large, silent crowd. However, this event is tainted by the perfidious nature of Brenzaida, as he plans to usurp the crown to himself alone: “Take in heavens sight their awful vow / And never dying Union swear / King Julius lifts his impious eye / From the dark marble to the sky / Blasts with that Oath his perjured soul” (lines 13-17). The poem “A sudden chasm of ghastly light” describes the aftermath of the resulting civil war between the two factions and the “discrowned cathedral” is a metaphor for the discrowned Exina. Emily seems to keep her spirituality and faith, yet takes a very dim view of the human element within the church: while, in the first poem, the church and tower decay with the passage of time and neglect of the parishioners, in the Gondal poems, the Cathedral is destroyed through human action: first, conceptually, by the perjury of men, then later, physically, through the war waged for land and power. 24 tendency to favour revolutionaries, outsiders, and the marginalised—a bias that is evident throughout her writing. An example of such favouritism is the preeminence given to the character of Augusta Geraldine Almeda, a fiercely independent woman ruler who subverts conventional expectations of femininity. Though Initially presented as the archetypal heroine, she embodies the themes of love and mourning for Alexander E., Lord of Elbë, her first love and husband, by tenaciously holding onto his soul so that it does not escape his earthly body and fly into a spiritual plane. Augusta speaks to him encouragingly in “A Death-Scene ‘O day! he cannot die’” (1844): “It is not Death, but pain / That struggles in thy breast; / Nay, rally, Elbë, rouse again, / I cannot let thee rest!” (l.25-28). Her macabre exclamation resonates closely with Heathcliff’s intentional desecration of Catherine’s grave. In Chapter XXIX, he confesses to having unearthed Catherine’s coffin twice: the first time, on the night of her burial (“Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself - 'I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills ME; and if she be motionless, it is sleep. I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might - it scraped the coffin." (p.219), and, a second time, when he took the opportunity to open her coffin after Edgar’s funeral (“I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there: when I saw her face again - it is hers yet!” (p. 218). In the poem “There shines the moon, at noon of night” (1837), recounting years later Alexander’s death, Augusta describes his end by Lake Elnor in pure Gothic terms: “His red blood dyed a deeper hue, / Shuddering to feel the ghostly gloom / That coming Death around him threw— / Sickening to think one hour would sever / The sweet, sweet world and him for ever” (l.30-34). The tone is both melancholic and grim, with the chilling imagery of the stream of blood and imminent Death, who is here personified as a dark figure that throws a cloak of “ghostly gloom” over the soon-to-be corpse. However, her character transcends the archetypal traits, evolving into a more complex representation of female power and emotional depth, characteristic of the Sublime. In “Here with my knee upon thy stone” (1838), Augusta decides not to be buried alive in her grief now that Alexander is long gone. The poem, a quatrain, reads: “Here, with my knee upon thy stone, / I bid adieu to feelings gone; / I leave with thee my tears and pain, / And rush into the world again”. According to Till (1989, p.133), “Augusta is a vibrantly active character existing within 25 the framework of Gothic atmosphere but outside of the passively receptive characterisation of the stereotypical heroine.”. A.G.A. is cast in a favourable light as a leader and queen, unbound by societal constraints, having lovers and children out of wedlock, and even driving men to suicide. Her tumultuous life culminates in a violent and shocking death at the hands of Douglas, who conspired against her with her best friend, Angelica, thus emphasising both the betrayal she suffered and the tragic consequences of her defiance and strength. A.G.A is portrayed as a resolutely independent female ruler who challenges traditional expectations of femininity, thereby offering herself as a compelling early example of the "feminine sublime". In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is far from the moustache-twirling, degenerate villain of the gothic novel. Despite his cruelty and vengefulness, he is portrayed somewhat sympathetically in the novel, mostly by offsetting his villainous acts with moments of high vulnerability and emotional suffering, much in the guise of a tragic hero, whose harshness is often understood in the context of the deep void he experiences, making him a figure of both fear and pity. Ellen Dean does not shy away from narrating Lockwood Heathcliff’s early life of rejection, abuse, and marginalisation. While she is critical of his actions, she also shows moments of compassion and understanding, especially in recounting his early years. Hindley Earnshaw, in particular, dehumanises and brutalises Heathcliff, treating him as a servant and flogging him on occasion, in addition to psychologically torturing him with death threats. This abuse elicits sympathy for Heathcliff and explains (but does not justify) his later vengeful behaviour. His all-consuming love for Catherine is construed as deeply tragic. Catherine chooses to marry Edgar Linton, not because she loves him more than Heathcliff, but because she wants to elevate her social standing. This rejection and isolation are a continual reminder of his status as an outcast. Even though 19th-century Yorkshire was geographically and about 40 years chronologically distant from the French Revolution, most of the narrative in the first part of Wuthering Heights predates and overlaps not only the Revolution but also the American Declaration of Independence (despite the first chronological reference being 1801, the narrative is told in analepsis to the year 1771 when Mr Earnshaw returns from Liverpool with Heathcliff). The repercussions of both events were still felt across England, where the echoes of the Revolution and the ongoing Napoleonic Wars fuelled fears of social unrest, rebellion, and collapse. The revolutionists' ideas and principles, such as liberty, equality, and fraternity, 26 resonated with reform-minded individuals and groups in the shire. The revolution inspired political radicals and reformers who sought to challenge the existing social and political order in English territory and advocate for impactful reforms, including universal suffrage and parliamentary restructuring. Areas like Huddersfield and Bradford became hot spots for radicalism and political dissent and breeding grounds for groups such as the Luddites, Chartists, and other reform movements. These movements advocated for workers' rights, political reform, and social justice, and often organised protests, strikes, and demonstrations to advance their causes, thus raising the public’s awareness towards matters such as poverty, inequality, living and working conditions, education, sanitation, and healthcare. However, authorities in Yorkshire often responded to protests and demonstrations with force, leading to violent confrontations, arrests, and subsequent trials and convictions. The Peterloo Massacre of 1819, a year after Emily was born not that far away, in which protestors, who sought to address the lack of political representation and economic hardships faced by the working class, were met with a violent charge by government forces in St. Peter's Field, Manchester, was seen as an example of this repression. The French Revolution, and the turbulent beginnings of the 19th century, also had a cultural and literary impact on artists and other intellectuals; namely, with the development of aesthetic theories such as the concept of the Sublime, theorised at the time by Edmund Burke (drawing from Longinus’s treaty) and Immanuel Kant, which will be the object of Chapter II of this work. The chaos and violence of the Revolution, especially the Reign of Terror, evoked a sense of the Sublime. The enormity of social change, the collapse of centuries-old institutions, and the sheer unpredictability of events created a feeling that transcended human understanding and threatened one’s sense of safety. Also, the iconic and written language of the Sublime became a powerful rhetorical tool for mobilising support for the revolution and inspiring collective action. Many other aesthetic concepts also found some of their fundamentals in the Sublime. The Grotesque, for instance, is an aesthetic concept closely associated with the Sublime. However, the grotesque blends the dramatic and the horrifying, often involving distortions of reality that evoke both disgust and fascination. The revolution’s violence, 27 particularly the public executions and mob justice, provided fertile ground for grotesque imagery. In Mary Shelley's 15 work Frankenstein (1818), the novel's central figure, the nameless creature, is an iconic example of the grotesque, as it is grotesque not only in its physical appearance—described as a patchwork of human body parts with a hideous, unnatural form— but also in the way it embodies both humanity and monstrosity. Despite being intelligent and capable of emotion, the creature is rejected and feared by society due to its appearance, which leads to its growing resentment and violent actions. This duality reflects the grotesque's ability to merge the terrifying with the tragic, evoking both horror and sympathy from the reader. It uses the grotesque to explore themes of creation, alienation, and the dangers of unchecked ambition by combining hope and terror, freedom and violence, which were also the contradictory principles of the Revolution. One may find hints of the grotesque in Wuthering Heights, quite textually in the beginning of the novel, when Lockwood describes the frontispiece of the house: Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date '1500,' and the name 'Hareton Earnshaw’. I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the place from the surly owner; but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium. (p. 4) This passage alone gives us a lot about the historical and cultural landscape of the time. Lockwood takes a moment to inspect the carved figures above the threshold, who appear in the shape of decaying gargoyles and lewd human figures. Griffins are, in Greek mythology, hybrid creatures, often depicted with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, primarily representing the combination of the strength and courage of the lion with the swiftness and vision of the eagle 16 , thus making them symbols of duality and power. In addition to being figures of guardianship and protection, both physically and symbolically, they are also seen as elements of duality and balance, as they synthesise the union of the earth (the lion) 15 Mary Shelley’s parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, were also prominent figures in the artistic and literary landscape and head figures in the radical writings of the time. With works such as A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), which highlighted the urgency of social reform, democracy, gender equality and human rights, their discourse was mainly focused on the active resistance to oppression and tyranny. 16 Curiously, the lion has been seen as the symbol of England and the eagle as the symbol of France, two countries that clashed in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). 28 and sky (eagle), and, metaphorically, body and spirit, or strength and wisdom. In this sense, griffins, as symbols of the soul’s journey to a higher state, can be seen as mediators between two realms, embodying the duality of the human condition or the union of physical and spiritual qualities. As we will see in Emily Brontë’s poetry and novel, the Sublime thresholds are also located in the fine line which divides earth and heaven, highlighting the duality of the house itself: it stands as a massive tomb but with living people in it. It is also the optimum spot for encounters with the supernatural, as in Lockwood’s dream and Heathcliff’s hallucinations towards the end of the novel. The crossing of the threshold at the entrance of Wuthering Heights can be interpreted, within the context of the grotesque, as a two-way transgression: Lockwood insists on entering an entirely new reality (“I will get in”), which does not abide by conventional social norms, despite being warned by the carvings. Lockwood, however, pays no heed to these warnings. Even the date, 1500, the turn of the century, considered by historians to be the year that marks the end of medieval times, 300 years before the later events of the novel, evokes the atemporality and displacement of this microcosmos in relation to Lockwood’s reality. The fact that the name Hareton Earnshaw is written next to the date, makes it quite similar to Heathcliff’s grave (which only bears the name and the date of his death). One is left wondering whether 1500 was the date of Hareton’s birth, death or the construction of the house-tomb. In fact, from this perspective, the entire façade of Wuthering Heights can be seen as a massive tombstone for a dismembered, hateful and chaotic family at constant war with each other. The choice of the year 1500 is also noteworthy, as it is generally considered a pivotal moment of cultural, political, and intellectual transformation, i.e., it also stands for a revolution. It is often considered a significant turning point in history due to several key events and developments that marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. For example, as perhaps quite meaningful to the understanding of the Brontës’ works, the late 15th century saw major explorations that reshaped global trade and interactions. 17 England’s early claims to North American territories paved the way for later English exploration 17 Christopher Columbus had already reached the Americas (1492), and, by 1500, the era of European exploration was in full swing, with figures like Vasco da Gama reaching India in 1498 and John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), the Italian explorer sailing under the English flag of King Henry VII, who made the first recorded English-commissioned voyage to North America. He landed on the coast of what is believed to be Newfoundland, in 1497, claiming it for England. 29 and colonisation, such as Saint Kitts, England’s first colony in the Caribbean and Jamaica, seized from the Spanish in 1655, turning it into the largest sugar-producing colony and fuelling British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. The themes of expansion and colonisation would echo in the lines of both Charlotte’s and Emily’s juvenilia and novels, mainly in the characters of Bertha Mason, Rochester’s first wife, locked in the attic of Thornfield Hall due to her mental illness. She is described as being of Creole descent, born in Jamaica to a wealthy family, which ties her origins to the British West Indies; and Heathcliff, whose origin is unknown but is described as a dark skin and gipsylike boy. Ellen, in Chapter VII, while trying to groom him in front of a mirror, mentions that he was …fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer! (p. 44) Many studies have been published trying to determine the true ethnicity of Heathcliff, 18 nonetheless, as Emily Brontë did not leave any indication of his origin, the mystery remains. What could be said towards this discussion is that the author may have drawn Heathcliff’s description story, not only from an amalgamation of the physical traits of the peoples from these newly found and reached lands but also from her family mythology, as her great-grandfather, Welsh Brunty’s origin was also enwrapped in a veil of mystery and secrecy. The tale of a man called Welsh Brunty and the story of how he came to the Brunty family is told to us by Pinion (1975, p. 383): Hugh's grandfather [Emily’s great-great-grandfather] had a farm near the banks of the Boyne. He was a cattle-dealer and often crosses the Irish Sea from Drogheda to sell cattle in Liverpool. On one of his return voyages, a strange child was found in the hold. It proved to be a very young boy – dark, dirty and almost naked. There was no doctor on the vessel, and only one woman, Mrs Brunty. As nobody would take care of him, and there was no foundling hospital nearer than Dublin, she decided to adopt him. From his gypsyish complexion, the boy was thought to 18 Some critics in their reading believe Heathcliff to be the love child of Mr Earnshaw and an unknown woman in Liverpool, but the evidence to support this claim seems to be thin and misplaced within the timeline. Even if it were confirmed to be true, that would make Heathcliff a mixed-race illegitimate child, which does not improve his situation in any way. As Emily Brontë did not provide further information on the matter either within the text or in any other notes, thus leaving Heathcliff’s origins unknown, his condition as a foundling stands. 30 be Welsh, and called 'Welsh' by the Bruntys. He grew up to be sullen, envious, and cunning, and attached himself to Mr Brunty who took him, instead of his own sons, to fairs and markets to listen to farmers' conversations and gain the information needed to drive hard bargains. Welsh, much like Heathcliff, was found in Liverpool abandoned, malnourished, and is described as having a dark complexion. It is also interesting that nobody would touch the stowaway, perhaps afraid he may have come from the devil. Likewise, in Chapter IV, Mr Earnshaw, after revealing Heathcliff to the other members of the household states: “See here, wife! I was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e'en take it as a gift of God; though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil.” (p. 28) It was through the intervention of a patron, Mrs Brunty / Mr Earnshaw, who pitied him, that he was allowed to live a full life. They gave him the name “Welsh” due to this dark complexion, a very common stereotype among British sailors and merchants who would brand anyone with a different, darker complexion as “Irish” and “Welsh”, or “Gipsy”, any other person whose physiognomy was somewhat different from theirs. It also lends some credit to Ellen’s description of Heathcliff as a potential descendant of the Emperor of China or an Indian queen. Similarly to Heathcliff, who is often described as a cuckoo and a usurper, 19 Welsh was also seen by Mr Brunty’s other children as an “interloper”, as he was their father’s favourite and having gained almost complete management in business matters. He is also reported to have developed a rather unconventional relationship with his adopted sister, Mary, vowing to marry her one way or another after being summarily rejected, which he did after a scandalous encounter. After seeing a large part of his fortune consumed by flames, the childless Welsh offers to adopt one his many nephews. He then takes the young Hugh from his original family, whom he treats harshly and forces to work in the fields. In this, we can see a clear precursor of the mysterious foundling Heathcliff and his treatment of his “adoptive” Hareton. Also, in Emily Brontë’s poetry, we can see the figure of the usurper 20 in Julius Brenzaida, who seized 19 Heathcliff is portrayed as a cuckoo and a usurper of both affections and property. Hindley considers him a usurper of his father's affections: “the young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent's affections and his privileges” (p. 30); and Ellen and Joseph clearly state what Heathcliff stole the Earnshaw property: “so at present he laid the whole burden of Hareton's faults on the shoulders of the usurper of his property”. (p. 151) 20 The figure of the usurper is one of the Gothic archetypes of transgression, as the ultimate disruptor of the social, economic and political order. Some examples include Manfred, in The Castle of Otranto (1764), who, being the grandson of the man who usurped Otranto from its rightful rulers, goes on a rampage of violence and deceit to legitimise his position; and Montoni, in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), who seeks to control and manipulate first his wife, Madame Cheron, and then the protagonist, Emily St. Aubert. He forcibly seizes her family’s property and attempts to compel her into marriage for financial gain, thus embodying the Gothic trope of the villainous, power-hungry nobleman. 31 the throne of Gondal after a false and treacherous alliance with Gerald Exina. The tyrant ends up being assassinated by Arthur Gleneden, who, in “Gleneden’s Dream” (1838, also known for its first line “Tell me, whacher, is it winter?”) describes how his beloved Gondal suffered in the hands of Brenzaida: “I saw my country bleeding, / Dying for a Tyrant’s will” (lines 35-36) and justifies the killing of the usurper as the liberation of Gondal. In his words, he is “a glad Avenger / Thy eternal Justice found!” (lines 51-52). The year 1500 holds significance for 19th-century artists, writers, and poets due to two major historical developments. First, the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century revolutionised communication, making books widely available and fostering literacy. By 1500, printed materials enabled rapid knowledge dissemination, providing broader access to ideas. The year 1500 also symbolised the onset of the Renaissance, a period of classical revival that emphasised beauty, nature, and human emotion. The Renaissance inspired Romantic ideals of personal expression and creativity, with figures like Dante and Shakespeare celebrated as groundbreaking geniuses who pushed artistic boundaries. The Pre-Raphaelites, for instance, admired this period’s artistic and moral values, viewing it as an era of craftsmanship and harmony with nature, contrasting with their own industrialised society. Additionally, the early 16th century marked a religious shift, foreshadowing the Protestant Reformation. In 1517, Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses challenged the Catholic Church, leading to major conflicts like the Thirty Years' War. England saw its own upheaval during the English Civil War, where royalist and parliamentary forces clashed, ultimately resulting in King Charles I's execution and the temporary establishment of a republic under Oliver Cromwell 21 . The Reformation of the Church would appeal to 19th-century intellectuals as it laid the groundwork for later movements advocating religious freedom and individual rights. Moreover, it fostered the rise of nationalism, as many princes and states adopted Protestantism for political gain or to assert independence from the Catholic Church. The end of the 18th century also marked the inception of new literary movements. One such movement became known as Romanticism. The ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity 21 The English Civil War (1642 to 1651) might have been one of the sources of inspiration for Emily Brontë's Gondal later conflicts, which opposed factions such as the “Royalists” and the “Republicans”, headed by the Gleneden family. 38 Lines 59-62 of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner read: “The ice was here, the ice was there, / The ice was all around: / It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, / Like noises in a swound!" (Part I). This vivid description of a wild, hostile natural environment mirrors the untamed atmosphere of the moors in Wuthering Heights: About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building. (p. 66). Here, the violent storm outside the house mirrors the tempestuous emotions inside, particularly Heathcliff's passionate, untamed nature and his devastating decision to leave the Heights. Much like in Coleridge’s poem, the natural world in Brontë's novel is an active, almost metaphysical force. Another influence on Emily Brontë, both thematically and in character building, is the archetype of the Byronic hero. This figure is typically portrayed as a dark, brooding, and rebellious individual, often in conflict with societal norms or authority. He is introspective and harbours a sense of inner torment or guilt stemming from a mysterious or tragic past. This character is frequently marked by a combination of arrogance, intelligence, and emotional depth, which sets them apart from others and makes them both alluring and dangerous. The Byronic hero often remains isolated, unable to fully integrate into society due to their defiance of conventions and their disillusionment with the world. Manfred (1817) is one of Lord Byron’s most notable works and depicts the Byronic hero through the character of its eponymous protagonist. In this three-act dramatic poem, Manfred is a tormented nobleman who seeks escape from his guilt and suffering through supernatural means. The poem begins with Manfred summoning supernatural spirits to erase the memory of his past, particularly the guilt over the death of a mysterious woman, Astarte, who may have been his lover or sister. However, the spirits are unable to grant him this wish, and Manfred rejects their offers of power or solace. Throughout the poem, Manfred roams the Alps, reflecting on life, death, and his sense of isolation. He encounters various supernatural beings, including a witch and the spirits of the dead, but he refuses to submit to any higher powers, maintaining his independence even in the face of death. In the end, as death approaches, he confronts his fate on his own terms, refusing salvation or damnation, and dies unrepentant, 39 asserting his defiance to the very end. The work is a meditation on guilt, free will, and the limits of human power. Heathcliff and Manfred share several key traits, thus allowing for an echo of Byron’s work in Emily Brontë’s narrative. Both are tormented by past guilt and are haunted by their pasts. Manfred is consumed by remorse over Astarte's death, while Heathcliff’s torment stems from his obsessive love for Catherine and the pain of her rejection and subsequent death. They are driven by inner turmoil and seem incapable of finding peace or redemption. The two characters are also connected by their inclination to isolation and defiance of societal norms and authority. Manfred refuses to bow to supernatural powers or seek absolution, even as he confronts death. Similarly, Heathcliff stands outside conventional morality and social structures, acting on his own desires and engaging in vengeful behaviour without regard for societal or moral constraints. Like Heathcliff at the conclusion of his vengeful annihilation, Manfred appears to be in a position of apparent dominance over everything. He summons spirits ("By the strong curse which is upon my soul, / The thought which is within me and around me, / I do compel ye to my will. Appear!” (I.i 49-50), but the only outcome he desires is death on his own terms, unrepentant and free, just as Heathcliff harbours no hope of a peaceful death: "I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment, nor a hope of death" (p. 246). Manfred’s desire for death is obscurely and inevitably linked to his contact with Astarte, just as Heathcliff’s mental torment is intertwined with his urge for contact with Catherine after her death. Manfred feels that if he touches her, he will attain happiness, much like Heathcliff attempts to grasp Catherine's spirit when he exhumes her body. His deliriums condemn him to be his own Hell: Come and sit by me! My solitude is solitude no more, But peopled with the Furies;—I have gnashed My teeth in darkness till returning morn, Then cursed myself till sunset;—I have prayed For madness as a blessing. (II.ii 138-143). This parallels Heathcliff's behaviour by Catherine’s deathbed: "'Don’t torture me till I’m as mad as yourself,’ cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth" (p. 123). 40 In both storylines, we find a forbidden and desperate love marked by a fatal sin ("To torture thus each other, though it were / The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.” II.iv 141142), hinting at incest—a theme also raised in the relationship between the two protagonists of Wuthering Heights. Astarte was, for Manfred, his only companion in his wanderings ("The sole companion of his wanderings / And watchings—her, whom of all earthly things / That lived, the only thing he seemed to love.” III.iii 51-53) and he begs the Witch to wake the dead or make him one of them: "Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them. / Do so—in any shape—in any hour— / With any torture—so it be the last.” (II.ii 153-155). Similarly, Heathcliff implores Catherine to haunt him: "Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only DO not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!” (p. 129). Before he dies, Heathcliff makes a ghoulish arrangement with the sexton to leave the adjoining sides of his and Catherine’s coffins open so that in death they may finally achieve the consummation of their love - a perfect and irrevocable union, which had tormented and eluded them while they were alive. Manfred’s proclamation of guilt, blaming himself for Astarte’s death, saying he broke her heart ("Her faults were mine—her virtues were her own— / I loved her, and destroyed her!” (II.ii 123-124)), resonates with Catherine’s words on her deathbed: "You and Edgar have broken my heart" (134). Both Manfred and Heathcliff choose a place of retreat: Manfred’s tower, where he keeps his lonely vigils, and Heathcliff’s panelled room, where he often sought refuge with Catherine. Just as Manfred meets his end in his tower, Heathcliff is found dead in the room, with the window wide open: "Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key, I ran to unclose the panels, for the chamber was vacant; quickly pushing them aside, I peeped in. Mr. Heathcliff was there—laid on his back" (p. 254). The aftermath of the French Revolution also saw the rise of Gothic Literature, in its grotesque, mysterious, and supernatural events, which reflected the chaos and terror of the revolutionary period. With its violence and instability, it was a source of horror that found expression in Gothic novels such as those by Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto, 1764), Ann Radcliffe (The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794), and Matthew Lewis (The Monk, 1796), which incorporated existential and revolutionary anxieties into their work. The Gothic atmosphere is frequently transmitted through the setting of an “antiquated or seemingly antiquated space,” such as castles or mansions in faraway countries, and through “raging storms, dark nights, tyranny, incarceration, and torture” (Morris, p 301). 41 Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is densely populated with elements of the Gothic. From the inception of the narrative, the reader is drawn into the dark, hostile, and isolated world of the Yorkshire moors by the first narrator, Mr Lockwood, through whom the sublime atmosphere of the Gothic is firstly conveyed. Through his eyes, the reader will witness the repugnance and brutality of the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights and feel the terror in his encounter with the supernatural, when the ghostly, bloody apparition of Catherine appears at his window. Heathcliff, the tragic central character of the novel, is in many ways an archetypal Gothic character. He is shown as a mysterious, dark and exceedingly dangerous character. He is wholly bent on revenge for perceived past wrongs and his passion is all-consuming. Heathcliff’s love and fury leads him to destroy the woman he desires by playing a part in her mental and physical torture. He also shows no mercy in destroying people for whom he does not care, however undeserving. Isabella Linton falls in love with Heathcliff and is abused so viciously that she is forced to leave him, a social taboo for the period. He shows no remorse and does nothing to make her return. Their son Linton is denied medical care as he has fulfilled his purpose in usurping Thrushcross Grange for Heathcliff. Heathcliff’s acts of violence against defenceless victims show his utter disregard for human suffering and it manifests itself in his use of torture and imprisonment. When he imprisons young Cathy at Wuthering Heights he does so to emotionally torture Edgar Linton, the man who took Catherine from him, but it is equally tortuous to poor Cathy. Heathcliff’s use of cold-blooded emotional and psychological torture elevates him beyond the mere scorned man of passion to the disturbed and cruel monster that he becomes. Ultimately, there is also the hint of necrophilia in Heathcliff's viewings of Catherine's corpse and his plans to be buried next to her. Regarding her poetry, Emily’s “On the Fall of Zalona” (February 1843), which describes the destruction of the city of Zalona at the hands of Julius Brenzaida, provides us with Gothic imagery: “And hungry dogs with wolflike cry / Unburied corpses tear, / While their gaunt masters gaze and sigh / And scarce the feast forbear.” (l.37-40). In these verses, the imagery is stark and brutal, invoking the visceral horrors often associated with Gothic literature. The "hungry dogs with wolflike cry" evoke wild, predatory creatures, emphasising the breakdown of the natural order, where domesticated animals turn feral and even necrophiliac under the strain of hunger. The tearing of "unburied corpses" introduces a macabre element, blending the imagery of death and decay with grotesque feeding—a key Gothic theme that blurs the 42 line between life and death, in this case, the actual consumption of the dead. The "gaunt masters" who "gaze and sigh" embody a psychological torment, haunted by both the physical devastation around them and their inner struggle to resist their own monstrosity. The Revolution also inspired a surge in historical fiction, with writers revisiting the revolution and other historical events to explore the human consequences of political upheaval. Sir Walter Scott is credited with popularising the historical novel with works like Waverley (1814). Later, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1859) portrays the revolution’s impact on individuals by blending fictional characters with real historical events. As to nonfictional/commentary works, one could highlight Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) where, from a clear conservative standpoint, he condemns the excessive violence and chaos brought about by the revolutionaries. The manner in which the events in the late 18th century-early 19th century directly and/or indirectly impacted the Brontës may be analysed from different perspectives. Even though none of the four siblings had even been born yet (of the four, Charlotte is the oldest, being born in 1816) and their father was a teen at the time of the Reign of Terror, its ideology, principles and actions made their way indirectly into the Brontë household. Historically speaking, Patrick Brontë, who was 12 years old in 1789, may not have seen the French Revolution. What he may have witnessed or at least been directly impacted by was the Irish Rebellion of 1798 (the year that, aged 21, Patrick, after working menial jobs, took on a teaching position), which, albeit at a smaller scale, resembled what had occurred in France. The 1798 Rebellion was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influenced by the ideas of the American and French revolutions: originally formed by Presbyterian radicals angry at being shut out of power by the Anglican establishment, they were joined by many from the majority Catholic population. The rebellion aimed to establish an independent Irish republic and unite Irish Catholics and Protestants in the fight against British control. It began in May 1798 and was marked by several violent clashes between poorly armed Irish rebels and British forces. Although the rebels achieved relative successes in some regions, they were ultimately crushed by the well-prepared and well-garnished British military, aided by loyalist militias. This defeat had long-lasting consequences, leading to the 43 1801 Act of Union, which merged Ireland with Great Britain, effectively ending Ireland's legislative independence. In the aftermath, Patrick Brontë, still “Brunty”, moved to England in 1802, having earned a scholarship to study theology at Cambridge, changing his name to Brontë and never to see Ireland again. The principles of the French Revolution, perhaps in their most abstract form, reached the Brontë siblings from a very early age. The ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity resonated not only with the Brontë patriarch, Patrick, but also with the children. By 1829, the Brontës were already well established in Haworth, in a household which also included their Aunt Elizabeth Branwell. There was an undeniable intellectual environment at home, where the patriarch of the family fostered an eclectic educational curriculum, which included grammar, mathematics, philosophy, art and literature. There was also a passion for foreign languages: Branwell learnt Greek, Charlotte was fluent in French, and Emily was keen on German. One of the most striking reflexes of these ideals may be found in the challenge posed to traditional social hierarchies and gender roles. Despite coming from a rather conservative household, none of the Brontë sisters set marriage or child-rearing as their primary goal. They also frown upon class distinction, and Tabitha, the house cook, was always seen more of a family member than a servant. This taste for the unconventional was inevitably reflected in the sister’s novels, namely in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Anne’s The Tennant of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which depict characters who rebel against societal norms and challenge the authority of the landed gentry, the three of them women (Jane Eyre, Catherine Earnshaw, and Helen Graham, respectively), which in itself, can be considered subversive. On the one hand, Jane Eyre's quest for independence and self-determination can be viewed as a reflection of the revolutionary spirit of the time, which challenged traditional hierarchies and advocated for individual rights and freedoms: "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will." (Brontë, 2015, p. 372). By releasing herself from Rochester’s embrace, Jane rejects the idea of being passive or submissive in any kind of relationship, either personal or professional, declaring herself to be a free individual with agency and freedom of choice. On the other hand, Catherine Earnshaw’s 44 character embodies personal defiance against social norms and expectations. Her passionate nature and relationships with Heathcliff and Edgar Linton reflect the struggle for individual autonomy within the constraints of societal expectations. In her most acknowledged proclamation (and even celebrated as the epitome of romantic love), she declares: "I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being." (p. 64). The physical transcendence of her connection with Heathcliff conflicts with conventional societal expectations and norms, as Catherine refuses to suppress her feelings, boldly asserting her identity in the being of a man who is not her husband-to-be and finding it absurd and impracticable to be separated from Heathcliff despite marrying Edgar. In fact, much like religion and other 19th-century societal institutions, marriage does not thrive in Emily’s works: both in her poetry and in Wuthering Heights, love is dissociated from marriage. The characters are tormented, violent lovers, and rarely do we hear wedding bells at the end. Catherine and Heathcliff both marry other people, but their connection remains unchanged. Catherine Earnshaw’s character challenges traditional gender roles, as her strong will and emotional independence defy the expectations placed on women in Victorian society. Additionally, by contrasting Catherine and her sister-in-law, Isabella Linton, one can also perceive the subversion of the tropes associated with a woman’s role at the time: while on the surface there’s a play with the concepts of the fallen/virtuous woman, Catherine taking on the role of the amoral woman and Isabella as the naïve romantic damsel, easy prey to Heathcliff’s deceitful machinations, neither are bi-dimensional. There is an undeniable innocence in Catherine’s feelings and reasoning (she is convinced that marrying Edgar would somehow take Heathcliff out of his servitude and that both suitors would peacefully accept the arrangement) and Isabella, despite her marriage and early pregnancy, abandons the marital home and escapes to London. Similarly, Helen Graham, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, challenges the restrictive Victorian social conventions when she leaves her abusive husband and devotes herself to her art. At a time when divorce was extremely difficult and carried great social stigma, particularly for women, Helen's departure from her alcoholic husband was seen as subversive. The rejection of patriarchal control was groundbreaking for female characters in literature: 45 December 20th, 1826.—The fifth anniversary of my wedding day, and I trust, the last I shall spend under this roof. My resolution is formed, my plan concocted, and already partly put in execution. My conscience does not blame me, but while the purpose ripens, let me beguile a few of these long winter evenings in stating the case for my own satisfaction—dreary amusement enough, but having the air of a useful occupation, and being pursued as a task, it will suit me better than a lighter one. (Brontë, 2008, p. 410) These subversive elements in the novels of the Brontës, particularly their challenges to social conventions and rigid gender roles, did not go unnoticed by early critics. Their varied and often polarised responses reflect the controversial nature of the sisters’ works to their contemporaries, which provoked a wide range of critical interpretations. Emily Brontë’s poetry, published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell in 1846, in an anthology together with her sisters Charlotte (Currer) and Anne (Acton), received quiet but rather positive reactions. Alexander’s The Oxford Companion to the Brontës (2006) lists some of these reviews: On 4 July 1846 the Critic welcomed the volume's unconventional, ‘genuine poetry’ as a ray of sunshine in ‘this utilitarian age’, and the Athenaeum recognized the ‘instinct of song’ in ‘the three brothers’ though ‘in very unequal proportions’: Acton's poems required ‘the indulgences of affection’, but Ellis had ‘a fine quaint spirit’ and ‘an evident power of wing that may reach heights not here attempted’. An anonymous reviewer in The Athenaeum (1846) praised her “strong original mind, full of poetry and passion,” noting her potential for even greater achievements. However, her poetic voice was often confused and sometimes overshadowed by her siblings at the time of publication. Many thought the three sisters were the same person, and if so, there were notorious disarrangements and inconsistencies in the poetry. The first edition of the collection sold only two copies. In later years, Emily's poetry gained greater recognition. Charlotte Brontë (1995a, p. 742) herself, in the 1850 preface to Wuthering Heights, defended her sister’s intense and introspective nature, describing her as possessing a “peculiar music – wild, melancholy and elevating.” Emily’s poems “are short, but they are very genuine: they stirred my heart like a trumpet, when I read them alone and in secret” (p. 119). While Wuthering Heights may currently be considered a classic of English literature, at the time of its release, the novel was not accepted as a respectable work. The novel was seen as offensive to the public as it challenged strict Victorian ideals involving religious hypocrisy, 46 morality, social class, and gender inequality. Early reviews of Wuthering Heights were particularly critical of its raw emotional power and unorthodox narrative style. For instance, an anonymous reviewer for The Examiner in 1848 harshly declared, "This is a strange book. It is not without evidences of considerable power: but, as a whole, it is wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable; and the people who make up the drama are savages.” (Brontë, 1990, p. 302). The novel’s perceived extremity and moral ambiguity led many Victorian reviewers, such as The Quarterly Review (Watson, 1949, p. 245) to label it as morally suspect, as “too odiously and abominably pagan to be palatable even to the most vitiated class of English reader". An anonymous Atlas review, dated January 1848, considered the novel to fall short of its potential, despite recognising the spark of talent and being intrigued by the author of the novel: “Wuthering Heights is a strange, inartistic story. There is evidence in every chapter of a sort of rugged power – an unconscious strength – which the possessor seems never to think of turning to the best advantage. The general effect is inexpressibly painful. (…) The work of Currer Bell is a great performance; that of Ellis Bell is only a promise, but is a colossal one.” (p. 300). Despite these negative reviews, some critics acknowledged the novel's impact, and, while initial reactions to Emily Brontë's work were frequently negative, focused on its harshness and emotional rawness, later critics began to recognise her poetic depth and passionate vision, cementing her status as at least a unique voice within the literary scenario of her time. David Cecil's comments on Wuthering Heights make one of the early examples of an academic recognising the novel's worth. According to Cecil (1934, p. 148), Wuthering Heights had not been appreciated as it deserved because it had been judged as a Victorian novel and compared to Dickens or Thackeray. Cecil argues that Brontë never meant it to be anything like them, thus putting forward the novel's “atemporality”: “She writes about different subjects in a different manner and from a different point of view. She stands outside the main current of nineteenth-century fiction as markedly as Blake stands outside the main current of eighteenth-century poetry.”. As the field of literary criticism expanded, new perspectives emerged. Marxist interpretations, notably those of critic Terry Eagleton, examine class struggle and social dynamics within Brontë's narratives, revealing the economic undercurrents that influence character motivations and relationships. These analyses underscore the ways in which Brontë's exploration of the lives of her characters reflects the broader socio-economic context of her 47 time. Eagleton (2005, p. 100) begins by saying that Wuthering Heights differs from Charlotte Bronte's novels, which seek to reconcile conflicts: Wuthering Heights, on the other hand, confronts the tragic truth that the passion and society it presents are not fundamentally reconcilable - that there remains at the deepest level an ineradicable contradiction between them which refuses to be unlocked, which obtrudes itself as the very stuff and secret of experience. He then highlights that the choice between Heathcliff and Edgar is the linchpin event of the novel, which is decisive in bringing about the tragedy: “In a crucial act of self-betrayal and bad faith, Catherine rejects Heathcliff as a suitor because he is socially inferior to Linton; and it is from this that the chain of destruction follows.” (p. 101). Eagleton then focuses on Heathcliff's lack of a defined place within the social and economic structure of Wuthering Heights, which makes him Catherine's natural companion since she, as the daughter, is not expected to inherit and is the least economically integral person in the family. After his 3-year absence, Heathcliff possesses “gentility” to turn the capitalists' weapons against themselves and dominate them by their own means. However, the power he thus gains is ultimately selfdefeating, as his systematic revenge steadily “drains him of blood, impels and possesses him as an external force” (2005, 105). Eagleton implies that society's dominating weapons destroy Heathcliff, whether he is their victim or wields them, and this accounts for his self-destructive decline at the end of the novel. Feminist criticism has further enriched the understanding of Brontë's works, with influential scholars such as Gilbert and Gubar, who argue in The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (1979) that Brontë’s portrayal of strong female characters, like Catherine Earnshaw and Nelly Dean, challenges the norms of her time. This perspective emphasises Brontë's exploration of female autonomy, gender roles, and the limitations imposed by a patriarchal society, offering a nuanced insight into women's inner lives and desires. Gilbert argues that the novel possesses a “visionary” quality. In her discussion of the novel's “visionary” element, she complains that most critics looking at Catherine's complaint of the 'shattered prison' and her 'wearying to escape into that glorious 54 appealing to a level of comprehension that sits beyond itself, beyond Cicero’s Docere, Delectare, Movere (“To Teach, To Delight, To Move”), as these are all in the domain of artifice and rational thought. Here, the goal of the writer is to trigger a sense of ekstasis, which, translated directly from the Greek, means “to stand outside of” or “to transcend [oneself]”. When Longinus discusses the Sublime, he often compares it to a lightning bolt in order to stress the uniqueness of the experience. It is a moment where an extraordinary piece of writing hits both the speaker and the reader, evoking a deeply passionate emotion that uncontrollably manifests, akin to being struck by a lightning bolt. In Longinus’s words, [T]he Sublime, acting with an imperious and irresistible force, sways every reader whether he will or no. Skill in invention, lucid arrangement and disposition of facts, are appreciated not by one passage, or by two, but gradually manifest themselves in the general structure of a work; but a sublime thought, if happily timed, illumines an entire subject with the vividness of a lightning-flash, and exhibits the whole power of the orator in a moment of time. (p. 23) Therefore, the successful infusion of the sublime in language, thought, and literature endows texts with “an imperious and irresistible force" that “sways every reader” (p. 23), thus shifting listeners from their individual feelings to a collective and shared awe for the literary work being assimilated. The Sublime is, then, supposed to be so powerful in its thoughts, passion, and product of art, that it transcends rationality, elevates the audience to another level, and leaves them overwhelmed and in awe of a literary experience that falls outside the realm of description. Longinus often describes the Sublime as opposed to rhetoric, as in the art of speaking and writing eloquently and persuasively. Even though the languages of rhetoric and the sublime often overlap, by using the same artistic styles, techniques, and poetic figures, they differ because, first of all, rhetoric is often premeditated. There is an underlying plan and intention to persuade somebody, and, as a result, it lacks spontaneity: it gradually builds up as a slow crescendo, and Longinus compares this to a slow-moving and predictable fire when comparing the works of Demosthenes, whom he considers Sublime, to Cicero’s: Demosthenes is vehement, rapid, vigorous, terrible; he burns and sweeps away all before him; and hence we may liken him to a whirlwind or a thunderbolt: Cicero is like a widespread conflagration, which rolls over and feeds on all around it, whose fire is extensive and burns long, breaking out successively in different places, and finding its fuel now here, now there. (p. 46) 55 Another critical aspect of Longinus’ definition of the Sublime is its compatibility with the concept of Beauty. As only the most gifted and ingenious artists and thinkers were able to produce sublime art, their works would be simultaneously considered beautiful. The Sublime and the Beautiful, then, walk hand in hand, almost interchangeably, with the experience of the Sublime being, at the same time, an experience of the Beautiful, which exceeds the rational limitations of reasoning and emotion. Such compatibility takes us to the works developed by Edmund Burke in the 18th century, which both expand on Longinus’s work and break down some of his conceptual framework. 2.1.1 Longinus’s Sublime and Sappho Longinus, despite not delving on matters of sex or gender, mentions Sappho 26 as a writer of the Sublime, under the heading “Five Sources of the Sublime (how Sublimity is related to Passion): (i.) Grandeur of Thought”, subsection “b. Choice of the most striking circumstances. Sappho’s Ode”, by stating that Sappho’s Sublime resides in her observation of impactful instances of human emotion and experience and then how she masterfully blends them into a unified whole which results in a manifestation of the Sublime. Longinus points out that Sappho’s “peculiar excellence lies in the felicity with which she chooses and unites together the most striking and powerful features.” (p. 41). Longinus also highlights how Sappho, in “Ode to Anactoria” (Fragment 31), makes use of imagery and figures of speech such as the metaphor, the synaesthesia and the hyperbole, especially along these lines: Vain my stricken tongue would a whisper fashion, Subtly under my skin runs fire ecstatic; Straightway mists surge dim to my eyes and leave them Reft of their vision; Echoes ring in my ears; a trembling seizes All my body bathed in soft perspiration; Pale as grass I grow in my passion’s madness, Like one insensate; 27 26 Sappho was an ancient Greek poet from the island of Lesbos, born around 630 BCE. The themes in Sappho's poems were mostly about unrequited love, unfulfilled desire, and personal connections, as is the case above, and they meant to be sung with a lyre. Although much of her work has been lost, surviving fragments show a clear and emotionally intense style. Longinus places Sappho at the level of Homer in poetic mastery and depiction of the Sublime. 27 “Ode to Anactoria”, 1910 translation by the American poet John Myers O’Hara (Sappho, 2013) 56 In addition to the metaphor in “Vain my stricken tongue would a whisper fashion”, Longinus points out the different emotions conveyed by the synesthetic imagery of auditory and tactile sensations with the fire on the skin, the echoes in the ears, and the shivering body, which converge in passionate madness akin to standing on a threshold between life and death (“Like one insensate”). Longinus highlights the significance of the antithesis by prompting the reader to “Observe too how her sensations contradict one another—she freezes, she burns, she raves, she reasons, and all at the same instant. And this description is designed to show that she is assailed, not by any particular emotion, but by a tumult of different emotions.” (p. 43) It is in the synthesis of these different emotions crystallised in a moment in time that, to Longinus, resides the Sublime. Under the premise of this work, comparing Sappho and Emily Brontë would be a compelling exercise, as both, despite coming from vastly different times, cultures, and poetic traditions, are admired for their emotionally intense and deeply personal, often fragmentary, writings. As Sappho’s poems are imbued with passionate, rampant emotions, often focusing on love and longing experienced in solitude, Emily’s poetry is similarly filled with intense emotional outpourings. 28 Likewise, the theme of solitude and isolation is common to both poets, as Sappho often depicts social events, such as feasts and festivals, but conveys a sense of permanent isolation and abandonment. The same theme can be seen in Brontë, for instance, in her poem “I am the only being whose doom” (1839), where the speaker seems condemned to doom and exile. 29 In addition, Sappho and Emily Brontë come together in their depiction of nature, as they both resort to imagery from the natural world to express emotion and instances of human experience. For example, in Fragment 91, Sappho expresses how "On the hills the shepherds trample the flower underfoot and it lies on the group, darkening in decay” 30 , thus using nature to reflect the ephemerous and delicate beauty of joy and the permanence of loss. Similarly, both in Emily’s poetic voice and in Wuthering Heights, nature seems to be the catalyst to every pivotal moment in the speaker’s/character’s narratives, bringing about life, death and rebirth. 28 For instance, in “No Coward Soul is Mine” (1846), the speaker’s voice in Emily’s poem passionately affirms the strength and constancy of their inner self: "No coward soul is mine / No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere / I see Heaven’s glories shine /And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear." 29 The lines “As friendless after eighteen years / As lone as on my natal day” reflect this sense of profound isolation and disconnection from others. 30 “Fragment 91”, in the 2011 dual-text translation by Peter Russell (Sappho, 2013) 57 2.2 Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) In the mid-18th century, the word ‘sublime’ acquired a new meaning as a new cultural movement was on the rise: the Romantic Movement (17981824) 31 , which began questioning the nature and limitations of the self, and led both artists and philosophers to focus on intense experiences that challenged conscious control and blurred the lines of individual autonomy. Thus, the Sublime became a synonym of defiance to traditional (= neoclassical) systems of thought, which were grounded on traditional and outmoded principles and rhetoric, mostly of the religious and spiritual kind, which were then deemed as unable to convey or translate instants of human experience. In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Edmund Burke not only explores the origins of the Sublime and the Beautiful but also separates each into their own respective rational categories. For Burke, the Beautiful is that which is balanced and aesthetically pleasing, while the Sublime (which Burke positions as being the trigger for the strongest of emotions one is capable of feeling) is related to the power to compel and annihilate. It is evident early on in the treatise that Burke elevates the Sublime over the Beautiful, preference that can also be regarded as a sign of the transition from the Neoclassical to the Romantic era. In other words, the Sublime ceased to be seen as subsequent to or another form of beauty, as in Longinus’s work, and was gradually gaining its own space as a separate category of aesthetic experience, with features and traits somewhat divergent from those of the Beautiful. Indeed, Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry not only examines in depth the differences between the categories of the Sublime and the Beautiful, which are anticipated in the title itself as two distinct concepts, but also goes beyond a mere separation by establishing how and how much they differ, or, even further, oppose each other. 31 The Romantic Movement is often considered to have started around 1798, with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a seminal work that marked a shift in English poetry, as it is seen as the manifesto of the Romantic ideals, shedding new light on theoretical and practical concepts such as emotion, nature, and the individual experience over the rationalism of the Enlightenment. As for the end date, 1824 is used as an endpoint, the same year Lord Byron died. Nonetheless, its influence persisted well into the mid-to-late 19th century, as seen in the works of Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (1847) echoes many Romantic themes, such as the celebration of nature, the focus on intense emotions, and the exploration of the Sublime, positioning Emily as a literary figure shaped by the Romantic legacy. 58 Burke positions all thoughts of the Sublime and the Beautiful as being understood by means of their causal structures, as postulated by Aristotle. There are four causal structures: the material (the raw materials used to produce the concept), the formal (the structural principles that govern the concept), the efficient (the process undertaken to materialise the concept), and the final cause (the purpose of the concept). Focusing mainly on the efficient cause in the process of literary creation, it is relevant to discuss what separates the Sublime and the Beautiful. Edmund Burke was, first and foremost, an empiricist, following the steps of Hume and Locke. Thus, for Burke, the origin of both the Sublime and the Beautiful lies in our senses, arguing for a mechanistic understanding of how our human passions operate, and their purpose. One experiences both pain and pleasure, and that leads to concrete physical reactions, manifested in one’s body, at the nerve and muscular levels. The reactions can be divided into two categories: tension and contraction, on the one hand, relaxation and decompression, on the other. Accordingly, Burke then argues that it is in the moment of tension that one is more likely to experience the sublime and, conversely, it is when one experiences relaxation that one is more likely to experience the beautiful. Burke further differentiates the aesthetic experiences of the Sublime and the Beautiful by stating that both the Sublime and the Beautiful have the ability to move, but the Sublime is more profound in its bearing. Beautiful objects tend to be smooth and delicate, while Sublime ones are vast, gloomy, dark, and threatening. Beautiful scenarios depict well-kept gardens and colourful sunsets, but Sublime scenes portray thunderstorms and mountaintops, which are overwhelming. Paradoxically, however, while peaking over a mountaintop, one can find delight in terror, and the sheer power is exhilarating. The Sublime is tied to the possibility of pain, which consequently triggers the instinct of self-preservation and links to the Romantic idea of nature as an untainted power. The role of self-preservation is eminent in Burke’s formulation of the sublime and the beautiful. In an excerpt from Section II of Part II of the treatise, entitled “Terror”, Burke (2015) notes that passions, which concern self-preservation, turn mostly on pain and danger, which he classified as the most powerful of all passions. 59 No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. For fear, being an apprehension of pain or death, operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too … Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime. (p.73) In the same section of this text, Burke highlights that among such instants of human experience, some provide moments of perverse pleasure by blending both fear and delight. He shifts the discussion on the Sublime from languages or artifices of language to focus on the experience generated by aspects of the natural world, which, due to their overpowering immensity or obscurity, would not fall in the category of the Beautiful, but would rather be associated with some degree of horror: “The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment: and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.” (p.73). Burke then lists the type of images and features that populate the sublime. Concepts of darkness, obscurity, vastness, height, dread, and deformity are combined with images of mountains, oceans, the supernatural, the absolute (tyrannical) power of God, war, wildfire, ruins, and disfigured characters, to illustrate how these produce with the reader an effect of the sublime due to the fear and terror they arouse: To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning such sorts of beings. (p. 75) However, Burke’s task went beyond a listing of the kinds of artistic objects that configured the “Sublime” or the “Beautiful”, or the feelings they evoke. He set out to unveil the bio-physiological basis for such feelings and focused his endeavour on the transformation of the self when faced with what seemed to threaten one’s survival. This highlights a shift from Longinus’s work, by changing the focus from the object to the individual experience. When Burke (2015) examines the physiological expression of those exposed to the sublime, as in the state of overwhelming awe, he associates such expression with a sort of 60 relief from terror. This emotion is, then, a “negative” pleasure 32 because it represents a return to the balance of a neutral state (which had been threatened), as opposed to a movement from the emotional neutral balance to a state of pleasure. In his words, a “delight”: “As I make use of the word delight to express the sensation that accompanies the removal of pain or danger, so, when I speak of positive pleasure, I shall for the most part call it simply pleasure.” (p. 44). Burke goes on to state that, at the basis of terror, i.e., of the Sublime, is one’s sense of mortality and the potential of an object to cause the feeling of threat or pain. As Burke puts it: Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. (p. 47). He then argues that the Sublime is "the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling", thus stressing that the aesthetic category of the Sublime is superior to the Beautiful. To further the separation between the Sublime and the Beautiful, Burke proposes two sets of pleasurable phenomena: the experience of beauty as a positive pleasure geared towards sociability and the shared experience of an individual, as opposed to the pain and fear (or the fear of pain) of the Sublime as an expression of an individual experience on the self. As cited above, the word “astonishment” derives from the Latin attonitus, which originally meant “thunderstruck”, a reference also made by Longinus, thus establishing a connection between the “passion” of the Sublime, shock, and fear. Perhaps a novelty in his study of the Sublime is that Burke adds an urban component to the images that had been canonical of nature and natural phenomena, in his definition of the Sublime: among the many scenarios that portray the Sublime, Burke lists events and locations that may also be found in the city, such as theatres and public executions of criminals, street preaching, fireworks, and urban architecture. These references are clear evidence of the 32 E. Burke does not actually use the term “negative pleasure”. We only use it here as opposed to the “positive pleasure” associated with Burke’s concept of Beauty. The expression “negative pleasure” features in Kant’s work The Critique of Judgment, p. 139. 61 effects of urbanisation in artistic categories such as rhetoric and literary aestheticism and integrate Edmund Burke into a culture of emerging capitalism, industrialism, and mercantilism. The Irish-born philosopher is well-known not only for his political endeavours in the defence of traditional institutions but also for his scepticism of rapid political change and a belief in the organic nature of society. Although Burke was wary of the very notion of revolution as he saw it as a manifestation of chaos and disorder, he saw the American Revolution as a defence of traditional rights and liberties, as he considered the British government's policies towards the colonies unjust and imprudent (“…leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself." (Burke & Magnus, 1948, p. 28). However, despite supporting the rights of American colonists, Burke did not favour revolution as a principle, as he vehemently condemned the French Revolution. In his work Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Burke critiques the French Revolution and articulates his broader views on Western politics, emphasising the importance of tradition and continuity in society, arguing that institutions and customs that have evolved over time embody the collective wisdom of past generations. For him, abrupt political change or societal upheaval, like those in France, disregard this accumulated wisdom and risk causing civilisational collapse. “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” (Burke, 2012, p.43). Burke also advocated for gradual and cautious governmental reform, combining, synthesising, and harmonising the complexities inherent to human societies. He was sceptical of abstract and absolute political ideals, such as those pursued by the French revolutionaries, thus favouring a more concrete and pragmatic approach grounded in the realities of human nature, historical experience, and societal agreement. Taking these two major historical events, we may associate them with Burke’s concept of the Sublime. Burke saw the American Revolution as a defence of long-established rights and traditions grounded in reason and stability. In his view, the struggle for liberty definitely carried elements of the Sublime, such as awe and power. It did not, however, terrify or evoke chaos. Instead, Burke viewed it as a principled resistance to injustice, tied to the preservation of the familiar. It inspired admiration rather than fear. For Burke, the sublime in the American Revolution was connected more with the colonists seeking to preserve what they valued rather 62 than destroy or annihilate the existing social order. In contrast, Burke saw the French Revolution as embodying the destructive and chaotic side of the Sublime. In Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Burke described the revolution as a violent, destructive power that abandoned tradition, respect for authority, and social order. It was an uncontrollable force that instilled nothing more than dread, with its radical ideas and mob-driven violence evoking the Sublime in its most fearsome and bleak form. Burke underlined the revolution’s power to destroy rather than elevate, and he saw it as a threat to the very foundations of civilisation: "But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever." (p.97). 2.2.1 Edmund Burke and the (a)gendered debate on the Sublime – Mary Wollstonecraft For the purposes of our discussion, and as we endeavour to analyse the poetic and narrative works of Emily Brontë, a woman writer in the first half of the 19th century, within the scope of the Sublime, we cannot mention Burke’s Sublime without referring to his rather gendered views. Not that we intend to ascribe the writings of Emily Brontë to a specific wave of feminism (the first wave of feminism only took place in the late 19th century and it is unlikely that Emily Brontë was even familiar with its onset) or imply that she was willingly and actively part of any social-political movement, but by analysing the works of a female writer under such aesthetic concept, we cannot ignore her weight as a female artist of the Sublime. We may not even need such labelling of “female and/or male writings” since Emily Brontë proved to be masterful in assuming the voices of both sexes, as the Gondal poems and Wuthering Heights demonstrate. Notwithstanding, it seems relevant to mention that Burke’s views on traditional male and female roles sparked a debate with Mary Wollstonecraft in the last decade of the 18th century. Both prominent figures of the literary and political worlds at that time, Burke’s almost propagandistic views emphasised the importance of preserving established institutions, respecting tradition, and maintaining a balance between order and progress. He also strongly advocated for private property rights, which he saw as a source of stability and individual growth towards the betterment of society. Concerned about the dangers of secularism and atheism, Burke opposed radicalism, namely that associated with the adulteration, or even inversion, of traditional social structures, thus advocating for a stratified patriarchal society. 63 Wollstonecraft’s political views, on the other hand, were more progressive and radical, being also closely tied to her beliefs on gender equality and individual rights. 33 She took a very dim view of the prevailing societal norms that relegated women to a domestic sphere and denied them opportunities for education and personal growth, such as access to education and participation in public life. It was in this intersection between politics and the arts that Wollstonecraft challenged Burke’s political doctrine while establishing a connection to his aesthetic views as well, namely in the conceptualisation of the Sublime, aiming at a vision of gender inclusivity in both arts and society. Burke's conservatism and emphasis on tradition clashed with Wollstonecraft's progressive ideas about equality and universal individual rights. He viewed the Sublime as a more masculine and powerful experience than beauty, which he perceived as being feminine, and, therefore, more fragile and superficial. However, Wollstonecraft, as a women’s rights advocate, argued against this perspective and its depiction of women as inherently weak and passive. For her, the Sublime dealt with the self, regardless of sex or gender, and their subjective views of society and the natural world. In Vindication of the Rights of Men, dated 1790, a long exercise on counterargumentation, Wollstonecraft accuses Burke of frivolity and hedonism when discussing a woman’s role [or lack thereof] in the Sublime. He writes in his A Philosophical Enquiry…: Observe that part of a beautiful woman where she is perhaps the most beautiful, about the neck and breasts; the smoothness, the softness, the easy and insensible swell; the variety of the surface, which is never for the smallest space the same; the deceitful maze through which the unsteady eye slides giddily, without knowing where to fix, or whither it is carried. (p. 152) By describing a woman in such an aloof and sensuous fashion, Burke, despite detaching his concept of beauty from the Neoclassic archetype of beauty and virtue, is placing the woman as a passive object of beauty, affection, and admiration, hence outside the concept of Sublime. While Burke clearly includes the figure of the woman in the Beautiful, by stressing her 33 On a biographical note, Wollstonecraft was the wife of William Godwin, a radical philosopher and writer. His work, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, dated 1793, criticises governmental and societal structures, advocating for the abolition of institutional power and the pursuit of individual liberty through reason and cooperation: “Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.” (Godwin, 2022, p.4486). His belief that human behaviour could be guided by rationality rather than coercion challenged the need for government control. Wollstonecraft shared Godwin’s belief in reason and individual liberty, as it resonated with her arguments for gender equality and women's education. 70 The subject experiences the Mathematical Sublime when they realise the size and scale of such objects, which transcend the ability to fully comprehend them. When the subject is confronted with something so absolutely large (Kant, p.145), it overwhelms the subject’s imagination’s capacity to comprehend it. In this situation, the imagination, while “striving towards infinite progress”, fails to comprehend the object in accordance with reason’s demand for “absolute totality”. This inability to fully grasp the vastness or power of the sublime object leads to a feeling of inadequacy, which by questioning the limits of human understanding, can also inspire a sense of humility and a recognition of one’s condition when placed to the scale of one’s reality. In other words, the Mathematical Sublime occurs when a subject witnesses or observes an object that is so vast that it approaches the infinite—an object that is beyond the subject’s ability to imagine. When imagination is surpassed, the subject is forced to use functions of reason in order to comprehend the event. For instance, if the subject compares a cat to a tiger, they will quickly realise that a tiger is, biologically, a larger and more ferocious version of the familiar pet—different in size, but still understandable. However, one begins to ascertain the Mathematical Sublime when one calculates the magnitude of the sun—which is enormous, yet finite—and then begins to contemplate the seemingly infinite vastness of all the stars in all the galaxies in the entire universe. Kant defines the Mathematical Sublime as the feeling of exhilaration that one experiences when one realises that the highest reference point within their experience is actually minuscule beyond true comprehension when compared to this new experience—as in the case of the almost infinite number of giant suns scattered across unimaginable distances. The subject must then rely on reason, logic, or scientific calculation in order to come to any kind of understanding. The second type of Sublime, according to Kant, is the Dynamic Sublime. The Dynamic Sublime relates to the forces of nature, such as storms, waterfalls, and typhoons. It occurs when a subject experiences pleasure while observing the power of awe-inspiring and destructive forces in nature but does so with the knowledge that these forces will not harm them. This membrane of safety can take many forms, but the feeling that these awesome forces of nature have “no dominion over us” (Kant, 2017, p. 159) is a critical part of the dynamically sublime experience. Kant says: 71 So also the irresistibility of its might, while making us recognise our own physical impotence, considered as beings of nature, discloses to us a faculty of judging independently of, and a superiority over, nature; on which is based a kind of self-preservation, entirely different from that which can be attacked and brought into danger by external nature. Thus, humanity in our person remains unhumiliated, though the individual might have to submit to this dominion. (p.161). Here, Kant outlines the two conditions for the Dynamic Sublime to occur: first, the subject must experience the irresistible power of nature, and second, the subject must realise that they are safe from destruction. It is important to stress the idea that, in order for an experience to be considered Sublime, one must not experience mindless fear, because that would negate the subject’s ability to pass judgment about the appropriateness of being afraid, and, since the experience of the Sublime is a function of reason, the subject’s ability to make an assessment about their safety is of paramount importance. Kant explains the distinction between abject fear and the type of fear associated with Dynamically Sublime experiences by contrasting the idea of fearing God to the idea of being afraid of God: But we can regard an object as fearful, without being afraid of it; viz. if we judge of it in such a way that we merely think a case in which we would wish to resist it, and yet in which all resistance would be altogether vain. Thus the virtuous man fears God without being afraid of Him; because to wish to resist Him and His commandments, he thinks is a case as to which he need not be anxious. But in every such case that he thinks as not impossible, he cognises Him as fearful. (p.160) Kant posits that virtuous people have a fear of God, but they have no reason to be afraid of Him unless they intend to rebel against God’s will. In Kant’s example, the subject recognises the absolute power of God, but the subject’s righteousness acts as a barrier between themselves and God’s wrath—rendering abject fear unnecessary. In the same way, in order for a subject to experience the Dynamic Sublime, they must recognise the irresistible force being observed—while all the while also understanding that they are protected from the consequences of the phenomenon being witnessed. As opposed to the Mathematical Sublime, the Dynamic Sublime is not just about the formal properties of the natural phenomena or elements but also about the power and intensity of these phenomena or elements, which makes the experience of the Sublime highly subjective. It depends on the subject’s ability to reason and comprehend the objects presented by nature. The Dynamic Sublime evokes a sense of fear and awe in the face of nature's overwhelming power. It appears when we experience nature as fearful, even though we might 72 be in a position of safety and, therefore, have no reason to be afraid when gazing at the aurora boreal, a hurricane, or an active volcano (at a distance). 2.4 Main Echoes and Types of the Sublime in Emily Brontë’s Work What we suggest from this point onwards is an analysis of Emily Brontë’s poetry and only novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), intertwining them with these concepts of the Sublime, which are transversal to all the categories of both her poetic and narrative structures. We shall adapt Longinus’s five sources of the Sublime – the imagination of a great creative genius, her vehement and inspired passion, the poetic use of language, her choice and arrangement of words, and her dignified elevation of structures – while juxtaposing Burke’s distinction between the Sublime and the Beautiful, and highlighting the change in the discussion from the technical and rational manoeuvres of language to the experience of elements of the natural world. Due to their vastness or obscurity, these are associated in Emily with the sense of mortality, fear, terror, but also with the relief from such terror, a “delight”. We shall point out the Burkian scenarios of darkness, dread, and deformity in Emily Brontë’s work and how they induce an experience of the Sublime in the reader. In terms of Kant’s theory of the Sublime, we shall analyse both the Mathematical Sublime and the Dynamic Sublime in Brontë’s poetry and novel, and how these complement each other in the depiction of the vastness of nature and its overwhelming power over the subject’s imagination. In Wuthering Heights, the expansive and desolate moors are a recurring representation of the Mathematical Sublime. Characters such as Heathcliff and Catherine express an aweinspiring connection with the wildness and boundlessness of the moors, which transcend the limits of human comprehension, thus evoking a sense of the infinite. The wide, open landscape surrounding the Heights serves as a physical and symbolic manifestation of the Mathematical Sublime, with its limitless horizons suggesting the vastness of nature that can only be grasped through reason, not through direct experience. The bond that Heathcliff and Catherine share may also be interpreted as a manifestation of the Mathematical Sublime, as they perceive themselves as the same person; that is, it is impossible to pinpoint where one begins and the other ends as they reflect on each other as an endless kaleidoscopic mirror. On Catherine’s part, we realise the fluidity of her being poured into Heathcliff when she affirms, “He's more myself than I am” (p.64) and, on Heathcliff’s monologue after he learns of her death: “I 73 CANNOT live without my life! I CANNOT live without my soul!” (p.129). There is a sense of infinity between the two characters, as they live in a unified existence. In Catherine’s words, their love “resembles the eternal rocks beneath” and any separation “is impracticable”. Similarly, Brontë’s poetry often depicts instances of the Mathematical Sublime. In her poem “Ah! why, because the dazzling sun” (April 1845), stanza four reads: “Thought followed thought, star followed star, / Through boundless regions, on; / While one sweet influence, near and far, / Thrilled through, and proved us one!”. The parallel rhythm of “Thought followed thought, star followed star” evokes an imagery of subjective introspection where thoughts and natural elements expand and repeat themselves to infinity (“Through boundless regions”). The vastness of the night sky and the stars beyond the reach of human perception reflect this sublime experience. The speaker is confronted with the immensity of the universe, feeling a sense of awe in the face of celestial vastness, which challenges human understanding but is conceptualised through the mind’s reason, elevating the human spirit. On the other hand, the Dynamic Sublime involves an experience of nature’s overwhelming power. This form of the Sublime occurs when individuals encounter forces in nature that they are physically unable to control, such as storms or natural disasters. In Wuthering Heights, the Dynamic Sublime is embodied in the ruthless storms that often accompany moments of violence, emotional outbursts, or conflict between characters. One significant example occurs the night Catherine dies, during a tempest that mirrors Heathcliff’s uncontrollable grief and rage. The storm’s intensity reflects the overwhelming force of nature, which parallels Heathcliff’s own turbulent emotions. Despite the physical danger posed by the storm, the characters’ reason and inner strength allow them to transcend fear, aligning with Kant’s notion that the sublime experience affirms the subject’s moral freedom and capacity for endurance. In Brontë’s poetry, the Dynamic Sublime is notably present in ““In summer’s mellow midnight” (September 1840). Here, the speaker is confronted by the powerful force of the wind, which overwhelms yet captivates them. The wind becomes an almost personified force of nature, embodying the uncontrollable and sublime power that evokes both fear and awe. The speaker's interaction with the wind reflects the tension between submission to and transcendence of nature’s forces, a key element of the Dynamic Sublime in Kantian terms. 74 There are also writings in Brontë’s work that combine both the Mathematical and the Dynamic Sublime. In “No Coward Soul is Mine” (January 1846), the speaker faces the immense forces of life and death with a defiant inner strength (stated immediately in the litotes and hyperbaton – much to Longinus taste – in line 1: “No coward soul is mine”. The affirmative expressed by the negative and the inversion of the standard order of words may translate to “My soul is brave”). The poem embodies both the Mathematical and Dynamic Sublime, as the subject confronts the vastness of eternity and the powerful forces of existence with moral and spiritual fortitude (“I see Heaven's glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.”), thus affirming Kant’s idea that reason allows individuals to rise above nature’s might. In this work, we will primarily see Emily Brontë's writings as a constant search and exploration into the place of the self in the inner and outer infinite cosmos, culminating with an experience of the Sublime when all the pain, terror, and fear subside. After experiencing, both directly and indirectly, nature’s wild whims, cataclysmic weather, the unrestrained rage and hunger in Heathcliff and Catherine’s overwhelming emotional outbursts, and the fear and awe inspired by the infinite expanse of the moors, we may find ourselves on the threshold of the Mathematical Sublime, where the intensity of passion, love, anger, and violence stretches beyond the limits of human comprehension, transcending the subject’s ability to imagine or grasp them fully. Alternatively, we may, as in the Dynamic Sublime, after the manifestation of such powers and dangers, feel a sense of transcendence supported by our inner strength and, like Mr Lockwood, take comfort in the re-establishment of rational order and wonder “how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth” (p. 256). 75 Chapter III The Sublime in Emily Brontë’s Poetry and Wuthering Heights Poetry is more a threshold than a path, one constantly approached and constantly departed from, at which reader and writer undergo in their different ways the experience of being at the same time summoned and released. Seamus Heaney, The Government of the Tongue Having explored the concept of the Sublime in a previous chapter, this section now turns to the detailed analysis of Emily Brontë's poetry and narrative prose through the lens of this aesthetic. Central to this undertaking is the theme of thresholds, which plays a pivotal role in the creation and experience of the Sublime in her work. Thresholds, both literal and metaphorical, signify the boundaries between opposing realms—such as internal and external, nature and civilisation, past and present – and are crucial in understanding how Emily Brontë, in her own voice and in her characters and landscapes, evokes a sense of awe, terror, and ultimate transcendence. By delving into these liminal spaces, this chapter aims to showcase the depth of Brontë's engagement with the Sublime and her depiction of thresholds serves to heighten the Sublime experience. Through the analysis of key texts, we shall shed light on how these threshold moments are crucial to the creation of the Sublime effect, thus offering a new perspective on Brontë's profound engagement with this aesthetic tradition. The word “threshold” is believed to be related to the Old English word threscan, from which we get the verb “to thresh”, meaning "to separate seed from (a harvested plant) using a machine or tool" (“Threshold,” 2024). That is to say, in a way, that a threshold is a place of separation and transition. In Emily Brontë’s poetry and narrative, we shall experience these thresholds in moments of permanent duality: inside and outside, dream and reality, human and supernatural, freedom and confinement, self and other, light and darkness, heaven and earth, life and death – each of these “thresholds” are represented in the author’s work and play an essential role in unveiling new meanings. Nevertheless, a threshold, being a point of entrance or the line at which a phenomenon begins to produce an effect, also implies the urge to overstep it, and the purpose of this chapter is to show how the decision to walk its line and how this transition takes place translates into the poet’s writings. 76 Many authors have explored this concept of the threshold and the existence of being in-between states, sometimes opting to move forward and others just lingering on the boundary. In Christina Rossetti’s dramatic monologue, “The Convent Threshold” (1862), the speaker, a “fallen” woman in repentance, describes the reasons underlying her decision to join a convent to fulfil her spiritual decision to repent (“You sinned with me a pleasant sin: / Repent with me, for I repent.” l.51-52). She feels her body is stained (“My lily feet are soiled with mud, / With scarlet mud which tells a tale / Of hope that was, of guilt that was, / Of love that shall not yet avail” l.7-10) and wishes for the purification of her soul (“To wash the spot, to burn the snare” l.14). She keeps reminding her interlocutor that while their eyes “look earthward, mine look up” (l.17), towards heaven. Thus, the poem’s speaker stands at a threshold: physically between the outside and the inside of the building, metaphorically between a physical life and a spiritual life. The latter, however, implies the death of the former (a “social death” as joining a convent entails seclusion and isolation from society), so there is a solid antithetical sense of life and death in her decision. Likewise, in Amy Levy’s “On the Threshold” (1889), the speaker describes their feelings of loss and helplessness after dreaming of the death of their loved one. The speaker is standing at the doorway of the room (“in the doorway watched you from afar” l.6) where the corpse lies and dares not enter the private space as they do not feel their relationship warrants such intimacy (“I had no part nor lot in you” l.8). The poem alludes to many “thresholds”, both physical and metaphorical: the speaker is physically standing on the sill of the door, i.e., in a liminal space which is neither in nor out of the room; psychologically we have the two states of being asleep and then awake (“I dreamed that you were dead” l.1); there is also the duality between the physical and the platonic and the presence of language (verbal) and the absence of language (silence) (“Of your misprision and my impotence.” l.11); finally, the duality between life and death, as the speaker is alive but the addressee of the poem is dead. Despite Emily Brontë’s vast work, which, in addition to her novel, Wuthering Heights, accounts for more than two hundred poems, this work aims to depict, by using a selection of five poems, how Emily Brontë integrates and intertwines the Sublime and the theme of thresholds in her poetry, and how these particular poems find echo in her 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, subsequently discussing the relevance of these ‘Sublime thresholds’, 77 which populate this particular work as well. While this analysis delves into just five poems, these serve as a foundational basis, intricately woven with references to numerous others. These five, in our opinion, represent the Sublime and theme of thresholds in Emily Brontë’s work and provide a framework for exploring broader connections across the poet's work through shared thematic and stylistic elements. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Sublime involves experiences that evoke awe, terror, and admiration through encounters with nature's vastness or power. And Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant provide the basic framework used in this dissertation for analysing Brontë’s literary engagement with the Sublime and the theme of the threshold. Even though Edmund Burke does not explicitly mention "thresholds" or "liminal spaces" as concepts directly associated with the Sublime, his framework for the Sublime can be interpreted as often involving “liminal moments”—those spaces where human beings are brought to a moment where they need to confront something above and beyond their limitations. The Sublime arises from moments of astonishment: In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the Sublime, that, far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the Sublime in its highest degree. (p.72) Thresholds, in this sense, are points of transition or boundaries where the Sublime might be felt most intensely, as in the crescendo of a music composition. The threshold or liminal space can be a metaphorical "entrance" into the Sublime: The tension of the part thus increasing at every blow, by the united forces of the stroke itself, the expectation and the surprise, it is worked up to such a pitch as to be capable of the sublime; it is brought just to the verge of pain. Even when the cause has ceased, the organs of hearing being often successively struck in a similar manner, continue to vibrate in that manner for some time longer; this is an additional help to the greatness of the effect. (p.186) Immanuel Kant’s approach to the Sublime is related to Burke’s but differs in its philosophical foundations. While Kant also does not directly speak of “thresholds” or "liminalspaces" as such, the idea of crossing boundaries between the empirical/sensible/comprehensible and the transcendent/supersensible/incomprehensible is deeply embedded in his theory of the Sublime. For Kant, the Sublime occurs when we stand 78 at the threshold between one and the other. It is the point where human faculties—specifically the imagination and reason—meet their limits. For instance, the imagination cannot fully comprehend the vastness of the mathematical sublime or the destructive power of the dynamical sublime, but reason steps in to make sense of the immensity or power. In this way, Kant's concept of the Sublime contains an inherent liminality that lies in confronting something that challenges our faculties, forcing us to transcend the limits of our understanding: But because there is in our Imagination a striving towards infinite progress, and in our Reason a claim for absolute totality, regarded as a real Idea, therefore this very inadequateness for that Idea in our faculty for estimating the magnitude of things of sense, excites in us the feeling of a supersensible faculty. And it is not the object of sense, but the use which the Judgement naturally makes of certain objects on behalf of this latter feeling, that is absolutely great. Consequently, it is the state of mind produced by a certain representation with which the reflective Judgement is occupied, and not the Object, that is to be called sublime. (p. 146) While Burke focuses mostly on sensory experiences (pain, fear, terror) and emphasises an emotional response to these liminal spaces, emerging directly from the senses and external world, Kant, on the other hand, focuses on the dialogue between reason and transcendence. In Kant, the Sublime emerges more from internal processes, with thresholds marking the boundaries of cognitive faculties rather than purely external sensory experiences: “We may therefore append to the preceding formulas explaining the sublime this other: the sublime is that, the mere ability to think which, shows a faculty of the mind surpassing every standard of Sense.” (p. 147) In Brontë’s work, when one examines thresholds, one can apply both Burke’s and Kant’s ideas of the sublime to these thresholds (i.e., transitional moments), where characters and readers alike confront limitless emotions or experiences that transcend reason. On one level, these scenes offer Burke’s pain, fear, and terror, and on the other, the crossing of a threshold mirrors Kant’s description of the Sublime, where reason grapples with its limitations. The selection of the poems was based on four basic criteria: firstly, it was our intent to select poems from different moments of her (short) life: the teenage years, the early twenties and the late twenties, respectively; this in order to assess whether there was some progression in how Emily Brontë approached the topic of the Sublime and thresholds; secondly, the ones that could find echo in Wuthering Heights, especially in the first generation “love triangle” relationship, not, as many would expect, between Catherine, Heathcliff and Edgar, but 79 between Catherine, Heathcliff and nature itself; the third was to select, among her work, those poems which would represent the clearest examples of the use of Sublime thresholds, in all their manifestations (natural, spiritual, metaphorical, psychological and physical); and, finally, as the fourth criterion, the poems discussed should be selected both from her Gondal production, in which she lends her voice to different characters and narrators, poems whose placement within her work are still topic of debate, and poems where the poetic voice is her own voice. As a result, the poems analysed in this section are as follows: “High waveing heather ‘neath stormy blasts bending”, dated December 13th, 1836, chronologically one of her first poems and categorised as a non-Gondal poem; “The night is darkening round me” (also titled “Spellbound”, and first published in 1902), with narrative elements in common with the Gondal saga, but with no textual reference to any anthroponym or toponym of the saga, and “Sleep brings no joy to me”, considered a Gondal poem as it bears the initials A.G.A at the top of the manuscript, both dated November 1837; “In summer’s mellow midnight”, also known as the “Night-Wind”, dated September 11th, 1840, which was object of rewriting in its first publication in 1850 by Emily’s sister Charlotte, who also provides us with a short biographical note, as Gezari (1993, p. 270), in the notes to the poem transcribes Charlotte’s introductory words: “Here again is the same mind in converse with a like abstraction. The Night-Wind, breathing through an open window, has visited an ear which discerned language in its whispers”. Roper (1995, p. 249) adds that on that same day (September 11th, 1840) “Emily could have seen a full moon from the parlour, or dining room, of the parsonage; the day had been warm, with a moderate wind and a little rain”; and, the last one, “R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida ‘Cold in the earth’” (also known as “Remembrance”, due to the need to erase references to the Gondal Saga for the 1846 publication of the three Brontë sisters’ poetry book, under the pennames of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell), dated 1845. All in all, this section is devoted to the following: a poem written in her own voice when Emily was in her late teens, two poems written when Emily was in her early 20s, the latter belonging to the Gondal Saga and the former with implied but not explicit connections with events narrated in the Gondal manuscript; a fourth dated two years later, when Emily was 22 years old; and a later one, almost immediately preceding the inception of Wuthering Heights and one of the ten last dated poems to be written about Gondal’s rise and fall. 86 means Hindley returning to the Heights and establishing a completely different household dynamics from the one in place, namely in debasing Heathcliff to a servitude position, subject to almost subhuman treatment with regular beatings and verbal offence. In Chapter IX, the wind sets the tone for another death, this time metaphorical, when Heathcliff, hurt by Catherine’s stance on the perspective of marrying him, abandons Wuthering Heights, disappearing for three years: About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building: a huge bough fell across the roof and knocked down a portion of the east chimney-stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen-fire. We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us. (p.66) In addition to the wind, other elements found in the poem are also mentioned, such as the reference to the midnight threshold, signalling the starting point for another disruption in the Earnshaw’s household, the rattling disruptive storm, and the visual and sound imagery of lightning and thunder. Another example of the overlapping motifs of the poem and novel is when, in Chapter XII, Ellen Dean hints at Catherine’s descent into madness: Tossing about, she increased her feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth; then raising herself up all burning, desired that I would open the window. We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the north-east, and I objected. (p.94). The feeble madwoman 46 ’s desire to experience the wind stems from an intense, almost animalistic, urge for freedom and return to nature. The physical and emotional fever that Catherine is experiencing mirrors the speaker’s rhythmic avalanche conveyed in the poem, as they depict numerous actions simultaneously occurring. The window represents another line of threshold as Catherine, confined in the “dungeon” of her own bedroom, wishes for this 46 The term ‘madwoman’ is not used lightly in this context. In addition to Ellen Dean’s words, Catherine’s actions at this particular moment mirror one of the most tragic Shakespearean heroines: Ophelia, who, mad with grief for a dead father at the hands of her love, expresses her feelings of loss by enumerating flowers and their meaning: “There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, / love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts./(…)/ There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue / for you; and here's some for me: we may call it / herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with / a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you / some violets, but they withered all when my father / died: they say he made a good end,--” (Act IV, scene 5). Catherine, in Chapter XII, does something similar but with bird feathers. While pulling them from the pillows on her bed, she begins a short monologue: “That's a turkey's,' she murmured to herself, 'and this is a wild duck's; and this is a pigeon's. Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the pillows - no wonder I couldn't die! Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I lie down. And here is a moor-cock's; and this - I should know it among a thousand - it's a lapwing's.” (p.95). 87 window, for this bar, to be broken so she can migrate to the moors: “my soul will be on that hill-top before you lay hands on me again.” (p.99). The wind, again, appears as both a life-giver and life-taker as Catherine wishes to experience the wind as her physical life deteriorates. Again, similarly to “High waving heather ‘neath stormy blasts bending” and “The Prisoner (A Fragment)”, not only does the wind give and take life, but it also preludes moments of intersection between life and death. The action of the wind catalyses Catherine’s first appearance in the novel: This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten. 'I must stop it, nevertheless!'” (p.20) Had the wind not insistingly knocked the fir bough against the window, “teasing” Lockwood to silence it, it would never have been broken and allowed for Catherine’s little hands to grab Lockwood’s wrist. The wind, by causing the glass on the window to shatter, allows the line between life and death to be broken. In both the poem and the novel, Emily Brontë uses natural imagery to convey the concept of the Sublime. The wild, untamed inner and outer landscapes – whether it is the heathercovered moors or the stormy skies – become a reflection of the intense inner conflict experienced by the characters, thus illustrating the overwhelming and often destructive power of nature. This portrayal of nature as both beautiful and terrifying blurs the line that marks the threshold between awe and fear. 3.1.2 “Sleep brings no joy to me” “Sleep brings no joy to me” dates back to 1837, the same year of “The night is darkening around me, which follows in this dissertation. “Sleeps brings no joy to me”, despite not having any in-text references to the names or places in the land of Gondal, its manuscript, which rests in the Brontë Parsonage Museum Library, bears the initials A.G.A (Augusta Geraldine Almeda) at the top, which suggests this to be a Gondal poem. Guimarães (2002, p.408) argues that this poem describes more than Augusta’s lament for the death of one of her many lovers, it depicts the haunting feeling of being observed by those whose death she 88 had been responsible for 47 . The poem can thus be interpreted as the manifestation of a guilty conscience, wherein the speaker perceives the past victims and actions as returning to pass judgment upon her (“The shadows of the dead / They all gaze oh how scornfully”). The poem consists of six quatrains (or four-line stanzas), which gives it a regular, rather repetitive structure that somewhat mirrors the persistent and cyclical nature of the speaker's suffering. As to the rhyme, it follows an ABAB scheme, sometimes with slant rhymes, which depend mainly on the Yorkshire accent, as is the example in the last stanza, with “knit” rhyming with “forget”. This alternate rhyme scheme creates a rhythmic consistency that enhances the feeling of inescapability, emphasising the speaker's feeling of entrapment in their misery 48 . As to the metric, despite the regularity of the meter throughout the poem, which again reinforces the idea of a repetitive, unrelenting torment, each stanza is comprised of three different types of line metric: the first and second lines of each stanza are iambic trimeters, as in “Sleep brings no joy to me / Remembrance never dies”. Note that, by beginning anaphorically the first line of each stanza with “Sleep brings no”, the first line of every stanza begins with a spondee, that is, two stressed syllables “Sleep brings”, followed by two iambic feet. The second line of each quatrain is a conventional iambic trimeter: “The shadows of the dead”. The third line is an iambic tetrameter, “My soul is given to misery”, and the last line of the quatrains is shortened to an iambic dimeter “And lives in sighs”, which brings this poem very close to what is known by the common meter/measure, usually used in Christian hymns 49 , with the difference of, instead of a trimeter in the last line of the stanza, there is a diameter, which pulls the rhythm of the poem closer to a ballad, where a shorter line at the end of a stanza can be used for rhythmic or emphatic effect as a refrain. 47 In fact, Augusta’s many crimes involve being the moral or de facto responsible for the deaths of at least four characters in the Gondal saga: Amedeus, her first lover, who dies in exile (“The Death of A.G.A”: “Where my Amedeus lies asleep, And I have long forgot to weep.”), the love child, Alexandria, whom she leaves to die of exposure (“A Farewell to Alexandria”: “I might have left thee, darling one”), Fernando de Samara, who commits suicide after being deserted by Augusta (“Light up thy halls! ‘Tis closing day”: “And yet, for all her hate, each parting glance would tell / A stronger passion breathed, burned in this last farewell – / Unconquered in my soul the Tyrant rules me still – / Life bows to my control, but, Love I cannot kill!”, our italics), and Alfred Sidonia, who is abandoned by her (“This summer wind, with thee and me”: "I know that I have done thee wrong"). 48 Another instance of the occurrence of the prison/dungeon motif. Instead of experiencing a release from the shackles in the threshold between heaven and earth, like in “High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending” (“Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending / Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars”), the speaker remains in their psychological prison of recurring and unsettling thoughts, envisioning death as the only possible atonement. 49 Emily Brontë was most certainly very familiar with Christian Hymns and the Book of Common Prayer due to her father’s position within the Church and Aunt Elizabeth’s feverous religious devotion. 89 The poem may be described as a haunting exploration of despondency and guilt, with a profound feeling of isolation and mental and emotional distress. The speaker finds no solace or redemption in sleep, which traditionally is meant to be a moment of oblivion, peace and lightness for the mind and body. Instead, in this poem, sleep brings nothing but pain (no joy), fatigue (no rest), despair (no hope), weakness (no strength), loneliness (no friend) and numbness (no wish). There is a strong desire for escapism through death, expressed in the final stanza: “My only wish is to forget / In the sleep of death.”. The initial stanza introduces the main “character” of the poem: Sleep, which is then repeated at the beginning of every stanza. The personification of sleep, expressed by the capitalisation of the word, turns it into a living force that is supposed to bring joy, rest, or strength but brings nothing but anguish. The abstract concept of sleep is seen as an active agent withholding any comfort from the speaker. The repetitiveness emphasises the central relevance of sleep, which should be a moment of renewal. However, it fails to be so due to the immense sadness of the speaker, as it deprives them of what is supposed to bring: joy in the first stanza and hope, strength, company and willpower in the following. The enjambment in lines 3 and 4 stresses the miserable and mute existence of the speaker’s soul as it “is given to misery / And lives in sighs.” The tone is confessional, highlighted by the absence of punctuation, as if the speaker’s stream of consciousness bleeds into the written lines, and the thoughts flow almost in a trance triggered by the lack of sleep. The second stanza begins anaphorically with the exact wording as the first one: “Sleep brings no…” and then completes with another noun, this time “rest”. Even though sleep is, in denotative terms, associated with rest and renewal, here it takes on an antagonistic role as it brings "The shadows of the dead, / My wakening eyes may never see, / Surround my bed.", i.e., sleep is the catalyst for the remembrance of those long departed, who lurk around and surround the speaker’s resting place the moment the speaker decides to sleep. The nightmarish Gothic imagery of the shadows, the ghostly presence of the dead and the fact that these surround the speaker in a quasi-claustrophobic atmosphere emphasise the sense of unease and desolation. The third stanza reiterates the idea of the nightmare (“soundest sleep”) as the speaker laments that sleep cannot, this time, bring hope. In other words, there is no comfort in resting, solely fear, because it is when the speaker is fast asleep that these ghosts (“they”) approach them to deepen their despair. 90 In the fourth stanza, sleep brings no strength to a feeble speaker: it offers no consolation or respite as it deepens and widens the darkness around them like a monstrous wave that engulfs the speaker. The sea-related metaphors of the "wilder sea" and "darker wave" represent the tumultuous emotional state of the speaker ("I only sail a wilder sea, / A darker wave."). The sea is wild and hazardous; every wave is a heavy and painful blanket which continually torments the speaker. The imagery of water in the poem also serves to evoke the sensations of drowning and suffocation, symbolising the overwhelming feelings of pain and regret experienced by the speaker. The fifth stanza stresses the isolation and abandonment felt by the speaker as sleep brings them “no friend”. They feel desolate and forsaken, and no one, not even one of the ghosts who visit the speaker in their sleep, is there to console them or help them cope with their despair. Everyone gazes on scornfully as they are surrounded by enemies who feel nothing but contempt towards the speaker. In the final stanza, the speaker mentions that sleep brings no other wish but to forget in a permanent sleep, the sleep of death. The notion of "sleep of death" concludes the poem and encapsulates the magnitude of the speaker’s wish for release from their torment. Even though the poem's tone is confessional, and the fixed structure provides a sense of repetitiveness, which may entertain a sense of stability and regularity, this is yet another poem in which the Sublime is quite present, both in the themes and language. The poem's last stanza establishes death as an ultimate, almost transcendent release from the anguish of life. The speaker’s desire for the "sleep of death" can be viewed as an expression of the Kantian Sublime in its most terrifying form—encountering the vastness of the unknown, the infinite state of unconsciousness, and surrendering to it. This idea of infinity in the "sleep of death" reflects the principle of the mathematical sublime, as it exceeds our capacity for sensory comprehension but may be grasped by our reason: "…for the mathematical estimation of magnitude, there is, indeed, no maximum (for the power of numbers extends to infinity)." (Kant, p.147). The speaker is also face-to-face with the "shadows of the dead", an aweprovoking situation as the speaker yearns for death, not out of fear, but as a release from an existence filled with misery and sorrow. The imagery of the sea, often associated with the Sublime, is also significant as it evokes another instance of nature's vastness and uncontrollable power, as the sea is depicted as an immense force that constantly badgers the 91 speaker with its dark and impenetrable waves. Sleep, which should offer refuge, becomes a negative, unlimited space filled with dread, terror, and supernatural forces. There are instances in Wuthering Heights that somehow echo the tone and content of this poem, mainly the sections of the novel in which the two main characters, prompted by the physical absence of the other, dive into an exacerbated emotional and physical distress and refuse to sleep. There are two passages in the text where this is rather evident: the first, in Chapter IX, when, after Heathcliff partially overhears the conversation between Ellen and Catherine, who confesses that it would “degrade” her to marry Heathcliff, and consequently disappears into the stormy night, Catherine refuses to sleep: Coming down somewhat later than usual, I saw, by the sunbeams piercing the chinks of the shutters, Miss Catherine still seated near the fireplace. The house-door was ajar, too; light entered from its unclosed windows; Hindley had come out, and stood on the kitchen hearth, haggard and drowsy. (p. 67). Catherine, feeling the absence of Heathcliff, cannot rest and remains in her chair, soaking wet, by the door 50 and windows she kept open in the hope he may return. Catherine navigates two distinct yet interrelated thresholds that seem to have the power to both unite and separate her from Heathcliff. By refusing to sleep, she deliberately maintains a vigilant state, driven by the fear that sleep might somehow sever her connection with him. In her efforts to ensure Heathcliff’s return, she keeps the door ajar and windows open, thus providing paths for his reappearance. The second, and perhaps the one that most closely relates to the content of the poem is when, in Chapter XXXIV Heathcliff begins his night excursions into the vastness of the moors: “One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs, and out at the front door. I did not hear him re-enter, and in the morning I found he was still away.” (p.247). Upon returning to the Heights, Heathcliff is the face of the Sublime: “Heathcliff stood at the open door; he was pale, and he trembled: yet, certainly, he had a strange joyful glitter in his eyes, that altered the aspect of his whole face.” Heathcliff’s emotional turmoil is captured through the juxtaposition of his physical appearance and the contradictory expressions on his face. The image of Heathcliff standing at the open door is another depiction of a character about to cross a particular threshold and highlights his liminal position between 50 The open/closed door/window motif is recurrent in Emily Brontë’s work and warrants further research, especially focusing on the role of gates, doors, and windows as physical thresholds and the antithetical relationship between what lies within and what resides beyond such boundaries. 92 the realms of the dead and the living. His paleness and trembling suggest intense emotional distress, perhaps fear or anxiety. However, the "strange, joyful glitter" in his eyes makes his demeanour contradictory. The "glitter" alters his entire appearance, indicating that concurrent to his apparent distress lies a deep, almost perverse (“strange”) sense of joy or satisfaction. This duality reflects the complex nature of Heathcliff's character as the personification of the Sublime, where pain and pleasure are inextricably intertwined. One wonders what Heathcliff may have seen or done while roaming the moors, and the absence of a concrete answer contributes to the reader’s uneasiness. Were these the ramblings of a disturbed, malnourished man 51 ? Is Heathcliff answering the call from someone or something in the wild? What is he doing out there in the dark all night long? Is he experiencing some supernatural force? Is he the supernatural force? Ellen Dean’s question is the reader’s question: “Where were you last night?” (p. 249), to which Heathcliff answers cryptically: “Last night I was on the threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven.” (p.249). Heathcliff is not only standing on the physical threshold of the door. He is standing on the final threshold: the one that separates hell and heaven. Due to the lack of nourishment and sleep, Heathcliff begins to give signs of physical agitation and mental deterioration: He returned after midnight, and, instead of going to bed, shut himself into the room beneath. I listened, and tossed about, and, finally, dressed and descended. It was too irksome to lie there, harassing my brain with a hundred idle misgivings. I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff's step, restlessly measuring the floor, and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration, resembling a groan. He muttered detached words also; the only one I could catch was the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or suffering; and spoken as one would speak to a person present; low and earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul. (p. 251). Heathcliff is pacing, sighing, groaning, mumbling incoherent words (or perhaps words from the unintelligible “gibberish” he spoke when he first arrived at the Heights) of which only the name Catherine could be understood. His tone is loving but desperate, and he is addressing someone who is not physically in the room, much like the speaker in the poem who finds no 51 At this point in the novel, Ellen says that Heathcliff barely eats (“I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim.” (p.251) and is gradually losing his physical integrity, acquiring ghost-like features (“The way you've passed these three last days might knock up a Titan. Do take some food, and some repose. You need only look at yourself in a glass to see how you require both. Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes bloodshot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss of sleep.” (p.252) 93 solace in sleep but to whom the lack thereof also makes them ramble repetitively all the sorrow in their life. Of particular interest is the line “Sleep brings no friend to me”, as, in Wuthering Heights, if, in Chapter IX, Catherine falls asleep, she fears missing her friend (Heathcliff), and Heathcliff, in Chapter XXXIV, should he fall asleep, also fears losing contact with his immaterial friend (Catherine). In Wuthering Heights, sleep is also seen not as a refuge but as a space to avoid. The relevance of sleep is highlighted in the very last sentence by Lockwood: I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.” 52 (p.256). Lockwood takes his final stroll and observes the resting places of Heathcliff, Catherine, and Edgar beneath a "benign sky." The scenario is mild and pleasant, with “soft wind,” “moths fluttering,” and “heath and harebells,” all signs of a harmonious and peaceful atmosphere. Heathcliff and Catherine are dead, and Lockwood seems to suggest that the natural order has finally been re-established. Lockwood sees this narrative as finished and Heathcliff’s death marks the end of the characters’ personal tragedy, as they are all finally united in the afterlife, should there be one (everyone’s exact role in this dynamic is not fully described as it does not fit the “natural” societal order by which Lockwood abides: even in death, Catherine is still a woman between two men). All in all, Lockwood believes or wants to believe that now life is finally for the living, and the reason will no longer be disturbed by passions, hauntings or other transgressions. However, at this point, the reader is aware that they cannot rely on Lockwood to interpret the events or convey correct information. From the very beginning of the novel, he repeatedly fails to identify people, places, and events. The polyptoton in "unquiet" and "quiet" draws a deliberate contrast in Lockwood’s last words. Even though he seems certain of his version of reality, the reader is left with the question of whether Heathcliff and Catherine truly rest in peace or if their spirits will continue to haunt the moors. The "unquiet slumbers" suggest that, despite the apparent peace of the “quiet earth,” their intense connection and unresolved issues in life may prevent them from finding complete rest. As much as Lockwood wishes to dismiss the sightings of Heathcliff and Catherine by Joseph and the little boy, as the 52 Our italics. 94 idea of the supernatural does not fit within his structures of rational thought, one is left with the impression that now, after six months, the narrator even questions himself whether the events he witnessed took place exactly how he perceived them. There is a lingering tension, a reminder that for characters as intense as Heathcliff and Catherine, peace might never come easily – even in death – and that they may only be waiting for the next storm to reappear. In the end, Lockwood still does not understand Wuthering Heights, which is perhaps Emily Brontë’s way of hinting that some thresholds are better left uncrossed. 3.1.3 “The night is darkening round me” Emily Brontë’s “The night is darkening round me” was written in November 1837 in Haworth, a windswept village in Yorkshire, where the author spent almost her entire life and where snowbound trees and gathering storms would have been rather frequent. Although the manuscript does not bear any of the markings usually used by Emily to signal the poems belonging to the Gondal saga, Juliet Barker, the editor of the volume The Brontë's Selected Poems, in 1989, suggests that this poem may be the manifestation of the speaker’s “maternal emotions”, related to an incident when one of the Gondal heroines, Augusta Geraldine Almeda exposes her child to die on the mountains in the depths of winter 53 , which is also mentioned later on by Christine Alexander (2010), as this poem is the very first one included in her anthology solely dedicated to the juvenilia of the Brontë siblings. “The night is darkening round me” is a lyric poem consisting of 12 lines, divided into three quatrains. Each stanza has a similar structure: the poet describes the inhospitable landscape in which they are trapped to reiterate then that, due to unspoken reasons, they 53 To reinforce the integration of this poem in the Gondal saga, there seems to be some thematic overlap regarding instances of maternal abandonment, as Emily returns to the theme in two other poems: in 'A Farewell to Alexandria,' dated 1839, Augusta Geraldine Almeda (AGA), a somewhat unconventional queen of Gondal, allegedly (might) abandons her illegitimate newborn daughter (whose father is Alfred Sidonia, one of AGA’s many lovers) to the harsh natural elements: “I might have laid thee down / And deemed thy sleep would gentle be / I might have left thee, darling one / And thought thy God was guarding thee!” (stanza 5), a vile act that seems particularly difficult to commit due to the extreme weather conditions: “Alas, the flakes are heavily falling; / They cover fast each guardian crest; / And chilly white their shroud is palling / Thy frozen limbs and freezing breast” (stanza 8). The last stanza of the poem makes it clear that not only is this an unwanted child but also highlights the inner conflict of the speaker: “Wakes up the storm more madly wild, / The mountain drifts are tossed on high— / Farewell, unblessed, unfriended child, / I cannot bear to watch thee die!” Again, in “What winter floods, what showers of Spring,” from 1839, AGA remorsefully recalls the final resting place of a well-kept secret: “And yet, beneath, that spectre ring, Unmoved and undiscovered lay // A mute remembrancer of crime, / Long lost, concealed, forgot for years, / It comes at last to cancel time, / And waken unavailing tears” (l.3-8). 95 "cannot go". This repetition, evoked 3 times, that they "cannot go" at the end of the last line of each stanza provides this poem with the sense of a ballad, as it acts as a refrain. In addition to the stanza structure, built like a grim old song, “The night is darkening round me” is written in accented meter. Although the meter is inconsistent at times, it still follows the same number of stressed syllables per line (in this case, three), thus giving the poem the paced rhythm of the tales of oral tradition. The A and C lines are iambic trimeters + an unstressed syllable, “The night is darkening round + me” (l.1) and “The giant trees are bend + ing” (l.5), and the B and D lines are iambic trimeters, “The wild winds coldly blow” (l.2) and “Their bare boughs weighed with snow”. The exception is the third stanza, in which the first 2 lines truncate the first unstressed syllable, “Clouds beyond clouds above + me, / Wastes beyond wastes below” (l.9-10), thus breaking the established pattern by changing the pace and anticipating the last refrain to close the ballad (similar to a nursery rhyme “Ladybird, Ladybird” 54 , which also has a three-beat accentual meter). The parallel rhythm of "clouds beyond clouds" and "wastes beyond wastes" evokes an imagery of a location where skies and lands, both above and below, are equally chaotic, craggy, and ominous. No matter how much the poet might want to escape from this "drear" place, all their efforts are in vain. The return to the regularity of the last two lines, again with consistent three-feet iambs, evokes their helpless stillness: “I will not, cannot go.” (l.12). As to the rhyme scheme, this poem uses ABAB in its three quatrains, which results in a pattern of ABAB CBCB ABAB, which forms a symmetrical pattern, as the B rhymes chime with one another across the whole poem. The odd lines rhyme in pairs (me/me; bending/descending; me/me); however, the even lines, the B rhymes, always return to a /əʊ/ sound: blow, snow, below, and go in the last line of each stanza. The speaker, thus, keeps circling back to what they cannot do – "go" – making the also circular rhyme scheme mirror 54 The line "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home" is written in iambic trimeter + an unstressed syllable. The nursery rhyme was well known in the Brontë household. Not only were the Brontë children well acquainted with local folklore and nursery rhymes, the influence of the local servants, but there was a literary variation, written by Caroline Anne Southey, second wife of the Poet Laureate Robert Southey, which appeared in an 1827 issue of Blackwood's Magazine, a publication also welcomed by the Brontë household. The first stanza reads: “Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home, / The field mouse is gone to her nest, / The daisies have shut up their sleepy red eyes / And the birds and the bees are at rest. The first line, “Lady-bird, Lady-bird, fly away home,” also heads a poem penned by the Brontë sisters. However, its authorship has been profusely debated throughout the years. While some academics attribute the poem to Charlotte (namely in Guimarães (2002, p.383), stating it describes the final attempt at reconciliation between Zamorna and Northangerland, hence pertaining to the Angria poems), this holograph poem appears in most anthologies under the authorship of Emily. While consulting the catalogue of the manuscript in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature in The New York Public Library, "Lady-bird! ladybird! Fly away home" is filed under the name of both sisters. 102 Wuthering Heights, adding to the bleak and oppressive mood. The snow's heaviness and the trees twisted by the wind enhance the characters’ emotional weight and the novel’s sombre tone. If one is to recall the motif of heaven and earth expressed in “Clouds beyond clouds above me, / Wastes beyond wastes below” (l.9-10), the thin line that separates both planes is also evoked in the novel. When Lockwood experiences his “nightmare”, the ghostly imagery and the sense of being overwhelmed reflect the novel’s use of the overlapping of the natural and supernatural elements to mirror characters’ inner states, similar to the way the poem uses nature to reflect emotional weight. In Chapter III, Lockwood, while in the daze that separates the states of consciousness and unconsciousness while falling asleep, says I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: (…) 'I must stop it, nevertheless!' I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: (…) Terror made me cruel. (p.20). The passage opens with a triple auditory description: “I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause:”. This synaesthetic engagement not only establishes the scene's atmospheric conditions but also immerses the reader in the chaotic and formidable forces of nature, by enhancing their awareness to the environment's magnitude and its capacity to induce feelings of insignificance and fear, i.e., the description of the wind, snow and bough, as powerful and unrelenting contributes to the Sublime by presenting nature as a dominant force. Lockwood’s response to the sounds culminates in a profound emotional reaction. When reaching out to grab the boughs, “my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me.” (p.20). This moment of terror reflects the Sublime's psychological dimension, where the sublime experience transcends physical sensations and plunges into a realm of psychological horror. The encounter with this “little, ice-cold hand” amplifies the sense of dread and horror. This moment encapsulates the Sublime’s capacity to confront individuals with the unknown or the supernatural, invoking a deep sense of awe and terror. The narrator’s subsequent reaction, “Terror made me cruel”, indicates the intense psychological impact of the experience, highlighting how the Sublime can elicit extreme emotional and moral responses. Brontë’s portrayal of nature as an active, almost malignant force that interacts with human consciousness in both the poem and the novel 103 underscores the Sublime’s theme of nature's power to evoke a sense of existential vulnerability and terror. Another motif in Wuthering Heights that may easily connect with both “The night is darkening round me” and the novel is the wording in the tautology used by Heathcliff upon learning of Catherine’s death, in Chapter XVI: “Oh, God! it is unutterable! I CANNOT live without my life! I CANNOT live without my soul!” (p.129). This is reminiscent of the theme of isolation and entrapment present in lines 4, 8 and 12 of the poem: “I cannot [will not], cannot go”. This excerpt reflects Heathcliff’s profound sense of emotional entrapment and isolation, similar to the speaker in the poem, who feels bound and powerless. Heathcliff’s life is inextricably tied to Catherine and their tortured relationship, showcasing their own sense of entrapment with one another. They are each other’s “tyrant spell”. Likewise, in “Light up thy halls! ‘Tis closing day”, one can perceive the sense of isolation and entrapment in Fernando De Samara’s accusations towards A.G.A. In a self-deprecating soliloquy, he states that she must be glad now that she will never see his face again (“Bright be thine eyes, undimmed their dazzling shine, For never, never more shall they encounter mine!” l.7-8). He even imagines her scorning him with “careless pride” should she see him in those last moments 56 . In the last stanza of the poem, Fernando calls A.G.A. a “tyrant”, who, despite all the pain she has caused him, still rules over his heart and soul (“Unconquered in my soul the Tyrant rules me still:” l.43). With the same tone of powerlessness and betrayal, we see Heathcliff in Chapter XV, pointing his finger at Catherine, blaming her for their downfall: 'You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. WHY did you despise me? WHY did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - then what RIGHT had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, YOU, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart - YOU have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What 56 Quite reminiscent of the concept of "La Belle Dame sans Merci", portrayed in John Keats’ ballad (1819), it also explores themes of love, loss and fatal attraction. The poem features a knight who encounters a mysterious, beautiful lady. She is described as enchanting, almost supernatural, with “wild eyes” (l.16) and an alluring charm. She offers him "roots of relish sweet" (l.25) and other seemingly magical sustenance, leading him to dream of past victims—kings, princes, and warriors— who, like him, have fallen under her spell and been abandoned. By the end of the poem, the knight is left "alone and palely loitering" (l.46) on a desolate hillside, haunted by the memory of the lady’s allure. The "beautiful lady without mercy" represents an idealised yet destructive beauty, an unrequited love that can only lead to despair. The trope of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” in Emily Brontë’s work would be a fascinating topic for further research. 104 kind of living will it be when you - oh, God! would YOU like to live with your soul in the grave?’(p.125) Similarly to Fernando De Samara, who turns on A.G.A. by calling her a “Deceiver” and a “Tyrant”, Heathcliff calls Catherine “cruel and false”, a traitor who despises his love for her. Heathcliff also has no words of comfort for Catherine, as Fernando does not have anything else to say to A.G.A. just that she deserves all the misfortune that comes her way (“Say that my pangs are past, but hers are yet to come” l.36). He also accuses Catherine of breaking his heart and considers suicide: “Do I want to live?”. Like Fernando de Samara, in his dying words, Heathcliff declares he can annihilate everything, including himself, but “Love I cannot kill”: “You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!” (p.123). These excerpts from Wuthering Heights highlight how the themes and stylistic elements in the novel echo those found in Emily Brontë’s poems, illustrating her consistent exploration of isolation, nature’s power, and emotional intensity across her works. 3.1.4 “In summer’s mellow midnight” The poem “In summer’s mellow midnight,” written in 1840 while Emily was back in her family home in Haworth, after her six-month stint as a teacher in Miss Patchet's school at Law Hill, near Halifax, explores nature's influence on the human mind against a backdrop of nocturnal imagery. Externally, the poem's structure is quite straightforward, with no deviation from the quatrain format, with an ABCB rhyme scheme. The metric of the stanzas consists mostly of iambic trimeters: “In summers mellow midnight / A cloudless moon shone through” (l.1-2). However, the first version of this poem translates into a rather irregular metric, by alternating iambic trimeters with tetrameters, as in the last stanza: "And when thy heart is laid at rest (tetrameter) / Beneath the church-yard stone, (trimeter)/ I shall have time enough to mourn, (tetrameter) / And thou to be alone.". Peeck-O’Toole (1988, p.80), however, states that this first version was revised by Charlotte Brontë upon publication in 1850, resulting in a standardisation of the line metric into three iambic feet. This is, thus, the version in print today: "And when thy heart is resting / Beneath the church-aisle stone, / I shall have time for mourning, / And thou for being alone." 105 Charlotte Brontë corrected this stanza posthumously for stylistic purposes and to insert a biographical note into the poem, as it now would describe Emily’s burial location. Unlike the speaker in the poem, Emily Brontë was buried under the floor of St. Michael and All Angels in Haworth, together with her entire family, except Anne, who died and was buried in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, in 1849. The original wording “church-yard” is also evocative of Wuthering Heights in the description of Catherine’s grave given by Ellen: “The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations, outside. It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirk-yard, where the wall is so low that heath and bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor; and peat-mould almost buries it.” (p.130). In the late 18th century, it was customary for people, especially people of a particular social standing, as would the Earnshaws and Lintons be, to be buried inside the building itself or, at least, in a vault underneath the churchyard immediately surrounding the church. The fact that Catherine is buried in the limits of the kirk-yard, where the wall is so low that the wild vegetation has already invaded, places her on another threshold between the human-built and the natural and, ultimately, between the consecrated and the pagan. However, the poem’s apparent regularity in form (perfected by Charlotte) contrasts with the internal tumult conveyed through the wind's dialogue with the speaker, thus mirroring the tumultuous interaction between nature and human experience. It begins with a vivid depiction of a summer midnight, where the moonlight and dew-laden rosetrees create a serene and reflective atmosphere. As the speaker meditates in this setting, the gentle night wind becomes an almost sentient presence, conveying messages of beauty and foreboding, thus turning it into an active, persuasive force that interacts with the speaker's thoughts and emotions. The wind, in the first part of the poem described as bearing a delicate and seducing voice, serves as both a source of comfort and a catalyst for deeper contemplation for the speaker regarding their own thoughts. Brontë's use of sensory imagery – such as the whispering wind and the rustling leaves – creates a richly atmospheric experience, drawing the reader into a space where the threshold between the physical, the natural and the spiritual becomes fluid. The second half of the poem consists of a dialogue between the speaker and the wind itself, and, as the dialogue progresses, the wind's insistence on the speaker's engagement becomes more pronounced, and the reader senses an underlying tension 106 between the personal autonomy of the speaker and the persuasive power of nature. The wind's persistent allure and nostalgic reminiscence highlight a struggle between the desire for isolation and the seductive pull of nature's companionship. Here, the wind is a force that both delights and challenges the human spirit. This progression culminates in the final stanza, where the speaker's resistance to the wind's urges is firmly established. The opening stanza describes a tranquil, idyllic scene, emphasising the beauty and serenity of a summer night: “In summer’s mellow midnight” (l.1). The use of the adjective mellow points to the serenity embracing the speaker and the alliteration in the repetition of the consonant /m/ sound evokes a sense of softness and intimacy. Note that, much like in the poem “High waving heather ‘neath stormy blasts bending”, the time reference is also of midnight as the optimum moment for poetic insight. The concept of midnight as a time threshold is reinforced by the use of another element often considered a threshold between two distinct planes: the window. Line 3, “Our open parlour window,” indicates that the speaker is indoors. However, their attention is turned outdoors. The passage between these two planes is symbolised in the open window from where the wind invades the room and the speaker’s mind escapes the room. This stanza is filled with elements of synaesthesia: the visual element with a “cloudless moon shone through” (l.2), which creates a vivid visual image of the moon’s clear, unobstructed light, and the tactile element in “And rose-trees wet with dew.” (l.4), which conveys the idea of freshness and renewal, as well as the embrace of the flora. The second stanza explores the impact of nature on the speaker's thoughts and initiates the dialogue between the speaker and the wind, even though it is still in the reported speech. By personifying the wind in line 6, “The soft wind waved my hair,” the speaker opens the door to the dialogue and other attributions of human actions to the wind, thus making it an active participant in the speaker’s experience. The phrase “The soft wind” evokes a tactile sense of the wind’s gentle touch again, as it stands as a source of delight, as a “silent musing”, leading the speaker to contemplate the beauty of both the heavens and the earth: “It told me heaven was glorious, / And sleeping earth was fair.” (l.7-8). By providing the wind with speech, the speaker conveys the idea that transcendence may be found in both heaven and earth, as the former is glorious, but the latter is fair. The silence can also symbolise an empty space filled with introspection and contemplation, invaded by the wind’s actions by caressing the hair and then uttering words as 107 the latter crosses the threshold of the windowsill. What follows is a soft battle of wills, in which reason and imagination play tug-of-war within the speaker’s inner thoughts. Slightly different from Keats’ concept of “negative capability” 57 , where the subject empties and abandons itself to be occupied by the object, in rejection of rationality, Emily tries to balance both Imagination and Reason within her poetic voice. Hence, this silence that the wind invades is played against the speaker’s own thoughts: “I needed not its breathing / To bring such thoughts to me;” (l.910). The wind teases and pushes boundaries, but the speaker does not forsake their Reason. What we see is a meeting between the two forces: the imaginative unknown and the rational thought. Similar to the Kantian Sublime, the speaker stands on the threshold where imagination and reason meet their limits. The poem continues with the speaker confessing the intrusive nature of the wind, which reinforces what they already perceive about the duality between heaven and earth, particularly the darkness and mystery of the woods, which “represent what primitive, untamed even unhuman” (Roper, 1995, p.249) is. In this stanza, the wind is in its full anthropomorphic form: it breathes and whispers. There is an auditory sensation in the use of these verbs, especially in line 3 of the stanza, “But still it whispered lowly”, where the pleonasm in “whispered lowly” as both the verb form and the adverb imply a soft or gentle manner of speaking. By using both "whispered" and "lowly", the speaker accentuates the delicate, almost imperceptible quality of the wind's voice, increasing the reader's awareness of its subtle influence. This redundancy contributes to the creation of a serene and ethereal atmosphere and has a direct influence on the poetic rhythm as it enhances its musicality. The fourth stanza follows the previous ones by personifying the natural elements of the leaves and their rustling sounds, thus amplifying the mystical and almost supernatural quality of the wind’s presence. By comparing the rustle of the thick leaves to a dream (“Rustling like a dream”), the speaker suggests a surreal and ethereal quality. The imagery is also enriched by the use of the synaesthesia of the auditory experience as the leaves have 57 Romantic poet John Keats’ notion of “negative capability” can be associated with silence in the sense that both involve surrendering to an unknown force and accepting ambiguity. Silence, like the negative capability, represents a space where certainty and clear answers are absent, allowing for contemplation, introspection, and the exploration of ambiguities beyond the restraints of language. In this silence, the mind is free from the interference of rationality and explanation, thus creating a space for the imagination to engage with the mysteries of existence. Just as negative capability embraces the unresolved, silence provides a quiet void where the complexities and contradictions of life can be felt and understood without the need for words or definitive conclusions: "I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason" (John Keats in a letter to his brothers George and Tom, on December 21st, 1817). Even here, a threshold is being crossed: the one between the presence and absence of language. 108 countless voices all combined in a murmur: “The thick leaves in my murmur / (…) / And all their myriad voices”. In stanza five, the speaker addresses the wind by using the imperative and the apostrophe: “Go, gentle singer” (line 1 of the stanza). The speaker personifies the wind and calls it a gentle singer”, adding that its voice is rather seductive. Its “wooing voice” metaphorically describes the wind’s influence as an act of courtship or persuasion. The assonance in the long [uː] sound in the line "Softly wooing at my window," contributes to the poem's tantalising and melodious quality. Despite acknowledging the wind’s charm, the speaker asserts their emotional and intellectual independence as they resist its allure, indicating a desire to maintain personal control over their feelings and thoughts. This is marked by the adversative “But”, clearly stating that, even though the wind’s voice is captivating, it will not influence the speaker: “But do not think its music / Has power to reach my mind.” The same reasoning bleeds into the next stanza, in which the speaker continues using the imperative (“play” and “leave”) to steer the wind away from their thoughts and feelings, redirecting it to other natural elements, such as the scented flower or the moving boughs, upon which it can also exert its influence – by spreading the fragrance and making the boughs move: "Play with the scented flower, / The young tree's supple bough”. The speaker urges the wind to let their emotional status and reasoning follow their natural course: “And leave my human feelings / In their own course to flow." Stanza seven signals a shift in both the tone of the poem and the dynamics between the “characters”, stressed metrically by the use of the hypercatalexis in the first line of the stanza: the apparent iambic “The wanderer would not heed me” has an additional syllable at the end after the trimeter is metrically complete: “me”; and, thematically, by introducing the dismissiveness of the wind of the speaker’s will and reasoning. The wind, now personified as a “Wanderer,” 58 becomes more insistent, reflecting an almost forceful and coercive pursuit. The line depicts the wind as a wandering entity with aggressive traits, such as disregard for the pleas of the speaker and persistence in its intents. The tone intensifies, as there is an obvious tension between temptation and resistance, with the speaker’s resolve almost subsiding under 58 The figure of the Wanderer can also be applied to Heathcliff and Catherine at different moments of the novel Wuthering Heights. In Lockwood’s dream, Catherine describes herself as a “waif” (p.20) who has been wandering the moors for twenty years. Later in the novel, it is Heathcliff who becomes a wanderer, roaming the moors in the darkness. After Heathcliff’s death, both are seen wandering the moors together. 109 the wind's persistent charm. The metaphor “Its kiss grew warmer still” uses the imagery of the kiss to describe the increasing intimacy of the wind’s influence. This stanza also marks the first time the wind speaks in the first person, using the interjection and the imperative: “O come! it sighed so sweetly”. The imperative directed at the speaker fosters an intimate and immediate connection, thereby blurring the line between the natural and human realms. By directly inviting the speaker to engage with it in the liminal space between heaven and earth, the wind transcends its natural role, creating an intersectional space between the physical and the ethereal. The fact the wind is sighing translates the dramatic tone of its character. Moreover, the alliteration in /s/ (“sighed so sweetly”) adds a soft, soothing and, perhaps more importantly, a hissing effect to the text, akin to the onomatopoeic sound of a snake. There is something devilish about the character and behaviour of the wind, which will not relent even if not given consent: "I'll win thee 'gainst thy will.” This is a clear use of the language of the Sublime, as it depicts nature overpowering the speaker’s reason in a demonstration of its force. The wind continues to use its words to seduce the speaker by mentioning the history of the speaker’s relationship with the wind, portraying it as a longstanding, almost intimate connection. The rhetorical questions, “Have we not been childhood friends?” and “Have I not loved thee long?” create a sense of familiarity and personal connection and appeal to the naïveté characteristic of childhood, which can be seen as rather manipulative on the wind’s part. The theme emphasises the deep, enduring bond between the natural world and the speaker’s inner life. By personifying the night itself in “Thou, the solemn night”, the wind evokes a third party as a counterpart and witness to the wind’s influence in the speaker’s life. Again, the idea of silence, of the empty space that is filled with the “song” of the wind, creates a quiet, reflective atmosphere that complements the poem’s themes of solitude and introspection. As mentioned above, the last stanza suffered some changes in the wording, as stated in the 1840 manuscript and its later revision and publication in 1850 by Emily’s sister Charlotte.. 59 For the purposes of this analysis, the original 1840 version of the poem will be adopted. In general terms, the stanza reflects on the inevitability of separation and the 59 This was not the only change made to the wording, as the title “The Night-Wind” was added to the manuscript, it is believed by Emily herself, when the sisters were preparing their collective poetry book in 1846, but it is definitely the most significant, as it changes the fundamental metric, syntax and semantics of the stanza, as one will be able to see in the section devoted to parallelling this poem to Wuthering Heights. 110 ultimate solitude that comes with death. By using the imagery “Beneath the church-yard stone”, the voice of the wind creates a visual image of death and burial, thus reinforcing the theme of human finitude but nature’s perennity. The wind also uses mourning (“I shall have time for mourning”) as a metaphor for the future reflection and loss experienced after death. Note that the permanent natural element uses a future verb form, “shall have time,” to highlight a future that the speaker will not have due to their mortality. This personification of the wind as a mourner, highlights its part as an active presence in the poem, though fluctuating between aggressiveness and melancholy. The poem “In summer’s mellow midnight" is deeply intertwined with the concept of the Sublime, as articulated by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant. Both Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) and Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790) provide foundational understandings of the Sublime that illuminate the thematic and atmospheric elements of Brontë's works. Edmund Burke defines the Sublime as an experience of grandeur that inspires awe and terror, often evoking feelings of vastness and gloom. One may recall his definition: “The source of the Sublime is Infinity” (2025, p.94). This notion is reflected in the poem’s imagery of the night and the infinite expanse of nature. The wind’s capacity to evoke a sense of boundlessness connects to Burke’s idea of the Sublime as something that transcends ordinary limits and induces a profound emotional response. In "In summer’s mellow midnight”, the wind embodies the dynamical Sublime through its forceful, aggressive presence. The line “I’ll win thee’ gainst thy will” reveals the speaker’s weakness against the wind’s overwhelming force. This moment captures Kant’s notion of the Sublime as a force that challenges human capabilities, invoking both awe and a sense of immense vulnerability. Kant also writes, “The feeling of the Sublime is therefore a feeling of pain, arising from the want of accordance between the aesthetical estimation of magnitude formed by the Imagination and the estimation of the same formed by Reason”. (2017b, p.155). This duality is evident in the poem, where the wind’s gentle whisper contrasts with its underlying threat, thus creating a complex emotional experience that combines admiration with fear. The wind’s ability to inspire a sense of both beauty and terror reflects Kant’s conception of the Sublime as a multifaceted emotional and aesthetic response. The personification of the wind and its whispers also evoke the Sublime by suggesting an invisible, magnificent and powerful force in nature that connects 111 with the inner workings of the human mind. The "mellow midnight", "cloudless moonlit sky", and "murmuring low" conjure a serene yet haunting atmosphere, standing on the fine threshold between beauty and unease inherent to the Sublime. There is a strong connection between this poem and “Shall Earth no more inspire thee,” dated May 1841. In addition to having a similar structure, as they are both composed of quatrains with iambic tetrameters (Shall Earth no more inspire thee), they resort to the same dramatic dialogue with two poetic voices duelling in a battle of wills, even though the second voice, which is assumed to be human, remains silent. In “Shall Earth no more inspire thee,” nature is personified in the use of the first person, namely in the imagery of the earth, the mountains, the sky, and the wind: “I know my mountain breezes / Enchant and soothe thee still— / I know my sunshine pleases / Despite thy wayward will.” (l.9-12). Similarly to “In summer’s mellow midnight”, nature is also trying to allure the poet into joining it, "dwell with me" (l.8), first by the use of seductive language and then by asserting its dominance on the “dreamer”: “I’ve watched thee every hour; / I know my mighty sway, / I know my magic power / To drive thy griefs away.” (l.17-20). The last stanza of the poem reveals nature’s main asset, the wind, which recovers the features and role given in “In summer’s mellow midnight”: nature urges the subject to let the wind caress them as it has always been their “comrade”, much like the wind in the 1840 poem has been a childhood “friend” of the speaker (l.29). The invocation of nature as a force capable of seducing and even overpowering the subject is akin to the concept of the Sublime as it emerges from the personification of nature itself as a sentient entity endowed with a “mighty sway” and “magic power.” By personifying nature, Brontë elevates it to a level where it interacts with the speaker and actively influences their emotional world. On the one hand, nature is vast and untameable but also intimate enough to "drive thy griefs away". The tension between the comfortable intimacy of its close relationship with the subject and the power it exerts on the latter captures the duality of the Sublime. Stanza six evokes another duality common to the imagery of the Sublime: that of heaven and earth. In this stanza, nature points out the singularity of the subject who, unlike many, does not urge for ascendance to heaven but was able to seek and find their heaven on earth. As in “High waveing heather ‘neath stormy blasts bending” (“Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending” l.4) and “In summer’s mellow midnight” (It told me heaven was glorious, 118 relationships between words and ideas, such as opposites and paradoxes. For example, in the third stanza, "spring" rhymes (slantly) with "suffering" to highlight the antithesis between the seasons and the speaker's remembrance, which has remained unchanged. Likewise, in the sixth stanza, "destroy" rhymes with "joy" to accentuate the idea that all that was destroyed could still be cherished and remembered, even if without joy. The poem primarily employs iambic pentameter, each line comprising five iambic feet. However, Day Lewis (1954) provides the following commentary on the poem’s metre: The line here is basically a pentameter; but it is pulled out of the ordinary young pigment amateur rhythm and given a different shape by three devices - by putting a stress on the first syllable of each line, by a marked caesura after the second foot, and by the use of “feminine rhymes” in lines one and three of each stanza. The effect of this rhythm I find extremely powerful, extremely appropriate. It is a dragging effort as of feet moving in the funeral march; an andante maestoso; it is the slowest rhythm I know in English poetry and the most sombre. (p. 13). The most glaring example of such three devices is line 9: “Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers”, where the stress of the first foot falls in the first syllable “Cold”; there is a caesura marked by a hyphen after the second foot “the earth—", and the use of a feminine ending (-ers) in “Decembers”. The poem exemplifies Brontë’s use of “feminine endings” and rhymes, as all the oddnumbered lines in the poem consist of feminine endings. 62 In addition to the usual two-syllable words in which the second is unstressed, such as “hover” and “cover” in stanza two, there is one extended feminine rhyme (Decembers/remembers) and the pronouns “thee” and “me” are unstressed in lines 1, 3, 13 and 15. Although Brontë's rhyme in this poem of “suffering” with “spring” stresses the -ing, words ending in -ing provide the most common feminine ending. This work has already included one of those examples in “High waving heather ‘neath stormy blasts bending” (1836), but there are other poems, such as “Songs by Julius Brenzaida to G.S. ‘Geraldine, the moon is shining’”, in which the odd rhymes are written in feminine endings: “Geraldine, the moon is shining / With so soft, so bright a ray; / Seems it not that eve's declining / Ushered in a fairer day?”; or a non-Gondal poem such as “Loud without 62 In poetry, a "feminine ending" refers to a line that ends with an unstressed syllable. According to C. Day Lewis, a feminine ending contrasts with a "masculine ending," which concludes with a stressed syllable. Feminine endings create a softer, more nuanced conclusion to a line, often resulting in a subtle rhythmic variation. In addition, they add complexity to the meter by extending the rhythm beyond the expected closure, highlighting the sense of incompletion or fluidity as opposed to the more traditional masculine endings, which tend to deliver a sense of finality and strength. See Lewis, 1948, p. 78. 119 the wind was roaring” in its first stanza: “Loud without the wind was roaring / Through th' autumnal sky; / Drenching wet, the cold rain pouring, / Spoke of winter nigh.” However, the “Cold in the earth” metric is somewhat more complex than the straightforward five-feet-of-unstressed-stressed-syllable line. The very first line of the poem starts with a trochee, i.e., a metrical foot is made up of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (as opposed to an iamb): “Cold in”, followed by an anapaest (a foot consisting of three syllables: two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable) “and the deep”, with an amphibrach (a metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed one, followed by an unstressed one): “above thee”. Although the base meter seems relatively consistent throughout the poem, metrical deviations change the pattern. This accentuates the speaker's emotions, whose mournful tone is set in line 1. The speaker applies long syllables ("Cold") and unstressed anapaests ("and the deep"), thus “dragging” the line. At other times, especially when the speaker wishes to mark a turn in the poem's rhythm, there are lines characteristic of iambic pentameters, like line 25 (even though there is an extrametrical syllable at the end of the line, thus making it “feminine”): “Then did I check the tears of useless passion.” The first two lines of the poem, “Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee, / Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!", introduce the topic of the poem by focusing on the image of a deceased loved one, who is now "cold in the earth," (an euphemism for dead and buried), thus indicating that this writing can be seen as an elegy. In these two lines, adjectives such as “deep” and “removed” illustrate the physical and emotional distance between the speaker and the dead person. The "deep snow" stresses the cold, isolating nature of death, while the phrase "far, far removed", by repeating the adverb far, intensifies the sense of separation and distance in time and space while underlining the speaker’s haunting echoing grief. The exclamation at the end of line 2 ("grave!") depicts the speaker’s emotional state. By using punctuation, which is, by default, abrupt and intense, the speaker reveals the depth of their sorrow and the overwhelming nature of their loss. These demonstrations of abruptness and intensity are common occurrences in the literature of the Sublime. In the lines, “Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee, / Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?", the speaker wonders whether the passage of time has caused them to forget their love as a result of the passage of time, whose “wave” cuts all ties with the past. Time, in this context, is personified 120 to express how powerful it is in gradually wearing away memory and feelings, ultimately leading to a detachment between the characters and the breaking of once unbreakable bonds. The speaker’s concerns emerge from the fear that time may have damaged their ability to remember and continue loving their "only Love." The speaker directly addresses their absent beloved using an apostrophe in line 3, “my only Love”, emphasising their past relationship's exclusivity (“only”) and suggesting that this love is not only unique but also irreplaceable. The metaphor in line 4, “Time’s all-severing wave”, further illustrates its destructive capacity, which can be associated with the imagery of the Sublime. The depiction of an entity, such as Time, running rampant and destroying everything in its path evokes the unstoppable, powerful forces of nature, which, like time itself, sweep everything in their path regardless of human will. The speaker realises that they are helpless in the face of the inevitable changes brought by time. The second stanza begins with a dual time reference, "now" and "no longer" (line 5), thus highlighting the weight of the passage of time since the death of the lover and how emotionally distant the speaker feels from the past. The speaker's thoughts no longer "hover" over the grave on "Angora’s shore", hinting at a gradual movement away from the source of their grief and an avoidance of the tomb. The physical distance created by the mountains and the years gone by (space and time) are metaphors for the speaker's increasing emotional detachment from the suffering. The speaker adopts a more meditative tone by moving away from constant tearful mourning towards introspection and attempted emotional balance, resorting to the imagery of their thoughts that, metaphorically represented as birds, no longer fly over the mountains to rest “their wings” on the lover’s grave, already covered in heath and fern-leaves. The rhetorical questions at the end of the first and second stanzas emphasise the speaker's self-doubt, as they have just realised that, with the distance in time and space, they have perhaps inadvertently ceased to remember the loved one with the same intensity. The poem's meter also supports the speaker's shifting emotions, with a iambic pentameter (+ unstressed syllable) in line 8: "That noble heart for ever, ever more?". The epizeuxis in "for 121 ever, ever more" creates a lingering effect, as if the words in the lines are being spoken at the same time they are produced in the speaker’s mind. 63 The third stanza begins with an anaphora in “Cold in the earth” as a call back to the first stanza, but then proceeds with a specific time reference: the "fifteen wild Decembers" that have passed since their lover's death. This imagery of the “wild” Decembers stresses the contrast between winter's cold and the mildness of spring, thus reflecting on the cyclical nature of the seasons. While life goes on, spinning from winter to spring, the speaker still feels somewhat emotionally stunted, as, in lines 11 and 12, evoke a "faithful" spirit that continues to remember their lover despite the changes time brings and the overwhelming amount of suffering. This is, nonetheless, more of an internal dialogue with the speaker trying to solve the conflict between the desire to remain attached to the loved one and the inevitable effects of the passage of time. It is also an attempt to answer the rhetorical questions posed in the first two stanzas. The exclamation in line 9 ("suffering!") adds emotional intensity to this statement, as in “No, I have not forgotten”, thus reinforcing the speaker’s devotion despite the years that have passed. The slant rhyme between "spring" and "suffering" further highlights the tension between the natural renewal of the seasons and the speaker’s static grief, thus illustrating the theme of asynchrony between the constant forward-moving natural cycles of life and the emotional status of the speaker. In the poem's fourth stanza, the speaker addresses her long-lost love, asking for forgiveness if they happen to forget him due to the inevitable changes brought by time. Line 13 begins with an apostrophe to the "Love of youth," which could refer both to the speaker’s lover and the youthful love they experienced. This first “love" is often idealised for its innocence and uniqueness. The speaker acknowledges that time and suffering have taken their toll despite their attempts to remain devoted. This internal conflict between remembering and forgetting encapsulates a universal struggle. While the speaker tries to prove their dedication, they are simultaneously aware of the inevitable impact of time. The metaphorical "world's tide" that drags them inevitably into the future mirrors life’s continuous motion—one is born, lives, and dies. The speaker, by using the imperative “forgive”, adopts a confessional tone and seeks the dead lover’s understanding. In lines 15 and 16, the speaker admits that "sterner 63 Similar to the epizeuxis in the last line of every stanza of the poem “The night is darkening around me”: “can/will not, cannot go”. 122 desires and darker hopes" (line 11) sometimes overwhelm them, thus blurring the memory of their lost love. Yet, they insist that these new hopes cannot erase their love entirely (“…but cannot do thee wrong”). This acknowledgement of life's unpredictability and the inevitability of change reinforces their vulnerability to the "world's tide." The speaker appears to accept that life brings new desires, but this does not diminish the love they once felt. The rhyme scheme - particularly the pairing of "thee" and "me" in a feminine rhyme - suggests a connection between their past love and the person they have become, symbolising the enduring influence of that love despite the changes brought about by time. In stanza five, the speaker tells us here that there has not been anyone else since their "Sweet Love of youth.", through the parallel metaphors “No later light has lightened up my heaven” / No second morn has ever shone for me;”. The expressions "later light" and "second morn" stand metaphorically as “another lover”, which has not happened. The polyptoton “light”/”lightened” stresses how the speaker has been living in darkness since the passing of the lover and the alliteration in [l] in the iambic pentameter of the first line of this stanza (+ an unstressed syllable), “No later light has lightened up my heaven”, creates a synesthetic moment in its auditory appeal. It produces an elongated effect and conveys a melodic and engaging rhythm while enhancing the poem’s sombre mood. Such rhythm is also evident in the anaphora “No…” (lines 17-18), which not only marks the negative and sombre tone of the poem, but also imbues it with a symmetrical structure when contrasted with the following two lines, “All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given, / All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.”, which have their anaphora in the antithetical “All”. All the happiness sprung from her lover when they were alive and lies with them deep down in the grave under the snow. Stanza six marks a shift with the adversative “but”: even though the speaker lives in darkness upon the death of their “golden dreams” (the dreams are painted in a golden light as it is a colour often attributed to the idealisation of the past 64 , especially moments of childhood and youth) and all her happiness has died, Despair (note the capitalisation of the word, personifying it and depicting it as a large ominous force that overpowers the speaker) has not destroyed them completely. There is also the alliteration in [d]: "days, dreams, Despair, 64 Golden Age Thinking is the nostalgic belief that a past era was superior to the present and is seen in modern psychology as a coping mechanism. The origins of the concept date back to Hesiod, who describes a "Golden Age" as a utopian time in the past when humans lived in perfect symbiose with nature and each other. Here, it is believed that the speaker evokes the golden hue of their dreams as a contrast to their bleak existence in the present. 123 destroy.", which grants a melodious quality to the lines while keeping on the same tonal field. Graphically there is also something relevant: by low-casing nouns such as days, dreams and the verb form destroy and capitalising Despair, the speaker is emphasising the magnitude of the feeling when compared to other, more common and of less importance, words. Structurally, this line also marks the end of the lamentation section of the elegy, as in the next two lines (“Then did I learn how existence could be cherished, / Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.”), the speaker, after realising that despair did not destroy them entirely, they conclude that their existence could still be valued and rewarding without "the aid of joy.". Even though the speaker’s happiness lies with the dead person, there are other ways to validate one’s life. Stanza seven reaffirms this will to push forward. The speaker wipes the tears from their face, saying they are of “useless passion”, thus releasing themselves from the grief and rejecting full consumption by despair. They also "weaned" themselves of yearning for a person and a love that cannot be retrieved. The verb form “weaned” is often associated with the stages of childhood and youth, therefore metaphorically implying that the love they felt was a source of nourishment, but it needs to stop so they can move forward with their growth. On the other hand, the “yearning” associated with the “weaning” paints this love not only as a source of nourishment for the soul but also as some sort of addiction from which the speaker needs to be weaned. One should also notice that the rhythm in these lines is different from the poem's first part. In line 25, the pacing is faster, more diligent, and more robust. There are no deviations from the metric formula of the iambic pentameter (+ unstressed syllable): “Then did I check the tears of useless passion”. There’s no caesura, no dramatic pause, just the succession of five iambs with short, stressed syllables (did/check/tears). This line conveys a sense of determination and intensity as opposed to the slow rhyme of the first and second stanzas, where the speaker lingers on their nostalgia. There is a noticeable crescendo in the inner strength of the speaker. The pacing of the line remains quick, underscoring the speaker’s conviction. The speaker’s confrontation with the "useless passion" (l.26) and the "divinest anguish" (l.30) reflect an emotional extremity that borders on the Sublime, where grief and despair reach a level of almost metaphysical intensity. Lines 27-28, “Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten / Down to that tomb already more than mine!”, emphasise such a shift in the power dynamic, as the speaker rejects (“denied”) the impulse to throw themselves into the 124 grave of their loved one. The speaker has acknowledged (“checked” in line 25), cut loose (“weaned” in line 26), and, finally, rejected (“denied” in line 27), giving way to a newfound strength. The speaker sheds at least part of their vulnerability and has relieved themselves from the burden of loss, both of memory and the loved one. They no longer feel the appeal of the tomb but wish to carry on despite lacking the joy once felt. The last stanza opens with the enjambment “And” (line 29), setting the conclusive tone to the poem as the speaker is about to add one final thought. The speaker dares not "let it languish" and linger. It is as if they know better, so they use the negative verb "dare not.", which is repeated to stress that the speaker has moved on and is now more experienced and wiser. They refuse to let Memory’s (again, note the personification in the uppercase) "rapturous pain" tempt them much like a vice, which paradoxically causes pleasure/release (“rapturous”) and suffering (“pain”) and may be intrinsically associated with Kant’s concept of “negative pleasure”, in that Brontë’s Sublime also combines both pain and pleasure since the speaker’s mind is initially overwhelmed by something immense or overwhelming (the grief for the loss of the loved one) but ultimately takes pleasure in the realisation that reason transcends these limitations, by refusing to linger in mourning and striving to move forward: [the feeling of the Sublime] is a pleasure that arises only indirectly; (…)Hence it is incompatible with charms; and as the mind is not merely attracted by the object but is ever being alternately repelled, the satisfaction in the sublime does not so much involve a positive pleasure as admiration or respect, which rather deserves to be called negative pleasure. (Kant, 2017b, p. 139). The paradox repeats in the two last lines, “Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, / How could I seek the empty world again?”, in which one can see the reiteration of the combination between pleasure/release (“divinest”) and suffering (“anguish”). Again, anguish is seen as more of a vice from which the speaker is “drinking deep” and recognises that if they indulge in misery, it would be nothing more than delving into a void, an “empty world” where they are alone with their sorrow. The rhetorical question at the end brings closure to this elegy as it expresses, despite never forgetting ("cannot do thee wrong"), how meaningless remaining in an empty world of sorrow would be, i.e., after experiencing the pain and pleasure of the entire cycle, it would be “useless” (line 21) to return to the starting point of permanent loss. The internal structure is now complete: the initial lament (stanzas 1-4), the praise and admiration: acknowledging the impact and significance of the deceased (stanzas 5-8), and the 125 consolation and acceptance in the speaker’s attempt to reconcile with the loss and find a semblance of peace (stanzas 9-11). “Cold in the earth” finds some of its main themes in Wuthering Heights. Line 1 introduces the imagery of the snow (“snow piled above thee”), which is recurrent in the novel, particularly, similar to the wind, in moments of life and death. Catherine dies in the Spring equinox 65 and on the day of her funeral, which, according to the typical timeframe for a Church of England burial in 18th-century Yorkshire might have been around 2 to 7 days, snow began to fall: “The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow.” (p.219). The reference to the crushing weight of the earth and snow evokes a sense of awe and desolation. The theme of grief continues in line 2 (“Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave!”), where the epizeuxis in the adverb and the adjective “removed” hyperbolically depict not only the physical distance but the emotional chasm caused by the finality of death. In Chapter XXXIII, Heathcliff ceases to eat, drink or rest, and becomes reclusive and morose. One afternoon, he tells Ellen Dean: “The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!” (p.245). Heathcliff realises that everything around him serves as a reminder of his loss and highlights this sense of deeply personal and isolated grief with the pronoun “I” in “I have lost her”. Time went by, everyone moved on with their lives, the children grew up, and his enemies were dead. His mental and physical deterioration arises not only from malnourishment and sleep deprivation but also from the exhaustion of having spent so much time obsessing over power, cruelty and revenge. Heathcliff feels that his earthly body has finally lost Catherine and that there is nothing left to do (or say) but to wait to meet her again in the afterlife. Line 10 of the poem speaks of “brown hills that have melted into spring” (l.10), thus highlighting the changes brought about by the passage of time, and one remembers the budding relationship between young Catherine and Hareton, who were raised so differently but have bonded after substantial trauma (caused by Heathcliff). Stanza five is of particular interest to this analysis: “No later light has lightened up my heaven, / No second morn has ever shone for me; / All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given, / All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.” because it combines the way in which both 65 Young Catherine’s birthday is mentioned to be March 20th, at the threshold of “twelve o'clock that night” (p.127), thus making it also the date of Catherine’s death. 126 Heathcliff and Catherine articulate their mutual love. For Heathcliff, there was no other that could replace the one he felt for Catherine, nor did he seek it. From the moment of Catherine’s death, his entire existence is directed towards inflicting as much suffering as possible upon those around him. For Catherine, it represents the affirmation that her entire existence has been entirely intertwined with Heathcliff's. Perhaps in the most recognised monologue in the novel, Catherine says: What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and HE remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. (…) My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Ellen, I AM Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable; (p. 64). This immediate identification with the Other, inextricable bond between the characters, reflects the profound and consuming nature of their relationship. Similarly, in “Cold in the earth,” the speaker’s persistent memory of the beloved and the enduring impact of their loss highlight the inescapable nature of grief and the way it shapes one’s identity. Heathcliff and Catherine are not soulmates; they are the same person. This concept closely resembles another celebrated poem by Emily Brontë: “No coward soul is mine” (1846), particularly in its last two stanzas: 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 not room for Death Nor atom that his might could render void Since thou art Being and Breath And what thou art may never be destroyed. This motif also resonates with Heathcliff’s emotional outburst following Catherine’s death, propelling him into a hopeless abyss of sorrow that mirrors the grief expressed in the poem: Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you – haunt me, then! The murdered DO haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts HAVE wandered 127 on earth. Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only DO not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I CANNOT live without my life! I CANNOT live without my soul!' (p. 129). The idea of the universe ceasing to exist, leaving only a solitary presence in Otherness, is, in itself, a depiction of the Sublime. The vastness of this concept, coupled with the notion of eternal existence within the Other, evokes a profound sense of awe and wonder. It is, however, imprudent to try to establish a full correspondence of the poem to the novel and even more imprudent to fully identify the speaker of the poem as a projection of Heathcliff. Even though much of the wording and emotional tone of the poem resonates with the character in Wuthering Heights, there are several instances in which such immediate identification is mismatched. Visick (1958, p.15) notes the parallel to Heathcliff’s lament of Catherine in the poem (“’Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee’ has struck many readers as prefiguring the eighteen years of Heathcliff’s mourning for Catherine”) but Hardy (1976, p.104) points out that the speaker cannot be Heathcliff because the latter lacks the “unobsessed remembrance, eroded and distracted” of the former. While Visick’s stance can be understood, as the emotional weight presented in the poem resembles Heathcliff’s immeasurable grief over Catherine’s death, it is undeniable that throughout the poem, the speaker’s tone drifts apart from Heathcliff’s as the speaker finds consolation and expresses acceptance of their lover’s absence. Heathcliff is not as able to reconcile his feelings as the poem’s speaker seems to be. While the speaker managed to find a way to carry on (even without joy) and even wonders if they have, at times, failed to remember the deceased, Heathcliff finds no other purpose, no other thought in his mind other than Catherine and the urge of revenge towards those who opposed their relationship. Additionally, we need to consider that original poem belongs to the Gondal saga, namely depicting Rosina’s lament for the death of her partner, Julius Brenzaida. Rosina and Heathcliff are two very different characters. Apart from being integrated into different geo-political contexts, one in the fictional war-riddled world of Gondal and the other in 18th-century Yorkshire farmland, Rosina Alcona is described by Alexander (2010, p.613) as an ambitious, haughty woman of the Gondal aristocracy who supports Julius Brenzaida’s campaigns for power in Gaaldine. However, she is 134 power of nature, the juxtaposition of earthly and celestial realms, and the assertion of human liberation from confinement all contribute to the poem's invocation of the Sublime, portraying it as a vital force in Brontë's literary landscape. "Sleep brings no joy to me", and its themes of guilt and isolation, delves into the psychological intricacies of despair and confinement, reflecting the speaker’s longing for relief from torment. The poem's structure, with its rhythmic repetition and haunting imagery, echoes the speaker's entrapment within a cycle of regret. Here, sleep, an element traditionally associated with peace, becomes a tormenting presence, intensifying the sense of isolation. The meditation on death as a form of escape mirrors themes presented in Wuthering Heights, where the conflict surrounding love leads to despair and an unresolved longing for connection. Blending natural elements with existential dilemmas underscores Brontë's profound engagement with the Sublime to explore complex emotional states. Emily Brontë’s poem, “The night is darkening round me,” was penned during a time marked by harsh winters and storms. The poem consists of twelve lines arranged in three quatrains that follow an ABAB rhyme scheme. This symmetry in the rhyme scheme reflects the cyclical nature of the speaker's predicament, where both the physical and emotional states are inescapably intertwined. Imagery plays a crucial role in establishing the emotional landscape of the poem and conveys the internal feelings of helplessness and frustration, as seen in the line "I cannot, cannot go," where epizeuxis highlights the speaker's sense of entrapment, which then evolves into “will not go.” This pivotal change reflects a conscious decision to confront their emotional turmoil rather than seeking escape, hinting at a complex relationship with their suffering. The poem suggests that the speaker’s immobility may be self-imposed, indicating a more profound psychological struggle tied to feelings of despair and helplessness. These thematic elements align with Brontë's other works, including the poem “F. de Samara to A.G.A. ‘Light up thy halls ‘Tis closing day” (1838) and her novel Wuthering Heights. In both writings, Brontë explores motifs of isolation, emotional turmoil, and the overwhelming aspects of nature that reflect characters’ internal battles. “In summer’s mellow midnight” (1840) reflects on the relationship between nature and human thought, uniquely employing nocturnal imagery to convey this connection. It reverberates with notions of the Sublime as it evokes admiration and vulnerability through its natural imagery. Kant’s Sublime, which rests on the response to the inadequacy of human 135 understanding faced with nature’s magnitude, can be seen in the dichotomy between the wind's gentle whisper and the underlying threat it poses. The motifs explored in “In summer’s mellow midnight” echo Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, particularly concerning the symbolism of the window as a threshold. The window functions as a pivotal liminal space within the narrative–representing transitions between the inner and outer worlds, reality and imagination, life and death. This aligns with the shared theme of confronting the Sublime aspects of nature and human emotion. In addition, Emily Brontë's “In summer’s mellow midnight” captures the intricate relationship between nature and human thought. The poem reflects on the Sublime, invoking themes of beauty, fear, solitude, and companionship through vivid imagery and personification. The interplay of these elements contributes to the poem's emotional depth and establishes vital interconnections with Brontë's broader literary work, including Wuthering Heights. The poem “R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida ‘Cold in the earth and the deep snow piled above thee!’” (1845) appears within the context of the Gondal saga, explicitly referencing the characters Rosina Alcona and Julius Brenzaida. This narrative in verse is marked by its complex narratives concerning familial ties and political conflicts, although much of this context is elusive due to lost manuscripts. The poem hints at an elaborate tale of love, loss, and betrayal involving Brenzaida, his relationships with Rosina and Geraldine S., and his eventual demise. This particular poem serves as a lament fifteen years after Brenzaida's death, portraying Rosina's enduring grief and her struggle to reconcile the passage of time with her memories. The poem’s structure underscores the speaker’s emotional dissonance as they grapple with mourning and the relentless march of time. The poem employs feminine rhymes and metrical variation, contributing to its meditative, sombre tone. The speaker's emotional turmoil is juxtaposed against the inevitability of time’s progression. The poem opens with stark imagery of death and isolation, framing it as an elegy that laments a deceased lover. The physical and emotional distance caused by death is conveyed through cold, sombre imagery, while reflective rhetorical questions highlight the speaker's inner conflict about memory and the fear of forgetting. As the poem unfolds, the speaker acknowledges the destructive power of time, symbolised by "Time's all-severing wave," which threatens to erode emotional bonds. By the end, the speaker moves toward a reconciliatory 136 stance, recognising that while sorrow persists, life can hold meaning and significance beyond loss, ultimately affirming their existence despite the beloved’s absence. Brontë's exploration reflects the philosophical constructs of the Sublime, where pain and beauty intertwine. The speaker wrestles with feelings of longing and anguish, mirroring the awe or horror often associated with Sublime experiences. The conclusion of the poem encapsulates this rich emotional spectrum, invoking the pervasive theme of enduring love while simultaneously acknowledging the futility of lingering solely in sorrow. The themes observed in “R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida ‘Cold in the earth and the deep snow piled above thee!’” are deeply intertwined with the narrative arcs in Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights. The poem features evocative parallels reflecting the profound love and despair characteristic of the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine. Both Brontë’s poem and the novel contend with themes of enduring loss and the emotional turbulence associated with memory. The poem encapsulates the internal struggle and devastation experienced by its speaker, akin to Heathcliff's relentless sorrow after Catherine's passing. The natural imagery complements the narrative's exploration of grief, emphasising the indelible connection between love and pain. The exploration of thematic resonance between Brontë's poetry and Wuthering Heights illustrates how the motifs of thresholds and the Sublime intertwine throughout her works. The stormy and windy atmosphere that often goes together with pivotal life and death events and the deep emotional conflicts experienced by characters like Heathcliff and Catherine echo the earlier poetic depictions of nature, human emotion, and motivation. The character dynamics often reflect the tension between confinement and freedom, life and death, reinforcing Brontë's enduring concern with these themes. Details such as the enduring presence of nature's forces in the characters' emotional experiences demonstrate the ways in which Brontë's literary vision persists across her poetic and prose works, emphasising a cohesive narrative of the Sublime intertwined with representations of thresholds. Despite the extensive body of scholarship dedicated to Emily Brontë, her life, and her works, this study offers a distinctive and constructive contribution by shedding new light on how the concept and experience of the Sublime are intricately woven into her poetry and narrative. While it may seem outdated to revisit a 19th-century classic that has been analysed 137 exhaustively and adapted across countless formats, Brontë’s work remains an inexhaustible wellspring of meaning because it speaks to universal and timeless questions about human experience. By focusing on the role of literal and metaphorical thresholds as a central mechanism in shaping the Sublime, this research provides a new interpretive framework that deepens the understanding of Brontë’s literary artistry. These liminal spaces function as more than period-specific settings; they transcend their historical moment, offering insights into the human condition that resonate across time, culture, and genre boundaries. In highlighting the transformative power of such spaces, this study not only enriches existing conversations around Brontë’s contributions to the literary canon of the time but also affirms her enduring relevance for contemporary audiences and scholarship. This study also opens up some lines for understanding Emily Brontë's works and potentially reshaping broader literary discussions. By focusing on the interplay between the Sublime and thresholds, it bears additional depth to existing discussions. It encourages readers and scholars to re-evaluate Brontë’s language, style, and themes as tools that create a unique, liminal experience of the Sublime. This perspective shifts the focus from other themes like Gothic tropes or Romantic imagery to her storytelling's structural and experiential mechanics. It also highlights how Brontë reinvents the Sublime by situating it in liminal spaces. This contributes to the broader study of the Sublime in literature, suggesting it is not just a grand, overwhelming force but also a deeply personal, transformative experience shaped by transitional moments. This work could potentially inspire interdisciplinary approaches to Brontë’s work, mainly because Emily’s use of the Sublime and thresholds transcends her historical, geographical and cultural context, thus showing her enduring relevance. Nonetheless, this work also carries some limitations, as the object herein is circumscribed to a deep analysis of five poems, plus Wuthering Heights, and, despite referring to many other compositions of her work, does not provide a comprehensive examination of Brontë's entire oeuvre. Also, it does not explore potential broader implications or applications to other areas of study. In addition to what has been mentioned throughout this dissertation, namely the merits of further discussion on the connection between Sappho's and Emily Brontë's writings and Mary Wollstonecraft's claim of Sublimity for women, future studies could involve a more comprehensive examination of Brontë's work. This study offers significant potential for expansion, particularly through the inclusion of a broader range of Emily Brontë's 138 poems to uncover the recurring themes and experiences of the Sublime that connect her poetic works. By applying the same depth of analysis to additional texts, it would be possible to further explore how Brontë’s engagement with the Sublime manifests across her literary creations. Moreover, Wuthering Heights could be revisited with an even sharper focus on its intricate thresholds, thus delving deeper into how these liminal spaces enhance the novel’s evocation of the Sublime. Such an extension would provide a more comprehensive understanding of Brontë’s artistic vision and its engagement with the Sublime. This study offers practical applications for examining the social and cultural dynamics of 19th-century literary works and the impact of political, social, and economic upheavals on artistic and literary movements. It also contributes to the fields of literature, aesthetics, and cultural studies by shedding light on the profound human responses to nature and the extremes of human potential – both its creative heights and destructive depths. The findings can be applied to the analysis of other literary works addressing the theme of the Sublime, enriching our understanding of how thresholds provoke a sense of wonder, dread, and transcendence. Furthermore, this study proposes interpreting Emily Brontë's works under the lens of the Sublime, shedding light on how her poetry and novel serve as a unifying framework for a profound comprehension of the concept and its resonance across her creations. In answering how the Sublime takes form in Emily Brontë’s works and how thresholds shape its unique manifestation, we affirm Brontë’s position as a pivotal, boundary-defying voice in literary history. Her exploration of the Sublime transcends traditional aesthetic frameworks, offering readers a deeply personal and transformative encounter that radiates far beyond the pages of her texts. The interplay of thresholds heightens the Sublime experience and mirrors the reader’s own negotiation of boundaries between understanding and awe, the self and the Other, reality and imagination. As these findings illuminate the richness and complexity of Brontë’s works, they also open the door to further inquiries into the intersections of the Sublime, liminality, and reader engagement across other authors and literary traditions. The journey that began with Brontë’s windswept moors and shadowy thresholds is far from over; it offers a fertile ground for future exploration into how literature transforms our understanding of boundaries and the boundless. In this light, Emily Brontë’s legacy not only endures but continues to inspire, reminding us of literature’s power to evoke, challenge, suspend and transcend. 139 Annex I Full text of the Poems Analysed in Chapter III of this Dissertation 69 “High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending” December 13th, 1836 High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars All down the mountain sides wild forests lending One mighty voice to the life-giving wind Rivers their banks in their jubilee rending Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending Wider and deeper their waters extending Leaving a desolate desert behind Shining and lowering and swelling and dying Changing forever from midnight to noon Roaring like thunder like soft music sighing Shadows on shadows advancing and flying Lightning bright flashes the deep gloom defying Coming as swiftly and fading as soon 69 Spelling and punctuation standards used in Brontë, E., & Gezari, J. (1992). Emily Brontë: The complete poems. Penguin Books. 140 “Sleep brings no joy to me” November 1837 Sleep brings no joy to me Remembrance never dies My soul is given to misery And lives in sighs Sleep brings no rest to me The shadows of the dead My waking eyes may never see Surround my bed Sleep brings no hope to me In soundest sleep they come And with their doleful imagery Deepen the gloom Sleep brings no strength to me No power renewed [to] brave I only sail a wilder sea A darker wave Sleep brings no friend to me To soothe and aid to bear They all gaze on how scornfully And I despair Sleep brings no wish to knit My harassed heart beneath My only wish is to forget In the sleep of death 141 “The night is darkening round me”, also titled “Spellbound” November 1837 The night is darkening round me The wild winds coldly blow But a tyrant spell has bound me And I cannot cannot go The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow The storm is fast descending And yet I cannot go Clouds beyond clouds above me Wastes beyond wastes below But nothing drear can move me I will not cannot go 142 “In summer's mellow midnight”, also titled “The Night-Wind” September 11th, 1840 In summer's mellow midnight A cloudless moon shone through Our open parlour window, And rosetrees wet with dew I sat in silent musing – The soft wind waved my hair It told me heaven was glorious And sleeping earth was fair – I needed not its breathing To bring such thoughts to me But still it whispered lowly ‘How dark the woods will be! – ‘The thick leaves in my murmur Are rustling like a dream, And all their myriad voices Instinct with spirit seem’ I said, ‘Go, gentle singer, Thy wooing voice is kind: But do not think its music Has power to reach my mind – ‘Play with the scented flower, The young tree's supple bough – And leave my human feelings In their own course to flow’ The Wanderer would not leave me Its kiss grew warmer still – ‘O come,’ it sighed so sweetly ‘I'll win thee 'gainst thy will – ‘Have we not been childhood friends? Have I not loved thee long? As long as thou hast loved the night 143 Whose silence wakes my song? ‘And when thy heart is laid at rest Beneath the church-yard stone I shall have time enough to mourn And thou to be alone’ –