Saturday, February 6, 2016

My hero / Charlotte Brontë by Tracy Chevalier

Charlotte Brontë

My hero:

Charlotte Brontë by Tracy Chevalier

The historical novelist celebrates the 200th anniversary of a writer who held her own among the greats of her day



Saturday 6 February 2016


S
omehow it is fitting that Charlotte Brontë’s 200th anniversary is in danger of being swamped by two other giants: the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death on 23 April, and the Queen’s 90th, a birthday she shares with Charlotte on 21 April.

I don’t think Charlotte would have minded. She held her own among the greats of her day, making a point of sitting back and talking only to the governess at a dinner party Thackeray held for her. I think she enjoyed playing the role she gave to her most famous heroine, Jane Eyre, of being “poor, obscure, plain and little”.
In reality she was bright, sharp and ambitious. At the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth this year we are celebrating with the exhibition “Charlotte Great and Small”. Works by contemporary artists responding to the theme are on display throughout the Parsonage. In an exhibition space, I have chosen to showcase tiny things in Charlotte’s life – shoes, a scrap of dress, the miniature books the Brontës famously constructed – alongside quotes voicing her big desires. On hearing of a friend’s travels to the Continent, for instance, Charlotte wrote: “I hardly know what swelled to my throat … such a strong wish for wings – such an urgent thirst to see – to know – to learn – something internal seemed to expand boldly for a minute.” That is not the response of a timid woman sitting in the corner.
Charlotte Brontë

Indeed, she herself went to Brussels to study for two years, where she had the misfortune of falling for her teacher. Later she wrote him passionate letters he tore up but which his wife saved and sewed back together. They are now at the British Library, which has lent one for the Haworth show. It is bizarre, heartbreaking, voyeuristic, and it’s also exhilarating to see Charlotte’s words destroyed and then resurrected in this way.




2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler 
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

036 My hero / Robert Lowell by Jonathan Raban
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner

041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson

051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal

2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
100 Thomas Tranströmer by Robin Robertson
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill

2012

190 My hero / Iris Murdoch by Charlotte Mendelson
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer

2015
2016

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