"It is 'a dark tale darkly told;' a book that seizes upon us with an iron grasp, and makes us read its story of passions and wrongs whether we will or no. Fascinated by strange magic we read what we dislike, we become interested in characters which are most revolting to our feelings, and are made subject to the immense power, of the book, – a rough, shaggy, uncouth power that turns up the dark side of human nature, and deals with unbridled passions and hideous inhumanities."
Absolutely the best possible review of Wuthering Heights. Really enjoyed the contemporaneous reviews - thank you!
The director of the new version said in an interview that she asked the film company to put 'Wuthering Heights' in quotation marks because she's deliberately making a movie that is not loyal to the text, but that is loyal to her experience of reading the novel as a teenager. I think that is very interesting and respectful, and it should be enjoyed and experienced on those terms. And WH is a novel, like all the great novels, that can carry the burden of multiple interpretations, like a Shakespeare play can, the novel will remain. There will be another version in ten years or less. The other issue on the 'socials' has been the ethnicity of Heathcliff being wrong, and many people feel aggrieved for some reason. I like to avoid controversy by just saying, Heathcliff was a Scouser, Liverpool born and bred, enough said
How controversial was the practice of hanging unwanted dogs in those days? I remember the comment of a famous breeder of (I think) greyhounds who was asked why he bred so many champions and replied, with some complacency, 'I breed many, and hang many'.
Thank you for this! Wuthering Heights was (as someone else wrote) my very favorite novel in high school, lost a little ground in college, and by the time I got older, I much preferred Villette. The reviews are fascinating, some reflecting more about the times and culture and context than about Wuthering Heights. But it is fascinating to me to contemplate that Emily Bronte, living the life she led, could have written this novel. Wow! Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell's novels make much more sense in relation to the author's surroundings and life.
Interesting, since Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte’s misleading biographer and champion went on to write perhaps the 5th best Jane Austen novel (Wives and Daughters).
Side note: Wives and Daughters is one of 3 major novels in which a main character was the top math student (amusingly called Senior Wrangler) at Cambridge. Butler's Way of All Flesh and the imperious Parade's End are the others I have read.
To tie in to the topic at hand: the Senior Wrangler in 1817 was John Thomas Austen, a distant cousin from the Kent branch (according to ChatGPT).
I have not read it, but I know there are Charlottites who loathe it for painting out the relationships that lead to making Villette such a great novel. I am a huge Gaskell fan (I have mentioned that to me, Cousin Phillis ranks with The Dead and Spoils of Poynton and maybe Secret Sharer in the pantheon of short fiction), so I am happy to find you a defender of the biography. To me, Cousin Phillis has one of the best limited narrators, whose very limitations make you underestimate his perception of a crucial detail that has nothing to do with the main plot, but which I find the most moving moment in fiction. But no one seems to agree with me.)
This is such a satisfying piece of literary archaeology — you can literally watch the “charge” of the book move across time: first the Victorian clutching of pearls (coarse, pagan, “toasted cheese + Lucifer”), then the formalists trying to cordon it off as craft or “sport,” and finally the moderns pulling it into bigger frames (race, empire, psychoanalysis, theology). What I love is how the very thing early reviewers hated — that the novel won’t behave, won’t stay “proper,” won’t politely moralize — is exactly why it survives. It forces a reaction, and the reactions become part of the book’s afterlife. Really enjoyed this collection, and it lines up with something I keep circling in my own writing: the way one work can expose the assumptions of an entire era just by refusing to fit. If you’d ever be up for it, I’d love to have you check out my piece here and tell me if any of these critical swings (moral → aesthetic → historical) show up in how you read other “troublemaker” classics too: https://theeternalnowmm.substack.com/p/seeing-clearly-lenses-history-and?r=71z4jh
Fascinating. I find literary criticism so interesting particularly how it changes over time and reflects the evolving cultural mores. I have not read “Wuthering Heights” but will.
Oh god. It's just occurred to me that Wuthering Heights is in the public domain in the same way as Sherlock Holmes. It's also just occurred to me that anyone could have a crack at Wuthering Heights, in the same way. Like Wil Ferrell. I've not seen his recent Holmes & Watson, but apparently it's beyond dreadful. Part of me is morbidly fascinated to witness his attempt at Wuthering Heights.
It seems to me that FR Leavis was using "sport" in the older sense of an unexpected variation - for example this from Charles Darwin: “I have heard of a flock of Leicester sheep in which a lamb was born with long straight hair instead of wool; and this has been called a ‘sport.’” Plant breeders still use the word in this way. He used the term to explain why he couldn't fit "Wuthering Heights" into his concept of "The Great Tradition". It's hardly dismissing the book to describe it as an "astonishng work" and call Emily Bronte a genius.
Ages ago when I first read it, I was shocked to find Emily Brontë as the subject of the first chapter in Georges Bataille's Literature and Evil (1957):
"The mere invention of a character so totally devoted to Evil by a moral and inexperienced girl would be a paradox. But the invention of Heathcliff is particularly worrying for the following reasons: Catherine Earnshaw herself is absolutely moral. She is so moral that she dies of not being able to detach herself from the man she loved when she was a child. But although she knows that Evil is deep within him, she loves him to the point of saying 'I am Heathcliff.'
Evil, therefore, if we examine it closely, is not only the dream of the wicked: it is to some extent the dream of Good. Death is the punishment, sought and accepted for this mad dream, but nothing can prevent the dream from having been dreamt. It was dreamt by the unfortunate Catherine Earnshaw as well as by Emily Brontë. How can we doubt that Emily Brontë, who died for having experienced the states of mind which she described, identified herself with Catherine Earnshaw?"
"It is 'a dark tale darkly told;' a book that seizes upon us with an iron grasp, and makes us read its story of passions and wrongs whether we will or no. Fascinated by strange magic we read what we dislike, we become interested in characters which are most revolting to our feelings, and are made subject to the immense power, of the book, – a rough, shaggy, uncouth power that turns up the dark side of human nature, and deals with unbridled passions and hideous inhumanities."
Absolutely the best possible review of Wuthering Heights. Really enjoyed the contemporaneous reviews - thank you!
Fascinating! Thank you for this.
Critical reception through the years always very interesting.
More of this sort of thing please!
The director of the new version said in an interview that she asked the film company to put 'Wuthering Heights' in quotation marks because she's deliberately making a movie that is not loyal to the text, but that is loyal to her experience of reading the novel as a teenager. I think that is very interesting and respectful, and it should be enjoyed and experienced on those terms. And WH is a novel, like all the great novels, that can carry the burden of multiple interpretations, like a Shakespeare play can, the novel will remain. There will be another version in ten years or less. The other issue on the 'socials' has been the ethnicity of Heathcliff being wrong, and many people feel aggrieved for some reason. I like to avoid controversy by just saying, Heathcliff was a Scouser, Liverpool born and bred, enough said
yes I agree, adaptations are what they are and they should be enjoyed on their own terms
What a wonderful post. Given Lewes, it would be interesting to know Geo Eliot's opinion.
"Sport" in Leavis probably means freak of nature. Not a bad description.
I loved the novel as a child, hated it in college, and now don't know what to think. Hanging a spaniel on a nail is pretty low.
How controversial was the practice of hanging unwanted dogs in those days? I remember the comment of a famous breeder of (I think) greyhounds who was asked why he bred so many champions and replied, with some complacency, 'I breed many, and hang many'.
All I know is that she did not like Jane Eyre
Thank you for this! Wuthering Heights was (as someone else wrote) my very favorite novel in high school, lost a little ground in college, and by the time I got older, I much preferred Villette. The reviews are fascinating, some reflecting more about the times and culture and context than about Wuthering Heights. But it is fascinating to me to contemplate that Emily Bronte, living the life she led, could have written this novel. Wow! Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell's novels make much more sense in relation to the author's surroundings and life.
So interesting how the book never ceases to cause such controversy, even to today!
Is it true that Charlotte Brontë had no use for Jane Austen as Leavis says?
She disliked her novels yes
Interesting, since Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte’s misleading biographer and champion went on to write perhaps the 5th best Jane Austen novel (Wives and Daughters).
Used to divide educated opinion even more than Oasis v. Blur
Side note: Wives and Daughters is one of 3 major novels in which a main character was the top math student (amusingly called Senior Wrangler) at Cambridge. Butler's Way of All Flesh and the imperious Parade's End are the others I have read.
To tie in to the topic at hand: the Senior Wrangler in 1817 was John Thomas Austen, a distant cousin from the Kent branch (according to ChatGPT).
misleading is too strong, that is a really excellent book imo
I have not read it, but I know there are Charlottites who loathe it for painting out the relationships that lead to making Villette such a great novel. I am a huge Gaskell fan (I have mentioned that to me, Cousin Phillis ranks with The Dead and Spoils of Poynton and maybe Secret Sharer in the pantheon of short fiction), so I am happy to find you a defender of the biography. To me, Cousin Phillis has one of the best limited narrators, whose very limitations make you underestimate his perception of a crucial detail that has nothing to do with the main plot, but which I find the most moving moment in fiction. But no one seems to agree with me.)
This is such a satisfying piece of literary archaeology — you can literally watch the “charge” of the book move across time: first the Victorian clutching of pearls (coarse, pagan, “toasted cheese + Lucifer”), then the formalists trying to cordon it off as craft or “sport,” and finally the moderns pulling it into bigger frames (race, empire, psychoanalysis, theology). What I love is how the very thing early reviewers hated — that the novel won’t behave, won’t stay “proper,” won’t politely moralize — is exactly why it survives. It forces a reaction, and the reactions become part of the book’s afterlife. Really enjoyed this collection, and it lines up with something I keep circling in my own writing: the way one work can expose the assumptions of an entire era just by refusing to fit. If you’d ever be up for it, I’d love to have you check out my piece here and tell me if any of these critical swings (moral → aesthetic → historical) show up in how you read other “troublemaker” classics too: https://theeternalnowmm.substack.com/p/seeing-clearly-lenses-history-and?r=71z4jh
This is wonderful. It’s fascinating to read contemporary reactions to what are now regarded as classics.
Fascinating. I find literary criticism so interesting particularly how it changes over time and reflects the evolving cultural mores. I have not read “Wuthering Heights” but will.
Oh god. It's just occurred to me that Wuthering Heights is in the public domain in the same way as Sherlock Holmes. It's also just occurred to me that anyone could have a crack at Wuthering Heights, in the same way. Like Wil Ferrell. I've not seen his recent Holmes & Watson, but apparently it's beyond dreadful. Part of me is morbidly fascinated to witness his attempt at Wuthering Heights.
It seems to me that FR Leavis was using "sport" in the older sense of an unexpected variation - for example this from Charles Darwin: “I have heard of a flock of Leicester sheep in which a lamb was born with long straight hair instead of wool; and this has been called a ‘sport.’” Plant breeders still use the word in this way. He used the term to explain why he couldn't fit "Wuthering Heights" into his concept of "The Great Tradition". It's hardly dismissing the book to describe it as an "astonishng work" and call Emily Bronte a genius.
Ages ago when I first read it, I was shocked to find Emily Brontë as the subject of the first chapter in Georges Bataille's Literature and Evil (1957):
"The mere invention of a character so totally devoted to Evil by a moral and inexperienced girl would be a paradox. But the invention of Heathcliff is particularly worrying for the following reasons: Catherine Earnshaw herself is absolutely moral. She is so moral that she dies of not being able to detach herself from the man she loved when she was a child. But although she knows that Evil is deep within him, she loves him to the point of saying 'I am Heathcliff.'
Evil, therefore, if we examine it closely, is not only the dream of the wicked: it is to some extent the dream of Good. Death is the punishment, sought and accepted for this mad dream, but nothing can prevent the dream from having been dreamt. It was dreamt by the unfortunate Catherine Earnshaw as well as by Emily Brontë. How can we doubt that Emily Brontë, who died for having experienced the states of mind which she described, identified herself with Catherine Earnshaw?"