LATER CRITICAL RESPONSE TO WUTHERINGHEIGHTS
Initially Jane Eyre was regarded as the best of the Brontësisters' novels, a judgment which continued nearly to the end of thecentury. By the 1880s critics began to place Emily's achievement aboveCharlotte's; a major factor in this shift was Mary Robinson'sbook-length biography of Emily (1883). In 1926, Charles Percy Sangerworked out the chronology of Wuthering Heights by closelyexamining the text; though other critics have since worked outalternate chronologies, his work affirmed Emily's literary craft andmeticulous planning of the novel and disproved Charlotte's presentationof her sister as an unconscious artist who "did not know what shehad done." Critics are still arguing about thestructure of Wuthering Heights: for Mark Schorer it isoneof the most carefully constructed novels in English, but for Albert J.Guerardit is a splendid, imperfect novel which Brontë loses control overoccasionally.Despite the increasing critical admiration for WutheringHeights, Lord David Cecil could write, in 1935, that EmilyBrontë was not properly appreciated; even her admirers saw her asan "unequal genius." He countered this view by identifying theoperation of cosmic forces as the central impetus and controlling forcein the novel. He was not the first critic to perceive cosmic forces inthe novel; Virginia Woolf, forone, had earlier written of Emily Brontë and her novel that
She looked out upon a world cleft intogigantic disorder and felt within her the power to unite it in a book.That gigantic ambition is to be felt throughout the novel–a struggle,half thwarted but of superb conviction, to say something through themouths of her characters which is not merely "I love" or "I hate," but"we, the whole human race" and "you, the eternal powers..." thesentence remains unfinished.Nevertheless, Cecil's theory that a principle of calm and storminformed the novel was a critical milestone because it provided acomprehensive interpretation which presented the novel as a unifiedwhole. He introduced a reading which later critics have generallyresponded to, whether to build on or to reject. Cecil premised that,because Emily was concerned with what life means,she focused on her characters' place in the cosmos, in whicheverything–alive or not, intellectual or physical–was animated by oneof two spiritual principles: the principle of the storm, which washarsh, ruthless, dynamic and wild, and the principle of calm,which was gentle, merciful, passive, and tame. The usual distinctionbetween human being and nature did not exist for her; rather, for her,they werealive in the same way, an angry man and an angrysky both literally manifesting the same spiritual principle of storm.Cecilcautioned that
in spite of their apparent opposition theseprinciples are not conflicting. Either–Emily Brontë does not makeclear which she thinks–each is the expression of a different aspect ofa single pervading spirit; or they are the component parts of aharmony. They may not seem so to us. The world of our experience is, onthe face of it, full of discord. But that is only because in thecramped condition of their earthly incarnation these principles arediverted from following the course that their nature dictates, and getin each other's way. They are changed from positive into negativeforces; the calm becomes a source of weakness, not of harmony, in thenatural scheme, the storm a source not of fruitful vigour, but ofdisturbance. But when they are free from fleshly bonds they flowunimpeded and unconflicting; and even in this world their discords aretransitory. The single principle that ultimately directs them sooner orlater imposes an equilibrium....Because these principles were neither good nor evil but just were, thenovel was not concerned with moral issues and judgments; rather, itpresented, in Cecil's view, a pre-moral world.
Just as Brontë resolved the usual conflict betweentheprinciples of storm and calm into equilibrium, so she resolved thetraditional opposition between life and death by allowing for theimmorality of the soul in life as well as in the afterlife. Cecilextrapolated, "The spiritual principle of which the soul is amanifestation is active in this life: therefore, the disembodied soulcontinues to be active in this life. Its ruling preoccupations remainthe same after death as before." In other words, the individual'snature and passions did not end with death; rather, death allowed theirfree expression and fulfillment and so held the promise of peace. Thiswaswhy Catherine's spirit haunted Wutheirng Heights after her death.
Cecil's theory is one of the twentieth centuryoutpourings of interpretations trying to prove the novel had a unifiedstructure. Surveying these myriad efforts, J. Hillis Miller challengedthe assumption thatthe novel presents a unified, coherent, single meaning: "The secrettruthabout Wuthering Heights, rather, is that there is nosecret truth which criticism might formulate in this way... It leavessomethingimportant still unaccounted for... The text is over-rich." He suggeststhatreaders and critics should push their reading of or theory about thenovelas far as they can, until they can face the fact that theirinterpretationfails to account for all the elements in the novel, that the novel isnotamenable to logical interpretation or to one interpretation whichaccountsfor the entire novel.
Perhaps F.R. Leavis penned the most quoted (mostinfamous?) modern interpretation of Wuthering Heights when heexcluded it from the great tradition of the English novel because itwas a "sport," i.e., had no meaningful connection to fiction whichpreceded it or influence on fiction which followed it.
Brontë: Table of Contents
Day 1 | Overview of EmilyBrontë |
Day 2 | Themes in Wuthering Heights The Narrator |
Day 3 | WutheringHeights as Socio-Economic Novel PsychologicalInterpretations of Wuthering Heights Religion, Metaphysics,Mysticism and Wuthering Heights The Gothic and WutheringHeights Romanticism and WutheringHeights |
Day 4 | Love |
March 9, 2011