A reviewer for the Christian Remembrancer, writing about Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte, suggests that Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is...not really about human beings:
If the respectable bull-dog Keeper could have been endowed with the ambition and the power to describe graphically the passions of his race—if you could put a pen in his hand and tell him to delineate the springs and impulses which prompt the displays of dog nature, with the outer workings of which we are alone familiar—if he could tell us the secret causes of every yelp, bark, and snarl, and spring, and bite, which we know now only in their effects—he would write precisely such a book as ' Wuthering Heights;' and as ' Life in the Kennel,' it would be a very striking and clever performance. Just such instinctive, soulless, savage creatures as compose a pack of hounds, form the dramatis personae of this unique story. A vicious dog, if he were endowed with human organs, would no doubt swear as well as growl, and shoot and stab as well as bite, if he understood the use of weapons. And because they are called men and women, and are invested with human attributes, these accomplishments are added in the story to their canine powers of offence and annoyance. But the disguise of humanity is, after all, but feebly assumed, and constantly disappears altogether; the whole company drop on all fours as the authoress warms with her subject.--"Life of Charlotte Bronte," The Christian Remembrancer: A Quarterly Review 34 (July 1857): 128.
I skimmed this review and was surprised by how intelligent it was. The discussion of CB and Jane Austen, beginning on p. 136, was especially interesting. Thanks for this.
Posted by: R Lapides | May 27, 2010 at 08:10 PM
Have David Barash and the other sociobiologists got wind of this? I think they'd approve of the insight.
Posted by: Josh | May 31, 2010 at 05:16 AM