Miller, Lucasta. The Bronte myth.

MILLER, Lucasta. The Bronte myth. Random House, Anchor. 351p. illus. notes, biblog. index, c2001. 1-4000-7835-0. $15.00. A In her Preface, British editor and literary critic Lucasta Miller observes that the authors of the classics Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights have themselves become "mythic figures." Her stated purpose is "to trace the historical route by which the Brontes' lives came to take on this unusual prominence." Her book is less a biography of the Brontes than it is a "book about biography." Miller suggests that over the years too much emphasis has been placed on the lives of the sisters and too little attention has been focused on their abilities to transform experience into art. While she does not claim that she can provide the absolute truth about the lives of the Brontes, she does offer an historical perspective of the myths surrounding the "three weird sisters," as Ted Hughes called them. Since Anne Bronte as an individual does not have the "mythic stature" of her sisters, the book concentrates mostly on Charlotte and Emily.

Miller's examination is entertaining, thoroughly researched, and extraordinarily informative and insightful. The reader is reminded that the classic Bronte novels were originally published under male pseudonyms. Earlier, Charlotte had sent a few of her poems to Poet Laureate Robert Southey. In reply, Charlotte was told, "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life." Jane Eyre was published and caused an "immediate sensation." When it became known that Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights were, in fact, written by women, the accusations of "coarseness" generated by the emotional intensity of the books led to the beginning of the Bronte myth. Following the death of the last Bronte sister, Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte, with its inaccuracies and half-truths, demonstrated the power of biography to shape public perception of the Brontes.

Over the years, Bronte biographers have espoused a number of bizarre theories that Miller successfully debunks while offering her own more balanced and less fictionalized views. Miller suggests that we are "living in a golden age of Bronte scholarship" as errors, misunderstandings, and myths give way to historical accuracy and reason. Miller's work is an excellent example of that scholarship. Anthony Pucci, English Dept. Chair., Notre Dame HS, Elmira, NY

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