Hello

Welcome to the Killer Lit Blog - a place to participate in our Classic Literature book club, please do suggest books for our reading list, and join in with reviews and discussions about the books on the list.

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Why are the classical works important to the world?

This is the text from the Notes page from Wuthering Heights, I think it is highly relevant to my Classical Literature project - so here it is unabridged for you to read.



What is a literary classic and why are these classic works important to the world?
A literary classic is a work of the highest excellence that has something important to say about life and/or the human condition and says it with great artistry. A classic, through its enduring presence, has withstood the test of time and is not bound by time, place, or customs. It speaks to us today as forcefully as it spoke to people one hundred or more years ago, and as forcefully as it will speak to people of future generations. For this reason, a classic is said to have universality.

Monday 17 October 2011

About Emily


Emily Brontë was born on July 30, 1818, in England. She was one of six children, five girls and one boy. The Brontës moved to a village near the Yorkshire moors, a wild and desolate area of England and also the inspiration for the setting of some of the sisters' books. Theirs was a difficult and tragic existence, with the specter of disease and death a constant presence. Before Emily turned ten, her mother had died after a short bout with cancer, and two sisters had succumbed to tuberculosis. Elisabeth Branwell, an aunt, raised the remaining children. Although she was an authoritarian and imposing figure, Elisabeth did not stifle the children's imaginations; they read many books from the large family library and constructed their own worlds of imaginary people and situations.
In 1846, Emily and her two sisters published, using male names, a collection of their poems; it was titled The Poems of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, pseudonyms that stood for Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë. The book, despite some of Emily's poems being singled out by a critic as excellent, sold only two copies. This disappointment did not discourage them, however, and they each began writing a novel.
Emily and her sister Charlotte went to Brussels in 1842 to learn foreign languages, but Emily soon returned home, where she lived for the remainder of her life.
Emily wrote only one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), but it did not become an instant success like her sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre did. As with Charlotte's book, critics were reluctant to admit that a woman who lived a sheltered life, could have written such a passionate book, especially one filled with “such vulgar depravity.”
Emily Brontë died on December 19, 1848, only three months after her brother's Branwell's death; she had caught a serious cold at the funeral and refused any medical treatment.

This information about Emily is taken from the notes page of Wuthering Heights

Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights video

Whilst on the subject of Wuthering Heights - I can't forget how much my Dad loved Kate Bush back in the 70's, and this crazy video just about sums her up!


Wuthering Heights Video by Kate Bush

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Wuthering Site

I found this website when looking around the internet,  it is very informative and well built, take a look at it to add value to your Wuthering Heights reading experience.






This cool website which is making for a great companion to the Wuthering Heights audiobook I am currently deeply immersed in.


http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/


The site was created by a fellow Devon dweller like me, Paul Thompson, and it is comprehensive.  I have spent a while there recently exploring the character studies, the story timeline, character genealogy, it is really well done.







Sunday 2 October 2011

Next up: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.



 
I read this book as a teenager and was captivated by the gothic passion, the ungoverned emotion, the desolate landscape, the cruelty.  It is one of the most popular and highly regarded novels in the English Literature cannon, and Emily Brontë is revered as one of the finest writers of the nineteenth century .

Emily Brontë’s sister Charlotte wrote shortly after her death, “Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not know. I scarcely think it is.”
Wuthering Heights does not stray far from the gothic traditions of the desolation of the moonless landscape, visitations from the supernatural, forgotten tumbledown ruins and a pervading sense of fear and unease. But it surpasses the genre, it offers so much more for the reader, it’s haunting themes and symbolism, and most of all its turbulent, doomed love story.
I have bought an audiobook to revisit this masterpiece, it came highly recommended for the wonderful accents and I can't wait to start.