Reimagining the Brontës: (Post)Feminist Middlebrow Adaptations and Representations of Feminine Creative Genius, 1996- 2011. Catherine Paula Han Submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Literature) Cardiff University 2015 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Ann Heilmann for her unflagging enthusiasm, kindness and acuity in matters academic and otherwise for four years. Working with Professor Heilmann has been a pleasure and a privilege. I am grateful, furthermore, to Dr Iris Kleinecke-Bates at the University of Hull for co-supervising the first year of this project and being a constant source of helpfulness since then. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Professor Judith Buchanan at the University of York, who encouraged me to pursue a PhD and oversaw the conception of this thesis. I have received invaluable support, moreover, from many members of the academic and administrative staff at the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University, particularly Rhian Rattray. I am thankful to the AHRC for providing the financial support for this thesis for one year at the University of Hull and for a further two years at Cardiff University. Additionally, I am fortunate to have been the recipient of several AHRC Research and Training Support Grants so that I could undertake archival research in the UK and attend a conference overseas. This thesis could not have been completed without access to resources held at the British Film Institute, the BBC Written Archives and the Brontë Parsonage Museum. I am also indebted to Tam Fry for giving me permission to quote from correspondence written by his father, Christopher Fry. I would also like to thank the Brontë Parsonage Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Yale Center for British Art and Kate Beaton of Hark! A Vagrant for allowing me to reproduce their images in this thesis. To write this thesis, I have relied on a network of friends in ENCAP and beyond. Many of them were sources of intellectual stimulation and insight but, more importantly, they offered me cups of tea, snacks and sympathetic ears during my moments of need. As repayment for their generosity, I have ensured that these individuals now know more about the Brontës than they ever thought possible. I am very lucky to know such people. Thank you. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their encouragement and largesse over the last four years and for many years before that. Without them, I could not have finished—nor even begun—this thesis. i Abstract Investigating conceptualisations of the feminine creative imagination, this thesis examines representations of the Brontës and adaptations of their novels released between 1996 and 2011. I focus on portrayals of Charlotte and Anne Brontë alongside reworkings of Jane Eyre (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) in various media. Contributing to existing research on the cultural afterlives of the Brontës and their novels, I position the works discussed within contemporary middlebrow culture whilst considering the influence of feminism. The Introduction discusses the gendering of creative genius before identifying the tensions between critical, middlebrow and popular discourses’ conceptualisations of the Brontës’ imaginations. Thereafter, the first chapter proposes the contemporary usefulness and considers the gendering of the concept of the middlebrow. I demonstrate that middlebrow culture is fascinated by the Brontës’ lives, art and feminine creative imaginations. To further this argument, the second chapter analyses neo-Victorian novels’ engagement with Charlotte Brontë’s life, art and creativity. I illustrate that these works draw from second-wave feminist criticism on Jane Eyre and belong to a tradition of middlebrow feminine writing about the Brontës. The third chapter also examines representations of feminine creativity and discusses how screen adaptations portray the artistry of Jane Eyre’s heroine. Additionally, the legacies of second-wave feminism in a wider postfeminist cultural context are explored. In the fourth chapter, the thesis turns to analyse the cultural dissemination and reputations of Anne Brontë and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I delineate how middlebrow culture has rediscovered the youngest Brontë, her novel and her feminism. Ultimately, this thesis suggests that the works examined indicate middlebrow culture’s efforts to engage with feminism through the feminine creative imagination. Yet these works expose a prevailing tension in feminism between the status of the individual and the collective. ii Contents List of figures p. v Introduction p. 1 Original Contribution to the Field(s) p. 10 Romantic and Victorian Conceptualisations of Genius p. 18 Twentieth-Century Reconceptualisations of Feminine Creativity p. 32 Outline of Thesis Chapters p. 38 Chapter 1 The Brontës and Middlebrow Culture p. 42 The Dissolving Boundaries of Contemporary Culture? p. 45 Defining the Middlebrow p. 50 The Neo-Victorian Middlebrow p. 68 Adaptation and the Middlebrow p. 84 The BBC, Costume Drama Adaptations and the Middlebrow p. 95 Conclusion p. 103 Chapter 2 Readerly Pleasure and the Feminine Creative Imagination: Neo-Victorian Representations of Charlotte Brontë p. 106 Becoming Jane Eyre: Neo-Victorian Fiction and Second-Wave Feminism p. 112 Daphne: The Gendered Middlebrow and Creative Feminine Readers p. 125 Charlotte: Waves of Feminist Lies p. 141 Conclusion p. 156 Chapter 3 Jane Eyre on Screen: Postfeminist Pleasures and the Feminine Creative Imagination p. 162 Costuming Jane Eyre p. 173 iii Jane Eyre (ITV, telefilm, 1997): Postfeminist Individualism p.185 Jane Eyre (Franco Zeffirelli, 1996): Creative (Dis)Empowerment p. 192 Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011): Creative Pleasures p. 203 Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006): Creative Retreat p. 215 Conclusion p. 229 Chapter 4 Anonymous Anne and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Cultural Marginalisation and Feminist Rediscovery p. 232 Mythologizing Anonymity p. 237 Adapting The Tenant of Wildfell Hall p. 247 Feminine Creativity in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall p. 262 Reading and Hearing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall p. 282 Conclusion p. 293 Conclusion p. 296 Bibliography p. 305 iv List of Figures Figure 1. Reed Family Tableau. Episode 1, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 2. Rochester Family Tableau. Episode 4, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 3. Ruth Wilson as Jane Eyre. Episode 2, Jane Eyre (BBC2, 2006). Figure 4. J. H. Thompson. “Charlotte Brontë”. Picture Library, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, c.1850s. Figure 5. Branwell Brontë. “The Brontë Sisters”. National Portrait Gallery, London, 1833-4. Figure 6. Emma Lowndes as Mary Rivers and Annabel Scholey as Diana Rivers. Episode 4, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 7. George Richmond. “Charlotte Brontë”. National Portrait Gallery. 1850. Figure 8. Joan Fontaine as Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson, 1944) Figure 9. Charlotte Gainsborough as Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre (Franco Zeffirelli, 1996). Figure 10. Samantha Morton as Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre (ITV, 1997). Figure 11. Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011). Figure 12. Christina Cole as Blanche Ingram. Episode 2, Jane Eyre (BBC2, 2006). Figure 13. Jane’s portrait of Blanche Ingram. Episode 2, Jane Eyre (BBC2, 2006). Figure 14. v Charlotte Brontë. “French Brunette.” Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth. 1833. Figure 15. Abigail Cruttenden as Blanche Ingram plays the piano with Ciarán Hinds as Rochester. Jane Eyre (ITV, 1997). Figure 16. Abigail Cruttenden as Blanche Ingram plays charades with Ciarán Hinds as Rochester. Jane Eyre (ITV, 1997). Figure 17. Jane’s watercolours on display. Jane Eyre (Franco Zeffirelli, 1996). Figure 18. Jane’s portrait of Rochester. Jane Eyre (Franco Zeffirelli, 1996). Figure 19. Michael Fassbender as Rochester displays Jane’s watercolour. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011). Figure 20. Martin, John. Belshazzar’s Feast. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1820. Figure 21. Judi Dench as Mrs Fairfax and Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre stand at the window. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011). Figure 22. Book illustration examined by Jane. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011). Figure 23. Romy Settbon Moore as Adèle and Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre look at an illustration together. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011). Figure 24. Georgie Henley as a young Jane Eyre fantasises about a desert landscape. Episode 1, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 25. Illustrations from Voyages and Travels Illustrated. Episode 1, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 26. The young Jane’s sketchbook. Episode 1, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 27. The adult Jane’s sketchbook. Episode 1, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 28. Illustration from volume of natural history. Episode 1, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). vi Figure 29. Ruth Wilson as Jane Eyre sits in Rochester’s study. Episode 1, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 30. Cosima Littlewood as Adèle performs her accomplishments. Episode 1, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 31. Cosima Littlewood as Adèle in the final scene of the adaptation. Episode 4, Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006). Figure 32. Kate Beaton, “Dude Watchin’ with the Brontës”, Hark! A Vagrant, 2009. Figure 33. Toby Stephens as Gilbert Markham travelling to Grassdale. Episode 3, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (BBC, 1996). Figure 34. Tara Fitzgerald as Helen Huntingdon at Scarborough. Episode 3, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (BBC, 1996). Figure 35. Holly Hunter as Ada returns to her piano. The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993). Figure 36. Tara Fitzgerald as Helen Huntingdon and Toby Stephens as Gilbert Markham at Winley Bay. Episode 1, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (BBC, 1996). Figure 37. Neck of Tara Fitzgerald as Helen Huntingdon. Episode 1, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (BBC, 1996). Figure 38. Neck of Holly Hunter as Ada. The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993). vii Introduction In their most famous novels, Charlotte and Anne Brontë contemplate and offer differing perspectives upon the feminine creative imagination. 1 In CB’s Jane Eyre (1847), the governess-protagonist presents her new employer Edward Rochester with her watercolour portfolio in their first official meeting.