Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Bronte
Timed to celebrate the 200th anniversary of her birth, “Charlotte Bronte: An Independent Will” proved to be the perfect exhibit for a compulsive reader.
Reading Diaries by Einstein and Dylan
Beatnik William Burroughs’s dreams, English art critic John Ruskin’s chess moves, and Bob Dylan’s never-ending tour would seem to have little in common.
Esther vs. Vashti, Austen vs. Brontës
As I prepared for the beginning of the perennial Purim question of “Esther vs. Vashti” at the same time as I delved into Jane Eyre-mania, I began to think about how women are always pushed into dichotomies. I wondered cynically how soon someone would write about the new Brontë films by declaring Jane Austen passé. I didn’t have to wait long. This article about the “Battle of the Bonnets” in the Washington Post is a witty and sharp look at women’s cultural obsessions and it contains some great literary observations. But the headline, and the “battle” premise, rankles.