Best of the Brontes - Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre

In this thirteen-week SDG, we will read two of the best-known English novels written by women, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. We will first explore life in their remote Yorkshire parsonage in the mid-19C, on the edge of the wind-swept moors. We will examine each novel in depth, focusing on issues of female education, religion, marriage, love, race and imperialism in the Victorian period. We will then watch two of the many films based on these novels to see how directors and screen-writers have re-interpreted the Brontes' characters, plots, and social contexts. We will end by reading the most successful "prequel" to Jane Eyre, Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, which gives voice to Charlotte Bronte's "madwoman in the attic." (Amount of reading is roughly 100 pages per week.)