L’étrangeté d’une langue étrangère : (dé)familiariser l’expérience belge d’Emily Brontë

The story of Charlotte and Emily Brontë’s 1842 sojourn in Brussels is a topos of the « Brontë myth », and from 1850 onwards, in every biographical or critical study, the « Belgian experience » has been used as a privileged tool to read their lives and works. Yet nothing remains of this foreign ventu...

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Main Author: Augustin Trapenard
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2008-12-01
Series:Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/cve/7956
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author Augustin Trapenard
author_facet Augustin Trapenard
author_sort Augustin Trapenard
collection DOAJ
description The story of Charlotte and Emily Brontë’s 1842 sojourn in Brussels is a topos of the « Brontë myth », and from 1850 onwards, in every biographical or critical study, the « Belgian experience » has been used as a privileged tool to read their lives and works. Yet nothing remains of this foreign venture but a few devoirs, the homework that they wrote in French in response to their master’s instructions. These incomplete manuscripts, so foreign to the Brontës’ English works and often scored with monsieur Héger’s corrections, retain an inescapable identity as themes written by two students learning French—but more and more critics seem to analyse them as evidence and signals of transition in the Brontë writings. Emily’s nine devoirs, however, keep asserting her resistance to foreign cultures, strangers or intrusive readers—and, in her writing, themes and reflections the mere process of familiarization appears as a trauma. In studying Emily Brontë’s devoirs as acts of resistance, this paper attempts to shed a new light on the Belgian experience and show how it gradually became a topos in the official story that made Emily Brontë an author.
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spelling doaj-art-505116ed79a74ee9be39de01448ff8072025-01-30T10:22:17ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492008-12-016710.4000/cve.7956L’étrangeté d’une langue étrangère : (dé)familiariser l’expérience belge d’Emily BrontëAugustin TrapenardThe story of Charlotte and Emily Brontë’s 1842 sojourn in Brussels is a topos of the « Brontë myth », and from 1850 onwards, in every biographical or critical study, the « Belgian experience » has been used as a privileged tool to read their lives and works. Yet nothing remains of this foreign venture but a few devoirs, the homework that they wrote in French in response to their master’s instructions. These incomplete manuscripts, so foreign to the Brontës’ English works and often scored with monsieur Héger’s corrections, retain an inescapable identity as themes written by two students learning French—but more and more critics seem to analyse them as evidence and signals of transition in the Brontë writings. Emily’s nine devoirs, however, keep asserting her resistance to foreign cultures, strangers or intrusive readers—and, in her writing, themes and reflections the mere process of familiarization appears as a trauma. In studying Emily Brontë’s devoirs as acts of resistance, this paper attempts to shed a new light on the Belgian experience and show how it gradually became a topos in the official story that made Emily Brontë an author.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/7956
spellingShingle Augustin Trapenard
L’étrangeté d’une langue étrangère : (dé)familiariser l’expérience belge d’Emily Brontë
Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
title L’étrangeté d’une langue étrangère : (dé)familiariser l’expérience belge d’Emily Brontë
title_full L’étrangeté d’une langue étrangère : (dé)familiariser l’expérience belge d’Emily Brontë
title_fullStr L’étrangeté d’une langue étrangère : (dé)familiariser l’expérience belge d’Emily Brontë
title_full_unstemmed L’étrangeté d’une langue étrangère : (dé)familiariser l’expérience belge d’Emily Brontë
title_short L’étrangeté d’une langue étrangère : (dé)familiariser l’expérience belge d’Emily Brontë
title_sort l etrangete d une langue etrangere de familiariser l experience belge d emily bronte
url https://journals.openedition.org/cve/7956
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