Emily Bronte

Emily Bronte

Emily Jane Bronte was born on July 30, 1818. The names of her mother and father are Maria Barnwell and Patrick Bronte who was an Irish father. She was the fifth of six children in the family.

Emily Bronte belongs to the Romantic tradition. Bronte published her works under the pen name Ellis Bell. She was better known as a novelist than a poet. It is because of her famous novel Wuthering Height , which firmly established her as a master storyteller. Wuthering Height is unique both in its subject and technique. It explores love as both fulfilling and killing, in a unique narrative technique.

One fine example of Emily Bronte’s “fiery stoicism, fervent pantheism, and independent spirituality”, is her poem No coward soul is mine. In this poem Bronte boldly states her faith in immortality in her union with God in that pantheistic view of the universe, which she seems to have shared with Romantics like Wordsworth and his followers. Emily Dickinson the American poet wanted this poem recited at her funeral.

On 19 December 1848 Emily Bronte died at the age of 30.

Review of Remembrance

Review of Remembrance

The poem “Remembrance” written by Emily Bronte belongs to the Romantic poetry of English literature. The meaning of the word remembrance is retrospection. Poet writes this poem in retrospection of the lover. Emily Bronte is dramatising the mourning of a beloved for her lover. Fifteen years have passed after the death of the lover. He buried on a faraway mountain. The woman professes an undying love for the lover while enduring other desires and attraction.

The themes discussed through the poem are,

·         Spiritual love

·         Adaptation

·         Difficulty of remaining constant in the remaining world

·         How death had become enlightenment for those who are alive

The techniques used in the poem are,

·         Free verse style

·         Metaphor

·         Paradox

·         Form of an elegy

Remembrance

Remembrance

Cold in the earth – and the deep snow piled above thee,

Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!

Have I forgot, my only love, to love thee,

Severed at last by Time’s all – severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover

Over the mountains, on that northern shore,

Resting their wings where heath and fern – leaves cover

That noble heart for ever, even more?

Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers

From those brown hills have melted into spring:

Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers

After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee

While the world’s tide is bearing me along:

Other desires and other hopes best me,

Hopes, which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lightened up my heaven,

No second morn has ever shone for me

All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,

All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished

And even Despair was powerless to destroy

Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,

Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy

Then did I check the tears of useless passion

Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine

Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten

Down to that tomb already more than mine

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,

Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain:

Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish

How could I seek the empty world again?

Emily Bronte (1818-1848)