“Emily Brontë is the sphinx of our modern literature”, wrote Clement Shorter in 1896, and many readers both before and since have seen Brontë as an enigma. This view was formulated first in 1850 when, two years after her sister's death (Emily died in 1848 at the age of 30), Charlotte Brontë introduced the second edition of

and argued that a “secret power and fire” resided in Brontë that animated her writing with an original, oracular force. “An interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world”, Charlotte wrote. Charlotte's image of Emily as a Romantic genius or native sibyl, an untutored “nursling of the moors”, has proved remarkably durable. Until well into the twentieth century critics were more inclined to discuss Brontë's literary…

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Citation: Vine, Steven. "Emily Brontë". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=583, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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