Dear Readers,


I now consider this blog to be my Juvenelia. Have fun perusing the archives, and find me at my new haunt, here.

Friday, May 14, 2010

What can one even say about this? AUSTEN v. BRONTE WARS.

We really ought to start keeping a tally of how many mainstream news outlets start writing stories about how Bronte is the new Austen. Because they are coming in fast and furious. It's the 2010-2011 meme.

Seriously, this is a sexist way of looking at things. Do we ever get articles about how Dickens is the new Trollope? Hemingway is the new Joyce? MOVE ON OVER Faulkner, it's Fitzgerald's time to shine! Have you heard the news? MARLOWE IS IN. JONSON IS OUT.

The media needs to get over the fact that these 19th century women are really really popular. They always have been, they will be, they are.

Just my indignant two cents.

4 comments:

  1. I believe it's a part of our endless competitive comparison culture. It's a fundamental lack of critical thinking.

    However having said that it's just a fact that Austen's innovative use of the narrative voice is a building block for Bronte's later work in Wuthering Heights. One could not exist without the other. I'll concede that and I don't even like Wuthering Heights.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd like to see Collins as the new Dickens! But seriously you're right. I'm also so sick of Austen or Bronte being turned into film All the bloody time. Over and over. PBS just about crushed me with all the Austen. I love Austen but there's such terrific work out there, begging to become film, to be written about, etc. Now it's going to be Bronte that will crush. I love the Brontes but ugh.
    I just finished watching "Small Island" on pbs and I'm just so glad to see another great writer being dramatized Instead of the constant influx of Austen/Bronte. "Anne Frank" was also really good. I'd rather have works like these then Austen every year or Bronte for that matter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Errr...yeah and that's Wilkie Collins as the new Dickens not Mr. Collins! :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's because the media just see the both of them as essentially interchangeable Woman Writer. Woman Writers That Chicks Dig. Gah. Bleah. Blargh.

    PS I vote for more Wilkie Collins being made in to film!!

    ReplyDelete