A new exhibition at the famous Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth hopes to tackle some of the commonly held myths and perceptions about the lives of the Bronte family head-on. The exhibition will be on view though April 2009.
Visitors to the Museum will be taken on a journey of discovery and invited to interpret the evidence for themselves through the fascinating collection of objects, drawings, letters and hair samples of the Brontes, to arrive at their own conclusions to some fundamental differences between reality, fiction and established Bronte myths.
The lives of the Brontes have inspired many hundreds of biographies, novels, films and plays and Curator of the exhibition, Emma King, believes many of the stereotypical ideas of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte are at least partially or wholly untrue. Emma added "the popular story says that the Brontes lived a remote, rural life. It describes three sisters who lived in poverty with a distant father and unfriendly aunt. Their brother [Branwell] drank away the family money, forcing them to work. Yet before their tragic, early deaths they each wrote novels that would become famous around the world – the story is an attractive one, but not entirely true. This exhibition hopes to challenge some of these perceptions".
One of the earliest documented writings about the lives of the Brontes came from Charlotte Bronte's first biographer, Elizabeth Gaskell, whose manuscript of The Life of Charlotte Bronte, published some 150 years ago, is on display at the Museum until June 2007. Gaskell made the most of the tragic aspects of Charlotte's life and her unkind portraits of Charlotte's father and brother have been accepted as fact. Even 150 years ago, the book was met with libel action and threats of legal action. Mrs. Gaskell vowed never to write another biography, complaining that the book had landed her "in the hornet's nest".
"The thoughtless critics, who spoke of the sad and gloomy views of life presented by the Brontes in their tales, should know how such work was wrung out of them by the living recollection of the long agony they suffered" – Elizabeth Gaskell. Branwell Bronte, the brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, has come in for particular criticism over the years, often being referred to as a drunkard, drug addict and jealous of his sister's success. However, in reality Branwell's poetry was admired at the time and was published 5 years before that of his sisters. He also seems to have done well initially in his job on the railway despite later dismissal and assertions of biographers. He was in fact promoted within 6 months with a good salary (Barker pp. 367-374).
So the myths and legends continued and the Museum hopes the exhibition will encourage visitors of all ages to decipher for themselves what is the real truth about this unique family with the help of some 21st century technology.
New scientific research by The University of Bradford has recently thrown new light on a small part of the Bronte story. Dr. Andrew Wilson, an archaeological scientist at the University, carried out tests on Bronte hair from the museum's collection for a recent ground-breaking Cornelia Parker exhibition at the Parsonage. He discovered that the Brontes ate a healthy and balanced diet and that they had a better diet than people living in the East End of London at the same time. The research disproves the myth that their father, Patrick, restricted his children's diet. -- www.bronte.org.uk
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