Abstract

While Emily Bronte is best known for her masterpiece, Wuthering Heights, her poetry and French essays have received scant critical attention. As lyrical and inventive as any poet of her era, Bronte infused her work with an overriding concern for the condition of mankind, the meaning of life, and the ever-present questions that man asks about the nature of the universe, divine creation, and the fate of humanity. In her reinterpretation of Bronte's works, Jill Dix Ghnassia scrutinizes the writer's metaphysical questioning throughout the canon. By dividing Bronte's poetry into four chronological periods, Ghnassia shows how Bronte's writing evolved and matured during her short career, culminating in one of the most haunting and powerful novels of the Victorian era.