Emily Brontë's Romantic Treatment of Love and Separation

Abstract

<p>The thesis concentrates on the treatment of love and separation in Emily Brontë's poetry and novel, Wuthering Heights. The first chapter discusses Emily Brontë as a Romantic artist and attempts to deal with the critical difficulties encountered in placing her in this tradition. Her imaginative use of source material is also considered along with the influences of Scott and Byron. Comparisons with other Romantic artists cofirm the sense that Emily Brontë is a Romantic writer.</p> <p>The second chapter explores the development of Emily Brontë's creative imagination by comparing the treatment of love and separation in her poetry to its treatment in her prose. The themes of love and separation are handled most powerfully in Wuthering Heights.</p> <p>The focus of the thesis in the third and fourth chapters shifts to love and separation in Wuthering Heights. The first part of the novel is Romantic in its emphasis on the transcendental nature of thwarted, passionate love. Heathcliff's desire for union with Catherine's spirit reveals the continuation of Romantic elements in the second part of Wuthering Heights. The novel's moral concern, the necessity of forgiveness, is viewed, however, as something it shares with the conventions of Victorian fiction. The recurring interest and faith in the transcendental make the novel primarily a Romantic work.</p>