The Brontes and The Moors

Today is the first day I have been here that it has rained heavily nonstop. Usually it will rain for a little while and then clear up. But I guess that's okay because it gives me a chance to update my blog before my travel companion arrives tomorrow (yay!).

I have been in Haworth for the last week or so. It is a little village on the outskirts of Keighley (pronounced key-thlee) in West Yorkshire. It is on my itinerary because of 3 very well known sisters who lived here in the mid 1800's: Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Bronte. My main interest in the Brontes is Charlotte as her novel, Jane Eyre, is one of my all time favorites. Unfortunately, most of the places Charlotte used as a basis for her settings in Jane Eyre are in and around the village of Hathersage which is situated a little too far away for me to get to using public transportation. So I have spent most of the week relaxing in the nostalgic little village center with its steep, narrow, cobblestone main street lined with old stone buildings and shops.

Better yet, I have enjoyed hiking several nearby moorland paths. The first long hike I took was a 6½ mile trek from the village center onto the Haworth Moor leading to the Bronte Bridge and Waterfall (so named because they were both places that, it is said, the Brontes knew well and spent much time enjoying). A mile or two past (and all uphill I might add) is Top Withens, a place that is claimed to be Emily's inspiration for Heathcliff's dwelling in Wuthering Heights.


The dark and stormy moors.


The Bronte Bridge.


Good thing i wore sweatshirt. The weather changes every few minutes on the moors!


Bronte Waterfall. It's really just a trickle right now. I guess it's more impressive after the winter thaw.


I was surprised when I hiked up closer to the falls to see this little sheep munching grass.


One of the many ways to get through (or over) a fence.


Top Withens from a distance.


A little closer up.


Yesterday I did a slightly shorter hike on Stanbury Moor to Penistone Crag, a large flat topped rock jutting out from the top of the moor, which is also said to have been a favorite haunt of the Bronte sisters as well as the meeting place of Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. I liked this hike even more than the one to Top Withens. Evidently, not as many tourists know about this so I only saw two other hikers in the 4 or 5 hours I was there. It was a beautiful day with sunshine and a light breeze so I sat on Penistone Crag and did some reading surrounded by the gorgeous scenery and bleating of sheep.



View from the top of one side of the moor to the other.


Another little waterfall.


Pools of water from the trickling spring.


Penistone Crag--you can't really tell from this pic but that's a long way down!


A nice resting spot.



A lonely crooked tree.




Fences and more fences. These are called drystone fences because they don't have mortar between the stones. That way the wind can blow through the cracks and not knock them down over time.


Penistone Crag from the other side of the moor.


Cows! innocent enough but a little scary when you're in an open field with them. At least I think so...


The Bronte Parsonage, which was home to the family, is now a museum devoted to the Bronte family. Their story is actually quite sad. The mother, Maria Branwell Bronte, died at age 38 when the children were still very young. Of the 6 children, only 4 survived into adulthood (Maria and Elizabeth died of consumption (tb) as a result of poor living conditions and harsh treatment at Cowen Bridge School. Charlotte used Cowen Bridge as the model for "Lowood" in Jane Eyre.) Charlotte lived the longest of all her sibling, dying in 1855 at age 38. Their father, Patrick Bronte, outlived all of his children.


Street view of the church.


Back view of the church. Opposite the parsonage.


The Bronte Parsonage Museum (I don't know who those people are in front, although it does look like they are posing for me).


The graveyard.


Black cat in the graveyard. How fitting.

Images From In and Around Haworth

The Rosebud Cottage Guesthouse (where I am staying).







Awesome room


Main street in Haworth is said to look much like it did 100 years ago.



These stone fences and footpaths are everywhere.


A view from one of my walks.


Sleeping cat. This pic just makes me smile.


There is still an operating steam train that connect Haworth to neighboring towns and villages. This is what the inside of the cars looks like.

Dartmoor and Ottery Saint Mary

Asronomical clock at Ottery Saint Mary Parish Church dating from 1472.

Above: Me at Ottery Saint Mary, hometown of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Above: Hound Tor on Dartmoor. We climbed up to the top of those rocks. The wind was so strong I was afraid it would blow us right off.

Above: Hey Tor on Dartmoor with a wild pony grazing in the foreground.

Above: Kitty Jays grave, near the village of Widecombe on Dartmoor.


Okay so I have a few things to wrap up about my time in the Southern part of the country...

My last day there was spent studying poetry with Brian. In every church we had visited up to this point (and there were quite a few), he always made a point to show me the memorials to the 2 world wars that are in virtually every church in England. Although the impact of both world wars was profound, WWI in particular produced a wealth of poetry in England, the bitterness of which could be attributed to the perception that this war was conducted very poorly and at the price of almost a million casualties for the British Empire alone (compared to approx. 300,000 in WWII). Whereas the reasons for going into World War II were more clear cut and justifiable to the English population. Brian thought it was really important that I at least get an introduction to WWI poetry. The most memorable poem for me was Dulce Et Decorum by Wilfred Owen. This poem questions the often quoted saying, “It is a sweet and beautiful thing to die for one's country”. I don't know anyone who could read it and still hold that view. It's hard to say that I like this poem because it offers such a barbaric view of humanity but I guess it is important to be aware of our mortality and capacity for depravity if for no other reason than to be able to appreciate our normal everyday life as a blessing. The poem also arouses a huge amount of sadness and empathy for the experiences of these soldiers. That any person, in any place or time in history, should have to experience such atrocities is a shame.

We also read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner By Samuel Taylor Coleridge as an introduction to the Romantic Poets (Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Milton, etc). I have to admit that I have not exactly developed an appreciation for Romanticism. I probably wouldn't even have understood The Ancient Mariner had Brian not read it out loud and explained everything. But I would be interested in getting to know the genre a little better. The reason we read Coleridge is because his home town, Ottery saint Mary, was close by. So in the afternoon we took a trip there and visited the church where Coleridge would have spent much time.

A few days earlier, we visited Dartmoor. Dartmoor is a national park made up of huge rolling hills with hundreds of granite outcroppings. This place was spectacular! We went there because it was where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Hound of the Baskervilles (a Sherlock Holmes crime novel). We also visited Kitty Jay's Grave which was the inspiration for a short story by John Galsworthy (The Apple Tree). The legend goes that Kitty Jay was an orphan from Newton Abbot working at a nearby farm where she was raped and became pregnant as a result. She was so shamed by the local community and desperate that she hung herself and because her death was a suicide she could not have a church burial and her body was just thrown in a ditch. Years later someone found the bones and reburied them at the intersection of two roads and three local church parishes. According to legend her soul is now protected because the intersection of the two roads form the sign of the cross. Since that time people still come and leave flowers on her grave.

Hardy's Relevance Today

In this entry I wanted to say a few things about Hardy's writing itself and why it is still relevant for readers today over 100 years later. Despite much of it being dark, brooding, and tragic, as well as somewhat inaccessible to the average reader, I would argue that it has more relevance today than it did in Hardy's day. After all, his later novels were not well received in his lifetime largely because his treatment of subject matter was considered anywhere along the spectrum from obscene to blasphemous and many places in between. He struggled to reconcile himself with ideas of the day pertaining to religion, marriage, and the place of women in society and ultimately, was unable to.

Although feminism as we know it today was probably not in existence in the late 19th century, time and time again Hardy illuminates the desperate plight of the young female farm worker of his day whose only hope for a modicum of security was to marry any man who would have her. Even then, her position in life was not guaranteed as she was still dependent on her husband's treatment of her and his ability to make a living. Hardy's work in Tess of the D'Urbervilles delves even further into the reality of how tenuous a young impoverished female's chances at happiness, security, and even survival really were. Not to mention the disproportionate burden that women almost always carry for the consequences of sexual activity, which unfortunately, is not always entered into by choice as is illustrated in the book.

Today, luckily, is a long way from Hardy's day in most respects. But on further exploration, especially for women living in poverty, is it really that different? Are all women really viewed through the same lens as men, apart from the physical and in terms of their worth, their ability to contribute something of value, their experience?

Hmmm, I've kind of gotten carried away with this and I haven't even gotten to the religion part yet (I'll have to elaborate on that in a future entry). Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that Hardy was grappling with some very advanced ideas for a self educated rural Englishman and I think his work is well worth revisiting today.

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Cornwall

7-6-09

I think the last Hardy related travel that I wrote about was Dorchester. Since then, Brian has thoroughly schooled me on many of the biographical details of Hardy's life. Especially where they have an influence on his work as a novelist and poet. Much of this is wrapped up in his relationship with his first wife, Emma Livinia Gifford. As you may or may not know, Hardy was trained as an architect and in 1870 was sent to St. Juliot in Cornwall to plan for the restoration of the parish church. This is where he met Emma and many poems were written about her and their courtship there. Today, we visited St Juliot church as well as the vicarage where Emma was staying with her sister when the two met.







First Three Pictures: St. Juliot Church










Fourth Pic from Top: The vicarage, now the Old Rectory Bed and Breakfast.

Fifth Pic from Top: Brian and I discussing the scenery from the viewing platform at the back of the vicarage garden.



Then we continued to the Cornish coast, near the town of Boscastle to Beeny Cliffy, a place where Emma and Hardy came often and was described in much detail in several of the poems Hardy wrote about their courtship after Emma's death in 1913. The day was overcast and the wind was blowing off the ocean with tremendous force which all contributed to the rugged beauty of the place. I don't think these pictures do it justice.

>Brian and I reading Hardy's poem entitled “Beeny Cliff” while at Beeny Cliff! (It looks like I either have to go to the bathroom or it was just really cold and windy)












The last stop of the day was at Tintagel, the ruins of a 12th-century castle, which according to legend was the birthplace of King Arthur. I'm not a big fan of the whole knights of the round table bit and I didn't really think the ruins were all that impressive. But I did like Tennyson's “The Lady of Shallot” that Brian had me read in preparation. He has done a good job of widening my scope of English literature by introducing me to authors I have not been familiar with and connecting them to a physical place. I haven't yet written anything about the visit to Dartmoor and the literary connections there but I will, oh yes, I will. We also have one more outing tomorrow having to do with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (sp?) and then it is on to Bronte country.

Hardy's Cottage at Higher Bockhampton

Lyme Regis