Culture
Is Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ Actually the Greatest Love Story of All Time?
Catherine and Heathcliff. Since 1847, when Emily Brontë published her only novel, “Wuthering Heights,” those ill-starred lovers have inflamed the imaginations of generations of readers.
Who are these two? Definitely not the people you meet on vacation. The DNA of “Wuthering Heights,” set in a wild and desolate corner of Northern England, runs through the dark, gothic, obsessive strains of literary romance. Heathcliff, a tormented soul with terrible manners and a worse temper, may be the English novel’s most problematic boyfriend — mad, bad and dangerous to know. What redeems him, at least in the reader’s eyes, is Catherine’s love.
As children growing up in the same highly dysfunctional household, the two form a bond more passionate than siblinghood and purer than lust. (I don’t think a 179-year-old book can be spoiled, but some plot details will be revealed in what follows.) They go on to marry other people, living as neighbors and frenemies without benefits until tragedy inevitably strikes. In the meantime, they roil and seethe — it’s no accident that “wuthering” is a synonym for “stormy” — occasionally erupting into ardent eloquence.
Take this soliloquy delivered by Catherine to Nelly Dean, a patient and observant maidservant who narrates much of the novel:
This all-consuming love, thwarted in the book by circumstances, has flourished beyond its pages. Thanks to Catherine and Heathcliff — and also to the harsh, windswept beauty of the Yorkshire setting — “Wuthering Heights,” a touchstone of Victorian literature, has become a fixture of popular culture.
Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon played Heathcliff and Catherine in William Wyler’s 1939 multi-Oscar-nominated film adaptation.
Since then, the volatile Heathcliff has been embodied by a succession of British brooders: Richard Burton, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Hardy. At least for Gen X, the definitive Catherine will always be Kate Bush, dancing across the English countryside in a bright red dress in an indelible pre-MTV music video.
Now, just in time for Valentine’s Day, we’ll have Emerald Fennell’s new R-rated movie version, with Margot Robbie (recently Barbie) as Catherine and Jacob Elordi (recently Frankenstein’s monster) as Heathcliff.
Is theirs the greatest love story of all time, as the movie’s trailer insists? It might be. For the characters, the love itself overwhelms every other consideration of feeling. For Brontë, the most accomplished poet in a family of formidable novelists, that love is above all a matter of words. The immensity of Catherine and Heathcliff’s passion is measured by the intensity of their language, which of course is also Brontë’s.
Here is Heathcliff, in his hyperbolic fashion, belittling Catherine’s marriage to the pathetic Linton:
Which is what romance lives to do. It’s a genre often proudly unconstrained by what is possible, rational or sane, unafraid to favor sensation over sense or to pose unanswerable questions about the human heart. How could Catherine love a man like Heathcliff? How could he know himself to be worthy of her love?
We’ll never really have the answers, which is why we’ll never stop reading. And why no picture will ever quite match the book’s thousands of feverish, hungry, astonishing words.
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights places where authors were born (or lived) that later became locations in their books. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the works if you’d like to do further reading.
-
Indiana6 minutes agoIndiana extends gas tax suspension: ‘Cheapest gas in the country’
-
Iowa9 minutes agoTrump's primary endorsement winning streak just ended in Iowa
-
Kansas14 minutes agoWhere to watch Kansas City Royals vs Cincinnati Reds: TV channel, start time, streaming for June 3
-
Kentucky21 minutes agoFayette County school board chair, KEA sue to block Kentucky law that would oust current members
-
Louisiana24 minutes agoLouisiana insurance officials to announce retirement of Katrina, Rita bonds
-
Maine36 minutes agoMaine’s abrupt plan to cut $400M in construction projects roils the industry
-
Maryland39 minutes agoMan found dead in South Carolina after shooting ex-girlfriend in Maryland
-
Michigan44 minutes agoGotion wants Michigan township to pay the $23.7M it owes in incentives
