Torgersen-Bronte

Charlotte Bront ë

** Personal Life **
 * **Born in Yorkshire, England on April 21, 1816 to Rev. Patrick Bront ë and his wife Maria[[image:jane.jpg width="199" height="298" align="right"]]**
 * **1820: Mother died (Charlotte was 5)**
 * **Charlotte and her 3 sisters attended Cowan Bride, a school for Clergymen's daughters**
 * **Tuberculosis killed the two eldest daughters; Charlotte and her remaining sister left Cowan Bride**
 * **Charlotte returned to school in Roe Head, England, where she became a teacher in 1835**
 * **Decided to become a private governess instead**
 * **1839: Hired to live with and tutor children of Sidgewick family (considered the job miserable and left)**
 * **Became governess for White family but left after 9 months**
 * **Charlotte and her 3 sisters attempted to found a school, which was unsuccessful**
 * **However, their literary projects flourished**
 * **As children, they created fictional world of Angria(mentioned in their works)**
 * **Stories, poems, and plays were predictors of shared writing talent that led to careers as novelists**
 * **The 3 sisters published under male pseudonyms (Charlotte's was Currer Bell)**
 * **1848: Charlotte and her sisters revealed their true identities to their publishes in London**
 * **Charlotte's 3 sisters died following the year 1848**
 * <span style="color: #b93131; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Charlotte married Rev. A. B. Nicholas (she admired him, but did not love him)**
 * <span style="color: #b93131; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Deaths of siblings left her feeling dejected and emotionally isolated**
 * <span style="color: #b93131; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**1854: Charlotte died of pneumonia white pregnant**
 * <span style="color: #b93131; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Literature **
 * **Growing up in Victorian England, Charlotte and her sisters were inspired by Romantic authors of time (Sir Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, Lord George Gordon Byron)**
 * **The Victorian Era is agreed to stretch through reign of Queen Victoria(1837-1901)**
 * **Period of artistic styles, literary schools, social, political, and religious movements, and prosperity**
 * **Charlotte and her sisters gave each other moral support, shared creative ideas, and proof-read one another's work**
 * **1846: Charlotte and her 2 sisters worked on a book of poems together (received little public notice)**
 * **1847: Charlotte's first book, //The Professor// (never found willing publisher during lifetime)**
 * **later in 1847: //Jane Eyre//, critique of Victorian assumptions about gender and social class (one of most successful novels of its era)**
 * **Use of irregular syntax(sentence structure and frequent punctuation) in //Jane Eye// slows the work down and allows the reader to pay close attention to detail**
 * **Ex: "She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said cheerfully:-"**
 * **1849: //Shirley,// social chronicle**
 * **1853: //Villette//, considered most refined and deeply felt work (draws on loneliness following deaths of 3 sisters)**
 * **Autobiographical elements present throughout her works (//Jane Eyre//, //Villette//)**
 * **Copious poems including "Regret," 1846**
 * **1857: Publication of //The Professor//**


 * Works Cited**
 * **Cody, David. "Charlotte Bronte: A Brief Biography." //The Victorian Web//. N.p., Dec 2001. Web. 27 Apr 2010.** [|**http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/brontbio.html**]**.**
 * **"Jane Eyre: Context." //Sparknotes//. Sparknotes LLC, n.d. Web. 27 Apr 2010.** [|**http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/janeeyre/context.html**]**.**
 * **Merriman, C.D. "Charlotte Bronte." //The Literature Network//. Jalic Inc., n.d. Web. 27 Apr 2010.** [|**http://www.online-literature.com/brontec/**]**.**

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