It is a paradigmatic novel about the fortunes of private, psychological interiority under commodity culture its immediate context is the empire of things after the Great Exhibition of 1851. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. The essay argues that Charlotte Brontës Villette (1853) grapples with the role of things in the constitution of persons. Its deployment of imagery comparable in power to that of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and its use of comedy–ironic or exuberant–in the service of an ultimately sombre vision, make Villette especially appealing to the modern reader.ĪBOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe.

Strongly drawn to the fiery autocratic schoolmaster Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Lucy is compelled by Madame Beck's jealous interference to assert her right to love and be loved.īased in part on Charlotte Brontë's experience in Brussels ten years earlier, Villette (1853) is a cogent and dramatic exploration of a woman's response to the challenge of a constricting social environment. Lucy Snowe, in flight from an unhappy past, leaves England and finds work as a teacher in Madame Beck's school in 'Villette'. 'I am only just returned to a sense of the real world about me, for I have been reading Villette, a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre.

Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Global Public Health.

Even though I had never read it before, the style was so familiar because it was so apparently Charlotte.

The European Society of Cardiology Series My first impression of Villette by Charlotte Bront (1853) was the familiarity of the writing if I had no inclination of the author or book title, but merely read it blind, I think I would still know it was Charlotte Bront.Oxford Commentaries on International Law.

Villette by Charlotte Brontë