“Mediocrity in the sensations”: Charlotte Brontë and the Yorkshire Marriage

Sanders, Valerie

Abstract

In a letter of 1840 to her friend Ellen Nussey, Charlotte Brontë ironically advises that “mediocrity in the sensations is superlative wisdom,” especially in the context of the “Yorkshire marriage” based on wealth, rather than the mutual affinity she sets as her personal ideal. Drawing on the language of embodied subjectivity, this essay focuses on the way Brontë explores, via references to bodily sensation and material objects, the alienating experience of observing the courtship of other people. It considers the purpose of the “thumbnail” marriage sketches in her fiction and her use of brutal imagery to capture the mysteries of sexual attraction as she witnessed them around her.

Citation

Sanders, V. (2020). “Mediocrity in the sensations”: Charlotte Brontë and the Yorkshire Marriage. In J. Pizzo, & E. Houghton (Eds.), Charlotte Bronte, Embodiment and the Natural World (75-94). Palgrave Macmillan (part of Springer Nature). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34855-7_4

• Online Publication Date: Jun 10, 2020
• Publication Date: Jun 10, 2020
• Deposit Date: May 3, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 11, 2022
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (part of Springer Nature)
• Pages: 75-94
• Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
• Series ISSN: 2634-6494 ; 2634-6508
• Book Title: Charlotte Bronte, Embodiment and the Natural World
• Chapter Number: 4
• ISBN: 9783030348540 ; 9783030348571
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34855-7_4
• Keywords: Bronte; Marriage; Letters; The body; Fiction
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3541298