Everything you need to understand or teach
Shirley by Charlotte Brontë.
Products may contain comprehensive summaries, analysis, notes, articles, essays,
lesson plans and more. See below for details on what is included.
Biography EssayCharlotte Bronte's fame and influence rest on a very slender canon of published works: only four novels and some contributions to a volume of poetry. Her reputation may be explained in ...
Read more
The English novelist Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) portrayed the struggle of the individual to maintain his integrity with a dramatic intensity entirely new to English fiction.Charlotte Brontë...
Read more
Charlotte Brontë's fame and influence rest on a very slender canon of published works: only four novels and some contributions to a volume of poetry. Her reputation may be explained in part by th...
Read more
Charlotte Brontë's short fiction comprises the profuse writings that she produced--in collaboration with her brother, Branwell, and their sisters, Emily and Anne--during their sheltered childhood...
Read more
Although Charlotte Brontë is one of the most famous Victorian women writers, only two of her poems are widely read today, and these are not her best or most interesting poems. Like her contempora...
Read more
In the following excerpt, originally published in 1850 in the Edinburgh Review, Lewes criticizes the characters in Shirley as unnatural and unrealistic, despite the author's claim that they are...
Read more
In this excerpt, originally published in 1975, Eagleton explores the possible reasons for the novel's focus on the Luddite disturbances of 1812 rather than the Chartist unrest of Brontë&...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Gubar dismisses those critics who claim that Shirley lacks unity, and praises the novel as a revolutionary text.
Charlotte Brontë's second published novel, Shir...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Moglen looks at the author's progression from Jane Eyre to Shirley as an attempt to turn from the personal to the political.
For reasons which I will shortly sketch, C...
Read more
In this excerpt, Lashgari discusses images of food, starvation, and eating disorders in Shirley.
Does virtue lie in abnegation of self? I do not believe it. (10:190)
You expected bread, and you have ...
Read more
In this address to the Brontë Society, Briggs explores Shirley's social theme—the Luddite uprisings—an element of the novel that is often overlooked.
I consider it a great ...
Read more
In the following essay, Tompkins looks at possible sources for the character of Caroline from among the author's family members and friends.
Two-thirds of the way through Shirley Caroline Helst...
Read more
In the essay below, Holgate describes the changes in the novel from its planning stage to its completion—changes brought about by the tragic events in the author's life in 1848-49.
If an...
Read more
In the following essay, Knies examines Brontë's writing timetable in order to challenge other critics ' claims that Anne Brontë 's death brought about changes in the...
Read more
In this essay, Shapiro challenges the conventional criticism that the public and private realms in the novel are unconnected.
From the outset, critics of Charlotte Brontë's third novel, ...
Read more
In this excerpt, Passel describes the contrapuntal structure of Shirley, in which three voices explore possible solutions to life's problems through religion, work, and love respectively.
In Sh...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Burkhart claims that, despite the novel's faults, its title character succeeds as a forerunner of today's liberated women.
Voices Public and Private
The habit a...
Read more
In this introduction to Shirley, the Hooks explore the various social themes of the novel as well as the circumstances under which it was written and the intentions of its author.
With Jane Eyre Charl...
Read more
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Bronte
Critical Essay by G.H. Lewes
