Module B: A Critical Study of Text

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is studied as a 'critical study of text'. The focus is:

• a close study of the text itself: structural and language features as well as the content and ideas contained in the text,

• a study of the way it has been received by different audiences in different contexts,

• the different ways in which the text can be read and the values reflected by those readings, and

• an understanding of the value of the text.

Resources

Emily Bronte's life

• Emily Bronte

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/ebronte/ebronteov.html

• The Museum at her home, Haworth - includes photographs of Haworth

http://www.bronte.info/

• an e-text version of Wuthering Heights

http://www.literature.org/authors/bronte-emily/wuthering-heights/

http://brontee.thefreelibrary.com/

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/b#a405

Critical reception

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/charlotte.html

http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~christyc/wuthering_heights_outline.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights

Readings of Wuthering Heights

• An more analytical look at Emily Bronte with useful links at the bottom of the page on the reception of her work.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/index.html

• A cultural reading of Wuthering Heights

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/jurisprudence/jurisprudence-review/content/jr_rahman_2000.pdf

• A psychological reading

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/psych.html

http://www.csulb.edu/~csnider/brontes.html

• Wuthering Heights as a socio economic novel

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/economic.html

• A postmodern reading: the application of Barthes/narratology to extracts of the novel

http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/narratology/application/applTnBarthesBronte.html

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~felluga/narratology/barthesholly.html

Film versions of Wuthering Heights

Note: Film versions are not a substitute for reading Emily Bronte's text. These can be seen as modern readings but you will need to analyse them against your prescribed text for audience, purpose and situation as well as what has been retained or changed and give reasons why. Check with your teacher.

• 1939, Wuthering Heights, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, directed by William Wilder

http://www.filmsite.org/wuth.html

• 1970, Wuthering Heights, starring Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder Marshal, directed by Robert Fuest

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066585/

• 1992, Wuthering Heights, staring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche and directed by Peter Kosminsky

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104181/

• More references

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/film.html