Shirley [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Shirley was written between 1848 and 1849 at a time of great social and political vmrest in England and throughout continental Europe. The miseries induced by trade depression and an economy in the process of rapid change from an agrarian to an industrial base had led to mob violence and riot. However, Charlotte Brontë placed Shirley in the latter part of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) and deliberately designed it as a social novel which would be a coimter-point to her great dramatic romance, Jane Eyre, which had been published in 1847. The novel is set in Yorkshire, and for backgroimd the author studied back-issues of the Leeds Mercury dealing with the Luddite attacks on factories and the associated violence to property and person. However, Shirley is a human as well as a social novel, dealing with the character and passions of the ambitious, stubborn, modernising mill-owner Robert Gérard Moore, his opportunistic attempt to ally himself through marriage with the wealthy Shirley Keeldar, his rejection by her in favour of his brother and his subsequent marriage to his cousin and true love, Caroline Helstone. Shirley is rich in historic detail and, while faiUng to be 'as unromantic as Monday morning', which is what Charlotte Brontë wrote that she intended it to be, it also contains a powerfully argued case for more useful occupations for women, who were at that time condemned either to marry or to lead the life of an old maid. The character of Shirley herself is drawn as an example of a woman of independent means and lively disposition who enjoys the freedom to act as she wishes. It should not be overlooked that as Charlotte Brontë was writing of the suffering of the characters in Shirley, she was witnessing the real life suffering and deaths of her unfortunate brother Branwell and sister Emily, on 24 September and 19 December 1848 respectively, and of her sister Anne on 28 May 1849. However, Shirley is not a sombre novel and it has a perpetual relevance in its exploration of humanity's efforts to reconcile personal and economic aspirations with social justice and harmony. !y : 1.1; ' ll r I ' 1' ¦¦ : . • I'