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A concise general introduction, conclusion, and epilogue enclose this four-section set, yielding a decidedly modular reading experience like that of a handbook or companion (as opposed to a traditional argumentative monograph). [...]while it is ideal for assigning to undergraduates or consulting during class preparation, it will frustrate scholars who expect detailed, nuanced readings of the novels shaped by a theoretically advanced understanding of the Industrial Revolution or by cutting-edge currents in feminist methodologies. The note of optimism struck by this final section is well earned, and readers seeking more in this inspirational mode should peruse Samantha Ellis's Take Courage: Anne Bronté and the Art of Life (2017). While this optimistic affirmation of the Brontés' depiction of social turbulence is indeed original, it is entirely inaccurate to claim that "there has not been an attempt to bridge the Industrial Revolution to the Bronté canon" (2)-certainly not with the fiftieth anniversary of Terry Eagleton's Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës (1975) imminent.
The Industrial Brontës: Advocates for Women's Equality in a Turbulent Age, by Taten Shirley; pp. vi + 139. London and Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2023, £69.00, $90.00.
Taten Shirley's The Industrial Brontés: Advocates for Women's Equality in a Turbulent Age admirably serves an instructive purpose for undergraduates and general readers seeking accurate knowledge of the Victorian era and jargon-free thematic discussions of gender in the Bronté sisters novels. Informative and largely uncontroversial in its claims, it maintains an appealing balance of biography, novel analysis, and historical context. Structurally and stylistically, it is eminently readable, being relatively brief and divided into easily digestible portions. Each of four sections contains its own introduction and conclusion, which bookend four- to eight-page body chapters. A concise general introduction, conclusion, and epilogue enclose this four-section set, yielding a decidedly modular reading experience like that of a handbook or companion (as opposed to a traditional argumentative monograph). Thus, while it is ideal for assigning to undergraduates or consulting during class preparation, it will frustrate scholars who expect detailed, nuanced readings of the novels shaped by a theoretically advanced understanding of the Industrial Revolution or by cutting-edge currents in feminist methodologies.
Section 1, Decentering Marriage, explores how the Bronté sisters novels insist upon women's value apart from marriage, critique the curtailment of women's personal and political liberties upon marriage, and plumb the possibility of creating more equitable couplings. Section 2, Education as the Answer, rightly observes that the Brontés novels exposed gendered double standards around education. lts links to the Industrial Revolution are merely suggestive in nature. The third section, Challenging Class Assumptions, constitutes the closest materialization of what the monograph's title appears to promise. It also includes the book's most intellectually ambitious interpretations, which gesture toward the complexities of the novels' representations of class relations and classism. Section 4, "Work as an Equalizer," emphasizes the positive benefits that the Bronte sisters associated with work, including social respect, financial freedoms, and personal satisfaction. It also insightfully points out that the Brontés' belief in the dignity of work aligned them with key figures in political economy and feminism (John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and Mary Wollstonecraft are named). The note of optimism struck by this final section is well earned, and readers seeking more in this inspirational mode should peruse Samantha Ellis's Take Courage: Anne Bronté and the Art of Life (2017).
As this recommendation implies, of the two components of the monograph's title, The Industrial Brontés: Advocates for Women's Equality in a Turbulent Age, the post-colonic phrase is a more credible descriptor. The myriad associations immediately evoked by the phrase "the industrial Brontés" certainly include issues of gender, marriage, and proto-feminism, but they are not restricted to them. In other words, the book aims to cover less ground than its title suggests. In practice, moreover, the monograph concerns itself less with the Industrial Revolution as such than the social "turbulence" it engendered. Frequently referenced, this turbulence resists precise theorization or definition, though powerful concepts from history, sociology, cultural materialism, infrastructure studies, or feminist new materialism could have been usefully deployed for this purpose. This turbulence animates widespread "conversations" in the Victorian era (5), including the Brontés' novels, which "highlighted the anxiety of the time, yet by tapping into this cultural unease, offered hope in the form of the potential positive opportunities that were now available" (2). While this optimistic affirmation of the Brontés' depiction of social turbulence is indeed original, it is entirely inaccurate to claim that "there has not been an attempt to bridge the Industrial Revolution to the Bronté canon" (2)-certainly not with the fiftieth anniversary of Terry Eagleton's Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës (1975) imminent. Unquestionably, it is true that extant criticism tends to focus on Charlotte Bronté's Shirley (1849), but the author chiefly consults a handful of well-known Bronté monographs and biographies, overlooking scores of relevant articles written recently by Bronté specialists on gender and industrialization.
To these specialists, who will note the absence of significant topics like sexuality, embodiment, or queerness, the author's treatment of gender as a matter of empowerment, stereotypes, and separate spheres may appear outmoded. Nevertheless, The Industrial Brontés is successful in these territories, confidently pointing out how the decisions and attitude of individual female characters map onto Victorian debates about education, marriage, and suffrage. The rapid pacing of the many succinct chapters and dutiful inclusion of the examples and quotations that any Bronté reader would expect substantiates both the concluding argument that "the Brontés" works were necessary milestones in early feminist thought" (128) and the opening pronouncement that "this bookis for anyone generally interested in the Brontés or the role literature plays in social change" (3). Serving this general audience with an ambitious survey of the Bronté sisters' novels unsurprisingly necessitates a level of historical detail unsatisfyingly light for some audiences but appropriate and edifying for others. Factually correct and argumentatively straightforward, The Industrial Brontës offers suitable material for undergraduates in literature surveys (where individual chapters can be conveniently assigned) or specialist literature courses on the Brontés or gender (for which the entire monograph could serve as a viable course text), as well as intellectually curious members of the public.
SHAWNA Ross
Texas A&M University
10.2979/vic.00238
Copyright Indiana University Press 2024