Friday 11 September 2009

Oh, Those Chicks

Brontë Sisters
By Patrick Branwell Brontë (c. 1834)

I'm reading Wuthering Heights for one of my English classes and am really enjoying it. It is written by one of the Brontë sisters but, while talking to Steph over e-mail about it, I couldn't remember for sure which one. In yet another example of why I'm a terrible literature student (English Major, What?) I told her that I knew there are three of them, but only from the painting (see above) and that one or more of them committed suicide but again didn't know which. Steph confirmed this; "Yeah there were definitely three Bronte sisters and they weren’t the most stable of chicks." Turns out none of them committed suicide, though they and their books, were pretty messed up.

The Brontë Sisters
They make me thankful for vaccinations!! For anyone else who is a little foggy on these writers here is the break down:

Maria and Elizabeth: Eldest sisters. Died of tuberculosis at 12 & 10 years old respectively.

Charlotte: Wrote Jane Eyre and other books/poetry. Married. Died in childbirth 39 years old.

Emily: Wrote Wuthering Heights and poetry. Died of tuberculosis, 30 years old.

Anne: Wrote Angnes Grey and other books/poetry. Died of tuberculosis, 29 years old.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

So glad one of us got on wiki and looked this stuff up. It was starting to bother me yesterday. :)

Jannedals said...

I once had to make up a song for a lung disease and coincidentally chose tuberculosis. I can't remember how the whole thing went (and it went to the tune of spiderman) but here is the first verse:

TB or
Tuberculosis
A disease found
In the lungs
Makes you cough
Makes you hot
Makes you lose
Quite a lot
Of weight!
Don't wanna catch TB

If you've got
HIV
You're more likely
To catch TB
You can die
So be warned
Treat yourself
Faithfully
One time
Every single day

(looks like I remembered 2 verses ahahahaha)