Anne Brontë in Scarborough
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- čas přidán 20. 06. 2024
- In January 1849, Anne Brontë received the devastating news that she had consumption, also known as tuberculosis, and it was very serious and that she might not live much longer. She decided to come to Scarborough, not in the hope of a cure, but in the hope that at least the sea air would give her more strength and buy her more time.
Whilst suffering from tuberculosis, Anne wrote her final poem about her illness and the strong possibility that she would die.
Anne isn't so well known for her poetry but I think her final poem is incredible, and a rare example of someone writing about confronting their own death and coming to terms with it.
LOvely and moving tribute to Anne in her last days. I have always felt so sorry for their father, who lived to see the deaths of his wife, all six of his children, and, in the death of the pregnant Charlotte, a never to be born grandchild. Such a desperately sad story.
Thanks! And absolutely; the Reverend Patrick Brontë suffered from such enormous loss. The bit where Anne says she doesn't want to die partly for her and her family member's sake, and how they buried her in Scarborough to make it easier for her father, was very moving. And this letter where Rev. Brontë describes the grief but uses it to draw closer to God (as Anne herself did):
"tender sorrow was my daily portion; that oppressive grief sometimes lay heavy on me and that there were seasons when an affectionate, agonizing something sickened my whole frame [...] And when my dear wife was dead and buried and gone, and when I missed her at every corner, and when her memory was hourly revived by the innocent yet distressing prattle of my children, I do assure, my dear sir, from what I felt, I was happy at the recollection that to sorrow, not as those without hope, was no sin; that our Lord himself had wept over his departed friend, and that he had promised us grace and strength sufficient for such a day.'"
Wonderful reading of a very beautiful poem, Gabriel. The way you've captured Scarborough here, I can definitely understand why Anne thought the sea air might strengthen her a bit.
Thanks, Nathan! Yes, it was a happy and safe place for her so a natural place to go to when she was ill. Sad that it didn't actually help but at least she died in a place she loved. At some point I might return to Scarborough and talk more about Anne's life there, not just her death. I'm beginning to think we focus too much on famous people's deaths and not enough on their lives!
I think you’re right, we do have a greater fascination with their deaths. Perhaps an interest in how they face that moment. It would be nice to know more about Anne’s life there as well.
I like that people leave pens and pencils as a token.
Me too... I've been to a lot author graves and Anne's is one of the ones with a lot of offerings. It's not possible to do that for the other Brontë's as they are buried inside Haworth church, so maybe Anne gets all the attention that would otherwise have been distributed between herself and her sisters.
That ill-gotten graveyard full of contagion - if only they knew -
We can cure these diseases today of course, my Dad was one of the last to suffer before the cure was found at last. it often seems to be the price they had to pay for their genius, This disease often seems to have been the catalyst for their work. DH Lawrence, Kathleen Mansfield, Keats and many others all suffered from it. victims all of the fire that they fed off. Was it a price worth paying? Who can say. We have the eternal work.
Absolutely -- tuberculosis is such a horrible disease and we're lucky to have proper treatments for it, now. Poor Keats suffered terribly. And it struck Anne down cruelly. Kafka also had it (for about 7 years). I'm reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar at the moment and a character in that gets it! And yet it's something we generally don't think about anymore.
Interesting comment about it being the price for genius. That was broadly how Kafka thought of his illness -- that it was the overflow of his feelings. "When the heart and soul can no longer bear the burden, the lungs take over half of it, and then the burden is more or less evenly distributed," he wrote in a letter.
Whereas I think Anne just feels her illness was unfair, sad, and rotten luck. Which of course it was.
George Orwell I believe also died of TB
@@WeirdSalad101 Interesting -- I did not know that. Amazing how many people it affected and now we don't think about it much at all (treatments are vastly better, today).
You may be interested in an article Prof. Adam Roberts wrote about William Morris's death where he speculates about a possible TB diagnosis: medium.com/adams-notebook/what-killed-william-morris-cf48b6666b4b
@@GabrielSchenk yes I believe he was writing 1984 on the remote Scottish island of Jura and he took very sick and had to hike to the road so he could be taken to hospital and died not long after. Thank you for this article looks interesting!