Emily ever in love?

[Flora]

Somewhere (I don't remember where) I read, that Charlotte wrote an excuse for Emily's passiones and violence (that wasn't accepted that well at the time) in the biographic note she wrote in Wuthering Heights, as they were reisued in 1850, saying that they were coming from her unknowing of the real world.

Mostly, love isn't like it's described in Wuthering Heights, at least today. Also, Emily placed the book about seventy years before her time. In my opinion, it was her opinion - her wish, her hope perhaps - that such passionate love once did exsist, that it exsisted before her time. In my opinion, she placed the story before her time becouse she couldn't find love in the form she imagined it in her time.
Lockwood, as a connection between 'her' world and the world of heatcliff and Catherine. He can't understand their love, for he himslef does not belong in that world, he belongs in Emily's world, her time.

I was wondering if it's known to anyone - was Emily ever in love herself?
I'd be really happy to see some vews...

[summer grace]

I don't think so, as far as I know. But she certainly portrayed such emotions well for someone who is unlikely to have experienced them. Or ar least, she had never experienced passionate love of the depth she wrote of. She was someone who carried through life rather alone. But her book proves to write well of something, it somtimes isn't necessary to have experience.

[Pensive]

Flora, I also had the same feelings after reading her life history and novel. Sometimes if one can't reveal about their love, he finds an alternative for it. Like Emily wrote the Wuthering Heights and poems, which were mostly sad.

A few days ago, my grandpa told me that if we can't get something like if we see something in a shop, we want to buy it and can't afford it, we will try to find an alternative. I can write a poem about that thing. I can write a story about it or I can make a picture of it and in this way, I can satisfy myself a little.

So, I think that there is a possibility of Emily loving someone but it is the matter of heart...

[summer grace]

Well, often poets do write about their experiences, even if they cannot have something. So often people think poetry has to be autobiography if it is too literal-which is a mistake. I know from experience that poets are able to write about things they have never had or even experienced. It is possible that Emily may have wanted love, or even experienced it, but never had it, as it were. There is little evidence of this in life story though, so perhaps she simply had a good imagination.

[Pensive]

Yuppers, summer-grace, you may be right. Well, love is a matter of hearts, as I have mentioned earlier. We can't be sure that whether she was in love or not...

[radspanner]

ive just discovered the Bronte girls by accident,and made the trip to Haworth to see where they lived.

what i find fascinating about them is that even isolated and sheltered as they were, they were able to write some of the most passionate stories ever written,and also to create some of the greatest fictional characters ever.by which i mean Heathcliffe,Jane Eyre,Agnes Grey and Helen Huntingdon.

i bought jane eyre at a car boot sale,it was the best 50p i ever spent.

(have to say Anne Bronte is the best of the three IMO)

[Bysshe]

Oooh. I want to see the Brontes house. I keep pestering my parents to take me up to Yorkshire some time, but I still haven't been.

I think the Brontes are proof that boredom isn't necessarily a bad thing. They wouldn't have had very exciting lives, yet they still managed to write such imaginative books. Emily's my favourite of the three (I've been obsessed with Wuthering Heights since I was nine)...

[13blackroses]

I think Emily wrote about love the way she dreamed it once was. Because she couldn't find it in that form in her life she chose to believe that it was like that once and writing was an outlet for that.

[Flora]

Thanks for replying...I think I agree with everything that was said, really, and boredom, if it comes along with great imagination, can indeed turn into something very good.

I've been to Haworth last summer, and enjoyed every moment of the trip.

[dreamlonger]

I was wondering if it's known to anyone - was Emily ever in love herself?
I'd be really happy to see some vews...

I see that as a no easy-answer question. There are many forms of love, and I think our hearts are capable of having this "out of body" experience when we are infactuated with someone. We can build up a love without that person even knowing. It's definitely not a 'normal' type of love, if she was. She's very passionate in her writings and I can see her having someone in mind, but she probably didn't persue it. Emily Dickinson wrote some great things, and never left her home-- she seemed to always set herself up for a downfall. She was in love with a married man that would come to her and help her.

[inversion]

Oh, this is so interesting because I personally have very much loved someone I couldn't have, and felt how tormenting it can be. (Though haven't we all at some point?)
But the way the mind of a person can react to it, it's just.. The human mind is really capable of feeding self-created emotions to a very great extent, and those feelings can get really deep. I can imagine the effects being greater the more introverted, isolated, imaginative the person is - like Emily was.
The love between Cathy and Heathcliff is obviously not how love between two persons really is; I think it rather reflects how Emily herself felt inside, or what she thought the ideal of love to be. She might have been in love, which I actually now looking at it think pretty probable, but as dreamlonger said, not in the normal sense. Then again, she might have not even been in love with any person in particular, but just simply longed for feelings of that sort, and expirienced it in her own writing?
I don't know, I haven't read much on her. I should, though.

[danni.x]

I think her secluded, isolated life inspired the romance of the novel although it's romantic to think Emily had her own Heathcliff

[mllebelle]

Funny, because I asked my Literature teacher the same question a couple of years ago. I said that it's amazing because she writes like she really knows her stuff, which is incredible considering she probably never got to personally experience what her characters do.
And he said some people might just be touched by God, they understand human nature and emotion better than most of us mere mortals, ha

[Megz]

I love the Bronte sister's novels. However, I do not know much about them and their personal lives. I do know Emily was a bit of a loner. She may not have experienced this type of love in her own life, but she is surely capable of idealizing "love". Some people just have the gift of writing, putting her day dreams so to speak on paper. Or maybe she wrote based off her knowledge of how she saw others interact when in love.

[Elnorn]

Catherine's feelings for Heathcliff are not like the ones we read on romantic novels. Catherine loved Heathcliff because she felt that their souls are very much alike. Her heart desired him but her mind rejected him. She knew that its impossible for any good to come from Heathclif. He's evil and will be evil regardless how you treat him. There is no way Heathcliff deserves a beautiful and high caste person like Catherine.
I think, maybe, Emily felt the same for someone. Someone who she's madly in love and could easily have if she wanted. But her mind rejected him and he just burried her love to her heart. And her novel.