I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born
In secret pleasure–secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day
There have been times I cannot hide
There have been times when this was drear
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here
But those were in the early glow
Of feelings since subdued by care
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were
First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew
'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there
To call a woman who died 164 years ago at the age of 30, left her home on the Yorkshire Moors just about once to take a teaching position and was thoroughly miserable, completed precisely one novel and a thin anthology of her completed poems, still an immense influence on modern pop culture through her position at the top of all of Goth, might sound ridiculous. But the one novel, "Wuthering Heights" happens to be the greatest novel of all time, her poems (see the one above) a lesson in why lyricists aren't poets, and her story a lesson in not just Outliers but the depths and heights imagination, archival memories, refracted sexuality and genius, can lead you.
Thwarted in love, intensely person, isolated even by the mid-1800s standards, Emily and her two sisters, Ann and Charlotte, and brother Hawthorne, invented a world of their own and expanded out.
Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks stole her wardrobe from her, had her first hit with a song based upon "Wuthering Heights"… you remember, "Heathcliff, it's me Catheee, come home now…" That one.
And it lead to a flood reaching its zenith right this second with Florence + The Machine.
This pop culture moment is enthused with Emily Bronte. All the tween and twenty hit novels from "Twilight" to "50 Shades of Grey" are ruled by Heathcliff type men. Though Bronte outwrote them with ease. How could they not be, in "Wuthering Heights", Bronte formed an anti-hero who was the embodiment of a concept that didn't even exists: the Id. As the object of female sexual desire, he ran rampant and destroyed two households in his desire for Cathy Earnshaw.
This is a central tenant of female sexuality: the being consumed, to death and indeed beyond death, by desire… love if you're a aromantic. So the vampire. Bella is simply a very, very bad Cathy.
Meanwhile women rockers have always had a problem. Rick and roll is a sublimation of male not female sexuality. Yje come on is too aggressive for female sexuality: it is the difference between stone and water: men are abrupt, they come in spurts, female are slow, they come in waves. One result of this is that when women write about sex, it can become, ethereal, penetrable, watery, liquid, ghosts, fairies.
This has lead to a lot of terrible music (Evanescence anyone?) and always lyrics that are not poetry. Lyric isn't poetry, the difference is its use. Poets have to build in the meter, lyricist allow the music to do it for them. Still… here is one of Florence Welch's best lyrics:
Time it took us
To where the water was
That’s what the water gave me
And time goes quicker
Between the two of us
Oh, my love, don’t forsake me
Take what the water gave me
Lay me down
Let the only sound
Be the overflow
Pockets full of stones
Lay me down
Let the only sound
Be the overflow
And oh, poor Atlas
The world’s a beast of a burden
You’ve been holding on a long time
And all this longing
And the ships are left to rust
That’s what the water gave us
‘Cause they took your loved ones
But returned them in exchange for you
But would you have it any other way?
Would you have it any other way?
You couldn't have it any other way
‘Cause she’s a cruel mistress
And a bargain must be made
But oh, my love, don’t forget me
I let the water take me
An excellent lyric, but terrible, terrible poetry. There is no poetry there: it is as if she forgot to write the poem. It gets all its power from voice and sound plus words that can transform themselves into something else. Do you think anybody will be quoting it in 2180?
Emily is Lennon to Charlottes McCartney (and Ann's Harrison) Charlotte wrote "Jane Eyre" -only in a world with Emily as her sister would she be the second sister. The Goth rockers can't reach Emily's depth, they can only be inspired by it. Emily loved one man, unrequited, and died very, very young. She transformed herself through writing. The Queen of Goth and one of the greatest writers in the English language
Emily wrote this when she was 20…
'All too like that dreary eve
Sighed within repining grief;
Sighed at first, but sighed not long-
Sweet-How softly sweet it came!
Wild words of an ancient song
Undecided without a name"
-November 11th, 1838