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Summary

This chapter examines recurring instances in the Brontë juvenilia where the siblings intervene in their narratives as omnipotent author-gods, called the ‘Chief Genii’, who reshape the imaginary world by writing it. I trace this narrative and play practice back to its roots in the pseudo-Oriental tales of The Arabian Nights and James Ridley, but also argue for its wider significance to the literary-theoretical metaphor (employed by writers from Gustave Flaubert to Roland Barthes) of the author as divine creator of the narrative reality. In counterpoint to existing scholarship which tend to emphasise generic differences between the juvenilia and Brontë’s mature work, I offer a reading of The Professor as a continuation of the Genii authorship within the realist novel, and thereby defend Brontë’s reputation as an author of vicarious ‘wish-fulfilment’. Brontë provides a starting case for this book’s larger argument about the alternative uses of the novel as a fictional reality, rather than a historical representation, an aesthetic work, or an ethical parable.

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Chapter 2 - Authorship, Omnipotence, and Charlotte Brontë

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Chapter 2 - Authorship, Omnipotence, and Charlotte Brontë

Summary