for the literature lovers

This morning I led a discussion of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre with six home schooled high school students who are part of a co-op group. Immediately after agreeing to do this a month or so ago, I started kicking myself. It has been so long since I've been in high school and the MA in English changed the way I read and discuss literature, so I was afraid I wouldn't know the proper way to approach the text with a group of 15 to 17 year old kids. Then I pulled my copy of Jane Eyre off the shelf and began re-reading it.

I had forgotten how much I love that novel. The last time I read it was for my MA comps, and I was certainly reading it with a different purpose and lens at the time. This time, while I kept possible discussion topics and questions in the back of my mind, I could just soak in the book.

One of the many things I love about Victorian fiction is how rich the descriptions are. The authors don't just propel the reader from one plot point to another, they paint a vivid, imagination-capturing picture of what life was like in nineteenth century Britain, and they told stories that were deeply rooted in what it means to be human. Today's novels seem almost skeletal in comparison. I love how these books show that in spite of the different cultures and time periods and technologies between that time and this, people are essentially the same. We have the same passions, the same motivations, the same struggles, and the same triumphs. For all of our great progress, we are them, and they painted us so well.

So I decided to share that with these 6 high schoolers. For context I gave them a mini lecture about the life of Charlotte Brontë and the connections between her and the character Jane Eyre. Then we dove into the novel. We had an amazing discussion about the tension between duty and desire and how perhaps it is not either-or but both-and that Brontë advocates. We talked about the role of the governess, the condition of charity boarding schools in the mid-nineteenth century, and the significance of phenomenology and physiognomy during the Victorian age. They had some really great insights into the texts and were so willing to share their ideas and questions about the text.

In short - it was a smashing success. I will very likely guest "teach" a book for their group next semester.

For now though I have an itch to find another long-lost and much loved novel tucked away somewhere on my bookshelf.