Shirley

Shirley, Charlotte Bronte, Penguin Classics



To moja pierwsza lektura "Shirley" Charlotte Bronte i jestem pod wrażeniem. Książka ukazała się po raz pierwszy w 1849 r. i została dobrze przyjęta przez czytelników. Już we wstępie autorka gotuje czytelnikowi taką oto zachętę do dalszego wgłębienia się w lekturę:

"If you think, from this prelude, that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie? Do you expect passion, and stimulus, and melodrama? Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool, and solid lies before you; something unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work wake with the consciousness that they must rise and betake themselves thereto. It is not positively affirmed that you shall not have a taste of the exciting, perhaps towards the middle and close of the meal, but it is resolved that the first dish set upon the table shall be one that a Catholic—ay, even an Anglo-Catholic—might eat on Good Friday in Passion Week: it shall be cold lentils and vinegar without oil; it shall be unleavened bread with bitter herbs, and no roast lamb."

TUAJ C.D.