The Idea of Europe

in Literature
Prof coord.: Ovidiu Pecican
Creator: Mladin Elisa-Maria
 First Chapter:
Charlotte Brontë’s Alternative “European
Community” – Jan B. Gordon
It is familiar to think that society plays an important role in the
makings of a book so out of this we can conclude that: a book
might at it’s core define the society of it’s time and place.
Charlotte Brontë’s books represents the overall relations
between England and the European Continent. Also she gives
definition to that time, when it was written, and place where it
was written.
 The idea of European Integration is, for example, presented in the novel
“Villette” where foreigner –Lucy Snowe- is trying to integrate in the
fictitious country she lives in. This country is united by a common cultural
history that is doubted by Lucy (the long forgotten why remembrance day)

So, even if she sees no danger in cohabitation with the locals she feels
herself as a transnational, and thus persecuted (gypsy).
 In the 19th century Europe’s aspect is influenced by the British
Romanticism. The late 18th and early 19th century works of gothic
fiction find a home on the continental topography and adding it to this
cultural variety and different ways of life.
From the ideas presented we could say that the representation of an
European society that dwells in perpetual dissimulation ,demons, at
least on the continent.
 If in the case of Lord Byron and Shelley the Europe represents a
flight for freedom and debauchery. For George Eliot the Europe
represent a spare full of history and knowledge.

Lord Byron Mary & Percy Shelley George Eliot

 In the novel Jane Eyre all the negative traits of Europe are
represented by Fairfax Rochester. Jane- represents England which
has so called, martial, interest in Europe, but only when it can
defend the civilized moral values (also because of the incapability
to extend
the empire on the
continent, Europe
represents both a
temptation and a
threat. )
 Belgium is represented as a country whose social, political and
economical interest are aligned with Britain’s and this idea was in some way
idealized in the books “The Professor”, “Villette” and “Shirley”. It could also
be selected to the formation of the country :
“If Belgium was indeed a new kind of nation, relatively immune to the
arbitrary political winds which threatened the economic viability and even
the national security of the nations of Europe during the wave of abortive
liberalizations which briefly brought 'citizen-kings' to power in the 1830s, we
might logically expect to encounter this uniqueness in British literature of the
period.” (The Idea of Europe in Literature, page 10)
 Even if romanticism was the main prospect of the day, not all
books were about a perfect England:

In “The Professor” In “Jane In “Shirley”

the main character is Eyre” the the lavish
forced to leave the main lives of the
country where he was character clergymen.
at first forced to undergoes
marry. two cycles of
riches to sags
and lock.
 The next thing the books of Charlotte Brontë describe is the
variety of religion and its acceptance of one another. It also
represents the own exaggerated commercial England.

If Charlotte Brontë’s late novels in fact recognize an alternative

European community within a new political regime, it is (already)
present as a repressed latency in her most popular novel. In the
infamous scene wherein a cruelly deceptive Fairfax Rochester,
disguised as a female gypsy fortune-teller, entertains himself by
pretending to foretell the future of an impoverished governess
without one, Jane Eyre is startled by his prognosis.
Thank you!