Emily Brontë was one of the famous Brontë sisters who lived in Haworth, Yorkshire in the early 19th century. She and her sisters first published their poems anonymously in 1846 under male pseudonyms to avoid prejudice. Charlotte discovered Emily's poems and thought them intense and genuine. Emily is best known for her novel Wuthering Heights, set in the wild Yorkshire Moors which she knew well and featured in many of her poems. "Spellbound" is one of Emily's poems from 1837, attributed to the imaginary world of Gondal she created with her siblings, suggesting it refers to a Gondal heroine exposing her child to die in winter, held by maternal emotions from

1. Context: Emily Brontë and ‘Spellbound’
Emily Brontë (1818–1848)
Emily Brontë was one of the three famous Brontë sisters who lived in Haworth in ________. All
of the _____children, including the brother Branwell, had tragically short lives. Charlotte lived
the longest (1816–1855).
Emily Brontë’s poems were first ________in a collection shared with her sisters, Charlotte and
Anne, in 1846. They were published under the pseudonyms Ellis, Currer and Acton Bell so that
readers would not know their ___and, as was likely at that time, judge their ______negatively
as a result. All three went on to publish novels which are still in print and widely read and
studied.
It seems that Charlotte accidentally discovered Emily’s poems. She thought that they were ‘not
at all like the poetry ______ generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, ______and
genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music, wild, melancholy and elevating.’
Emily went on to write the novel Wuthering Heights, an extraordinary piece of fiction for its
time (or indeed any other). Its ______ is the wild Yorkshire Moors which she______ and
which can also be seen as the setting for _________ and many of her other poems.
‘Spellbound’
Written in November 1837 when Emily would have been only 19, this _____ is usually attributed
to Emily's 'Gondal' period –_____being an imaginary world created by Emily and her siblings in
which heroes and heroines battled in romantic and desperate situations. The editor of the
Selected Poems of the Brontës, Juliet Barker, quotes an earlier authority, Fannie Ratchford
(Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë) and suggests that the poem refers to an incident when
one of the heroines _______her child to die on the mountains in winter. Although she cannot
bear to watch the child die, the mother is held by the _________of maternal emotions and
cannot tear herself away.
Brontë
‘Spellbound’, vigorous, 'tyrant spell', setting, writing, sex, Brontë, adored, published,
women, Gondal, exposes, poem, Yorkshire.
1

2. Bibliography
Barker, Juliet (ed.), The Brontës: Selected Poems, Everyman, 1993
Reid Banks, Lynne, Dark Quartet, The Story of the Brontës, Penguin, 1976
haworth-village.org.uk/Brontes/Bronte.asp – provides a good reliable overview of the Brontës
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dehmUqIxgjU – film clip about Emily Brontë’s life and death
www.online-literature.com/Bronte/
2