From “Haworth Churchyard” to “Courage”: Emily Brontë Perceived by Matthew Arnold

Abstract

Matthew Arnold wrote the poem “Haworth Churchyard” in 1855, seven years after Emily Bront€e’s death. The poem is a moving tribute stimulated by her sister Charlotte Bront€e’s death, at a time when Arnold was not very active poetically. Remarking upon the achievements of more than one female writer, Arnold had nevertheless shaped the ending of the poem to resonate with the ending of Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights: the plover is heard on the moors, Yearly awake to behold The opening summer, the sky, The shining moorland – to hear The drowsy bee, as of old, Hum o’er the thyme, the grouse Call from the heather in bloom! ... the rain Lashes the newly-made grave. Unquiet souls! (Arnold, 429) It is not difficult to see that these lines echo the last lines of Wuthering Heights: I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor ... I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. (Bront€e, 300)