Romanticism in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

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Wuthering Heights is filled with different examples of the Romantic Movements. Heathcliff is an exceptionally difficult character to analyze because he displays numerous altered personalities. This raises the question: which Romantic Movement was most common in Wuthering Heights? An analysis of Wuthering Heights reveals the most common Romantic Movement in the text: Romanticism. Romanticism is based upon the ideas of subjectivity, inspiration and the primacy of the individual. Various examples of these from the text are when Heathcliff has Catherine’s grave excavated, the repeated possibility of supernatural beings, and the love from the past that is seen from Heathcliff and Catherine. At one point in the text, readers picture Heathcliff’s excavation of Catherine’s grave. This scene is a vital extract in determining the most common Romantic Movement. In the evening, I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter—all round was solitary. I didn’t fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself ‘I’ll have her in my arms again! (Brontë 297) The scene above truly grasps the idea of Romanticism because Heathcliff is showing his emotions and individuality. His desire to be with Catherine is so powerful that he allows himself to disturb the peace and have enough space available for him to occupy after he has passed. This is very unusual because there are not any characters similar to Heathcliff in this text. This scene makes Heathcliff even more difficult to analyze but at the end we learn that the only thing he sincerely wanted throughout the text was to... ... middle of paper ... ... some point; how they reached that point was the true inspiration and splendor of this text. Works Cited Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1921. Print. "Introduction to Romanticism." University of Houston. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. . Man, Paul De. The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: Columbia UP, 1984. Print. Reynolds, Nicole. Building Romanticism: Literature and Architecture in Nineteenth-century Britain. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2010. Print. "THE ROMANTIC NOVEL, ROMANTICISM, AND WUTHERING HEIGHTS." Emily Brontë. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. . Travers, Martin. An Introduction to Modern European Literature from Romanticism to Postmodernism. New York, NY: St. Martin's, 2010. Print.

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