Head to Head: Charlotte Bronte vs. Jane Austen

Who do you prefer?  Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austen?  Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice?

Below is a comparison of the two prominent authors life and major novels.  You Decide!                        

                                    Charlotte Bronte                       Jane Austen

                                                  

                                                  

Life                              1816 – 1855 (38)                     1775 - 1817 (41)

Place of Birth              Thornton, Yorkshire, UK          Steventon, Hampshire, UK

Family                           Curator                                    Rector, Landed gentry

Marital Status               Married 1854                           Died Unmarried

Cause of Death            Tuberculosis?                           Hodgkin’s lymphoma?

Famous Novel              Jane Eyre                                 Pride & Prejudice

Opening Line      "There was no possibility     "It is a truth universally acknowledged,
                             of taking a walk that day"       that a single man in possession of a
                                                                          good fortune, must be in want of a wife"

Publication Date           1847                                        1813

Novel genre                  Bildungsroman                         Comedy of manners, satire

Novel style                   First person narrative                Free Indirect Speech

Reception                    Success, favorable reviews      Few reviews, favorable

Pen Name                  Currer Bell                                 “By a Lady”

Siblings                      Maria – died 11                         Cassandra Elizabeth – died 72

Elizabeth – died 10                   6 Brothers

Branwell – died 31

Emily – died 30           

                                    Anne – died 29

Charlotte Bronte did not like Jane Austen; “The Passions are perfectly unknown to her … even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition.” 

Charlotte Bronte wrote that Pride and Prejudice was a disappointment, "a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses."                                  

ANSWERS - Literary Opening Lines QUIZ

Below are the answers to the Opening Lines QUIZ. How did you do?  QUIZ Ratings as follows:

5-7 Correct = GOOD  (Familar with several classics)
8-10 Correct = VERY GOOD (An ardent student of Literature)
10+ Correct = EXCELLENT (Likely a Professor of Literature)

Level I  (Easy):

1. Call me Ishmael. (Moby Dick, Melville)
2. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. (One Hundred Years Of Soltitude, Marquez)
3. All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (Anna Karenina, Tolstoy)
4. You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain)
5. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. (A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens)

Level II  (Medium):

1. Midway on our life's journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost. (Inferno, Dante)
2. As Gregor Samsa awoke from a night of uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. (Metamorphosis, Kafka)
3. Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. (War & Peace, Tolstoy)
4. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. (If on a winter's night a traveler, Calvino)
5. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.  (The Trial, Kafka)

Level III  (Difficult):

1. Howard Roark laughed. (The Fountainhead, Rand)
2. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. (Ulysses, Joyce)
3. It was a pleasure to burn. (Fahreheit 451, Bradbury)
4. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. (Farewell To Arms, Hemingway)
5. Mama died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. (The Stranger, Camus)

ANSWERS - Literary Closing Lines QUIZ

Below are answers to Closing Lines QUIZ.  Congratulations for getting more than 1 or 2 correct answers, as the quiz is rather difficult.  Opening Lines are generally more recognized than Closing Lines.  Thank you for taking the challenge, nonetheless.  You have an active curiosity!

1. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."  (A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens)
2. "A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR. I am haunted by humans."  (Book Thief, Zusak)
3. "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 anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth."  (Wuthering Heights, Bronte)
4. "For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration."  (The Stranger, Camus)
5. “That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended."  (Crime & Punishment, Dostoevsky)
6. "I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before."  (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain)
7. “Yes.” (Ulysses, Joyce)