Poems

Abstract

Most of Emily Brontë’s poems were written in the decade between 1836 and 1846 and during the same period she was actively engaged with the chronicles of the dream world of Gondal, originally created by herself and Anne as counterbalance to Angria. Since the last part of this period must have coincided with the writing of Wuthering Heights, completed by July 1846, it is evident that Gondal remained a permanent part of her inspiration during the years of her maturity. When she decided, in February 1844, to transcribe her poems, she divided them between two notebooks, one of which was headed “Gondal Poems”. Each received subsequent additions, and other verses were later discovered, thanks largely to the researches of C. W. Hatfield, whose 1941 edition of Emily’s poems more than doubled the original number. Many of these additional poems bore witness, by title, references or signature, to a continuing affiliation with the Gondal sage. Both Gondal and non-Gondal works clearly belong basically to the same inspiration, but in considering her total achievement in verse, it seems natural to observe the distinction introduced by Emily herself.