Timelines in Emily Brontës «Wuthering Heights». Michael Weber

      

      Michael Weber

      Timelines in Emily Brontë’s

      Wuthering Heights

      Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

      The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche

      Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available online at

      http://dnb.d-nb.de.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the

      Library of Congress.

      The cover shows a reverse woodblock print by Vanessa Bell,

      which was used as the cover illustration for C. P. Sanger’s 1926 essay

      The Structure of Wuthering Heights published by The Hogarth Press.

      © Estate of Vanessa Bell, courtesy of Henrietta Garnett

      The German First Edition was published in 2017 under the title

      “Die Chronologie von Emily Brontës Wuthering Heights”

      as Vol. 2 of this same series.

      Edited and translated into English by Catherine Campbell.

      ISSN 0935-4093

      ISBN 978-3-631-80555-8 (Print) ∙ E-ISBN 978-3-631-82435-1 (E-Book)

      E-ISBN 978-3-631-82436-8 (EPUB) ∙ E-ISBN 978-3-631-82437-5 (MOBI)

      DOI 10.3726/b17084

      © Peter Lang GmbH

      Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

      Berlin 2020

      All rights reserved.

      Peter Lang – Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙

      Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien

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      This publication has been peer reviewed.

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      About the author

      Michael Weber was a professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Freiburg, Germany. As a scientist, he is fascinated by the temporal structure of Wuthering Heights and has extensively explored literary paradoxes in medicine and literature.

      About the book

      The temporal structure of Wuthering Heights has long been regarded as opaque or even flawed. This is explained by the fact that the years 1778, 1801 and 1802 do not entirely cohere with the numerous relative time references in the novel if, as scholarship contends, the years 1801 and 1802 refer to Ellen Dean’s narration of the story. By means of mathematically precise calculations and a grammatical analysis of the text, this critical new approach argues that the time frame of Wuthering Heights is sound if the years 1801 and 1802 date the writing of Mr. Lockwood’s diary. The crucial differentiation between the recording of Mr. Lockwood’s diary and the narration of Ellen Dean’s story leads to a deeper understanding of the intentions of the two narrators and the behaviour of the protagonists.

      This eBook can be cited

      This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

      ‘T was on a summer’s day – the sixth of June: –

      I like to be particular in dates,

      Not only of the age, and year, but moon;

      They are sort of post-house, where the Fates

      Change horses, making history change its tune,

      Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,

      Leaving at last not much besides chronology,

      Excepting the post-obits of theology.

      Lord Byron

       Don Juan, Canto I, 103

      Table of Contents

Preliminary Notes

I. Questions and Contradictions

II. The Temporal Structure of the Novel

The Report and the Story – Formal and Functional Narrative Aspects

Dating Methodology

The Time Scheme of Mr. Lockwood’s Report

Mr. Lockwood the diarist

Mr. Lockwood the clairvoyant

Mr. Lockwood the patient

Mr. Lockwood the contemporary witness

Mr. Lockwood the tourist

The Time Scheme of Ellen Dean’s Story

Time references based on textual content (internal evidence)

Time references based on numerical data (external evidence)

Time references based on misleading ages

       The misleading ages – background and consequences

       The Time Scheme of Wuthering Heights

       The Report and the Story – Temporal and Chronological Aspects

       III. The Chronologies

       The Definitive Chronology

       The Traditional Chronologies

       Sanger’s