Jane Eyre, an Autobiography

Donde los niños son confinados a la casa por el frío exterior y Jane no recibe el mismo trato que sus primos. Jane se siente sola y abandonada, se refugia en la lectura. Del clásico de Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.

En vocabulario buscamos shrubbery, chilly, nipped, chiding, sprightly, y caviller. También se menciona A History of British Birds, que toma Jane para ojear. Bueno, te contamos un poco sobre el libro más abajo. Fijáte…

 

Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her looked perfectly happy.  Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at…

 

Edición de Bewick de 1847, Newcastle and Longman

Paragraphs

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy.  Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”

“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.

“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner.  Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”

A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there.  It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures.  I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day.  At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.  Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.

I returned to my book—Bewick’s History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank.  They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of “the solitary rocks and promontories” by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway… (Jane Eyre, chapter 1, by Charlotte Bronte)

La novela

Jane Eyre sigue las emociones y experiencias de esta heroína, desde su niñez hasta su adultez, incluyendo su amor por el señor Rochester, en Thornfield Hall. Pertenece al género Bildungsroman, sobre el crecimiento moral y psicológico del personaje. La novela contiene elementos de crítica social, con una fuerte carga de moralidad. Algunos la consideran adelantada a su tiempo dado el carácter individualista de Jane y la exploración de clasismo, sexualidad, y religión.

Vocabulario

Shrubbery: A shrubbery, shrub border or shrub garden is a part of a garden where shrubs, mostly flowering species, are thickly planted (arbustos).

Chilly: cool, breezy, fresh, sharp, penetrating. It was a chilly afternoon.

Nipped: nip: to harm or hurt (something) with cold.

An early frost nipped the crops.

Chiding: to criticize (someone) usually gently so as to correct a fault.

My wife chided me for forgetting to offer our guests some refreshments.

Sprightly: having much high-spirited energy and movement.

A sprightly child who often claims to be too tired to move when it's time to do chores.

Caviller: as in criticizer. A person given to harsh judgments and to finding faults.

The chronic cavillers who are going to complain no matter what the mayor does.

Para saber

A History of British Birds es un libro de historia natural de Thomas Bewick, publicado en dos volúmenes. El volumen 1, Land Birds, apareció en 1797. El volumen 2, Water Birds, apareció en 1804. El libro es admirado principalmente por la belleza y claridad de los grabados de Bewick, que se consideran ampliamente su mejor trabajo, y entre los mejores en ese medio.

Los Birds de Bewick se convirtieron inmediatamente en un éxito de ventas.

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