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Emily Brontë’s Forgotten Genius: Why Her Poetry Deserves More Attention
Emily Bronte: The Poet We ForgotWhen we speak of the classic author Emily Brontë, her name almost instantly conjures the image of Wuthering Heights—a windswept classic book of the 19th century. This novel drew admiration from her literary peers and the deep respect of her own siblings, especially Charlotte, who recognised Emily’s wild, uncompromising talent.
But there was another side to Emily—or Ellis Bell, as she once signed her work—that often slips under the radar. Behind the brooding novelist stood a poet of rare power. Emily Brontë’s poetry was just as intense and stirring as her fiction—if not more. Even Virginia Woolf, no stranger to her literary brilliance, admired Emily’s verses. Interesting, right? Let’s explore more of such facts and dive deeper into this lesser-known side of Brontë’s world.
Emily Brontë’s Reluctant Debut as Ellis Bell
"The evening passes fast away.
'Tis almost time to rest;
What thoughts has left the vanished day,
What feelings in thy breast?
—Self Interrogation, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell
Emily Brontë was a natural poet. Her poems ranged from powerful and terse to gentle and moving. But she kept this part of herself private. That is, until Charlotte Brontë stumbled upon a secret manuscript and read it without Emily’s permission. Charlotte suggested that she publish them, but Emily was furious and resisted the idea.
But with numerous convincing efforts from Charlotte and Anne (her other sister), both poets in their own right, Emily eventually agreed to publish her work. And so began the Brontë sisters’ literary experiment: Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell—their chosen pseudonyms. The book didn’t make waves right away—only two copies were sold, and it received just three unsigned reviews. But it marked the debut of Emily Brontë as a poet.
Image: The opening of Emily’s manuscript Credit: Sotheby’sInside Emily’s World: What Her Poems Were Really About
“Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree —
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?”
—Love and Friendship, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell
Emily Brontë’s poems were her private refuge—a space where she could reflect and release what she rarely revealed aloud. Her inner world unfolded through her verses and moved through a range of feelings, subjects, and emotional landscapes. As Charlotte Brontë later recalled in the Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell:
“Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me—a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music—wild, melancholy, and elevating.”
Emily’s poems didn’t aim to impress; they aimed to express. Through her lens, we glimpse themes of death in A Death-Scene, the ache of sorrow in If grief for grief can touch thee, the complexity of relationships in Love and Friendship, and resilience in Hope. Each poem reflects a different facet of her emotional landscape—layered, elusive, and deeply human.
The Poetic Legacy of Emily Brontë
“There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed.”
—No Coward Soul is Mine, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell
Emily Brontë’s poems didn’t receive much attention when they were first published. But the quality of her verses speaks for itself—quietly demanding recognition from those who read them. Charlotte Brontë wasn’t the first one to see their power. Virginia Woolf, another classic author, deeply admired Emily’s poetry. While Woolf admired her classic book, Wuthering Heights, she believed Emily’s poems surpassed the novel in artistic quality.
Emily Brontë’s poetic reach even crossed oceans. Emily Dickinson—the iconic poet from Amherst, Massachusetts—was enchanted by Brontë’s work. In fact, she requested that No Coward Soul Is Mine, one of Emily’s poems, be read at her funeral.
As generations passed, Emily Brontë’s poems continued to move with time—resonant, relevant, and powerful. Yet, for many readers, this side of Emily remains largely undiscovered. Because only a portion of her poetic world was shared during her lifetime. While her twenty-one poems in Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell offered a glimpse, they were just a fragment of her work. In 1941, C. W. Hatfield’s The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë gathered nearly two hundred of her verses—revealing just how much more she had to say.
With this, we’re left wondering what else might have lived in the pages she never shared. But the verses that did emerge—wild, aching, and quietly profound—deserve far more attention than they’ve ever received. And we can’t help but wish that more of her verses had found their way into the world.