The Bronte Quartet Part Five: The Poetry of Branwell Bronte

 
Patrick Branwell Bronte has been mentioned a little bit so far in this series (collection?) and if we're all being honest here, I've really done a good job in perpetuating the myth of Branwell Bronte by not doing any actual research on him and just reporting the things I've found about him while looking up his sisters. 
I've really done him dirty. My bad homie, you seem like an alright guy. Maybe. We'll get into it. I might just want to be sympathetic because it seems like he got the brunt of Charlotte's ire.
As a wee lad, his father brought him home a collection of toy soldiers, these were his toy soldiers. But Charlotte grabbed one, gave it a name, and claimed it as her own. Emily and Anne followed suit and Branwell was like, "this is chill. Mine will be named PERCY." (He went through a series of names at first but he landed on Percy and the name followed his writing/poetry for the rest of his life.)  
The four siblings used these little figurines to fuel a fantastical world named Angoria where their heroes go on grand adventures. Emily and Anne break away from Angoria and work on their own Gondal but Charlotte and Branwell work on Angoria for a real long time. 
Branwell even announces he's going to write a novel based on Percy's adventures and try to get it published but his life is a little too unsteady to really be able to sit down and write a novel. Also, within that same year, Charlotte got Anne and Emily together to publish their poetry book and she purposed to leave Branwell out even though he was already a published poet at this point in time and was the only one next to Charlotte who was trying to pursue a career in writing.
Branwell went through a series of jobs in between publishing poems. 
He was a-
portrait painter
politician
tutor
railroad worker
master in the freemasons

It seems he was plagued by long bouts of depression, small bursts of societal productivity, and small bursts of creativity that usually distracted him from his jobs, got him fired, and was followed by another long bout of depression. But that's my deduction just by reading his timeline. 
Whenever he would solicit his poetry to anyone, his letters were very boastful of his talents, grandiose one might even say. (we all know what I'm hinting at.) He was largely known for exaggerating his abilities, his talents, and promising to do things he never actually did. 
He's best known for (minus the drinking because we'll get to that) having an affair with a married woman named Lydia Robinson while he was tutoring her son. 
...Dear Mrs. Robinson...
Now. Everyone knew he had an affair because he told everyone he had an affair. It's never been actually proven and after Lydia's husband passed away, they didn't get together, the reason being, the husband apparently put in his will that Lydia would get no money if she ever had contact with Branwell again. So reported Branwell. 
Towards the end of his short life, he set his bed on fire and had to sleep in his father's bed. He did receive money from Lydia Robinson at one point in time but I guess he drank that. 
There's a huge myth about him that he died standing up, just to prove it could be done, but that didn't actually happen. He died from tuberculosis complicated with his excessive drinking and drug usage. Charlotte spent a lot of breath saying really mean shit about him and how he threw away his talent and how she wouldn't mourn the passing of a person but the loss of talent. 
After doing this series, it's really hard for me to return to Jane Eyre with the love I long-held for it. Like, Charlotte is literally the worst. 

So I have in my possession all the published works of Branwell Bronte, some unpublished works, and his letters. 
I was really hoping that it would captivate me like Anne Bronte's work had but. Well. It hasn't captivated me. 

A lot of the poems are very long and thus they can get a little clunky.


In 'Still and Bright, In Twilight Shining' it's just his character Percy's son hanging out on some steps outside and observing things around him while the things observe him. It gets pretty religious at the end but I'd say that's an improvement from the beginning. It also gets super clunky. He rhymes 'hand' with 'beyond.' 

'Azreal or Destruction's Eve' is 13 pages long and I've tried to read it three times now and each time I have to stop and just be really... put off. 

'On The Melbourne Ministry' is only 8 lines long and great. It doesn't take itself too seriously, it's not trying too hard and it really comes off fantastically well.  It's also the only poem Branwell published under his own name. Have I not mentioned that yet? Branwell didn't publish his poems under his own name. 

I really enjoyed 'Song.' It's also a short guy, maybe that shows you just how hard it is for me to concentrate on boring things. It's simple and it has a simple message that you can make new friends but only the old friends will ever really get that deep soul feeling. I like it. I dig it.

'Real Rest' was also very good. It's about a dead body floating in the water. 

There's a lot of morbid themes in Branwell's poetry. You can tell he really suffered from depression and dark feelings but he also suffered from being a try-hard. Maybe they shouldn't have constantly called him a boy genius and maybe they should have just encouraged him to hone his craft. That way he wouldn't expect his talent to carry him all the way to the finish line. Talent is great but without further education and control, talent can only do so much.  

"Letter from a father on earth to his child in her grave" started a big movement that Branwell had a secret child that died early on but it could never be proven and it didn't go beyond this poem so I would guess that it was just another fantastical story he created to write about his obscure emotions while trying to always sound like a genius. Which really can be said about most of his poems. 

I must say, I will return to Branwell Bronte someday. Maybe down the road when I have a deeper appreciation for poetry. I want to give him a real chance and unfortunately, I don't have the patience for it which might be a critique to his writing style. 
There is a small novel esque included with his poems but the first two pages were nothing more than run-on sentences that didn't build a scene and I couldn't continue it without feeling very frustrated at my inability to see the brilliance. 

As of right now, I'd give his writing two stars. Give him a chance if you're really curious. But I wouldn't say you're missing out on much. But maybe I'm just really bad at enjoying poetry.