Abstract
Villette (1853), the third published novel by Charlotte Brontë, is about Lucy Snowe’s icy story, and her experience as a teacher in a foreign land in the fictitious country of Labassecour. The narrative is profoundly controlled by the narrator, Lucy, and few are the moments in which emotions take non-repressed forms within the text. One of the moments in which the opposite happens is in the chapter entitled “Vashti”, in which Lucy watches a play and gets impressed by the performance of the actress Vashti. The present work makes the relation between the history of the concept of genius, in its evolution through Western history, and the representation of the artist depicted in Brontë’s novel, in order to demonstrate her understanding of women genius. We can conclude that, for Brontë, the image of the artist is related to iconically rebel figures of Western tradition, and that the approach found in Villette about the representation of women geniality deviates from the Victorian standard Brontë herself follows in other works.
Keywords
Villette
; Women Genius; Charlotte Brontë; Vashti