Blackwell Reference Online

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“Branwell was the second best poet in the Brontë family” writes Tom Winnifrith in his edition of Branwell’s poems (1983), and his view echoes, and has been echoed by, many other Brontë critics. It is not entirely clear what such a judgment bases itself on. One would be hard put to assemble a handful of his poems that are complete entities, hit their target, and say something interesting or illuminating. For example, the poem “Sir Henry Tunstall,” which Winifred Gerin (1961) calls “the climax of Branwell’s poetic achievement,” one with “exceptional literary merit,” is an account of the return home of Sir Henry, who has spent many years in India climbing his way up the military career ladder, to a family group not unlike Branwell’s base at the Parsonage. The message of the poem is that he has changed, his experiences have destroyed the loving and carefree boy who left home, just as those he has left have been changed even by their event-free existence. Not a terribly original observation, but one that he might have carried off if the poem had comprised a page or two. But Branwell spreads it out to 15 pages, with instance upon instance of change, including mention of his “trusty dog – poor Rover! – where art thou?” of his father’s “grey locks” and both his parents’ failure to recognize in this “war worn warrior” the son they had nurtured. The material is spread so thin, the repetition ... log in or subscribe to read full text