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Ghost Writing: Emily Brontë and Spectrality

This article considers the role of spectrality in Emily Brontë’s writing, focussing on her Gondal poem ‘Written in Aspin Castle’ (1842–3) and Wuthering Heights. Brontë’s use of spectrality demonstrates both her understanding of Gothic narrative conventions and her awareness of popular traditions of haunting. These influences are reflected in her use of sceptical narrators who encounter versions of sublime terror and in her insistence upon a connection between haunting and place. Yet ghosts also disrupt the places in which they appear, rendering the home ‘unhomely’ to its present inhabitants and disrupting clear divisions between past and present. Indeed, the disruption of boundaries is integral to Brontë’s use of the spectre and reflects her familiarity with the apocalyptic tradition as well as the ghost story. The article concludes by arguing that spectrality in Brontë’s writing is inseparable from the Romantic impulse to see beyond the surfaces of things: to open oneself to the experience of the sublime in nature is also to open oneself to the possibility of ghosts.