![]() ![]() Over the last 172 years, the book has become a touchstone for passionate love, that once-in-a-lifetime spark we are taught to long for. It might seem like sacrilege to question the (small r) romanticism of Jane Eyre, a story that centers on the obsessive love of a teenage governess and her decades-older boss. Right? The answer to that question is up for debate. But Jane Eyre’s diminutive author was no romantic heroine, and real life is not a romance. And Charlotte was charmed by his good looks and his bright, open personality. If he did not love her already, he could learn: They would soon strike up a lively and close correspondence that lasted years. Passionate, deeply intelligent, outspoken, and charmingly unaffected-Charlotte Brontë was an arresting, complex woman. If life were like literature, Smith would have fallen in love with her then and there. ![]() Readers have always picked up on the tension between the book’s revolutionary subtexts and its uneasy relationship with love. ![]()
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