Patrick Branwell Brontë's "Black Comb"

Patrick Branwell Brontë is more known for his death than his life and work. His works remain largely unpublished and his life fades into the shadows when compared to his sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne). In the year before he died (on September 24, 1848), his sister’s novels Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were all published… and his work seems to be forgotten. Two opposing questions surround his life: was he an amazing author who was overshadowed by the fame of his sisters, or was he forgotten due to lack of talent and is only vaguely remembered because of his connection to his sisters?
 

Patrick Branwell Brontë: His Life and Work

Branwell grew up with five sisters (two of which, Maria and Elizabeth died of tuberculosis when Branwell was almost eight years old). They were educated at home by their father and aunt, in the disciplines of music and art, the classics, and writing. From early on Branwell aspired to be a painter, specifically of portraits. Around the time he turned 20, Branwell rented a studio and sought to pursue professional portrait painting. Though he made many connections, he could not seem to make a living. Two years later he tried tutoring, but was quickly fired. He then worked as a clerk for the railway, but yet again was sacked from this job because of a failure to manage the accounts. He returned to tutoring for a different family but could not keep that job long after rumors of an affair with the employer’s wife arose. By the time he was 27, Branwell was back at home, with a long history of failed careers behind him (Brontë Parsonage Museum).

“I do not weep from a sense of bereavement - there is no prop withdrawn, no consolation torn away, no dear companion lost - but for the wreck of talent, the ruin of promise, the untimely dreary extinction of what might have been a burning and a shining light… Nothing remains of him but a memory of errors and suffering” (Gérin 298-299).

Even the Brontë Parsonage Museum refers to him as “The family's great hope [that] could not bear the burden of their expectation.” It has been said that he is the model for Hindley Earnshaw (Wuthering Heights) and Arthur Huntington (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). His character was marked by his alcoholic lifestyle and the patterns of sickness that dominated his course, but also a fiery personality that possessed “a compelling idea of the Extraordinary Man” (Collins 210). Collins points out connections to Bryon, and the Byronic hero, Milton’s Lucifer, and also Shelley and Wordsworth (Branwell even tried sending some of his early work in his teens to Wordsworth). He started writing around age 14, and built up to a climax between ages 18 and 24, before he died at 31. He is technically (besides their father) the first Brontë to be printed. And ultimately Collins believes that “his total output… exceeds the published work of his sisters” (Collins 204). However, only 19 of his poems were published in his lifetime (Berg 95). Collin concludes from all of this pondering that: 

“The question we are finally faced with, in this book, is—how good was he, as a poet? There is no easy answer. After a century and a half, any poet—even a good one—will find it difficult to come out of the shadows and be appreciated by a later generation. The recklessness of thought, the delight in emotional attitudes, the concepts of individual confrontation with life, the direction in which energy flowed—all that made up a bold imagination in 1830 cannot now come to us as fresh and new from an unknown talent from the distant past. Bryon, himself, were he to have written all that he had but only been discovered and brought to publication at the present time, would look like a very questionable fish” (Collins, 209).

Was he simply not that good and too overpowered by a wild life, or was he cursed to live in the shadow of his sisters, unable to make a name for himself separate from their great works… or does he only survive because of his name as a Brontë?

Branwell Brontë: "Black Comb"

In 1990, Victor A. Neufeldt compiled many of Branwell’s unpublished works. In literary circles Neufeldt’s work was encouraged and found intriguing, but also many questioned Branwell’s actual talent (See Collins’ JSTOR article and Berg’s Review). One of Branwell’s poems, entitled “Black Comb” is a sonnet inspired by the mountain Black Combe in England’s Lake District (not to be confused with Black Comb mountain in Canada). Wordsworth also has two poems on this mountain, though they remain largely unread. They have been attached following Branwell's poem and annotations for reference.

Black Comb [1]
‘Far off, and half revealed, ‘mid shade and light,  [2]
Black Comb half smiles, half frowns; [3] his might form
Scare bending into peace–more formed to fight
              A thousand years or struggles with a storm
              Than bask one hour, subdued by sunshine warm, 
To bright and breezeless rest; yet even his height
Towers not o’er this world’s sympathies, he smiles–
While many a human heart to pleasure’s wiles
              Can bear to bend, and still forget to rise–
As though he, huge and heath-clad [4], on our sight, 
              Again rejoices in his stormy skies. 
              Man loses vigour in unstable joys. [5] 
Thus tempests find Black Comb invincible, [6]
While we are lost, who should know life so well! [7]

[1840]

Wordsworth’s Poems on Black Comb:

View From the Top of Black Comb [1]
1 This height a ministering angel might select: [2]
2 For from the summit of Black Comb (dread name
3 Derived from clouds and storms!) the amplest range
4 Of unobstructed prospect may be seen
5 That British ground commands:—low dusky tracts,
6 Where Trent is nursed, far southward! Cambrian hills
7 To the southwest, a multitudinous show ;
8 And, in a line of eyesight linked with these,
9 The hoary peaks of Scotland that give birth
10 To Teviot's stream, to Annan, Tweed, and Clyde: —
11 Crowding the quarter whence the sun comes forth,
12 Gigantic mountains rough with crags; beneath,
13 Right at the imperial station's western base.
14 Main ocean, breaking audibly, and stretched
15 Far into silent regions blue and pale;—
16 And visibly engirding Mona's Isle,
17 That, as we left the plain, before our sight
18 Stood like a lofty mount, uplifting slowly
19 (Above the convex of the watery globe)
20 Into clear view the cultured fields that streak
21 Her habitable shores, but now appears
22 A dwindled object, and submits to lie
23 At the spectator's feet.—Yon azure ridge.
24 Is it a perishable cloud? or there
25 Do we behold the line of Erin's coast?
26 Land sometimes by the roving shepherd-swain
27 (Like the bright confines of another world)
28 Not doubtfully perceived.—Look homeward now!
29 In depth, in height, in circuit, how serene
30 The spectacle, how pure!—Of Nature's works,
31 In earth, and air, and earth-embracing sea,
32 A revelation infinite it seems;
33 Display august of man's inheritance,
34 Of Britain's calm felicity and power!

Written with a Slate-pencil, on a Stone, on the Side of the Mountain of Black Comb.
1 Stay, bold Adventurer; rest awhile thy limbs [2]
2 On this commodious Seat! for much remains
3 Of hard ascent before thou reach the top
4 Of this huge Eminence,——from blackness named,
5 And, to far-travelled storms of sea and land,
6 A favourite spot of tournament and war!
7 But thee may no such boisterous visitants
8 Molest; may gentle breezes fan thy brow;
9 And neither cloud conceal, nor misty air
10 Bedim, the grand terraqueous spectacle,
11 From centre to circumference, unveiled!
14 Know, if thou grudge not to prolong thy rest,
13 That, on the summit whither thou art bound,
14 A geographic Labourer pitched his tent,
15 With books supplied and instruments of art,
16 To measure height and distance; lonely task,
17 Week after week pursued!—To him was given
18 Full many a glimpse (but sparingly bestowed
19 On timid man) of Nature's processes
20 Upon the exalted hills. He made report
21 That once, while there he plied his studious work
22 Within that canvass Dwelling, suddenly
23 The many-coloured map before his eyes
24 Became invisible: for all around
25 Had darkness fallen—unthreatened, unproclaimed—
26 As if the golden day itself had been
27 Extinguished in a moment; total gloom,
28 In which he sate alone with unclosed eyes
29 Upon the blinded mountain's silent top!

Brontë Footnotes
 

[1] Only note from Neufeldt’s Commentary on this text: “The manuscript is untraceable; the text provided is Leyland’s*. Black Comb is the name of a mountain five miles from the Broughton-in-Furness where Branwell was a private tutor for the first five months of 1840; thus 1840 is a likely date of composition. He may have been inspired by Wordsworth's poem on the same subject” (Neufeldt 452). *As cited in the reference section, Leyland, F. (1886).
[2] It is interesting to consider the stance of the author in correlation to the Mountain itself. Branwell stands far removed from the Mountain and can see it in full view. See correlation to Wordsworth footnote #2.
[3] Possibly in reference to the physical form of the mountain, with its peaks and dips forming a slight smile and frown (see visual).
[4] Heath-clad: "Open uncultivated ground; an extensive tract of waste land; a wilderness; now chiefly applied to a bare, more or less flat, tract of land, naturally clothed with low herbage and dwarf shrubs, esp. with the shrubby plants known as heath, heather or ling." (OED) In reference to "-clad" which means "clothed with."
[5] Possibly in reference to Branwell's personal "unstable joys" of life, see more in section on his life and work.
[6] Italian Sonnet: It would seem that the poem follows more closely to an Italian--as apposed to English--Sonnet form. The Volta seems to occur around line ten, where the focus shifts from external observance to more internal questioning.
[7] Rhyme Scheme: This poem follows an interesting rhyme scheme of ABAB BACC DAD EFF with the final three lines especially being inconclusive, or at the least slant rhymes. It seems to me that he starts out strong with the rhyme scheme (showing his ability), but he also does not stay set to the strict structure of rhymed sonnets.

Wordsworth Footnotes:
 

[1] Dating these poems: No dates are given for either poem in the Wordsworth Poetry Library collection of poems. However, a date can be inferred. Wordsworth moved to the Lake District in 1799, so these poems were probably written post 1799. Wordsworth and his sister lived in Doves Cottage from 1799-1808, so these poems about a mountain in the Lake District were probably written during this time, or after (TheLakeDistrict.org).
[2] It is interesting to consider the stance of the author in correlation to the Mountain itself. Wordsworth stands on the summit of Black Comb and from the peak he can see the world laid out before him. See lines 21-23 about the role of the specter. In the second Wordsworth poem, the location is from the side of the Mountain.

Bibliography:

Berg, M. (1999). The Works of Patrick Branwell Brontë: An Edition ed. by Victor A. Neufeldt (review).           English Studies in Canada, 25(1), 95–98. https://doi.org/10.135 3/esc.1999.0041
Brontë Parsonage Museum. (n.d.). Patrick Branwell Brontë. The Brontë Society.           Retrieved November 13, 2022, from https://www.bronte.org.uk/the-brontes-and-
          haworth/family-and-friends/branwell-bronte 
Brontë, Patrick Branwell, and Victor A. Neufeldt. The Poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë :           a New Text and Commentary. New York: Garland Pub., 1990.
Collins, Robert G. “The Fourth Brontë: Branwell as Poet.” Victorian Poetry 23, no. 2 (1985): 202–19.           http://www.jstor.org/stable/40003683.
Leyland, Francis A. The Brontë Family with Special Reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë. London:           Hurst and Blackett, 1972.
Gérin, Winifred. Branwell Brontë. London: T. Nelson, 1961.
William Wordsworth. TheLakeDistrict.org. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2022, from            https://www.thelakedistrict.org/historical-figures/william-wordsworth/ 
Wordsworth, William. (1994). View From the Top of Black Comb. In A. Till (Ed.),The           Collected Poems of William Wordsworth (pp. 257–258). Wordsworth Poetry Library. 
Wordsworth, William. (1994). Written with a Slate Pencil on a Stone, Black Comb. In A. Till (Ed.),The           Collected Poems of William Wordsworth (pp. 653-654). Wordsworth Poetry Library.