Cast-on

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand;

to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting,

but not separating me from the drear November day.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre - my favorite novel of all times - opens on the following words: "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day". The isolation and loneliness express by these words (and those of the following pages) speak of "limits" and "borders", the "überwords" allowing us, readers, to understand the emotion of Jane, hiding in a windowseat, devouring Thomas Bewick's History of British Birds, a promess of ulterior "flights", a metaphor of her future freedom. For the scholar I am, this first sentence is the pillar of the subterranean architecture of the masterpiece.

Thirteen years ago, for my Ph.D. thesis, I analysed Charlotte Brontë's novels. Here I am, today, professor AND knitter, re-reading that opening. No possibility of taking a walk that day... Well... THAT's the perfect day for knitting!

The "cast-on" of a novel - here, the ten words of Charlotte Brontë's opus - generate the pattern(s) and motif(s) of the literary work. For the inauguration of Lit&Lace and my cast-on post, I chose those ten Brontë's stitches to make the link between two of my greatest passions (wich are numerous): literature and knitting. And that's what you'll find here, dear reader, FOs, UFOs, thoughts, quotes, books, etc.

For others knitlit ramblings... see you next time,

Johanne, a.k.a Lit&lace

(I apologize in advance for all my grammatical errors, mistakes, etc. I try... but I know that I don't do any good to the language of Shakespeare!)