The Brontës and Religion (hardback)
appeared from Cambridge University Press in 1999. The first full-length study of religion in the Brontë fiction, it shows how the Brontës’ familiarity with the contemporary debates on doctrinal, ethical, and ecclesiastical issues informs their novels. Divided into four parts, the book examines denominations, doctrines, ethics, and clerics in the work of the Brontës. The analyses of the novels clarify the constant interplay of human and divine love in their development. While demonstrating that the Brontës’ fiction is usually in agreement with the basic tenets of Evangelical Anglicanism, The Brontës and Religion emphasises the characteristic spiritual freedom and audacity of the Brontës. Lucid and vigorously written, it opens up new perspectives for Brontë specialists and enthusiasts alike on a fundamental aspect of the novels greatly neglected in recent decades.
Excerpts from reviews: “[a] well-informed [study] based on scrupulous readings and meticulous judgments” (Times Literary Supplement); “[the author’s] willingness to read with the grain of the novels’ religion makes for absorbing reading” (Victorian Studies); “a refreshingly textual study of the Brontës’ fiction” (The Review of English Studies); “a work of extraordinarily comprehensive scholarship” (The Journal of Ecclesiastical History); “the kind of writing which will endure and remain valuable for many years to come” (Theology); “I very much enjoyed this book” (Reviews in Religion & Theology).
The Brontës and Religion, hardback
The Brontës and Religion, paperback
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The Ladislaw Case
This sequel to Middlemarch is also in a limited sense a sequel to Dickens’ Bleak House. While there is no need to have read either novel in order to enjoy The Ladislaw Case, acquaintance with George Eliot’s characters and Dickens’ Inspector Bucket enhances the reader’s pleasure in following the twists and turns of the plot and the tribulations of the characters.
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Here is a chapter from the book: [Ladislaw Chapter 23.pdf]
"Thormählen writes very well, moves the plot along, and keeps the tension at just the right pitch throughout. She does a particularly good job extrapolating Eliot's characters, convincingly making Ladislaw much less attractive than he is in Eliot's novel and revealing the implications of Rosamond's chilling egotism ... Thormählen ... has created an entertaining re-vision of a major Victorian novel [which] successfully extrapolates elements in [Middlemarch] that both illuminate and criticize [it]." George P. Landow, Editor-in-Chief, The Victorian Web.
'One of the pleasures of reading Imke Thormählen's murder mystery ... is that it works on two levels: even as it unravels the question of who committed the murder, the novel provides a thought-provoking sequel to George Eliot's Middlemarch. /---/ [It contains] ... strong narrative suspense, psychological realism, and a credible Victorian setting ... [I]maginatively and insightfully faithful to George Eliot's vision ... this novel ... reveals some of the hitherto untapped potential that lies latent in ... Eliot's novel and is, at the same time, a very good read indeed.'
Micael M. Clarke, George Eliot -- George Henry Lewes Studies, Nos. 64-65
'The characterization of the main protagonists in the story is generally consistent with that created by George Eliot ... Characters impress us or repel us by what they say. There is no difficulty here in recognizing their voices: the clear sombre voice of the disappointed Dr Lydgate; the excessively polite voice of Rosamond, so quick to criticize her husband and add to his sense of failure in his professional and social life; the irritable and yet self-critical voice of the young politician Ladislaw; the certain tones of Lady Chettam secure in her social position, correcting her sister "Dodo" and yet always caring for her ... If the reader has also devoured Middlemarch, he or she will be eager to meet old friends, to be reminded of some of the darker strands of that story, and ultimately, tense with expectations, excited to discover the murderer. We are kept guessing until very near the end and for most readers the revelation will be a real surprise.'
Ruth and Michael Harris, The George Eliot Review 44 (2013), 88-89
Eine Wintertaufe
und andere weihnachtliche Erzählungen
JMB Verlag, 2010
Das Phänomen „Weihnacht“ hat schon viele Schriftsteller/innen fasziniert. Einige Weihnachtsgeschichten, z. B. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, sind mittlerweile Klassiker der Weltliteratur. Das Thema erschöpft sich nicht; immer wieder gibt es neue Aspekte von diesem Fest der Hoffnung, das mitten im Winter den Alltag vorübergehend vertreibt. Dazu gehören die bis zum Heiligabend aufgesparten Erwartungen, die manchmal erfüllt werden und manchmal nicht. Axel Thormählen wollte eigentlich nur die eine echte Weihnachtsgeschichte schreiben und dabei das Geheimnis lüften, was Menschen mit diesem Fest verbindet. Es hat sich aber erwiesen, dass das mit einer einzigen Geschichte nicht möglich ist. Allerdings unterscheiden sich die hier vorliegenden fünf Erzählungen wohl in ihrem Ausgangspunkt, doch nicht in der Aussage, nämlich dass Wunder passieren, auch wenn sie als solche nicht wahrgenommen werden. Zuweilen geschehen sie eben gerade zur Weihnachtszeit.
Bestellung für Eine Wintertaufe und andere weihnachtliche Erzählungen an Jens Bolm .
Rochester – The Poems in Context (paperback)
The 1999 Oxford University Press edition by Harold Love of the works of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, praises Marianne Thormählen's Rochester: The Poems in Context (Cambridge University Press, 1993; a paperback edition appeared in 2006) as the most up-to-date book on Rochester's poetry, a "fresh, personal, and profoundly learned" study (pp. xlvi-xlvii). Other scholars have called it "splendid" (The Yearbook of English Studies), "intelligent and careful" (The Review of English Studies), "judicious" (Times Literary Supplement), and "smart and useful ... a treasure trove of information [for which] readers of Rochester will be indebted to Ms Thormählen for years to come" (The Scriblerian).
Marianne Thormählen regards Rochester as a serious poet who devoted much time and care to his verse and aimed for the highest standards in his writing. This view runs counter to the traditional idea of Rochester as the "wicked earl" who wrote with ease; but she bolsters it with convincing evidence of painstaking literary desk-work, deliberate exploitation and subversion of poetical conventions, and subtly crafted references to people and events in Charles II's and Louis XIV's Europe. Rochester's much-talked-about obscenities are shown to belong within a sombre framework of dissatisfaction with sensual pursuits and distrust of male sexual ability. The book ends with a consideration of Rochester's famous deathbed conversion. A select bibliography directs the reader to every notable work on Rochester up to 1990.
Rochester: The Poems in Context, hardback
Rochester: The Poems in Context, paperback
Kremberg, en julberättelse
Träsnidarmästaren Jacob Kremberg kom förmodligen från Nordtyskland. Många danska och sydsvenska kyrkor smyckas av hans verk, tillkomna i början av 1600-talet. Han är centralgestalten i denna novell, som skildrar händelser en kall decembernatt i en skånsk lantkyrka. 'Kremberg: En julberättelse' är dock ingen dokumentär redogörelse utan en historia om fantasi och skapande tillkommen på fantasins egna villkor.
Den lilla publikationen, som väger 27 gram och kostar 40 SEK, är det idealiska 'julkortet' till litterärt intresserade vänner och affärsbekanta.
T.S. Eliot at the Turn of the Century
In 1993, a group of Eliot scholars came together in Lund to address the question of T. S. Eliot´s standing a hundred years after his death and on the threshold of a new millennium. The 1990s were years of Eliot-bashing; much was made of his alleged misogyny, racism, and anti-semitism, and even at the beginning of decade it was obvious that the poet´s status had suffered. Bernard Bergonzi, Lois A. Cuddy, Barbara Everett, Rudolf Germer, Nancy D. Hargrove, M. Teresa Gibert-Maceda, Stephen Medcalf, A. David Moody, Kristian Smidt, and Marianne Thormählen analysed different aspects of Eliot´s work and found enough strength and power in it to be cautiously optimistic about his future. Emrys Jones read a paper on a Stratford production of Murder in the Cathedral which focused attention on Eliot´s writing for the stage, and Grover Smith, who could not attend the meeting, contributed a new approach to The Cocktail Party. All these essays were published in the volume called T. S. Eliot at the Turn of the Century, including A. David Moody on Eliot and the mind of Europe, Nancy D. Hargrove on Eliot´s annus mirabilis in Paris (1910-1911), Bernard Bergonzi on Eliot and the city, Lois A. Cuddy on evolution in Eliot´s work, Rudolf Germer on Eliot and religion, M. Teresa Gibert-Maceda on women and Eliot, Marianne Thormählen on the problem of the individual personality in Eliot´s poetry and plays, Stephen Medcalf on the Sweeney poems, Kristian Smidt on Eliot´s less than fair treatment of the Victorians in his criticism, and Barbara Everett on the unpleasantness of meeting Mr Eliot. The volume also contains an edited version of a panel discussion about Eliot´s standing and Eliot studies. (Lund Studies in English 86, 1984; 244 pp, ed. Marianne Thormählen.)
The Waste Land a Fragmentary Wholeness
T. S. Eliot is felt by many to have been the poet of the twentieth century, and his famous The Waste Land is the best known poem of that century in English. Many people have found it hard to come to grips with, though, and reading Eliot remains a challenge.
"A hoax", "tripe", a piece of "rhythmical grumbling" (the latter is the poet´s own description) -- is T. S. Eliot´s The Waste Land really worth all the attention it has come in for since its publication in 1922? Thousands of literary critics and scholars have been writing about it -- what inspired such enormous efforts? And will the new millennium gratefully drop it into semi-oblivion as a period piece belonging to the world of yesterday? You´ll know more about The Waste Land, and about Eliot, and about the way you yourself respond to modern poetry after reading Marianne Thormählen´s The Waste Land: A Fragmentary Wholeness. First published in 1978, it has become a standard work on the poem, partly thanks to its generous annotation and bibliography which have helped many students chart their own way through this challenging terrain. The book tells you about the poem´s gestation, Ezra Pound´s midwifery, metre and rhythm in the Waste Land, and the symbolic imagery that is such a powerful dimension in all of Eliot´s work. It also suggests ways of freeing the reader from the obligation to make it all hang together by working out a consistent "plan" or "structure". Let The Waste Land: A Fragmentary Wholeness help you form your own relationship with the greatest modernist poem, unhampered by preconceived notions and unworried by its alleged "difficulty". (Lund Studies in English No. 52, 1978; 248 pp.)
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