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The Brontës (, ''commonly '' 〔As given by ''Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature'' (Merriam-Webster, incorporated, Publishers: Springfield, Massachusetts, 1995), p viii: "When our research shows that an author's pronunciation of his or her name differs from common usage, the author's pronunciation is listed first, and the descriptor ''commonly'' precedes the more familiar pronunciation." See also entries on Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, pp 175–176.〕) were a nineteenth-century literary family associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848), and Anne (1820–1849), are well known as poets and novelists. Like many contemporary female writers, they originally published their poems and novels under male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Their stories immediately attracted attention, although not always the best, for their passion and originality. Charlotte's ''Jane Eyre'' was the first to know success, while Emily's ''Wuthering Heights'', Anne's ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' and other works were later to be accepted as masterpieces of literature. The three sisters and their brother, Branwell, were very close and during childhood developed their imaginations through the collaborative writing of increasingly complex stories. The effect of the deaths of first their mother, and then of their two older sisters marked them profoundly and influenced their writing. Their fame was due as much to their own tragic destinies as to their precociousness. Since their early deaths they were subject of a following that did not cease to grow. Their home, the parsonage at Haworth in Yorkshire, now the Brontë Parsonage Museum, has become a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. == Origin of the name == The Brontë family can be traced to the Irish clan ''Ó Pronntaigh'', which literally means "grandson of Pronntach". They were a family of hereditary scribes and literary men in Fermanagh. The version Ó Proinntigh, which was first given by Father Woulfe in his ''Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall'' (Surnames of the Gael and the Foreigner) and reproduced without question by MacLysaght ''inter alia'' cannot be accepted as correct, as there were a number of well-known scribes with this name writing in Irish in the 17th and 18th centuries and all of them used the spelling Ó Pronntaigh. The name is derived from the word ''pronntach'' or ''bronntach'',〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language )〕 which is related to the word ''bronnadh'', meaning giving or bestowal (''pronn'' is given as an Ulster version of ''bronn'' in O'Reilly's Irish English Dictionary.) Father Woulfe, the author of ''Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall'', suggested that it derives from ''proinnteach'' (a refectory of a monastery). ''Ó Pronntaigh'' was earlier anglicised as ''Prunty'' and sometimes ''Brunty''. At some point, the father of the sisters, Patrick Brontë (born Brunty), decided on the alternative spelling with the diaeresis over the terminal ''e'' to indicate that the name has two syllables. It is not known for certain what motivated him to do so, and multiple theories exist to account for the change. He may have wished to hide his humble origins.〔 As a man of letters, he would have been familiar with classical Greek and may have chosen the name after the Greek βροντή ("thunder"). One view, put forward by the biographer C. K. Shorter in 1896, is that he adapted his name to associate himself with Admiral Horatio Nelson, who was also Duke of Bronte.〔Clement King Shorter, ''Charlotte Brontë and her circle'' (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1896), p. 29〕 Evidence for this may be found in his desire to associate himself with the Duke of Wellington in his form of dress. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brontë family」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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