"The Brontë Cabinet": A Virtual Gallery

"The Brontë Cabinet": A Virtual Gallery

"The Brontë Cabinet": A Virtual Gallery

Beloved pets and places the sisters visited as well as material objects that the sisters lived with and incorporated into their writing help us to set the Brontës in their cultural moment and to understand each sister better. In The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects (2015), Deborah Lutz investigates personal objects and pets owned by the Brontë sisters to illuminate their Victorian owners. Students, in turn, construct their own Brontë cabinet on COVE. Each student chooses 2-4 objects that work together to convey a meaningful narrative about an aspect of the sisters’ lives; for example, the contents of Charlotte’s writing desk along with that desk itself tell us about the uses of a writing desk and the interests and accomplishments of its owner. Each student creates an introduction to their case and writes captions with headers to label the items and explain how they work together to display an aspect of the Brontës’ lives and their literary legacy. The cases cumulatively create a rich and varied virtual class gallery.