Emily Brontë’s haunting poem Spellbound reveals how her Gothic style channels emotional turmoil into a powerful lesson on inner strength, writes WILLIAM BOVE
Emily Brontë was a British novelist and poet, and the first female author featured in this series on British Gothic horror. She is best known for her novel Wuthering Heights, but she also wrote over 200 poems.
Some of her most notable works include Love and Friendship, Fall, Leaves, Fall, To Imagination, My Comforter, A Day Dream, Anticipation, The Night is Darkening Around Me, and many others.
Emily’s Gothic style lingers with eerie, foreboding landscapes steeped in melancholy. Her characters, such as the famously brooding and emotionally volatile Heathcliff, are haunted by inner passions that ultimately lead to their ruin.
Brontë’s horror is deeply personal and emotional—an inner turmoil from which there is no escape. The mystery of her landscapes sets a tone of external desolation, while her characters reflect this desolation inwardly.
In Heathcliff, we see emotional isolation so profound that it transcends setting. His flaws reveal a greater truth about human despair, suggesting that desolation is not just something outside us, but something we carry within.
Spellbound, written in 1837, demonstrates Emily’s remarkable talent for atmosphere and imagery. Unlike novels, which gradually build emotion and metaphor, her poetry plunges the reader straight into the experience.
In this poem, we feel what the narrator feels from the very first line. The setting immediately pulls us in, showcasing Brontë’s precise and effective literary style.
Her tone is personal, tapping into emotions we all recognise. She expresses struggle, longing, and the quiet determination to endure—experiences that resonate on a universal level.
This ability to find beauty and meaning in hardship is one of Brontë’s most enduring traits. Like William Blake, she not only presents human suffering but seems to revel in the expression of it.
British Gothic horror writers often seem to savour the stories they tell. Their work is filled with subtle—and sometimes stark—details that invite us to linger and reflect.
That’s their secret. They entertain us not just with fear or sorrow, but with the pleasure of expression itself. Each poet has a unique voice, and now we turn our attention to Emily Brontë’s.
The poem begins:
The night is darkening around me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
From the opening lines, we feel the ominous presence of night. The darkness is complete, engulfing the narrator and reinforcing a sense of entrapment.
The phrase “tyrant spell” raises a mysterious and chilling image. The narrator is not merely lost or tired but bound by magic—an external force, deliberate and malevolent.
This choice of language suggests that the narrator is significant in some way. It would take a powerful force to trap them.
The next lines continue:
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow,
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.
Here, the weight of nature mirrors the emotional weight pressing down on the narrator. Still, they do not express fear or regret. They state their immobility plainly, perhaps even with resolve.
There is power in this acceptance. Rather than struggle, the narrator confronts their circumstances directly.
Finally, we read:
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
In these closing lines, the tone shifts. No longer merely trapped, the narrator now actively refuses to yield. They have transformed from passive victim to defiant figure.
Despite the bleakness, they are unmoved. This resistance suggests that something innately human—a quiet strength—has emerged. It overcomes the very forces that once bound them.
There is triumph in this. The narrator has found purpose, and in doing so, they achieve a kind of freedom.
The poem ends with a feeling of strength born from suffering. Brontë reminds us that while pain may bind us, we have the power to endure, and even to choose our place within it.
This idea—that we are always stronger than what we experience—resonates as an essential and enduring truth.
Fun Fact: It is believed that Spellbound is set in the imaginary world of Gondal, which Emily and her siblings created during their teenage years.
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