Editing Wuthering Heights (section)

=== Religion ===

Emily Brontë attended church regularly and came from a religious family.<ref>{{cite web |last=Backholer |first=Paul |date=18 April 2022 |title=''Wuthering Heights'', Heathcliff, the Brontë Sisters, and their Faith in the Bible and Christianity |url=https://byfaith.org/2022/04/18/wuthering-heights-heathcliff-the-bronte-sisters-and-their-faith-in-the-bible-and-christianity/ |website=By Faith}}</ref> Emily "never as far as we know, wrote anything which overtly criticised conventional religion. But she also has the reputation of being a rebel and iconoclast, driven by a spirit more pagan than orthodox Christian."<ref>[https://www.bronte.org.uk/bronte-200/events/659/a-god-of-her-own-emily-bronte-and-the-religious-imagination/662 "Brontë 200 – A God of her Own: Emily Brontë and the Religious"]. Brontë Society</ref> [[Derek A. Traversi|Derek Traversi]], for example, sees in ''Wuthering Heights'' "a thirst for religious experience, 'which is not Christian'. It is this spirit which moves Catherine to exclaim, 'surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here?{{'"}} (Ch. IX).<ref name=RMM>[http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/mystic.html "Emily Brontë – Religion, Metaphysic, and Mysticism"], [[City University of New York|cuny.edu]]</ref><ref>See also, Derek Traversi, "''Wuthering Heights'' after a Hundred Years". ''[[The Dublin Review]]''. 223 (445): 154ff. Spring 1949.</ref>

Thomas John Winnifrith, author of ''The Brontes and Their Background: Romance and Reality'' (Macmillan, 1977), argues that the allusions to Heaven and Hell are more than metaphors, and have a religious significance, because "for Heathcliff, the loss of Catherine is literally Hell{{nbsp}}... 'existence after losing her would be Hell' (Ch. xiv, p. 117)." Likewise, in the final scene between them, Heathcliff writhes "in the torments of Hell (XV)".<ref name=RMM />

==== Daemonic ====
The eminent German Lutheran theologian and philosopher [[Rudolph Otto]], author of ''[[The Idea of the Holy]]'', saw in ''Wuthering Heights'' "a supreme example of 'the [[Daimonic|daemonic]]' in literature".<ref>John W. Harvey, [https://books.google.com/books?id=saTUsMrBTUEC&pg=PR13 "Translator's Preface"] to ''The Idea of the Holy'' by [[Rudolph Otto]], Oxford University Press USA, 1958, p. xiii</ref> Otto links the "daemonic" with "a genuine religious experience".<ref>[https://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/numinous.html#gothic "Otto on the Numinous: The Connection of the Numinous and the Gothic"], [[City University of New York|cuny.edu]]</ref> Lisa Wang argues that in both ''Wuthering Heights'', and in her poetry, Emily Brontë concentrates on "the non-conceptual", or what Rudolf Otto<ref>See [[Rudolph Otto|R. Otto]], ''The Idea of the Holy'' (1923); 2nd ed., trans. J. W. Harvey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950) p. 5.</ref> has called 'the non-rational' aspect of religion{{nbsp}}... the primal nature of religious experience over and above its doctrinal formulations".<ref>{{cite journal|page=162|jstor=23924880 |title=The Holy Spirit in Emily Brontë's ''Wuthering Heights'' and Poetry |last1=Wang |first1=Lisa |journal=[[Literature and Theology]]|year=2000 |volume=14 |issue=2 |doi=10.1093/litthe/14.2.160 }}</ref> This corresponds with the dictionary meaning: "of or relating to an inner or attendant spirit, esp. as a source of creative inspiration or genius".<ref>''OED''{{full citation needed|date=September 2023}}</ref> This meaning was important to the [[Romanticism|Romantic]] movement.<ref>{{cite journal|pages=31–39 [31]|jstor=23240548 |title=Uses of the Daemon in Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe |last1=Ljungquist |first1=Kent |journal=Interpretations |year=1980 |volume=12 |issue=1 }}</ref><ref>Nicholls, A. (2006). ''Goethe's Concept of the Daemonic: After the Ancients''. Boydell & Brewer.</ref>

However, the word ''daemon'' can also mean "a demon or devil", and that is equally relevant to Heathcliff,<ref>''OED''.</ref> whom Peter McInerney describes as "a Satanic [[Don Juan]]".<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1080/08905498008583178| title=Satanic conceits in ''Frankenstein'' and ''Wuthering Heights''| year=1980 | last1=McInerney | first1=Peter | journal=Milton and the Romantics | volume=4 | pages=1–15 }}</ref> Heathcliff is also "dark-skinned",<ref name="Onanuga">{{cite news|last=Onanuga|first=Tola|date=21 October 2011|title=Wuthering Heights realises Brontë's vision with its dark-skinned Heathcliff|newspaper=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/oct/21/wuthering-heights-film-heathcliff#maincontent|access-date=30 May 2020}}</ref> "as dark almost as if it came from the devil".<ref name="Brontë Chapter 4">{{cite book|last=Brontë|first=Emily|url=https://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/wh/novel/html/chapter_04|title=Wuthering Heights|page=40|access-date=30 May 2020}}</ref> Likewise Charlotte Brontë described him "'a man's shape animated by demon life – a Ghoul – an Afreet'".<ref>[https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/who-is-heathcliff# John Bowen, "Who is Heathcliff?" (The novel 1832–1880) British Library online]</ref> In Arabian mythology an "afreet", or [[ifrit]], is a powerful jinn or demon.<ref>''OED''</ref> However, John Bowen believes that "this is too simple a view", because the novel presents an alternative explanation of Heathcliff's cruel and sadistic behaviour; that is, that he has suffered terribly: "is an orphan;{{nbsp}}... is brutalised by Hindley;{{nbsp}}... relegated to the status of a servant; Catherine marries Edgar".<ref>John Bowen, "Who is Heathcliff?"</ref>