Charlotte Bronte's Psyche: A Close Reading of Jane Eyre

Brontë reshapes the Cupid and Psyche tale into Jane Eyre, revealing love as spiritual and physical unity.

Did Charlotte Brontë transform the ancient tale of ‘Cupid and Psyche’ into one of literature’s most enduring novels?

In this compelling study, Elizabeth Imlay argues that ‘Jane Eyre’ is a bold reworking of fairy tales dating back to the tragic myth, recast through the consciousness of a 19th-century woman seeking passionate love. By tracing Jane’s symbolic journey through earth, air, fire, and water — body, spirit, passion, and reason—Imlay reveals how Brontë reshapes the story through a feminist lens, redefining love as a unity of the spiritual and the physical, making ‘air’ a female element.

Elizabeth Imlay, MA Oxon, was born into a Freethinking family, her father being a classical scholar and her mother a linguist. She was educated at a school for the daughters of Evangelical missionaries, where she obtained a thorough grounding in the Bible, French and Latin. She read English Language and Literature at Oxford, which at that time demanded a knowledge of French, Latin, Anglo-Saxon and Middle and Modern English. She has worked in publishing and journalism and is now a widow with two grown-up children.