Walt Whitman
Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2012
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- Italian
- Home Country
- Italy
- Current Location
- Italy
Since I’ve been collecting critical books, papers, essays, websites and blogs which are concerned with Wuthering Heights, it often happens that the people who write or post in some sites and blogs don’t say what their nationality is. In this case I can’t always be sure if their English is idiomatic and grammatical, so I need the help of UE members. Could you please help me check the English used by Craig Brown, the owner of the site cited in the source? I feel it’s good. Could he be a native speaker of English?
Source: Craig Brown — Just Great DataBase
(1) The story starts in the cold winter of 1801 when the narrator named Lockwood decides to rent a manor with a poetic name Thrushcross Grange. The manor stands aside the major road in the middle of the moors and abandoned fields. The man who owns the manor, Heathcliff, lives nearby, in the mansion called Wuthering Heights. Lockwood decides to visit his landlord once and from there on the real story starts.
The inhabitants of the house include several people and Heathcliff himself, an old grumpy man who isn’t even pretending to be pleasant with the guest. He treats him with all due respect but without any warmth. Another thing that seems strange to Lockwood is that the owner of Wuthering Heights has all the manners of a gentleman, but looks like a Gypsy man and all his manor seems more a farmhouse than a home of an aristocrat.
(2) Thirty years ago, Mr. Earnshaw, who lived in Wuthering Heights and owned the manor, took a trip to Liverpool. He returned from there with a little orphan child who seemed to be Gypsy by origin. Mr. Earnshaw named him Heathcliff and raised him as his own son along with his other two children, Catherine and Hindley. Hindley and Heathcliff didn’t get along well, Hindley was more reserved, while the orphan didn’t have any manners, was rough, straight and quick to anger. But Catherine was much more open-minded to him and soon she and Heathcliff became friends. They played adventurous games on the moors much to her brother’s displeasure and had a happy childhood.
Please, let me know if the extracts are too long.
Thank you
WW
Source: Craig Brown — Just Great DataBase
(1) The story starts in the cold winter of 1801 when the narrator named Lockwood decides to rent a manor with a poetic name Thrushcross Grange. The manor stands aside the major road in the middle of the moors and abandoned fields. The man who owns the manor, Heathcliff, lives nearby, in the mansion called Wuthering Heights. Lockwood decides to visit his landlord once and from there on the real story starts.
The inhabitants of the house include several people and Heathcliff himself, an old grumpy man who isn’t even pretending to be pleasant with the guest. He treats him with all due respect but without any warmth. Another thing that seems strange to Lockwood is that the owner of Wuthering Heights has all the manners of a gentleman, but looks like a Gypsy man and all his manor seems more a farmhouse than a home of an aristocrat.
(2) Thirty years ago, Mr. Earnshaw, who lived in Wuthering Heights and owned the manor, took a trip to Liverpool. He returned from there with a little orphan child who seemed to be Gypsy by origin. Mr. Earnshaw named him Heathcliff and raised him as his own son along with his other two children, Catherine and Hindley. Hindley and Heathcliff didn’t get along well, Hindley was more reserved, while the orphan didn’t have any manners, was rough, straight and quick to anger. But Catherine was much more open-minded to him and soon she and Heathcliff became friends. They played adventurous games on the moors much to her brother’s displeasure and had a happy childhood.
Please, let me know if the extracts are too long.
Thank you
WW