Robert Holland. The Warm South: How the Mediterranean Shaped the British Imagination. [Book Review]

“A splendid Midsummer shone over England,” notes Jane Eyre, recalling that glorious day in which she accepted Rochester’s marriage proposal: “It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South” to rest “on the cliffs of Albion.” When she discovers, at the altar, that Rochester is already married, Jane is encouraged to settle as Rochester’s mistress in his “whitewashed villa” in the South of France, “on the shores of the Mediterranean.” Jane’s abhorrence at the prospect of awakening “in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa” captures the association between southern balminess, temptation, and sin. No wonder that the final reunion of the lovers takes place amid the meteorological safety offered by a very British “sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating rain.”