Zeinab Fakih's blog

Module 7 Blog Post

Submitted by Zeinab Fakih on

The images of Oscar Wilde's Salome illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley are interesting and quite different from many other illustrations in books, poems, and plays we've seen thus far. These images seem to almost contrast with the texts but definitely make a commentary. I felt that, in the images, there was a lot of sexism and homophobia seemingly shown as a way for Beardsley to comment on Wilde's sexuality. There was a lot of play on the male gaze within the illustrations. The focus of the illustrations of the women were on the body of the women rather than the scene as a whole.

Module 6

Submitted by Zeinab Fakih on

Sidney Paget does something interesting when it comes to illustrating Sherlock Holmes; and that is, he almost contrasts the words being said. He does this in a way where the text and image relate and make sense and aren't contradictory. But, since he had creative freedom, we see where Paget brought in his own creative liberty and how he saw the characters and scenes he was illustrating for. When it came to the images discussed in presentations today, it is very clear that many if not all these images touched upon fin-de-siècle ideologies and prejudices held at that time.

Reflection- Week 5

Submitted by Zeinab Fakih on

This was an interesting class. It was fun to see how Goblin Market was reprinted and redesigned to fit so many formats and appeal to such various audiences. I've read this poem in a previous class before and would not have expected it to be curated in a way to appeal to children. The fact that this story was redesigned through the years to go from something for children to read to being a part of Playboy is such an interesting and unexpected concept.

Module 3

Submitted by Zeinab Fakih on

Although A Christmas Carol is such a popular well-known text, I hadn't read it before this class. Sure, I'd seen the movies during Christmas time and I know of the story but I hadn't paid much attention to it let alone the illustrations. I really enjoyed how the story was written. I was interested in Dickens's use of descriptive writing without seeming like he's droning to fill up space. I liked how he made references to other texts such as Hamlet and spoke to the reader instead of at them. I specifically found how he described Scrooge interesting.

Module 2

Submitted by Zeinab Fakih on

The one thing I found most surprising and interesting when discussing illustration through history is the different mediums used. I never thought about different mediums of books and illustrations ever being a thing but, after researching with my group, I found the illustrations of the book we were looking at were wood carvings. I thought that was really cool.

Blog Post: Week 1

Submitted by Zeinab Fakih on

My initial thought towards the course after our introductory class was interest. I've taken previous classes in the Victorian period but while those were focused on the text at the time, I haven't studied many aspects of the illustrations. I am looking forward to discussing imagery and illustrations though. I've taken a class in the past where we focused on illustrations and paintings and was interested in how to critically view an image and I'm looking forward to doing that in this class as well.

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