I really enjoyed our final class today and seeing the culmination of my classmate's hard work and their evolving ideas for the final Capstone Project. I found it very interesting to hear how each individual put their own unique spin on their chosen text. In particular, I really enjoyed the presentations on Goblin Market and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In both groups, there was a diverse array of synchronic and diachronic analysis' of their chosen work. I really enjoyed hearing the juxtaposition of ideas of 19 C Goblin Market to Zeinab's ideas on the 1970's rendition of Goblin Market that focused on themes such as the femme fatale and the male gaze, with extremely homoerotic illustrations. I also found it super interesting to see the different approaches my own group took when analyzing The Were-Wolf. Whereas Nicole and I focused on the design of Laurence Housman's illustrations and the meaning that can be extrapolated, I found it...
moreVictorian Illustrated Books (ENG910 F2020) Dashboard
Description
Students in Lorraine Janzen Kooistra's English Capstone Seminar at Ryerson University in Toronto in F2020 aim to make a virtue of pandemic necessity by engaging collaboratively and critically with the digital surrogates of a wide variety of Victorian illustrated books published between 1843 and 1899.
Using the interpretive model of image/text/context for both synchronic and diachronic analyses, and drawing on a range of digital tools, this course aims to understand the past through the present and the present through the past.
Our study begins with Charles Dickens's iconic Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas, illustrated by John Leech (1843), then turns to two examples of poetry and illustration: Alfred Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott," illustrated by Pre-Raphaelite artists William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1857); and Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market," illustrated by her brother, Dante Gabriel (1862). These mid-century works will provide the foundation for our study of the illustrated books that proliferated at the end of the century. We'll analyze a variety of fin-de-siècle genres and styles, starting with Arthur Conan Doyle's popular detective stories, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, illustrated by Sydney Paget (1892). Next up is Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, Oscar Wilde's censored play based on a biblical story, which was infamously "embroidered" by decadent artist Aubrey Beardsley (1894). Fairy tales and fantasies aimed at adult audiences allowed counter-cultural writers and artists to protest existing norms and imagine other worlds; our examples are Laurence Housman's self-illustrated collection, The House of Joy (1895) and Clemence Housman's gothic novella The Were-Wolf, with wood-engraved illustrations by the author after her brother Laurence's designs (1896). The Annancy Stories, a self-illustrated collection of folktales by Pamela Colman Smith, is the first-known publication featuring this Jamaican trickster figure (1899). Students examine the final work, A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2019), for evidence of the legacy of Victorian illustrated books today.
The following texts are available in COVE (see D2L for the other digital surrogates):
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas (1843): A COVE Studio Text for class annotation
Clemence Housman, The Were-Wolf (1896): A COVE Annotated Edition
Christina G. Rossetti, Goblin Market (1862): A COVE Annotated Edition
Alfred Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott (1857): A COVE Studio text for class annotation
Victorian illustrated books resulted from the collaboration of a number of social agents, including authors, artists, engravers, editors, publishers, and readers. Using the COVE toolset, students and instructor work collaboratively to build resources that critically curate Victorian illustrated books in cultural contexts ranging from the nineteenth century to the present.
We will use the COVE annotation tool to hone our close reading and editorial skills. In COVE Studio, each student will provide TWO TEXTUAL ANNOTATIONS, one on "content," one on "craft," for Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott."
We will use the Gallery Image tool to provide bibliographic and contextual information and iconographic commentary and analysis on illustrations, and to associate these with events in the Timeline and places in the Map.
We will use the Gallery Exhibition tool to critically curate illustrated books in cultural contexts, situating works synchronically, within their originating moment of production and reception, and diachronically, in terms of their ongoing moments of production and reception.
We will use the COVE Timeline tool to provide information about historical events relevant to Victorian illustrated books, both at the time of their first publication, and in their ongoing re-production over time and across media.
We will use the COVE Map tool to associate places relevant to illustrated books and their makers and the cultural contexts that we showcase in the Gallery and on the Timeline.
Galleries, Timelines, and Maps
I enjoyed this final class for ENG 910, in which we all presented our capstone project ideas to one another. To see how far we have collectively come as a group with our research is fulfilling, especially with how difficult this semester has been for all of us. While listening to my classmates’ presentations, I realized just how dynamic all of these Victorian Illustrated texts are. While many of the contextual topics my classmates chose were similar, each of them used these contexts to analyze their stories in multiple ways that were interesting, original, and provided completely new insights that I had not considered before.
As for what I have learned skill-wise, I felt that this course only helped to solidify the vital research abilities I have acquired throughout the entirety of my major. Looking back, I realize that everything in my major truly has been building up to this moment, and to have completed a research project that encapsulates my...
moreFirstly, I must say that I am shocked to find that it is the end of the semester already. How time flies! Looking back on all of the texts we have studied, I can say that my appreciation for Victorian literature, as well as my capacity for analysis, has greatly grown. It seems the course is reaching a satisfying denouement as we now turn to A Christmas Carol once again.
The experience of reading the graphic novel certainly invokes palimpsest. It both expands upon and reflects the content of the original text. This story is quite remarkable in its ability to be reinterpreted again and again, each time invoking a different reaction. This only reinforced the ability of image and context to evolve the message of an original text.
We often discussed the collaboration of Victorian texts over the semester, and this Neo-Victorian graphic novel also adheres to this. Whereas in Victorian texts, the written word was reshaped through image and reader response, the Neo-Victorian...
moreI found it very perplexing how my conception of A Christmas Carol differed significantly from the beginning of the semester compared to my later analysis of the graphic novel version. It was almost as if I was reading two completely different stories, just by the way they were illustrated! It really speaks towards the way modern illustration has evolved in a manner that is dynamic and visually-arresting. Not only with the more well-rounded colour palette, but the way in which depictions of the ghosts and the supernatural was cleverly illustrated. For instance, in the original designs by Leech, I found most of the ghosts to look human-like, not quite delving outside of the realm of humanoid figures. But in the works within the graphic novel, each of the supernatural figures was decidedly more wraithish in appearance. For instance, “The Air was Filled with Phantoms” gave off an overwhelming, frightening feel that I didn’t necessarily comprehend within...
moreI found myself very excited today after the lecture. In group discussions I got the opportunity to converse about Goblin Market and discuss the different angles being taken on the Illustrated novel. I was able to share my ideas and talk to classmates about their presentations as well. I had a few curiosities surrounding the project and was glad to talk to the other people working on the same text and illustrations to help me out. Overall I gained insight onto more of the dialogue surrounding Goblin Market. I also found todays topic of A Christmas Carol :The Graphic Novel exciting. In the last few classes the dialogue was navigated by student leaders and in todays lecture the class worked together surrounding the conversation of the illustrations throughtout the text. I thought the conversation surrounding the comparisons between the two Christmas Carol's was interesting aswell too see the different meanings interpreted depending on the...
moreI’ve started working on my capstone project this week, and I’m very excited to get further into my research to create my digital exhibit. After class today, Lorraine walked those of us who are using COVE for our projects through the creation of a gallery exhibit and it got me very excited to start working with the platform. We ran into some problems with inserting images, but thankfully Emma was able to find us a workaround to solve that problem!
Earlier in class, we looked at the graphic novel reinterpretation of A Christmas Carol. I’m not someone who regularly reads graphic novels, but I found it really interesting comparing the original illustrations by John Leech to reinterpretations of the same scene in the graphic novel. One thing that was particularly interesting to me was how the graphic novel remained relatively consistent with the time period of the novella, but added green and red combinations to several panels to...
morethis is a test
this is my first subtitle
this is my second subtitle
this is my conclusion
Lorraine Janzen Kooistra
Works Cited
In today’s class, we had the pleasure of looking at the graphic novel version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. I enjoyed learning about the palimpsest theory, which is based off effacing an original piece of writing in order to write new text over top. However, despite writing on top of the effaced manuscript, pieces of the previous text still remain. I found this concept to be especially interesting given the work we’ve done with not only A Christmas Carol, but also Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” (which I am working on for my Capstone project),a and seeing how these texts have been rendered in several different ways over the years. Just as it was fascinating to see how different authors had interpreted Rossetti’s original text, I found it similarly interesting to see how A Christmas Carol had been rendered into the graphic format. Seeing how the artists had interpreted the original text into a heavily visual narrative is a reminder of...
moreI found the topic of Undisciplining Victorian Studies in this class's discussion to be very interesting. Historically speaking Victorian studies have been seen as a prodominetly white community, not much of the literature was written or published by people of colour. Many works that have been studied have been dug up and rediscovered. I have taken different courses at ryerson that allow the student community to explore different cultures literature and have gotten the opportunity to study texts from all over the world that are post colonial texts but the Victorian era is one where I have not seen much diversity in terms of literature. The concept of 'undiscipling' Victorian texts seems like a very big task to me, since almost if not all Victorian texts I have read have been writen by white authors and published by white publishers. I also found it very interesting today when I learned that Pamela Colman Smith had published her own work in the Green Sheaf. She as a women of...
morePages
Individual Entries
I found it very perplexing how my conception of A Christmas Carol differed significantly from the beginning of the semester compared to my later analysis of the graphic novel version. It was almost as if I was reading two completely different stories, just by the way they were illustrated! It really speaks towards the way modern illustration has evolved in a manner that is dynamic and visually-arresting. Not only with the more well-rounded colour palette, but the way in which depictions of the ghosts and the supernatural was cleverly illustrated. For instance, in the original designs by Leech, I found most of the ghosts to look human-like, not quite delving outside of the realm of humanoid figures. But in the works within the graphic novel, each of the supernatural figures was decidedly more wraithish in appearance. For instance, “The Air was Filled with Phantoms” gave off an overwhelming, frightening feel that I didn’t necessarily comprehend within...
moreI found myself very excited today after the lecture. In group discussions I got the opportunity to converse about Goblin Market and discuss the different angles being taken on the Illustrated novel. I was able to share my ideas and talk to classmates about their presentations as well. I had a few curiosities surrounding the project and was glad to talk to the other people working on the same text and illustrations to help me out. Overall I gained insight onto more of the dialogue surrounding Goblin Market. I also found todays topic of A Christmas Carol :The Graphic Novel exciting. In the last few classes the dialogue was navigated by student leaders and in todays lecture the class worked together surrounding the conversation of the illustrations throughtout the text. I thought the conversation surrounding the comparisons between the two Christmas Carol's was interesting aswell too see the different meanings interpreted depending on the...
moreI’ve started working on my capstone project this week, and I’m very excited to get further into my research to create my digital exhibit. After class today, Lorraine walked those of us who are using COVE for our projects through the creation of a gallery exhibit and it got me very excited to start working with the platform. We ran into some problems with inserting images, but thankfully Emma was able to find us a workaround to solve that problem!
Earlier in class, we looked at the graphic novel reinterpretation of A Christmas Carol. I’m not someone who regularly reads graphic novels, but I found it really interesting comparing the original illustrations by John Leech to reinterpretations of the same scene in the graphic novel. One thing that was particularly interesting to me was how the graphic novel remained relatively consistent with the time period of the novella, but added green and red combinations to several panels to...
moreIn today’s class, we had the pleasure of looking at the graphic novel version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. I enjoyed learning about the palimpsest theory, which is based off effacing an original piece of writing in order to write new text over top. However, despite writing on top of the effaced manuscript, pieces of the previous text still remain. I found this concept to be especially interesting given the work we’ve done with not only A Christmas Carol, but also Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” (which I am working on for my Capstone project),a and seeing how these texts have been rendered in several different ways over the years. Just as it was fascinating to see how different authors had interpreted Rossetti’s original text, I found it similarly interesting to see how A Christmas Carol had been rendered into the graphic format. Seeing how the artists had interpreted the original text into a heavily visual narrative is a reminder of...
moreI found the topic of Undisciplining Victorian Studies in this class's discussion to be very interesting. Historically speaking Victorian studies have been seen as a prodominetly white community, not much of the literature was written or published by people of colour. Many works that have been studied have been dug up and rediscovered. I have taken different courses at ryerson that allow the student community to explore different cultures literature and have gotten the opportunity to study texts from all over the world that are post colonial texts but the Victorian era is one where I have not seen much diversity in terms of literature. The concept of 'undiscipling' Victorian texts seems like a very big task to me, since almost if not all Victorian texts I have read have been writen by white authors and published by white publishers. I also found it very interesting today when I learned that Pamela Colman Smith had published her own work in the Green Sheaf. She as a women of...
moreThe introduction of Pamela Colman Smith’s work for The Annancy Stories was a welcome change to the more classical stories of Victorian England we had been studying thus far for this course. I was familiar beforehand with the character of Anansi and his various folktales and mythologies, but I was surprised to discover that these stories were being published during this characteristically racially discriminatory and prejudiced time period for a predominantly white audience. I found most interesting the way in which Smith approaches her work in a manner that is accessible to white audiences, but also slyly subverts various notions about this ruling class. I thoroughly enjoyed Emma’s presentation and the points she brought up about the overall oral nature of these stories and how this was traditional to Carribean communities, and how this is more or less adapted to Western standards by Smith creating one static version of the story through...
moreI was rather struck by the illustrations for The Annancy Stories in that Smith's style of artwork feels much more fluid than anything we have come across thus far. It gives the impression of inky brushstrokes rather than of rigidly controlled lines.
This text stood out for its portrayal of race in colonized Jamaica. When race is a central feature in illustrations it often gives the sense of a one-sided lens in which one group is exoticized and interpreted through their alterity. The gaze of the artist as well as that of the intended audience is crucial to the cultivation of the image's content. The gaze of the audience is an essential feature in any text. Smith's audience was predominantly white and seeking entertainment rather than education as demonstrated through her performances of West Indian folk stories for hire at parties and events. From their perspective, examples of West Indian culture may have been exoticized and transformed into a status symbol...
morePrior to this course, I had only briefly encountered the Annancy Stories so it was a joy to be able to engage with them by focusing entirely on the visual aspect. It was nice to finally engage with a text by a black nineteenth-century author. I was surprised at the differences in the visuals compared to other texts we've engaged within this course. The lines seemed cleaner and more distinct. I noticed that any colouring was solid, no shading was used which emphasize those distinct lines. Closer to the end of Emma's presentation, she pointed out the villiage in the background and the black smudges surrounding the houses; I'd assume they're meant to represent trees or any foliage that you'd find Jamaica. I was, however, interested in all the tiny little lines spread out in front of the village. I can only assume those were meant to represent sugar cane and that the surrounding village was part of a plantation, a subtle nod to the slavery and injustice imposed on Jamaicans for...
moreI really enjoyed reading about the Annancy stories in general prior to the class so the fact that we've gotten to read it in this class was a pleasant surprise - Emma did a great job on her presentation too, it was really informative and a great question. I've always been intrigued with the trickster tales and how closely it's interwoven in West-Indies and African culture. With Emma's question if what it means - oral stories are common and helpful ways in showing the fluidity with almost "free-form" within Caribbean / African community, it's not with the intention to define static rules but rather to allow others to join in the meaning-making within these stories. They're storytellers that allow the audience and the teller to be on equal terms - there is no hierarchy, not really. With the way the woman is dressed (including her cloak), it relates to the preconception of Obeah that's closely ingrained in Jamaican culture but within colonialism, it was outlawed (I believe) and it was...
more