The most interesting part of the second week of the course for me is understanding the dynamic between the author and the illustrator in this time period. When we traditionally study the texts of the Victorian Era, the text is all that is looked at with significance. The idea that illustrations of this time period were essential to how readers in the Victorian Era understood these books has made me rethink my understanding of the Victorian texts I have previously studied, such as A Christmas Carol. The idea that specifically engaged me the most is the concept of the artist as a critic from the "Two texts, two hands, two looks" reading. This concept goes beyond seeing illustrations as a companion to the text, but as a piece in dialogue with the text, like a critic's work would be. This changes the way images are viewed within these Victorian texts, as it changes the understanding of artists and writers from collaborators to independent artists, with the illustrator...
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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.
Individual Entries
For today's class, my group was assigned to give an overview of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Though I have read some of Doyle's work before, I have never seen it in its original illustrated format. I found this to be particularly fascinating because the images work to bring the text to life, and - in my opinion - help solidify Sherlock Holmes as the iconic fictional character he continues to be today. The illustrator for Sherlock Holmes, Sidney Paget, crafted the artwork in the photomechanical half-tone contemporary sketch style that was a popular feature of 1890s illustrated books. Much of the artwork throughout this collection of stories utilizes the narratological theory of picture-text relation: Paget's illustrations are often repetitive, and work to solidify key features of the mystery genre. As such, many of the pictures I saw while looking through the book feature Holmes and Watson together, Holmes sitting alone, smoking a...
moreThe 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. I, personally, never paid much attention to illustrations in a book I was reading unless the illustrations were relevant to the story (like a graphic novel or, when I was a kid, the geronimo stilton books). I never really read many books with illustrations to begin with or I just wouldn't notice them. The discissions about illustrations during class did remind me of another course I took on Children's Literature, though. It reminded me of when we discussed, in that class, the relationship between texts and their illustrations and how the illustrations can enhance the text, contradict the text, or be a...
moreThis week my group was tasked with creating a general summary for House of Joy by Laurence Houseman. Truthfully, this task was a struggle for me at first as I am still not fully comfortable with using Cove or locating where resources are in the D2L page. However, once I began working on the task, I actually found the book and its illustrations very intriguing. I was surprised to learn that the House of Joy was a book of adult fairytales as at the time, fairytales were considered taboo for young children. I also found it quite impressive that Laurence Houseman not only authored the book but also created the illustrations as well. I really enjoyed the illustrations in this text as they are very detailed. Dr. Kooistra mentioned that the illustrations were originally done in pen and ink which explains its intricate detail. Housman's illustrations are so enjoyable to look at as to me, they really remind me of gothic style illustrations. Some of the illustrations are...
moreEntering into the second week of the course I was excited to begin studying the content and analyzing these victorian era illustrations. Following the lecture and the course readings for this week there were a number of things that I found to be both incredibly interesting and challenging. Firstly with regard to the course readings, I found it difficult to fully understand the male/female relationship between text and image as it was described in the article. The comparison between sexuality and illustrated books was one that I was not fully prepared for heading into this module. However, as I worked through the readings I will say that I found the idea to be incredibly fascinating particularly the part about bitextual relationships within text. Furthermore many of the confusing aspects of the readings were made clear during the lecture portion of today's class. I look forward to exploring more theories that offer new perspectives on the relationship...
moreThis week my group was asked to create the time line entry for Clemence Houseman's The Were-Wolf. At first I was a bit intimidated by this task, considering that I was not (and still am not) fully comfortable with using the COVE tools to post work and exhibits online. It really helped working in a smaller group, as i found that the three of us were able to clairfy any questions for one another and gage how to go about creating the timeline post. In doing so, I definitely believe that I am now more equipped to use COVE for the rest of the semester, but I do still have some questions regarding it that I'm sure will be clarified in future lectures. As for working directly with Clemence Houseman's text, it made the decision for which text I want to present individualy very clear. Initially I wanted to do my presentation on The Moon Flower by Laurence Houseman, but after being exposed to the background of the text, I have changed my mind and have decided to focus my...
moreThe most engaging part of our second week for me was the reading on bitextual theory. I was initially apprehensive about the highly gendered rhetoric of illustration studies that the theory emerged from. I found the rigid gender roles and heteronormative signifying to be alienating, and frankly, outdated. However, I was delighted to have my apprehension alleviated and to learn that bitextuality actually subverts this tradition of gendered rhetoric by playing with these gendered categories (i.e. “male” text, “female” image) as discrete, “sexual” bodies that interplay in more fluid orientations. The rhetorical play here on “bisexuality”—in all of its connotations—makes the theory more accessible and useful to me. Working with Victorian texts through a queer-adjacent lens was certainly not something I was expecting for this course, but I am thrilled to be doing it.
It was also fascinating to glean that the queer...
moreToday's lecture was very inriguing as we delved deeper into the relationship between images and texts within Victorian literature. It was interesting to learn about the history and evolution of illustrations in relation to text, for example the transitions between steel-plate etching, wood engraving and photomechanical images. I found both the narratological theory and bitextual theory are quite interesting as they offers us more insight on complex the relationships between text and illustrations and the many different ways the images can portray the text.
The timeline exercise was helpful and engaging in my opinion as it allowed us to briefly explore and learn about each publication which allows us to have a clear understanding of the content of the course from the get go. Having a page where you can quickly find important information about a specific work will definitely have it's benefits for this course. After looking through the timeline, I realized a lot of the works...
moreMy group was assigned to put The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on the timeline. Through this experience I was able to see a clear connection between image, text and context. It is clear that the illustrator and author share their individual interpretation of the text. This means that the illustrator creates based on the idea he believes the author is trying to convey, similarly to what the reader does when encountering the text for the first time. This is important because it is often the illustrations that determine how people envision the character. For example, the images Sidney Paget created of Sherlock Holmes went on to influence the way mainstream media views him to be today: a tall white man with mysterious dark features. Although one could come to that conclusion through Doyle’s description, there would be a lot more room for interpretation without images. ...
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