Victorian 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.
Individual Entries
After the seminar today and the introduction I feel like I am really excited to continue to learn more about the victorian era. There was a sentence today in the zoom call that stood out to me as interesting and it was along the lines of " everything is centred around the victorian era" and while I look back at the course load ive taken to earn my degree I find that it is very true. Many of the texts that i've read center around the victorian era and many of the similar themes can be seen in more modern texts. I look forward to see how these themes intertwine with illistrative texts as it is a field I do not have much experience in. I always found the saying "a picture holds a thousand words" was a bit far fetched because as an english student and a book enthusiast I found words to be much more informative and now I look forwards to the many interpretations that we can find when we put together both texts and illustratives.While I have never taken a course on illistrations I hope...
moreAlthough I have taken a fair share of Victorian centered courses throughout my English career, not one has piqued my interest quite as much as this course. The English program doesn’t offer much variety in the texts we analyze, so I am always eager to explore different forms of storytelling. I find especially with Victorian-period stories, the content tends to be dry and lengthy, and the action is slow burn and heavily influenced by social context. Something I’m looking forward to in this course is seeing that action come to life through art and illustration. Hopefully these specific factors will aid in my previous lack of engagement with historical readings. I am sure this is not the first time it is being said, but it doesn’t hurt that the course finale is centered around A Christmas Carol. How timely for the holidays!
...
moreBack in May when we were given the option for which topic to pick for ENG 910, Illustrated Books stood out for because of its focus on Victorian literature and that period of time. From high school up through university, I have read various pieces from this era so exploring a new aspect of Victorian literature struck me with potential. Since this is a capstone seminar, a lot of work from this course will be collaborative and it was interesting to hear the professor explain how Victorian illustrated books are seen as collaborative projects as well. Often times when we look at literature we think of the writer, the audience and the context surrounding the piece. When it is adapted into a visual piece, now we must also think of the artist creating the images and think about the thought process behind their work which often goes unrecognized. I look forward to learning more this semester about this topic and sharing ideas with my peers as we adapt to our new learning environment...
moreWhat has intrigued and surprised me most about this course so far is the existence of an online database like COVE itself. It seems brilliant to me that that the minds behind the body scholarship on a pre-digital era have fully embraced the digital in this way. To me, COVE demonstrates not only the importance of digital archives for the way it makes the obscure accessible (albeit for a small fee), but also for the way it harnesses the tools of the internet to enhance the scholarship being done. The technological affordances of a platform like COVE allow for the things like the critical annotations within the texts, gallery exhibits, maps, and timelines. Diving into these tools and learning how to make the most out of COVE is something I am most looking forward to in this course. As I said in my introduction on Zoom today, I’m most interested in establishing a sort of continuity between the visual cultures of the present and Modernist eras that I have previously studied...
moreWhile I have taken courses before which analyze many of these Victorian-period stories, this is the first course I have taken dedicated to interpreting and examining illustrations. I don’t have a particularly large knowledge of art history as an English major, so I am excited to learn about these contextual connections and hopefully have a more comprehensive perspective on these stories and historical multimedia. Although I’ve read Dickens’ A Christmas Carol before and seen many of the film and television iterations, I have yet to study it in an academic sense. I have never read the graphic novel version before either. That being said, I’m particularly interested to see how this visual medium carries over the interplay between text and image. As an avid graphic novel and comic reader, I know that powerful visual elements can be incredibly impactful for storytelling and can completely alter one’s understanding of a text. I’m certain that...
moreHonestly speaking, as I've ben enrolled in classes that delve into or touch on the Victorian period and its significant pieces, it usually ends up as either a hit or miss for me (interest-wise). But the fact that this course will be using both texts and the images accompanied with them from the time of it being published is a unique spin. I never heard of COVE and it’s intimidating (as I have no clue what I’m doing, still getting used to this as a whole—Zoom included). But I think it’s going to be interesting in having a bunch of students come together to create interactive exhibits.
Artistically speaking, I’m very curious in the numerous art styles of people within the Victorian period. It would be cool to compare how things have evolved or remained the same from the illustrations for stories today and back then. Like whether or not the things we don’t bat an eye to or consider it as part of “the norm” (nudity and eroticism, gore etc) would have appeared in a similar...
moreMy 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. While many of these texts are new to me, I did recognize a few. Namely Goblin Market from a previous class I took on nineteenth-century literature where we discussed the poem and its major themes. I'm looking forward to diving into the use of the images in relation to the text as well as the images on their own. The other text I am familiar with is "A Christmas Carol" but that's mainly because I love the movie adaptations.
...
more