This week's seminar focused on Clemence Houseman's The Werewolf, an author and illustrator, who was also the sister of Laurence Houseman. Clemence Houseman was an avid supporter of the women's suffrage movement and was known for flouting gender norms; this is further seen in her work, The Werewolf, which depicts a female werewolf. I think this very interesting since the depictions of female werewolves are rare as werewolves symbolize hypermasculinity, monstrosity, and giving in to one's baser needs. Houseman's depictions of werewolves subvert this narrative of hypermasculinity as White Fell is a woman, and instead, likely hints to female sexuality and female domination. The most fascinating aspect of including these concepts is the connection to the inclusion of pomegranates in the frontispiece, as well as the choice to title the fifth of the six illustrations, 'The Finish'. Pomegranates can be associated with blood, death, and fertility, which might associate...

This week we discussed Clemence Housman’s wood-cut engraving illustrations of The Were-Wolf. This work initially caught my attention due to its gothic elements which I was interested in exploring especially because it was the only work which included a female were wolf as its main character. During today's presentation, I enjoyed the background information on both Clemence Housman and Laurence Housman's support for women's rights as it definitely shifts the meaning behind a lot of the illustrations. For example, the role of gender roles are vividly explored in this work especially when it comes to Rol's relationship with his older brother Sweyn. Swayn is portrayed as the ideal Victorian man in the text but this idealized image is tainted when it he meets White Fell. Although White Fell's influence is a play on the femme fatale due to Swayn's infatuation with her, I think she also represents a complex hybrid character, one that was not expected of women during the...

This week's seminar was about Laurence Houseman's 'House of Joy', a series of short stories or fairytales published in 1895, with illustrations that were wood-engraved by his sister, Clemence Houseman. The text is filled with many beautiful yet tragic stories accompanied by equally beautiful yet tragic illustrations. Fairytales in the Victorian era were known for being a method of educating young children, by teaching them social mores and customs. Some fairytale authors who accomplished this through their writing include Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Houseman's fairytales are a bit different as they don't necessarily teach social mores and customs, instead, they speak to and subvert concepts such as gender, sexuality, and notions of family through coded messages and symbolism. For example, in the 'Luck of Roses', the couple who could not have any children, choosing to tend to their roses and treating them as children can be seen as a coded way of speaking about queer...

I personally liked Houseman’s fairytales especially as they seemed very different from the other works we’ve read in class. It’s interesting to know that he’d been influenced not only by Oscar Wilde’s arrest but his sister’s participation in the women’s movement. I’ve personally always liked fairytales because they were this space that were catered to children (most of the time) but with Housman actively throwing in messages of shedding the constraints of traditional Victorian notions—it’s nice to see. Fairytales are often dubbed as being easy to remember or that they have common motifs in them. That being said, it's cool that Housman took that assumption of fairytales and turned it on its head - discussing active social issues through "simple" stories. Not to mention that he moves his almost "radical" (at the time) ideas through these seemingly innocent fairytales. I'm enjoying his method of pushing boundaries.

As I’ve needed to present this week, I found that leading...