My initial thoughts going into this final Capstone seminar were conflicted. I was excited to participate in a more interactive and discussion oriented style of learning but was anxious about the content of the course. Victorian era literature is a genre that has come up often during my four and a bit years at Ryerson, to mixed reception. Oftentimes I found the genre to be interesting as the time period offers a unique perspective and voice in literature. Other times however, I find it can be a little indulgent and bland. Thankfully following this initial lecture I am hopeful that this course will explore some of the best victorian era literature has to offer. The focus on imagery is something that I find very interesting as the Victorian period is one of the most visually unique and striking historical periods. I’m curious to see how that translates into illustration. Using images and text to understand the value of something both as a piece of art...
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.
Individual Entries
I don't know much about Victorian literature, but when I have been exposed to it I have always found it very interesting. I think I will enjoy it even more with illustrations, and having the opportunity to see how words and images work together to create a larger meaning. I am a little nervous because I feel as though a lot of my peers are already familiar with some of the texts we are readings, while they are all very new to me! The most familiar text was "A Christmas Carol", but only because I've watched Scrooged (starring Bill Murray) 100 times. I had also never heard of "Goblin Market" before. I got the opportunity to read it while browsing COVE and I am looking forward to critically examining the text and images as a class.
I also think it is very interesting that Victorian illustrated books were created for adults, while the majority of picture books today are considered for children. Although some picture book types, such as comic books and graphic...
moreIt was great to meet my fellow seminar peers this morning during our first class. I am excited to study the content of this course and utilize Dr. Kooistra's extensive knowledge of the Victorian era. I have a bit of background knowledge of the period's texts and history from my 19th-century literature class, which inspired me to choose this seminar. I was surprised to learn that Victorian picture books were actually intended for an adult audience instead of a child audience. I just took Children's Literature with Naomi Hamer and I'm excited to examine picture books from a different lens. The Victorian period is such an interesting point in history and I am super excited to see illustrative versions of such classic and beloved texts. In particular, I have always loved Rossetti's Goblin Market and I am looking forward to seeing the illustrative version and how that compares to my personal visuals when reading the poem. This course is a great reprieve from the heavy readings of other...
moreAfter the introductory class today, I am quite interested in focusing on artistic representations of Victorian literature. I have taken a few courses that look at the intersection between literature and visual media, including Studies in Visual Culture and Studies in Word and Image, in addition to the small portions other courses that focused on art, such as Romanticism. Two texts in particular that I am interested in looking at in this way are A Christmas Carol and "Goblin Market." A Christmas Carol stands as one of the most adapted works of literature, so I am very interested to see how artistic representations from the Victorian Era are different or similar to modern representations, including the graphic novel that is assigned. Like many others, "Goblin Market" is a poem that I had previously studied, with illustrations of the poem being a brief portion of the lecture. I am looking forward to revisiting the poem, and having a larger focus on its...
moreIt was so nice being back with my fellow English peers. It was nice to hear what everyone was excited about for this coming semester. I think what intrugued me the most in our first zoom meeting was goingover hwat the semster is going to be like. With so much uncertainty, it was nice to have some concrete information accompanied by a solid plan for the semester going forward - with many ,thanks to Professor Janzen for the organization. In regard to the works that we will be looking at, I am specifcially excited to go through The Christmas Carol works listed in our schedule. I have had Professor Janzen already, and with that being said, I am also excited to see how she uses her teaching style to look into the works that are picked out for us this semester. It is always a pleasure going back and forth with her and the class, looking into the works.
One thing I found interesting during my preliminary research on the texts we'll be reading this semester is that Pamela Colman Smith, the author/illustrator of Annancy Stories, illustrated the Rider-Waite tarot cards, of which I had a deck when I was a kid. It made me think about how I never really think of iconic imagery like that as being the product of an individual artist, though I guess obviously it'd necessarily have to be. I'm excited by the possibility of discovering throughout this course the stories behind more familiar artworks the origins of which I've never considered before.
Similarly, as someone with only a cursory exposure to Aubrey Beardsley's work, it was interesting to discover that some of his pieces I'm familiar with were produced for the Oscar Wilde play Salome. It caused me to consider how many other artworks I enjoy -- in the Victorain period or otherwise -- were unbeknown to me produced to be paired with other media, and furthermore...
moreAs someone who prefers written work over visual work, I'll admit that I am intrigued to see how this class will expand my perspective on the illustrative aspect of Victorian texts. I don't normally focus on visual images in relation to reading or understanding literature, so this class is going to challenge me in a new way. Knowing that the texts we will be studying were geared towards adults is also intriguing to me, as I commonly associate illustrated books with a child audience. However, learning how art can add a layer of meaning to a written text is something I look forward to grasping, and I am reassured by the fact that it seems we will be learning this in an open, interactive environment. I also appreciate that this class seems to be building off ENG 810, which I had the pleasure of taking with Dr. Kooistra last year. I look forward to using this course as a means to deepen my knowledge of Victorian history, culture, and art.
Otherwise, the...
moreAs an English major, I expect myself to know a great deal about the Victorian era. However, the reality is, I do not know anywhere near as much as I'd like to admit I do. Therefore, this course intrigues me as I know I will be working closely with both texts and visuals of the Victorian period during this semester. While looking over the syllabus, the two methods of interpretation, which include synchronic and diachronic analysis were not only new to me, but they also got me excited for a new method of interpretation that I expect will reveal a great deal of interesting correlation between both the cultural period of the Victorian era and the illustrations that came with them over the years. I am a bit nervous however when it comes to analysing illustrations and relating them to their original text as that is something I struggled with both in ENG810 and Romanticism. However, I hope by going into the course with an open mind I can both understand and come up with my own scholarly...
moreAfter this first class, I am excited to get into these texts and analyze the relationship between the words and illustrations. I don't have a lot of experience with analyzing images, so I am a little bit anxious about doing so, but I think it will be fun! I admit that while I have read A Christmas Carol numerous times, I have never payed much attention to the illustrations while reading, usually just glossing over them quickly and moving on. Likewise, many books I have read have included similar illustrations, but for whatever reason, I've never invested much time into thinking about the images and how they actually contribute to the story itself. I'm looking forward to spending more time engaging with these images throughout the course and seeing how that enhances my understanding of texts I've already read (such as A Christmas Carol and Goblin Market) and how it changes the way I interact with illustrations in texts in the future as well!
The Victorian era is typically viewed as staunch and stuffy by the general public, in an era where propriety and etiquette were of the highest importance. However, the Victorian era was also a time that spoke to intriguing cultural moments such as the ascension of the monarch, for which it is named, at the tender age of eighteen, after she had been sheltered for most of her life. The development and curation of literature in this period is equally interesting, and perhaps, much more relevant to our course. My favourite author is Charlotte Bronte, having fallen in love with Wuthering Heights in high school for her unique literary style that brought the Gothic to life. What I found most interesting from today's introduction was learning that Victorian illustrated books were geared towards adults rather than children, and furthermore, that while most illustrations were black and white, the few that were coloured, were created by hand. I think the dedication towards art and one...
more