Victorian Illustrated Books (ENG910 F2020) Dashboard

Leader

Lorraine Kooistra

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

Blog entry

Blog Post #7: October 29th

Posted by Fahimah Hamidavi on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 15:42

This discussion this week surrounding Oscar Wilde’s Salome: A Tragedy in One Act and the illustrations made by Aubrey Beardsley was really interesting. Beardsley’s illustrations were so different from the ones we have looked at in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and A Christmas Carol. Also unlike those other illustrated texts, Wilde clearly did not approve of Beardsley’s illustrations which added another level of interest - I couldn’t help but feel bad for Wilde for having his work illustrated in a way that he did not agree with, but that raises a lot of questions regarding who has ownership over literature. While Wilde did not approve of Beardsley’s interpretation, is his interpretation any less worthy of analyzing? I thought about that a lot throughout today’s class. 

Kisha brought up the concept of the male gaze in her discussion of Beardsley’s illustrations which I think is an incredibly apt interpretation...

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Blog entry

Blog Post #7 || Oct 29th || Illustrating Tragedy

Posted by Alicia Beggs-Holder on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 15:32

I haven't really encountered Salome often or if I did, then it’s usually in brief passing (like I know the name and that’s generally it). But with today’s discussion seminar I was able to actually see the ways in which sexuality and queer culture really impacted the story and its reception to the audience. It’s also interesting that the amount of androgynous and fluidity between characters is discussed as it seems to open a leeway in genders and their ability to move  (not more freely per se, but to open questions about what an individual is capable of and challenge the roles of the male gaze). I’ve also liked the ways in which Salome had been portrayed as this seductress but all for the sake of getting the religious figure’s head—in its time, I’m sure it would have caused some sort of uproar with Christian beliefs and damning in that sense, but it’s Wilde’s ability to call attention to how rigid the systems of both gender and...

more
Blog entry

Blog Post # 7- ENG 910

Posted by Alessia Dickson on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 15:27

I really enjoyed our discussion on Oscar Wilde's Salome: Tragedy in One Act. While the book was censored in 1892 due to Aubrey Beardsley's nude illustrations, I found it quite surprising that the book was uncensored in 1907 to a conservative twentieth-century audience. Beardsley's illustrations were unlike any of the artwork we have studied thus far in term and that made it especially interesting, One, it was quite interesting to learn that Wilde himself did not like many of Beardsley's illustrations. Two, in my opinion, many of Beardsley's illustrations were actually more interesting than the text itself. This is an anomaly as it is quite rare for an illustrator to upstage the author and the text itself. I think the reason Beardsley's illustrations are so interesting is that they are very conceptual instead of literally illustrating parts of the text. In this way, the illustrations offer their own commentary and produce their own meaning. One great example brought up...

more
Blog entry

Response Blog 7 (Oct 29)

Posted by Payton Flood on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 14:15

Oscar Wilde’s Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley was censored when it was first published in French in 1892.  It wasn’t until 1907 that it was republished with all the illustrations now uncensored.  Because of the nudity and sexuality depicted in the illustrations, the play was viewed as inappropriate during the fin de siècle.  Now, we know Salome to be progressive; a work that was ahead of its time and provided great commentary on female sexuality and the male gaze.  Beardsley illustrates from the perspective of the male gaze by featuring Salome in almost complete nudity throughout multiple images.  In images where Salome’s nude body is not on display, Beardsley uses other artistic elements to direct attention towards her.  I think more and more, women are being encouraged to do whatever makes them feel powerful and sexy, whether that be to display their...

more
Blog entry

Blog Post 7 Oct. 29

Posted by Simon Mancuso on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 14:07

For this week's work on Salome I was tasked with presenting my discussion leading question to the class. The process of researching that discussion question posed a number of interesting challenges and opportunities to research the text in greater depth. The process of taking a single image and analyzing it in depth and in a way it can be communicated to the rest of the class in the form of productive discussion was difficult but the practice we have accumulated over our time in this course made the process much easier. For my presentation I focused specifically on Aubrey Beardsely’s “the Climax” and I can say with confidence that Beardsley’s style has been my favourite thus far. I found the japanese influence in his work to be particularly striking. The minimalist visuals marked a stark departure from the previous works we’ve studied. The images this week were rich with thematic depth and symbolic imagery that made them engaging to study. Connecting...

more
Blog entry

Module 7 Blog Post

Posted by Zeinab Fakih on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 14:06

The images of Oscar Wilde's Salome illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley are interesting and quite different from many other illustrations in books, poems, and plays we've seen thus far. These images seem to almost contrast with the texts but definitely make a commentary. I felt that, in the images, there was a lot of sexism and homophobia seemingly shown as a way for Beardsley to comment on Wilde's sexuality. There was a lot of play on the male gaze within the illustrations. The focus of the illustrations of the women were on the body of the women rather than the scene as a whole. One example would be the peacock skirt. It's the male peacocks who use their colours to attract the female of the species yet Beardsley decided to use that through a woman. As though she's looking to attract and seek a man. This is especially iteresting since Wilde himself didn't use especially sexual or sexualized language and descriptions. Beardsley doing this seems to be just another way of the...

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Blog entry

Week 7 blog

Posted by Yousef Farhang on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 13:44

This week we looked at Oscar Wild's 1893 play Salomé which was illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley in the English edition. This text was definitely the most challenging text to analyze especially when it came to its illustrations as Beardsley strangely and most definitely deliberately avoided merely reflecting Wild's text. initially I had a hard time understanding the relationship between text and image due to the illustration's ambiguity's especially when I compared it to Sherlock Holmes and how easily it was to understand the relationship between text and image. However, after the presentations today, I started to appreciate Beardsley's illustrations more as I believe it completed Wilde’s work. Since Wild himself did not include any sexual description in his play, considering the censorship laws that would have prevented the play from performing any sexual scenes, Beardsley's work calls out such censorship laws with its clear sexual portrayal of the characters....

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Blog entry

Oscar Wilde's, Salome

Posted by Patricia Lucreziano on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 13:29

The analyzing of Salome by Oscar Wilde was extremely interesting to be a part of. Throughout the course of the meeting today we came to a pretty general conclusion that the images by Aubrey Beardsley and the text by Oscar Wilde we're working in two different directions but simultaneously creating a very successful text. With this being said it was apparent that Aubrey Beardsley definitely took his own approach in illustrating for Oscar Wilde's playwright. Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations really take a play on sexuality and gender throughout the entire T of the book. In regard to the frontispiece, which is what I analyzed for my discussion presentation this week, there's a couple things to know in regard to gender and sexuality. First off, the title of the image is “A Woman in the Moon” and when you look at the face that is represented in the moon it is known to be a depiction of Oscar Wilde. The other thing to note about the frontispiece is the fact that there are two...

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Blog entry

Week Seven Response - Upstaging the Author: Illustrating Tragedy in One Act

Posted by Melissa Emanoilidis on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 12:33

This week, when analyzing Oscar Wilde's Salome, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, I was very drawn into the representation of woman and the incorporation of the moon. When looking at the image that Patricia had presented, "The Woman in the Moon", it provided me with some initial insight on the meaning behind the two figures. While it is clear to see that one of the figures is a man because is he presented nude, the other figure is fully clothed, which can cause room for speculation that perhaps this is a woman. It demonstrates how there is more power for a man over a woman and how women must be respectful of themselves and their bodies. The women are never pictured fully nude but only from the waist up. There is also symbolic elements of the moon and flowers being implemented in these images. They explore taboo subjects throughout the images, including sex and religion. Purity can also be connected towards woman and the idea of purity and vanity. Women seem to be a victim...

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Blog entry

ENG 910: English Capstone Seminar: Week Seven

Posted by Anjali Jaikarran on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 12:31

This week's seminar focused on Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, a play written by Oscar Wilde. The play was originally published in French in 1892, however, it was censored from being performed as it depicted Biblical figures. The English translation was published in 1894 with ten censored accompanying illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. It was later republished in 1907 with all sixteen uncensored illustrations. Beardsley, like the Pre-Raphaelites, was known for creating commentary or interpretations of work through their illustrations; ones that were not generally approved by the authors. Many of Beardsley's illustrations were extradiegetic, he incorporated elements that were not explicitly stated in the text. One such illustration is 'The Peacock Skirt' in which he illustrates Salome wearing a peacock skirt that is never mentioned in the text. One can assume that Beardsley is making a comment on gender and the way in which women are constructed in this text. Beardsley...

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Individual Entries

Blog entry

ENG 910: Week Seven Blog Post

Posted by Joseph Pereira on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 23:34

This week we looked at the 1907 edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salome which included 16 drawings by Aubrey Beardsley. I had never heard of this one act play before, so it was interesting to read through it and learn some of the context surrounding the play’s publication. Throughout the course (so far), I can better appreciate the importance of the image, text, and context connections because of all the important relations between the play, the drawings and Wilde’s story of creating the play. It is evident through Beardsley’s drawings that there was a focus on sexuality as a main theme from the play. These black and white drawings include lots of nudity and sexual references. The detail of these photos comes from the outfits the characters wear or parts of the background surrounding them. I found “The Woman in the Moon” to be a very intriguing photo because of simplicity in the outlines of the figures illustrated. Certain parts are shaded in black, but the rest of the...

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Blog entry

Response Blog - Week Seven (October 29)

Posted by Mark Dasilva on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 21:09

I found Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for Oscar Wilde's play, Salomé, to be incredibly unique. His thin, unchanging line art, as well as his dominating use of negative space creates a style that is unlike any other we have looked at so far in this course, and one that overshadows the text itself for myself. In addition, the relationship between Beardsley's art and Wilde also creates a interesting dynamic, as Wilde was vocally not a fan of the illustrations. This disagreement between author and artist greatly shapes the way we analyse the text. The obvious point of contention for Wilde is that many of the illustrations do not match Wilde's writing, most notably with "The Toilette of Salomé," which depicts Salome in typical Victorian setting, rather than the biblical setting of the play. However, despite these liberties taken, Beardsley's illustrations still demonstrate the themes of sexuality found in Wilde's writing, whether it be the dominating male gaze upon Salome,...

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Blog entry

Oct 29 Blog Post

Posted by Alexandra Monstur on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 19:36

Today was an interesting day for presentations in class, as we looked at Salome by Oscar Wilde. I had never before encountered the text until this course. What first struck me was how abstract the illustrations appeared, as opposed to the illustrations Sidney Paget created for "The Man With the Twisted Lip"; whereas those were life-like, Beardsley's illustrations seemed far more interpretive. It is unfortunate that Oscar Wilde felt these illustrations were unfaithful to his original text; however, this anecdote proves how illustrators themselves can act as critics for the texts they are drawing for (as was mentioned by Dr. Kooistra).

Following from that, what I found especially interesting about the presentations today was the fact that many of the discussions focused on female sexuality as the central theme of the text. For me, the sexualization of Salome in Beardsley's illustrations was reminiscent of many contemporary films' gratuitous depictions of female nudity...

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Blog entry

Blog #7 || Oct 29

Posted by Kyle Sarjeant on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 18:35

The sexual dynamics of Salome and its accompanying illustration was a main theme across all our discussions this week. More specifically, female sexuality as dominating was discussed in a few of the presentations. Visually, we see this dynamic in Beardsley’s illustration through the Salome being positioned higher than male characters in the same illustration. This was something I noticed as I was analyzing “The Eyes of Herod” for my Research Question assignment, but it was fascinating to notice that this is a common motif throughout the illustrations. In “The Peacock Skirt” for example, Salome is pictured towering over the Young Syrian, and appears to be intimidating him. As we know from Wilde’s text, the Young Syrian offs himself, the object of his unrequited love, almost as an offering to Salome. Here, then, Salome’s feminine sexuality is totally dominating, to the extent that it overpowers the Young Syrian, and that dynamic is rendered beautifully by Beardsley...

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Blog entry

Blog Post #7: ENG 910 - Examining the Grotesque and Decadent

Posted by Mila Kulevska on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 16:41

From all the Victorian texts that I’ve read thus far for this class, I felt as if Beardsley’s drawings for Oscar Wilde’s Salomé were unlike any other. Perhaps it is because our class material was mainly focused on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s sensuous imagery and vividly-etched out woodcuts, but Beardsley’s sporadic and fluid art nouveau lines were incredibly shocking in comparison. In some retrospects, I believe that Wilde had chosen the perfect artist to match his nonconformist take on gender roles and to help capture his daring vision of bringing these biblical characters to life. While I particularly enjoyed examining all the symbolism Beardsley incorporated within his imagery, such as all the phallic-like candles or grotesque like aesthetic, it was his illustration, “The Eyes of Herod”, that I think perfectly...

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Blog entry

Blog Post #7: October 29th

Posted by Fahimah Hamidavi on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 15:42

This discussion this week surrounding Oscar Wilde’s Salome: A Tragedy in One Act and the illustrations made by Aubrey Beardsley was really interesting. Beardsley’s illustrations were so different from the ones we have looked at in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and A Christmas Carol. Also unlike those other illustrated texts, Wilde clearly did not approve of Beardsley’s illustrations which added another level of interest - I couldn’t help but feel bad for Wilde for having his work illustrated in a way that he did not agree with, but that raises a lot of questions regarding who has ownership over literature. While Wilde did not approve of Beardsley’s interpretation, is his interpretation any less worthy of analyzing? I thought about that a lot throughout today’s class. 

Kisha brought up the concept of the male gaze in her discussion of Beardsley’s illustrations which I think is an incredibly apt interpretation...

more
Blog entry

Blog Post #7 || Oct 29th || Illustrating Tragedy

Posted by Alicia Beggs-Holder on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 15:32

I haven't really encountered Salome often or if I did, then it’s usually in brief passing (like I know the name and that’s generally it). But with today’s discussion seminar I was able to actually see the ways in which sexuality and queer culture really impacted the story and its reception to the audience. It’s also interesting that the amount of androgynous and fluidity between characters is discussed as it seems to open a leeway in genders and their ability to move  (not more freely per se, but to open questions about what an individual is capable of and challenge the roles of the male gaze). I’ve also liked the ways in which Salome had been portrayed as this seductress but all for the sake of getting the religious figure’s head—in its time, I’m sure it would have caused some sort of uproar with Christian beliefs and damning in that sense, but it’s Wilde’s ability to call attention to how rigid the systems of both gender and...

more
Blog entry

Blog Post # 7- ENG 910

Posted by Alessia Dickson on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 15:27

I really enjoyed our discussion on Oscar Wilde's Salome: Tragedy in One Act. While the book was censored in 1892 due to Aubrey Beardsley's nude illustrations, I found it quite surprising that the book was uncensored in 1907 to a conservative twentieth-century audience. Beardsley's illustrations were unlike any of the artwork we have studied thus far in term and that made it especially interesting, One, it was quite interesting to learn that Wilde himself did not like many of Beardsley's illustrations. Two, in my opinion, many of Beardsley's illustrations were actually more interesting than the text itself. This is an anomaly as it is quite rare for an illustrator to upstage the author and the text itself. I think the reason Beardsley's illustrations are so interesting is that they are very conceptual instead of literally illustrating parts of the text. In this way, the illustrations offer their own commentary and produce their own meaning. One great example brought up...

more
Blog entry

Response Blog 7 (Oct 29)

Posted by Payton Flood on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 14:15

Oscar Wilde’s Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley was censored when it was first published in French in 1892.  It wasn’t until 1907 that it was republished with all the illustrations now uncensored.  Because of the nudity and sexuality depicted in the illustrations, the play was viewed as inappropriate during the fin de siècle.  Now, we know Salome to be progressive; a work that was ahead of its time and provided great commentary on female sexuality and the male gaze.  Beardsley illustrates from the perspective of the male gaze by featuring Salome in almost complete nudity throughout multiple images.  In images where Salome’s nude body is not on display, Beardsley uses other artistic elements to direct attention towards her.  I think more and more, women are being encouraged to do whatever makes them feel powerful and sexy, whether that be to display their...

more
Blog entry

Blog Post 7 Oct. 29

Posted by Simon Mancuso on Thursday, October 29, 2020 - 14:07

For this week's work on Salome I was tasked with presenting my discussion leading question to the class. The process of researching that discussion question posed a number of interesting challenges and opportunities to research the text in greater depth. The process of taking a single image and analyzing it in depth and in a way it can be communicated to the rest of the class in the form of productive discussion was difficult but the practice we have accumulated over our time in this course made the process much easier. For my presentation I focused specifically on Aubrey Beardsely’s “the Climax” and I can say with confidence that Beardsley’s style has been my favourite thus far. I found the japanese influence in his work to be particularly striking. The minimalist visuals marked a stark departure from the previous works we’ve studied. The images this week were rich with thematic depth and symbolic imagery that made them engaging to study. Connecting...

more

Pages