Something that occurred to me as we discussed Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is that these detective stories are functionally conservative texts. That is, the texts are concerned with maintaining a white, middle-class hegemony in Victorian England amidst a time of rapid cultural upheaval as they approach the turn of the century. Holmes figures into this as the ideal British subject (white, male, middle-class, English, rational) who regularly defends the other ideal British female subject from encroaching threats of the Other, whether that be the racialized/exoticized Other that we say in the “Speckled Band”, or the impoverished, fallen man as seen in the “Man with the Twisted Lip.” In both of these texts, Holmes is the one who is shown to defeat, bring to justice, or else “correct” the threat of the Other in the British homeland. In “The Speckled Band,” the oriental Other is literally defeated as Holmes safely contains...
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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.
Galleries, Timelines, and Maps
I enjoyed listening to the different perspectives of my peers during today's presentations. I often do not gravitate to mystery stories, therefore it was interesting to read the story and look at the images associated with it. One interesting thing I noticed was how Sidney Paget often used his images to express ideologies within their society at the time. For example, the image of the beggar man from “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” called him a “professional beggar.” This is significant because it alludes to the idea that poor people choose to be poor, that they are too lazy to contribute to society in a meaningful way. This is an idea that is still very relevant in society today, as people often forget about other factors that contribute to homelessness. His illustrations also brought forth gender relations and female agency, such as when Mrs. St. Clair is being grabbed by the opium den owner. This is important because it demonstrates how women are...
moreIn today's class we discussed Sherlock Holmes, the iconic detective figure in the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. We specifically discussed Sidney Paget's illustration of the text in The Man with the Twisted Lip" and "The Adventures of the Speckled Band" and how it worked with both the Victorian context and the text itself to create meaning. The discussions were informative as they opened my eyes to a variety of visual cues that I had not noticed. For example, in the vignette "At the foot of the stairs she met this Lascar scoundrel," it was interesting to see the black and white imagery that alluded to the gothic, mysterious and the unknown world of the "exotic" that was highlighted by placing dark shades of black behind the Southeast Asian character while placing bright white shades around the Victorian European women. The use of light and dark imagery to illustrate the British attitudes towards non-European people was astonishing and I wondered whether Paget included...
moreToday, along with several of my other classmates, I had the pleasure of presenting and analyzing an image from one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. What I most enjoyed about this class was how the atmosphere of collective discussion ended up highlighting and emphasizing points of interest in the text, image, and context that I (as a presenter) had not previously considered. For example, in my question - which touched on visual cues - I had not considered the shading in the image as significant until Dr. Kooistra and my other classmates mentioned it. Just touching on that one detail allowed for the discussion to be opened even further; to me, this highlighted just how necessary the contributive process of discussion can be in relation to individualized research.
What I also found interesting was how effective images are at portraying/expressing contemporary attitudes that surround the literary context. Through image analysis alone, we were able to explore...
moreSpecifically in "The Man With the Twisted Lip," the contrast between a text and its imge become obvious, as do the fin-de-siecle ideologies that both represent. In the image of the man that is described as being a "professional begger," ideologies surrounding homelessness and disability are represented, refecting common stereotypes around both that were common in society at the time of illustrtion and publication. Beginning with depictions of homelessness, Sidney Paget, although steering away from the description in the text that paints the man as monsrous and villanous, he upholds common stereotype with his use of dark and light imagery as well as facial expression. There is darkness surrounding the homeless man who the readers do not yet know, and his facial expression makes him appear helpless to the viewers. The dark energy that seems to be surrounding him furthers the idea that this character is the villain of the tale, and makes this idea known to readers. The same is true...
moreThis map documents significant places associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who were a nineteenth-century group of new wave artists (poets, painters, and critics). The goal of the Pre-Raphaelite movement was to go against traditional art and create something for the ‘modern age’.
The movement for women’s suffrage took many forms and involved many different groups and societies. The National Union of Women’s suffrage Societies (NUWSS) campaigned peacefully and aided the movement by signing petitions and publishing pamphlets and newspapers. The women involved in peaceful actions were known as suffragists. Organizations such as the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the Women’s Tax Resistance League (WTRL), resorted to more violent actions such as setting fires, vandalizing property, and hassling government officials. Women involved in the militant part of the Suffrage movement such as Clemence Housman were called suffragettes. In 1910 Clemence joined the WTRL and participated in protests which called for members to withhold their tax payments until the right to vote was won. On Friday, September 29th, 1911, Clemence was arrested outside of her Kensington home for purposefully resisting tax payment. Her arrest was supported by the...
moreSince the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminist text, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the women’s movement in Britain had grown exponentially. In the 1830s, the women’s movement turned their attention to women’s suffrage, with various groups dedicated to enfranchisement forming by the 1860s. The inability to vote meant women had few rights in comparison to men. As a result, the vote quickly became a symbol of civil and gender inequality that impassioned Victorian women across Britain. Groups such as the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the Artist Suffrage League (1907) relentlessly signed petitions, made speeches, held public demonstrations, and published feminist pictorial propaganda in journals and newspapers to garner support for the cause. Drawing inspiration from these groups, feminist author Clemence Housman and her brother Laurence, established the Suffrage Atelier in 1909, setting up headquarters in their small Kensington home. Led...
moreI found this week to be especially interesting because, rather than analyzing a story as I am so used to doing, I was simply asked to research and relay the technical details of my rendition of Christina Rosetti's Goblin Market. What I found so interesting about this was how my rendition had been altered in relation to its original publication, in order to suit its intended child audience. Examining the details of the illustrations - which were devoid of the poem's sexual subtext - really emphasized this fact, and led me to consider how one text can be interpreted for specific readerships. This became even more evident as I was able to look at my peers' curations; there were some that emphasized the poem's eroticism and even others that were only vaguely reminiscent of the original poem. Examining all the editions/renditions allowed me to understand just how versatile Rosetti's poem is; even further than that, these renditions show how much of a cultural...
moreI found the process of curation an interesting exercise because it challenged us to look at texts in the context of their production rather than their textual content. This is, for the most part, the opposite of what we have been trained to do as English students. It was nonetheless interesting to analyze a text in the context of its production: its history, its publishers, its editors, etc. “Goblin Market”s extensive history of reproduction was especially interesting because we got to trace its cultural transformation from poem, to art book, to children’s fairy story, to a Freudian treasure-trove, to pulp fiction and so on. I gained a new appreciation for the knowledge contained in the paratext.
However, this week was also an example of how virtual classes can be a hindrance. The curation exercise would undoubtedly be much easier if we were able to physically access the texts we were working with, rather than...
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Individual Entries
Christina Rossetti was an English poet who was born in London on December 5th, 1830. She had volunteered at the St Mary Magdalene house also known as “Magdalene Asylum” in the Whitechapel district of London, England from 1859 to 1870. During that time she had come to know the women that lived there. Many of the women who lived at this shelter were believed to be prostitutes and lower class. There is speculation that these women were the inspiration for Christina Rossetti’s characters “Laura” and “Lizzie” in Goblin Market. Many of the women living there formed bonds of friendship and sisterhood that led to the Goblin Market’s strong themes of feminism and also helps account for the erotic themes throughout the poem.
Sources
Thor, Jowita. "Religious and Industrial Education in the Nineteenth-Century Magdalene Asylums in Scotland." Studies in Church History, vol. 55, 06/01/2019, pp. 347-362, doi:10.1017/stc.2018...
moreHatchard's bookshop was founded in 1797 by John Hatchards. It is London's oldest bookshop, located at 187 Piccadilly Street. Its location has changed slightly through the years, but always on Piccadilly. Hatchard's has attracted such prolific writers as Oscar Wilde, Beatrix Potter, Lord Byron, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It hosted the early meetings of the Royal Society of Literature (founded in 1820).
The popular Atalanta magazine, marketed as a high-class literary publication for young girls, was launched by Hatchards in 1887. It was distributed monthly, for the cost of sixpence. Unfortunately, Atalanta magazine was discontinued in December 1898.
During William Holeman Hunt’s career, he illustrated three different interpretations of the “Lady of Shalott”. His most infamous rendition of the “Lady of Shallot” was painted over the course of twenty years using oil paint. This final art piece was displayed in the Wadsworth Atheneum, located at 600 Main Street, in Hartford, Connecticut. The museum was founded by Daniel Wadsworth in 1842, the same year that the "Lady of Shallot" was published for Tennyson's collection Poems. Although he initially intended to establish a “Gallery of Fine Arts”, Wadsworth redirected his course toward a more culturally based institution. The Wadsworth Atheneum displays art and artifacts that are dedicated to history, literature, art, and science.
A Christmas Carol does reference the city of London a few times in the story but does not include any connections to real geographical locations within the city. It is appropriate that the story take place in London since that is where Charles Dickens lived and how he wanted to share this story about poverty and labour with the people in London. The timing of book’s release was also important because it was just before Christmas and the novella made a popular gift for many who could afford it for five shillings. Many of Dickens’ works also took place within London as well.