Today’s class introduced the first samples of research in this course, applying the pressure of the final Capstone project.

The focus of the group assignment was a short post on the “Victorian Illustrated Books Timeline”. I found it very hard to differentiate what and what not to include amongst the overwhelming amount of information. Speaking on the collaborative component of the breakout rooms, my group focused specifically on Christina Rossetti’s The Goblin Market. This poem seemed to me a recurring discussion in the realm of Victorian literature, and it was through our research today that I finally understood why. In a different course, I had to look at The Goblin Market through a specified lens, analyzing the different ways it related to the Romantic era during the 19th Century. The relationship between image and text was not as important there, as it was in today’s findings. 

The most significant aspect I took away from Rossetti’s poem has to be the relationship between the text and the two images illustrated by her brother Dante Gabriel. The text lends way to art and allows the reader to experience and visualize the action, rather than using the images to direct the mind for them. The illustrations almost seem unnecessary with Rossetti’s use of descriptive and romanticised language, however the artwork plays a crucial role in opening up the interpretive aspects of the text. We learned that illustration as a whole is an artist’s interpretation, and that was evident in Dante Gabriel’s seemingly feminist take on Rossttti’s poem.