Despite the class being done through Zoom and there were some complications, I thought exploring Victorian Illustrated books through the various methods was interesting—especially as it brought new ideas and interpretations. For everyone’s presentations, I found it interesting that everyone literally thought of such different topics even though they were generally the same book (just published and done with different illustrations), it really shows that interpretation really is up to the artist and that the reader is an active participant to meaning-making. In that sense, even though the Victorian books were first published in that time period, it’s the power of the artist and audience that renews it and there are still echoes of the original evident in whatever rendition made.

I was kind of expecting this class to be the same as how it’s been when I’ve taken other past literature classes—repetitive and coming to the same conclusion, generally a boring or static class. But, with this one it brought everyone’s opinions and their ideas into a collaborative space that we built together, I think that’s neat. Oh, and COVE, although I had some complications with it in the beginning, it’s unique in bringing the class together and making it interactive and more fluid in adding information, plus the resources are always nice to refer to when necessary. Overall, it was an interesting experience as I’ve never thought about all the various editions of the same books—like I knew about it, but it’s never really clicked, y’know? So it’s definitely an informative method in analyzing these books.