ENGL 628 Jane Eyre Neo-Victorian Appropriations Dashboard

Leader

Kate Oestreich

Description

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography (1847) is a seminal text in the Western feminist literature canon, published fifty-five years after Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and a year before the Seneca Falls convention launched the feminist movement in Western culture. Scores of authors, directors, and digital producers have attempted not just to adapt but to appropriate, revise, and modernize Charlotte Bronte’s most famous novel. Antonija Primorac contends that the current vogue of neo-Victorianism is “a powerful trend in contemporary Anglophone media” pointing to the “continuous production of adaptations and appropriations of Victorian literature and culture.” In order to be considered neo-Victorian, Ann Heilmann and Mark Llewellyn posit that “texts (literary, filmic, audio / visual) must in some respect be self-consciously engaged with the act of (re)interpretation, (re)discovery and (re)vision concerning the Victorians” (emphasis in original). In this class, we will explore the creative and rhetorical choices twentieth- and twenty-first-century authors have made when appropriating, revising, and modernizing Jane Eyre’s narrative, paying particular attention to gender ideology in the Victorian era and in more recent times. In this course, we will also leverage the new media capabilities of the COVE (Central Online Victorian Educator) web site in order to examine more deeply the impact of multimodal writing and digital technology on literary studies in the twenty-first century.

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Individual Entries

Blog entry

Fire Sermon

Posted by KENNETH LAREMORE on Wednesday, October 2, 2019 - 15:39

Gemma Hardy p. 358

 

On June 8, 1873, the volcano Laki in south Iceland tore open a 16-mile fissure that erupted over nine cubic miles of lava. This eruption would kill over 50% of Iceland’s livestock population as well as 25% of the human population. Its effects were felt the world over with fluorine, sulfur dioxide, ash, sand, and drastically cooled temperatures reaching North America and Africa. The eruption lasted eight months. From the day the eruption began, a humble priest named Jon Steingrimsson would deliver his “fire sermon”, a sermon he delivered after all the townspeople of Kirkjubaejarklaustur were assembled in the church, a giant wall of lava approaching. At the  brief sermon’s conclusion, the lava had changed course, sparing the towns people.

https://www.metafilter.com/79882/The-flood-of-fire-flowed-...

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Lucozade

Posted by Lindsay Hickman on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - 12:28
Blog entry

Purposeful Mis-Naming of Main Character

Posted by Lindsay Hickman on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - 12:11

In both Jane Eyre and The Flight of Gemma Hardy characters repeatedly call the main characters by a wrong name. But while in Jane Eyre it seems to be a mis-name, or a pet name, In The Flight of Gemma Hardy it is very purposeful. Gemma changes her name to Jean after leaving Sinclair and begin searching for a job. She not only changes her name, but increases her age on job applications and creates more or less a false identity. From this point on the story and Jane Eyre differ greatly. While Jane is called Janet repeatedly by different characters, Gemma goes for over a half a dozen chapters by Jean, fooling everyone around her, including her fiance. 

Chronology Entry

Bevin Boys

Posted by Alyssa Isaac on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - 11:35
Place

Helgafell

Posted by Lindsay Hickman on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - 11:35

Helgafell is an important location for Gemma's family history. Gemma's father and Kristjana skipped school one day and attempted to climb the mountain silently so their wishes would be granted...but Kristjana fell and screamed so neither of their wishes would come true. (422). 

Helgafell ("holy mountain") is a small mountain on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula of Iceland. The mountain is 240 ft high, and houses a temple in honor of Thor was built there by the first settler of the area, Þórólfr Mostrarskegg. Helgafell also appears in the Laxdæla saga as the location where the heroine Guðrún Ósvífrsdóttir last lived and is supposedly where she is buried. 

Place

Stykkishólmur

Posted by Lindsay Hickman on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - 11:29

The homeland of the majority of Gemma's Icelandic family. This family has deep roots in fishing and boating, they have Viking roots and pride in their heritage. This is also where Gemma finds out more about her own history, and her original Norse/Icelandic name. While Gemma Hardy is the titular character's name throughout the book, it takes until one of the later chapters for the readers to find out her actual Icelandic name of Fjola Einarsdottir, and to finally see her parents graves. Fjola means Violet and is also the name used for girls. Einarsdottir is a popular last name in Sweeden, Iceland and Denmark, all home to great Norse mythological stories and histories. While most other Iceland characters names are connected to Norse mythology or history of the area, Fjola is not related to any gods or goddesses. It does raise the question that Hallie asks on page 411 "I wonder why you were not called Violet in Scotland." 
The town was discovered in 1550 when a...

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Place

Holland Park

Posted by Alyssa Isaac on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - 10:40

The park is spread across 54 acres on what was once the grounds of Cope Castle, a large Jacobean mansion hidden deep in the woods. Later, it was renamed Holland House after the Earl of Holland's wife, Lady Rich inherited the property. During WWII, Holland House was badly damaged, leaving only one wing and a section of the front terrace. The neighborhoods that surround this area today are known for its celebrity and high-powered executive residents. The area is also known for its stucco mansions, fancy boutiques and tranquil atmosphere that offers a reprieve from the busy nearby locations of High Street Kensington and Notting Hill Gate. In Livesey's The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Mr. Sinclair mentioned that they would go directly to London and spend their honeymoon at his house located near here (p. 254). 

Bibliography

Livesey, Margot. The Flight of Gemma Hardy. HarperCollins, 2012.

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Chronology Entry

Mr. Rochester Vision Improves

Posted by Lindsay Hickman on Monday, September 30, 2019 - 13:18
Chronology Entry

Birth Control Pill Released in Great Britain

Posted by Lindsay Hickman on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 10:07
Chronology Entry

End of Rationing Begins

Posted by Lindsay Hickman on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 18:31

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