This week, our focus was Lord Alfred Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott' which is includes aspects of Arthurian legend. I learned that the poem was in print for 25 years before the 1857 version was published with its illustrations by William Holman Hunt and Daniel Gabriel Rossetti. Our focus today was to make meaning between the originally published poem and its accompanying illustrations. Naturally, my mind gravitated towards understanding women in the cultural moment of the Victorian era; which delegated them to their homes to protect their chastity and sensibilities. However, it wasn't enough to create meaning. Professor Janzen mentioned crinolines or hoop skirts, skeletal garments that women wore under their dresses to make them voluminous and keep their shape. Connecting this idea that while women took up physical space in public, through poems like 'Lady of Shallot', women were being confined within the bounds of these poems as passive, chaste figures whose deaths depict them as...
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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.
Individual Entries
I really enjoyed the process of annotating “The Lady of Shalott” and the two illustrations by different Pre-Raphaelite artists. I was even more so intrigued with the poem in compaison to the other works we have looked at. It was so easy to read and felt like it the analyzing came extremely naturally and allowed for soem great food for thought. I annotated a piece in Part IV that was talking about the blood freezing within the Lady of Shalott and her mournful singing. That piece of the poem held some really vivid and dark imagery that was breathtaking to read. Interpretating the images was extremely rewarding as well but for myself personally, the poem was my favourite that we have looked at thus far. I feel as thought my perosnaly intermretation of the images and text were very much so aligned with the perspectives of my peers, but being able ot hear others perspective is very important to me so I can grasp the best understanding that I can of the images and...
moreIn performing annotations for both image and text there were a number of things that I found particularly engaging both within the text and the context of “The Lady of Shalott”. Firstly, I will say that I found the text itself to be incredibly engaging. This is the first poem that we have studied in this course and I found the medium to be one that I particularly enjoyed. The way in which Tennyson was able to weave together a narrative while retaining the flow of his poetry was impressive. With regard to the content itself I particularly enjoyed the references to Arthurian legend that were made throughout the text. The comparisons between the idealized Camelot and Victorian era england are something that I find interesting if not mildly controversial. Furthermore I found that the poetry format really lent itself well to the creation of illustration as the language used throughout was incredibly dense both symbolically and thematically. With regard to...
moreThis week, we looked at the poem "The Lady of Shalott", and had a chance to annotate parts of it individually, and then together, for the image portion of the text. My group annotated William Holman Hunt's illustration for the text; this image is a wood-engraved framed inset illustration, denoted by the linear border that surrounds it on the page. What I found most fascinating about this image is how it essentially encapsulates the entirety of the poem. Understanding the image within its historical context helped to illuminate the broader interpretation of the poem. Knowing that the period in which the poem was written was one in which women were constrained by the mores of their society speaks to how The Lady is herself trapped by her weaving materials within the photo. This understanding is furthered by the contrasting reflections of Sir Lancelot in one mirror alongside the image of Jesus' crucifixion. As was touched upon in class...
moreI enjoyed doing the annotations on content and craft last week, but I felt as though doing them for “The Lady of Shalott” proved to be very helpful. I often struggle to understand poetry, therefore it was helpful to have the opportunity to take a close look into the text. I also enjoyed listening to what my group members had to say, but also being able to see what other students wrote for the parts we were not assigned to. We were assigned the first image by WHH, therefore there were a lot of details that I did not notice. Her hair was very unruly and took up a large portion of the page, but when I first saw the image I thought that was a ceiling design which altered the feel of the image a little.
Learning about the context of the time period was helpful in understanding the message that might have been trying to come through. I think women’s issues were very significant during this time, therefore I do...
moreAnnotating "The Lady of Shalott" was an engaging process. Tennyson layers references and commentary on the social position of women and their lack of social mobility. The first impression of the poem is the base description of the Lady falling to her doom through her attraction to Lancelot. However, there are more intricate details within the poem that come to light through a focused critical analysis. The text is rife with allusions but what I enjoyed most was the symbols of the constrained life of the Lady of Shalott.
In William Holman Hunt's interpretation, the isolation of the Lady is exaggerated through her immediate physical bonds (the wool that she is weaving around herself) and those that have been imposed upon her by external forces in the form of her tower. This is superimposed by smothering guilt in the illustrations within her chamber. The frame to the left seems to depict shields (representing the work of the state to protect her), the frame on the right depicts...
moreThis week's class was once again focused on the text-image relationship but it was also very much focused on the weekly reading which gave great historical context on illustrators and how they went about illustrating their images. For example, as mentioned in class, the poem itself was published 25 years before its illustrations were released which not only shows how popular the poem was 2 decades after its releas, but also how the ilustrators grew up reading the poem since childhood. Therefore, the poem's illustration is a mix of the illustrator's childhood envisionment of the poem, and their analetical perspective towards the poem 2 decades later.
A striking point that really piqued my interest in teh first illustration was how giant the Lady of Shalott looked in her tower. I think that was a great way to symbolize how little space there is for her physically and mentally as she imagines the outside world and how it looks like. Furtheremore, understanding the historical...
moreThe scene of The Lady of Shallot that intrigued me the most is when she first begins looking at Sir Lancelot through the mirror, and the idea of her desiring him in a possibly romantic and/or sexual way is introduced. I found this scene most intriguing because of the nature of how it is written tied into her character - The Lady of Shallot is trapped, and as such she is presented to the readers as a character that is unable to act upon her desires since she cannot leave the tower. The very act of her looking at Sir Lancelot through the mirror can be read as going against the expectations that are set out for her, since it is her gaze that causes her to act out of the established norm as the poem progresses. The image that my group curated, which was the Hunt illustration of the Lady herself, was exemplary of this scene and placed the illustrators own ideas (based on the time of which they were being curated) onto the scene. It depicts the Lady as being one that, although trapped,...
moreSpecifically looking at The Moxon Tennyson (1857) that contained the illustrated image by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, it was quite dark to me. The image looked quite medival while Lancelot finds the Lady’s dead body and stands over her. This particular image helped me with better understanding the innocence that the Lady carries. The symbolism of her purity and femininity is shown here through the setting. The water and swans show her delicance as well as her body being placed so graciously. This helped engage me with the text more as I was able to visualize a grieving scene through an image; "Died themselves of royal cheer;/And they'd cross themselves with fear;." There is also a subtle message of male dominance in the image as Lancelot stands over the Lady's dead body, possibly demonstrating his power over her. In text that is associated with this image, Lancelot also states "'She has a lovely face'", almost implying that he only sees her for who she...
moreI really enjoyed reading the 1857 Moxon publication of The Lady of Shalott this week. In short conversation at the beginning of the lecture, a few important details stuck with me and further developed my understanding of the poem as a work in time. To begin, the fact that The Lady of Shallot was a poem that came before the 1857 publication, speaks lengths to the interpretive aspects of the art that was later included. I thought it was interesting that the artists had grown up reading and forming their own opinions on the text, before making their own illustrations.
Although both artists use the wood engraving method of print, their visual representations of The Lady highlight contrasting character/content interpretations. With William...
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