Part 1: Commonplacing Notes:
"In our pursuit of knowledge, we often desire a traceable path in our growth. For our ancestors and a select few modern writers, commonplace books provided a way to look back through past developments and brainstorm new experiences. Where they pasted drawings and photographs, we pin images on Pinterest. Where they jotted down notes and clipped readings, we tweet short blurbs and recommended links. To keep a commonplace is instinctual to intellectual cultivation." Kelsey McKinney, “Social Media: Nothing New? Commonplace Books as Precursors to Pinterest,” Ransom Center Magazine, June 9, 2015, https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine.
- Discussion of McKinney’s observations on the practice of keeping a commonplace book
- I feel her observation on the importance of commonplacing in finding connections and coming up with new ideas from the past holds very true for me. As I have gone through this course making entries on each novel, within each one, I always find myself thinking of a past class connection, another novel, or thinking of contemporary connections. I think that this concept of intellectual cultivation is also super interesting when we think about how we acquire knowledge in the first place, even before there were established institutions for learning, never mind the internet, people have longed to find a connection with what those who have gone before them thought or created – it does create this loop of human connection but at the same time raises new questions and new paths as each generation or even just individuals have something unique to bring.
- General description of my commonplace book
- For my commonplace book, I chose to organize it by novels and then with each entry allowing for exploration into the text of the novel itself, historical connections via primary sources, criticism, reviews, etc., then contemporary criticism as well as visual sources to allow me to feel less limited thematically and find what I am interested in more organically as they emerged within each novel. Yet, I did try to stay on a particular theme for all the aspects of those mediums that I started to find limiting as I moved through our novels, and by the end, I had a variety of interests depicted in each section of my entries. I also chose to keep my commonplace book in an actual physical book which to me just felt more real…I like the idea of writing out what interests me in a way that seems permanent and also recursive to the practice of commonplacing historically. I definitely see aspects of McKinney’s argument within my commonplace book as I find threads that connect all my entries, even though they move from more specific interests stemming from the novel to later a broader branching out.
- Discussion of 2-3 examples from my entries that illustrate my approach and interests
- At the beginning of my entries, I found myself looking to stay on a theme within each entry; such as looking for similarities from the novel to then the secondary criticism, historical context, and visuals. For instance, my entries on Jane Eyre followed a theme with each entry. Two of my favorites here were one on marriage and Jane’s newfound independence stemming from her ‘recovery’ of her fortune/inheritance discussed in the novel(Brontë 536), then I grabbed an article following up on marriage commentary but adding layers of doubling thinking of Bertha (Diedrich), then gave some historical context with marriage laws at the time and Bodichon’s remarks on them which stems from previous work in another English class titled “Criminals, Idiots & Minors: Victorian Women & The Law”. Then, I ended with a visual of Bertha as I was just interested in the depiction of the scene where she sees Jane the night before her wedding (Garrett “The Figure of Bertha Mason” British Library).
- Another entry that highlights this earlier organization for me was also with Jane Eyre, and it was at the end of the novel that I became very interested in what Brontë accomplishes by ending the way she does with a rundown of everyone’s story, but the final word being on St. John (Brontë 556). From that, I chose to look at some critical commentary from a podcast titled “On Eyre” from the Hot and Bothered series and found a connection to the end of the novel, where they discuss death and who deserves a Christian ending versus who doesn’t and also the effect of even finishing someone’s story in a certain way (On Eyre). From this, I became super intrigued by Brontë’s own relationship with the colonial missionary endeavors of Britain at the time and found a letter she wrote to her good friend Ellen Nussey about her brother, who many say resembles St. John and how I could look for similarities or themes that find there way into the novel surrounding St. John’s proposal to Jane vs Henry Nussey’s proposal to Emily Brontë (AnneBronte.org). As there was so much discussion of the work of the missionaries and in class, we spent time on the idea of Jane’s domestic imperialism, I found a visual from the British Library of a Juvenile Missionary Magainze and found that to connect as well. (British Library).
- The last entry I want to highlight, later in the semester, I think, showcases how my thinking changed in what I wanted to put down in my entries and how much broader my connections were as opposed to these very text-specific on-theme entries at the beginning of the term. From Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” I chose the entry where I was putting down much more that I just simply liked, for instance, the quotes from the novel are not all necessarily connected to one another or the later material I put down but they struck me as interesting or just beautiful writing (Wilde 42-97). The critical commentary, as I will mention later, was one piece of content that led me to think even more about this idea of influence that wasn’t explicit in the novel but made me wonder more about our changes in what influence means today( Stern 763). Then something completely different emerged in looking at the historical context from Punch magazine I wanted to know more about how this novel was perceived by the public and not just how the legal world saw him and his work and then took some images again, not necessarily related but just for me to get more context into the personas of Wilde, as we discussed in class how Wilde as a celebrity figure is different than how he as a person might identify. (UCLA Library)
- A projection or sketch of further research, reading, or writing projects my commonplace book supports or inspires
- For me, one very specific but incredibly interesting topic has jumped out of my commonplace book from the novels – I think it can apply to all of them in a way, but specifically The Picture of Dorian Gray – and that is the discourses surrounding influence. In looking at Wilde’s examination, I’d allege a critique of the power of influence, both good and bad, on a person’s ability to truly foster self-development – meaning in the scope of the novel or realize one’s own desires, needs, interests, etc. We see here a powerful actor in Lord Henry who puts forth this theory of influence yet deliberately influences Dorian and allows him to play out his own experience, thus barring him from truly developing his own character and life. From this, I wish to explore further how this novel foreshadows the influence culture of today – propelled to new heights by social media, and if looking to Wilde’s work, we can find an avenue to combat this toxic grip of social media’s false influence over increasingly more susceptible generations losing the ability to discern reality and show, genuine tastes and commodified consumerism.
Kelsey McKinney observes that commonplace books function like roadmaps of one’s intellectual development → the route may be circuitous, but when we look through a commonplace book, it becomes possible to see “past developments and [to] brainstorm new experiences.”
→ with the premise that commonplacing is “instinctual to intellectual cultivation”…
- Which entries are the most notable signposts of the development of my thinking about our course themes or questions? (discussed above)
Part 2: Synthesizing and Applying – Discussion of connection(s) to relevant 2Q-S-Q entries
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- 2QSQ on influence (Wilde) – follow up with CPB entry on influence and why this moment (Fin de siècle) may add to my other ideas of influence today and the strong feels of societal shifts/change/degeneration
SOURCE IDEAS:
“England is bad enough, I know, and English society is all wrong. That is the reason why I want you to be fine. You have not been fine. One has a right to judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour, of goodness of purity. You have filled them with a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You led them there. Yes: you led them there, and yet you can smile, as you are smiling now. And there is worse behind. I know you and Harry are inseparable” (183)
“Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood— his rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He knew he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption, and given horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that, of the lives that had crossed his own, it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him? (248).
SYNTHESIZING COMMENT/ANALYSIS:
These two passages, nearing the end of the novel, bring up themes of English society, corruption/influence, mirroring/doubling within Dorian and Harry, as well as this final hope/question of redemption and a correction of one’s past. The first quote I found interesting as it brings in a lot of commentary and critique of their society and the feelings at the turn of the century — also remembering ideas in the past chapters about corruption from books, which side of town was desirable or seedy and how people based their judgments off of one’s appearance and social actions. I liked the contrast to the first quote we see in this second excerpt, where Basil told all this to Dorian right before he saw the portrait, and only after Dorian murders does he begin to feel remorse and wish to atone. The questioning we see from Dorian and his rationale as he moves from the influences of Harry to Basil is intriguing.
QUESTION:
In terms of monsters, this shifting moment toward acknowledging his monstrous behaviors and deeds is something to think about further when we look for people to blame. I wonder what we, and readers at the time, could look to and grapple with regarding this idea of corruption and pleasures. Does Dorian perhaps represent this middle ground, swayed by both Basil and Harry…but which proved stronger and why? Dorian is his own person, unlike what we saw with Jekyll and Hyde; is Wilde’s choice to portray Dorian more as a blank slate, maybe reminiscent of critiques made way back in Frankenstein?
- 2QSQ on Jane’s feminism (Brontë) – follow up with CPB entry on independence and marriage and what that could bring to discussions on Jane’s feminist attitudes yet monstrous doubling with Bertha.
PART 1: PREPARING FOR DISCUSSION
SOURCE IDEAS:
“Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? —You think wrong! — I have just as much soul as you, — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am, not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal, — as we are!” (338).
“As regards the author’s chief object, however, it is a failure — that namely, of making a plain, odd woman, destitute of all the conventional features of feminine attraction, interesting in our sight. We deny that he has succeeded in this. Jane Eyre, in spite of some good things about her, is a being totally uncongenial to our feelings from beginning to end”.(592) — Rigby’s Quarterly Review, 1848.
SYNTHESIZING COMMENT/ANALYSIS:
With these two passages, I am thinking about how we might look into the public perception of Jane as both this beacon of feminist thinking of her time, full of questions and revolutionary thinking regarding social/class structures of England, and then this idea of her “unnatural” unearthly” connotations throughout the novel. This quote from chapter 23 is so poignant that I can’t pass it by without acknowledging it and just the sheer power it brings through the page. Not only is this an example of one of her moments where she truly speaks her mind, forgoing this ‘doctrine of endurance’ and is unashamedly bold, but think of the social conventions she alludes to that a poor, plain governess could speak in such a way to a wealthy, high-standing man. Looking at the argument Rigby makes in this review, they acknowledge how popular this book is — but immediately jump into naming all the reasons why it is dangerous. I am thinking of how this brings in our discussion of monster theory and the idea that there is such a lack of categorization implied within Jane and why these reviewers would feel she is just totally not relatable — shunned, so to speak, from the ‘conventional features of feminine attraction”. She is poor, an orphan, a woman — this is what is supposed to define her. Yet, she is the rightful inheritor of decent wealth, intelligent, and caught the attention of a conventionally superior man. She subverts so many of these boxes that gave the Victorian culture its order, and perhaps this could play into further discussion of Brontë’s choices to craft the novel in such a way where the interior of a person cannot fit in with this constructed society.
QUESTION:
Why do we think the public responded so greatly to Jane’s character and perhaps found these moments of rebellious thinking and redefining femininity so relatable, yet reviewers think her so unappealing? What might this say about this genre’s ability to generate a desire to live through this mysterious, thrilling, adventurous but not truly wishing to participate in its reality?
- Discussion of how your exploration of relevant contexts enhanced or influenced your reading of the novels
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