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.
  • McKinney’s 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 us. It is stimulating to think of what they thought or created, which I feel creates this loop of human connection. But at the same time, it raises new questions and new paths as each generation or even just an individual has something unique to bring.

  • The most significant point of growth that stemmed from my commonplace book differed from what I expected. Having spent time within previous courses that employ a feminist lens or with a particular interest in women’s role in authorship or within novels themselves, I expected those themes to dominate my commonplace book. While at the beginning, I did select items or quotes that had women’s roles at the forefront, such as noticing the unique connection Mary Shelley brings as her mother is Mary Wollstonecraft, or Jane Eyre’s recurring ideas about femininity, marriage, and women’s health, I started to shift around the middle of the term. With The Picture of Dorian Gray, I stumbled upon ideas that I had truly never thought about before and that were not associated with feminism in literature. I will delve into this idea later in my discussion of new ideas I hope to take from this course, thanks to commonplacing.

  • 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 felt more natural to me. I like the idea of writing out what interests me in a way that seems permanent and recursive to the practice of historical commonplacing. 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.

Commonplace Book Highlights – green links to each CPB entry page

  •  At the beginning of my entries, I aimed to stay on a theme within each entry, such as looking for similarities from the novel and then the secondary criticism, historical context, and visuals. For instance, my entries on Jane Eyre followed a theme with each entry. One of my favorites was my entry #4 on marriage and Jane’s newfound independence 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), and followed with some historical context with marriage laws at the time and Bodichon’s remarks on them, which stems from previous work in another English course, “Criminals, Idiots & Minors: Victorian Women & The Law.” I ended with a visual of Bertha as I was just interested in depicting the scene where she sees Jane the night before her wedding (Garrett “The Figure of Bertha Mason” British Library). This entry showcases how I leave breadcrumbs of sorts for myself to items I found connected with this theme of marriage and just what one piece of the entry stirred up that led me to the next.

  • Another entry that highlights this earlier organization for me was also with Jane Eyre. At the end of the novel, I became very interested in what Brontë accomplishes by ending the novel in entry #5 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. I found a connection to the end of the novel, where they discuss death, who deserves a Christian ending versus who doesn’t, and 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. Many say he resembles St. John, and I could look for similarities or themes in the novel surrounding St. John’s proposal to Jane versus Henry Nussey’s proposal to Emily Brontë (AnneBronte.org). As there was so much discussion of the missionaries’ work 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 entry #7, where I was putting down items that I just simply liked; for instance, the quotes from the novel are not all necessarily connected or the later material I put down, but they struck me as interesting or just beautiful writing. As I will mention later, the critical commentary 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 different emerged when looking at the historical context of Punch magazine as well. 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, grabbed 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 particular but fascinating 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. Looking at Wilde’s writing, I felt something interesting in this critique of the power of good and bad influence on a person’s self-development. Meaning, in the scope of the novel, realizing one’s own desires, needs, interests, etc. Here, we see an influential 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 influencer culture of today – propelled to new heights by social media. If looking at 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. Then, I can also bring my political science interests to the table by wondering how this take on influence today has political implications and why certain atmospheres created by social media/influence have already altered mainstream politics.

  1. Citarella, Joshua. “Are We Ready for Social Media Influencers Shaping Politics? .” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Apr. 2021, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/24/social-media-influencers-shaping-politics.
    ↩︎
  2. Keating, Lydia. “I’m an Influencer, and I Think Social Media Is Toxic.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 1 Feb. 2022, slate.com/technology/2022/02/instagram-tiktok-influencer-social-media-dangers.html.
    ↩︎
  • Part II. Synthesizing & Applying:

2QSQ Connections

  • I do think that my commonplace book can connect with some of my 2QSQs which tend to be all textual and primarily from the novel itself. For example, my 2QSQ on Jane Eyre follows this interest in Jane’s feminism, and we can see in this case, I am questioning how the readers at the time felt she as a character was represented. These tend to be more focused on monster theory but I do see how her feminism comes back into my CPB with her marriage and new status and sense of autonomy.
2QSQ #5 – 10/2/23

With this other 2QSQ on Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, I can see how early on I was interested in influence and this idea of monstrosity stemming from the inability to think for yourself or how important it is in who you surround yourself with. Again, with my 2QSQs, I did bring the discussion back around to monster characteristics, but I can see how these ideas of personhood and society begin to shape up with help from the novel.

2QSQ #9 – 10/30/23


Exploration of relevant contexts enhancing my reading of the novels

  • The type of relevant contexts I looked to in most of my entries for my CPB stemmed from either the British Library, the Victorian Web, or scholarly articles from the back section of novels. When we had more specific directions – such as our assignment of looking at Welcome Catalog artifacts- I enjoyed spending time with interesting primary sources that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. A more fun source that I also got really into was a podcast on Jane Eyre called On Eyre from Hot and Bothered. They went into sections by chapter to analyze if Jane Eyre is still relevant and important enough to continue reading for personal or academic purposes. I found this super helpful in adding to what I had picked up by reading the novel, and it brought my thinking to new places. For instance, like with my example from CPB entry #4, I thought more about the religious element of the ending and how each character had an interesting personal connection to religion. Another part of my entries usually came from contemporary pieces of scholarly criticism that I would look up and get a sense of what the professional writing community is noticing and raising about each novel. For the case of my idea that came from reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, these pieces of scholarly work were helpful in setting off new ideas for my own writing.