Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0001
Roshnara Kissoon
The character of Mary Watson first appears in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four (1890). Scholars have read Mary as a personification of late nineteenth-century British imperial and societal anxieties. Mary is identified both with the dangerous colonial Other and New Woman and, conversely, with the “pure” and safe British domestic order that uneasily triumphs over these threatening forces. Though the critical discourse on Conan Doyle’s work acknowledges the ambivalence surrounding Mary, many critics ignore her eventual childless death in the original Holmes canon. Considering Karen Beckman’s study of the Victorian “vanishing woman” magic act, Mary’s death can be interpreted as this sort of “vanishing”—one that further resists the uneasy containment of the threats so often read in Conan Doyle’s novel. In the television series Sherlock (2010–17) created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, Mary Watson performs Beckman’s vanishing act in full, reappearing after her onscreen death. Though Sherlock’s Mary is seemingly divorced from her original Victorian context, a closer reading of her trajectory in the series suggests that the model of the “vanishing woman” is very much the same—with the historical points of context merely substituted. Sherlock’s treatment of Mary’s character in the twenty-first century, then, seems surprisingly even more inhibitive and violent than that of Mary’s character in its nineteenth century source material.
{"title":"Mary Watson’s Vanishing Acts: From The Sign of Four to Sherlock","authors":"Roshnara Kissoon","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The character of Mary Watson first appears in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four (1890). Scholars have read Mary as a personification of late nineteenth-century British imperial and societal anxieties. Mary is identified both with the dangerous colonial Other and New Woman and, conversely, with the “pure” and safe British domestic order that uneasily triumphs over these threatening forces. Though the critical discourse on Conan Doyle’s work acknowledges the ambivalence surrounding Mary, many critics ignore her eventual childless death in the original Holmes canon. Considering Karen Beckman’s study of the Victorian “vanishing woman” magic act, Mary’s death can be interpreted as this sort of “vanishing”—one that further resists the uneasy containment of the threats so often read in Conan Doyle’s novel. In the television series Sherlock (2010–17) created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, Mary Watson performs Beckman’s vanishing act in full, reappearing after her onscreen death. Though Sherlock’s Mary is seemingly divorced from her original Victorian context, a closer reading of her trajectory in the series suggests that the model of the “vanishing woman” is very much the same—with the historical points of context merely substituted. Sherlock’s treatment of Mary’s character in the twenty-first century, then, seems surprisingly even more inhibitive and violent than that of Mary’s character in its nineteenth century source material.","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126655196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0185
Lydia Craig
{"title":"Annette R. Federico. My Victorian Novel: Critical Essays in the Personal Voice.","authors":"Lydia Craig","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0185","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132949794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0190
Eric G. Lorentzen
{"title":"Adam Grener. Improbability, Chance, and the Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel.","authors":"Eric G. Lorentzen","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0190","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133153613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0065
Lauren A Cameron
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017), the debut novel by Scottish writer Gail Honeyman, represents an ingenious adaptation of Jane Eyre that appeals strongly to modern book clubs. Eleanor Oliphant’s intertextual approach is not a straightforward translation of the events of Charlotte Brontë’s novel but rather a thoughtful transformation of its themes and characters. Moreover, the allusions to Jane Eyre are interwoven so thoroughly throughout Eleanor Oliphant that a reader with any degree of familiarity with Brontë’s novel will notice them and be able to comment on them. Eleanor Oliphant was the flagship selection for Reese Witherspoon’s enormously popular book club, “Reese’s Book Club,” which depends on social media to promote her selections, including Goodreads, an Amazon-owned book review platform. These social media platforms’ rating scales and digestible blurbs, as well as the imprimatur of a well-liked celebrity, provide the opportunity to choose middlebrow books quickly that the reading community will enjoy discussing with their friends. Eleanor Oliphant’s success provides a compelling model for authors looking to reimagine classic literature for modern audiences in addition to scholars looking to understand the appeal of popular fiction in our technologically oriented society.
苏格兰作家盖尔·霍尼曼的处女作《埃莉诺·奥列芬特很好》(2017)是对《简·爱》的巧妙改编，在现代读书俱乐部中非常受欢迎。埃莉诺·奥列芬特的互文方法并不是对夏洛特Brontë小说中事件的直接翻译，而是对其主题和人物的深思熟虑的转换。此外，在《埃莉诺·奥列芬特》中，对简·爱的典故交织在一起，任何熟悉Brontë小说的读者都能注意到这些典故，并能对此发表评论。埃莉诺·奥列芬特是瑞茜·威瑟斯彭(Reese Witherspoon)非常受欢迎的读书俱乐部“瑞茜读书俱乐部”(Reese’s book club)的旗舰读物，该俱乐部依靠社交媒体推广她的书，包括亚马逊旗下的书评平台Goodreads。这些社交媒体平台的评分标准和易于理解的简介，以及广受欢迎的名人的认可，提供了快速选择阅读社区喜欢与朋友讨论的中级书籍的机会。埃莉诺·奥列芬特的成功为那些想要为现代读者重新构想经典文学的作家和想要理解通俗小说在我们这个以技术为导向的社会中的吸引力的学者们提供了一个引人注目的模式。
{"title":"Adapting Jane Eyre for the Celebrity Book Club","authors":"Lauren A Cameron","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0065","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017), the debut novel by Scottish writer Gail Honeyman, represents an ingenious adaptation of Jane Eyre that appeals strongly to modern book clubs. Eleanor Oliphant’s intertextual approach is not a straightforward translation of the events of Charlotte Brontë’s novel but rather a thoughtful transformation of its themes and characters. Moreover, the allusions to Jane Eyre are interwoven so thoroughly throughout Eleanor Oliphant that a reader with any degree of familiarity with Brontë’s novel will notice them and be able to comment on them. Eleanor Oliphant was the flagship selection for Reese Witherspoon’s enormously popular book club, “Reese’s Book Club,” which depends on social media to promote her selections, including Goodreads, an Amazon-owned book review platform. These social media platforms’ rating scales and digestible blurbs, as well as the imprimatur of a well-liked celebrity, provide the opportunity to choose middlebrow books quickly that the reading community will enjoy discussing with their friends. Eleanor Oliphant’s success provides a compelling model for authors looking to reimagine classic literature for modern audiences in addition to scholars looking to understand the appeal of popular fiction in our technologically oriented society.","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114515107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0161
Mark Allison
In this hitherto unpublished manuscript essay (c. 1848), Thomas Carlyle uses ancient Dionysian ritual as a symbol for a complex of contemporaneous social tendencies that he deplores. Foremost among these tendencies is the displacement of piety and duty by the exaltation of sensualism and romantic love, which Carlyle associates with revolutionary France, George Sand and her epigones, and circulating-library fiction more generally. “Phallus-worship” represents a jointure between Carlyle’s humane youthful writings and the authoritarian jeremiads of his old age, combining the literary virtuosity of the former with the caustic perspective of the latter. More broadly, “Phallus-worship” is a textual locus of the shift between early and mid-Victorian sensibilities, as Carlyle’s own residual puritanism marked the limits of his capacity to engage with the literary and cultural developments that interested a rising generation of Victorian men and women of letters.
{"title":"Carlyle’s “Phallus-worship”: An Annotated Transcription","authors":"Mark Allison","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0161","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this hitherto unpublished manuscript essay (c. 1848), Thomas Carlyle uses ancient Dionysian ritual as a symbol for a complex of contemporaneous social tendencies that he deplores. Foremost among these tendencies is the displacement of piety and duty by the exaltation of sensualism and romantic love, which Carlyle associates with revolutionary France, George Sand and her epigones, and circulating-library fiction more generally. “Phallus-worship” represents a jointure between Carlyle’s humane youthful writings and the authoritarian jeremiads of his old age, combining the literary virtuosity of the former with the caustic perspective of the latter. More broadly, “Phallus-worship” is a textual locus of the shift between early and mid-Victorian sensibilities, as Carlyle’s own residual puritanism marked the limits of his capacity to engage with the literary and cultural developments that interested a rising generation of Victorian men and women of letters.","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127982591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0024
Erin Temple
Netflix’s Enola Holmes (2020) adapts Nancy Springer’s young adult novels by the same name for a new generation of viewers, using the affordances of film to engage varied source material and generic conventions. The film replicates often-used tropes and themes of both Neo-Victorian narratives and young adult literature and media—most notably, girl empowerment in a restrictive society. At the same time, Enola Holmes also challenges the notion of a bad or absent mother figure in children’s literature, complicating the character of Eudoria Holmes from Springer’s novels. While issues of adaptation are most obvious with regard to the Sherlock Holmes canon and Springer novels, Enola Holmes also employs Jane Eyre as an intertext, between shared characteristics in the plot and characterization as well as the use of direct address to speak to the viewer. With a familiar message promoting girl power and social activism, the rhetorical move made by Enola’s direct address invites the viewer to participate in the narrative.
{"title":"In Conversation with Enola Holmes: Neo-Victorian Girlhood, Adaptation, and Direct Address","authors":"Erin Temple","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0024","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Netflix’s Enola Holmes (2020) adapts Nancy Springer’s young adult novels by the same name for a new generation of viewers, using the affordances of film to engage varied source material and generic conventions. The film replicates often-used tropes and themes of both Neo-Victorian narratives and young adult literature and media—most notably, girl empowerment in a restrictive society. At the same time, Enola Holmes also challenges the notion of a bad or absent mother figure in children’s literature, complicating the character of Eudoria Holmes from Springer’s novels. While issues of adaptation are most obvious with regard to the Sherlock Holmes canon and Springer novels, Enola Holmes also employs Jane Eyre as an intertext, between shared characteristics in the plot and characterization as well as the use of direct address to speak to the viewer. With a familiar message promoting girl power and social activism, the rhetorical move made by Enola’s direct address invites the viewer to participate in the narrative.","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125973704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0198
A. Jones
{"title":"Lissette Lopez Szwydky. Transmedia Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century.","authors":"A. Jones","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0198","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123247649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0043
E. Sferra
Sarah Shoemaker’s Mr. Rochester, a recent adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, disputes understandings of women’s selfhood as promoted by Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea. By attributing the cause of Bertha Mason’s mental illness to disrupted maternity and not allowing her to articulate her loss fully to a compassionate listener, Shoemaker’s adaptation upholds the Victorian gender ideals which Brontë’s novel challenges and ignores the efforts of Wide Sargasso Sea to allow Bertha a voice. The positive reception of Mr. Rochester among readers signals that the politics of a source text may matter less than characters and plot to readers and writers of neo-Victorian adaptations. To understand how and why the reading public values Victorian novels today, scholars must critically examine adaptations and their fidelity to their source texts.
{"title":"“One of her delusions”: Maternity, Selfhood, and Voice in Mr. Rochester","authors":"E. Sferra","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.48.2021.0043","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Sarah Shoemaker’s Mr. Rochester, a recent adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, disputes understandings of women’s selfhood as promoted by Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea. By attributing the cause of Bertha Mason’s mental illness to disrupted maternity and not allowing her to articulate her loss fully to a compassionate listener, Shoemaker’s adaptation upholds the Victorian gender ideals which Brontë’s novel challenges and ignores the efforts of Wide Sargasso Sea to allow Bertha a voice. The positive reception of Mr. Rochester among readers signals that the politics of a source text may matter less than characters and plot to readers and writers of neo-Victorian adaptations. To understand how and why the reading public values Victorian novels today, scholars must critically examine adaptations and their fidelity to their source texts.","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"180 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123183844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.47.2019-20.0259
D. Latanē
{"title":"L. E. L. : The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron.”","authors":"D. Latanē","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.47.2019-20.0259","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.47.2019-20.0259","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134059322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.5325/victinstj.47.2019-20.0178
Michael R. Mitchell
{"title":"Victorian Science and Aesthetics: Coastal Erosion and Illegitimacy in Wilkie Collins's No Name","authors":"Michael R. Mitchell","doi":"10.5325/victinstj.47.2019-20.0178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/victinstj.47.2019-20.0178","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":397139,"journal":{"name":"Victorians Institute Journal","volume":"122 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127418819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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