Literature

~ crookr1

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Finding 19th century pieces of literature was a lot more difficult than I thought upon beginning this task. It took me a few days to find something, but then I came across Lady of the Tiger. The first seven pages involve multiple different types of marginalia ranging from underlining, to circling, to defining, and to annotating. For the purpose of the assignment I will be ignoring the marginalia written in ink because it does not date back pre-1923. On the first page there are quite a few notes in the margins and circled words with synonyms or definitions above them. The circled words with definitions beside them make me think that the reader could have been a student like me, or a non-native speaker who is simply trying to get more acquainted with the language. The reader also underlined important character traits and facts about events happening in the story rather than stylistic details. They might have been an amateur reader or perhaps knew exactly the information they needed for whatever the novel was being read for. For a collegiate level paper, a professor would be looking for more than just a summary of a novel, however. They would rather appreciate a paper geared toward how the author writes and how they portray the information underlined. So perhaps, if they were hypothetically a student, they would be at a lower level in their schooling than the college level. One note does however say “choice of language” on page 3 in regards to the first paragraph of that page. So the reader might have a higher set of critical and analytical skills than previously thought. Their thought process is really exposed though towards the middle of the same page when the reader talks of comparing and contrasting love and jealousy. The marginalia in the book I selected really gives us some insight into the mind of one individual of the Victorian Era.

 

Victorian Medicine for Women

~ Annie Swafford ~ 1 Comment

One of my favorite short stories is The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was first published in 1892. In the haunting narrative, Gilman critiques common medical practices for women affected by  things such as “hysteria” and “neurasthenia” after childbirth. My sources for the information are scattered throughout this post as links.

The common treatment of the time was the “rest cure.” It left the woman tethered to a bed with no means to express herself, writing or otherwise.. This supposedly promoted healthy blood flow, and removal from too much stimulation. It’s now widely recognized as a load of junk, a part of a largely misogynistic tradition that controlled women’s bodies. Nevertheless, Doctor Silas Weir Mitchell and his bed rest cure has a solidified place in literature, women’s health, and history.

Based on the story, and my slight interest in the subject matter, I chose to look at the terms “apothecary,” “hysteria,” and “neurasthenia” on the Oxford English Dictionary.

Google Chart
Hopefully zoom works well here..

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Standard English Poems: Spenser to Tennyson

~ Annie Swafford ~ 1 Comment

While searching through the PR section of the library catalog for the Booktraces assignment, I stumbled upon this collection of poems selected and edited by Henry S. Pancoast. It was published in New York in 1899 by Henry Holt & Company. There wasn’t much of anything written throughout the actual pages of the book, but the both inside covers and the pages immediately following or proceeding were filled with quotes and poems from various sources.

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Pasted onto the inside cover are an introduction to a poem by Miss Anna Bartlett Warner and the poem itself, which begins, “It seems so strange to think of days when I shall not be here…” Both excerpts appear to be typewritten.

On the opposite page, the name Amy L. Abel is written in ink. The small “’10” beside it was interesting – especially considering that at least one of the poems its owner inscribed in the book is from 1915. As a quick analysis of the handwriting still heavily suggests that it originates in the correct time period, it can be assumed that Ms. Abel wrote in the book on more than one occasion.

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19th Century Book Study :Representative English Literature

~ Annie Swafford

Cover/ PhillipsMy DHM Book Spinebook is a copy of the Representative English Literature: From Chaucer to Tennyson, written by Henry S. Pancoast, published by Henry Holt and Company. This copy is dated at 1895, with the call number PR.85.P35.  According to the book’s title page, Pancoast was an English literature lecturer. A Google search revealed his work on other English literary study books.

Based on authorship, title, and the book’s cover (although the binding is not original, the cover seemed to be, and without the dust jacket looks as if it was originally a volume in a series) led me to believe the book was used primarily scholastically. The book’s last pages had other reference and textbooks listed for sale by the publishing company, with topics ranging from History to Psychology. It’s kind of like something from the Norton Anthology series, an aid to literary study, and work compilation arranged by topic for a lit course.

So who owned this book? Who wrote in it? The front dedication page lists Adèle Duréey’s name, written in pencil. Pencil markings throughout the book exhibit her use of it as an academic book.

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Google Books Ngram Viewer: (Crazy, Insane, Lunatic) (Romance, Comedy)

~ Annie Swafford

These two diagrams were created in Google Books Ngram Viewer. Both are comparing terms found in 19th century (1800 to 1900) literature and helps displays patterns in writing.

google books ngarm crazy insane lunatic

The first terms I decided to look up were “insane”, “crazy,” and “lunatic.” Today, these terms are thrown around pretty loosely but they have obvious derogatory connotations. I have heard a lot about the mistreatment of people thought to have mental illnesses and disorders in our society today. Mistreatment was especially bad before most of these cases were understood, so I was curious to look into the use of these words in the 19th century. While these terms were not used so much in the beginning, they increased significantly by the second half of the 19th century. “Insane” increased more around 1825 – 1830 which was only a few decades after the popularization of insane asylums and relocation.

Also, at the end of the 19th century (namely around 1880) the use of phrenology and measuring cranial capacity was still used as a method to determine attributes such as criminality and mental ability/illness. After a few hours of looking at articles from the 19th century, it would seem that the interest in mental illness turned to fascination by the 1880’s. This makes sense also because it was in 1880 that a lot of light was shown on the poor conditions of asylums and the terrible treatment of it’s occupants. People where more interested in mental illnesses and disorders by the end of the century. It makes sense, then, that the terms “insane” and “lunatic” increased the most in literature during these years.

google books ngarm romance comedy png

I also compared “romance” and “comedy.” I was not sure what to expect, but there was certainly a change in popularity and use. It would seem that comedy peaked around 1824 and romance had surpassed it by 1830. In England, the late 18th century until almost half way through the 19th century was marked by romanticism. Authors such as Walter Scott and Jane Austen were extremely popular. The romantic movement reached beyond England (France) into the U.S. By the early 19th century, romantic novels and literature swept across the country. This may have been because of religious restriction and the desire to personify the individual (and their emotions) instead of god or religion. Romanticism of frontier life and Native Americans were also very popular.

A Scandalous Bohemian Word Cloud

~ Annie Swafford

Before I created my own word cloud, I read the two blog posts regarding this visualization aid, and although one went more in depth about different websites where word clouds can be made, the blog “Word Clouds Considered Harmful” (well, the title says it all) had a very negative attitude toward these fun and light-hearted artistic creations. However, ironically enough, when I was searching for the definition of a word cloud in Google it came up as “An image composed of words used in a particular text or subject, in which the size of each word indicates its frequency or importance.” I found this interesting because in the negative post about word clouds Harris talks about how the size of a certain word should not emphasize the importance of it; but Google seems to think otherwise. Although I do not necessarily agree with Harris, I do believe that before people engage in making word clouds, they should read and understand the text that is being artistically manipulated. With this being said, more people would stray away from using only a word cloud to understand texts, and focus more on comparing their recent finds along with the finds of a visual aid.

Regardless of everyone’s opinions on word clouds and the significance in making them, I actually enjoyed customizing my word cloud for my favorite Sherlock Holmes story, A Scandal in Bohemia. At first I had trouble with Wordle (because of Java) and I decided to try Voyant. However, after seeing what my word cloud looked like with Voyant, I realized I was more of a Wordle fan. When I created my first word cloud with Voyant, many of the words that probably should have been emphasized, were not. For example, Holmes, Adler, and women were not even included in the word cloud. Secondly, I found that a lot of common words had the most emphasis and when I tried to take those out, it didn’t go as planned. Therefore, I tried Wordle again and after downloading Java, I copied and pasted my text and created the word cloud pictured below.

Here is my word cloud with my customized color palette and font. Do you think Holmes would be proud?
Here is my word cloud with my customized color palette and font. Do you think Holmes would be proud?

As I played around with Wordle, I found that I enjoyed being able to customize my visualization based on my preferences. As I kept clicking ‘randomize’, I gained insight on what shape I wanted my word cloud to be, the positioning of words, the color scheme, and the font. After it was all said and done, I chose to create my own color palette because I felt like the basic palettes were overused-so why not create my own? When I created my palette I chose dark colors so that words would clearly standout. My colors ranged from different shades of purple, a dark blue, a red wine, and a dark green, just because I found those most appealing. After choosing the specific colors I wanted, I chose to view the different fonts. After viewing various ones, I wound up using a font that made all the words neat and legible.

When I started to analyze my word cloud based on my prior knowledge from reading A Scandal in Bohemia, and understanding what word clouds are used for, I pretty much agreed with the words that mad most emphasis in the word cloud, versus the words that did not. For example, Holmes was obviously the most emphasized because he is a main character not only in this story, but also in all Sherlock Holmes stories (no pun intended). Another word that had emphasis was photograph. As readers know, a major theme in the story is the lost picture and is the main cause of stress for the king or ‘majesty’ (also emphasized), so it makes sense that it is one of the larger words. One thing that I did find interesting was how woman was not emphasized. I understand that ‘woman’ may not have been said a lot in the story, however it is a major representation of what Holmes thinks Adler to be and readers should know of regardless.

What did you all think of word clouds? Yay or nay?