Hi!
I love the addition of excerpts from the Gothic piece, since I did not think of Dracula as a ghostly figure considering he is so rooted in the flesh. The unreal mix of ancient ways and the modern was also interesting, and I can definitely see how it relates to Dracula, an ancient vampiric warlord, going to the very modern England. I excerpted a passage about Dracula’s pattern of invasion, one which connects to him as an ancient figure, in my Commonplace book. I also enjoy your photo of Dracula in London (he looks very much like the young Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, which I chose a picture from for my Commonplace Book as well, though the picture I chose is not the version of the Count that relates to the image you chose. In fact, the scary white haired Dracula remains for very little of the movie’s runtime, and he is mostly the handsome young gentleman similar to the one in the image you chose) and the castle (I noticed it’s Dracula’s castle from Castlevania! Castlevania is an interesting piece to connect with Dracula in this context because the current animated series on Netflix is set sometimes within Wallachia and Styria, which I did not know were actually mentioned in the source material for Dracula until reading Stoker’s work!)
Hi Caitlyn! I visited your site today to look over your CPB entry. I love the excerpts you included on Gothic Motifs and the way in which they seem to contextualize this novel. The pieces that these two excerpts touch on almost exactly mirror the pieces within Dracula, such as the idea of a strange place and modern technology. Both of these things seem to give readers an uncomfortable or unsettling feeling, something that Gothic fiction thrives off of. However, I found it interesting how modern technology was compared to ghosts, and the kinds of disruption they both cause.
Hey Caitlyn!
Nice job with your entry for this week!
It’s interesting to see that you chose to include an excerpt from the British Library article “Gothic Motifs”, as I’ve dedicated a page of my commonplace book for this course to the concept of “The Gothic” and used this particular British Library article in addition to the “Origins of the Gothic” article to construct it. Both articles repeatedly reference Stoker’s Dracula as an embodiment of numerous literary motifs characteristic of “the Gothic”. As discussed in these articles and in your entry for this week, Dracula is riddled with various unsettling contrasts and “jarring juxtapositions” (whether it be an anachronistic pairing of the ancient and the modern, or the “perverse duality” of vampires to simultaneously attract and repulse) that serve to undermine both the protagonists’ and the reader’s sense of security in the supposedly real/fixed “reality” they find themselves in/ “take for granted”. This tendency of Gothic novels to probe readers to question the nature of the “reality” in which they find themselves (to probe readers to “believe the unbelievable”) has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of reading this particular genre (or “family”) of novels, given its encouragement of readers to “expand their mind” and foster their sense of imagination, providing a charming sense of “unreality” that allows these novels to express the “inexpressible” aspects of existence in ways that “realist novels”, in some ways, cannot.
I’d never really noticed the settings in the other novels, but your mention of Dracula’s castle as a prison and this theme being common in Gothic literature recalled the settings to my memory. Similar “prisons” in the other novels include Bertha’s room, Jekyll’s study, the room where Dorian kept his portrait, and the Egyptian temple that Lessingham was trapped in. However, wide, unknown spaces are shown to be terrifying as well, as with the natural landscapes that Frankenstein pursues his creation through. I also found it interesting that Dracula could be considered a ghost and now see him acting as a reminder of the barbarism of the past and offering a contrast to the “civility” of the era that was modern at the time the book was published. Yet the book argues that religion must remain a constant during a time of advancement, so it seems that the Victorian era refuses to let some ghosts go.
I really loved how you talked about the setting of gothic novels and how every character has their own “prison”. The visuals were also really great; seeing Dracula in London looking like every other person really shows how much he blends in. In the first couple chapters he did this as the coachman when he picked up John from the other carriage. No one knew he was Dracula, only that he was going to a terrible place.
I really like your first quote about Gothic motifs and how characters tend to find themselves in strange places. It is especially pertinent to Dracula because Jonathan Harker found himself not only in a strange place at Dracula’s castle, but also with a strange person who tends to live on the more sexual side of life. I also found your second quote interesting because we tend not to think of Dracula as a ghostly figure due to his flesh and blood appearance in the novel. Your commonplace book entry this week was different than the other’s I looked at, but in a way that made it more interesting because you were focusing on something different. In my commonplace, I also looked at the role of Dracula in the novel and how he can be seen as a perfect example of gothic motifs due to the sexuality of his character.
Greetings Caitlyn!
(Just a headsup that this comment is in regards to your overall commonplace book!)
First of all, your commonplace book is rather unique in the way you’ve organized it, because you have presented it in a physical notebook. (A decomposition notebook is an excellent choice! The house on your cover reminds me of the cottage in Frankenstein.) I feel that you’ve tapped into the ancestral spirit of Victorian common placing by keeping a book rather than placing it into the digital media, while still retaining elements of modernity via the use of printed images. Your entries are methodical in that you have a format – quotes first, then images – which I feel would be similar to how Victorians may have kept their commonplace books. (I also noted your various attempts to jazz it up by highlighting sources.) Because your commonplace book is similar to what they would do, I think it would be interesting to see your reflection upon having that experience rather than the digital, to perhaps gain some insight on what it may have been like for a Victorian reader to keep a commonplace book. I noticed that you often pulled from our academic sources, the Appendices and The British Library, both for your entries and your images. (Note: I loved the that you dubbed the Beetle the “mystery being” since I had a similar annotation to denote them in my notes – I dubbed the character “Creatureman” since it was not clear what the Beetle was). Your entries often focused on the Victorian vantage point of events contemporary to the novels; for instance, in your Beetle entry you spoke about how they saw Egypt and the occult practices they found synonymous with it, in your Dorian Grey entry you spoke about how Victorians viewed aestheticism, and in your Dracula entries you spoke about how the New Woman was viewed and why Gothic fiction would be enjoyed (presumably also by Victorians). I also noticed that your photos often related to depictions of the texts, which again can speak to how the material is viewed. I feel as though you could speak well on general Victorian mindset based on your research, such as their conflicting fascination/desire and simultaneous terror with subjects that arose from movements such as occultism and hedonism. To put it somewhat more succinctly: You can delve into the Victorian View from a perspective of both how they would go about speaking-their ethics, morals, conflicting fascinations based on the passages you excerpted-and how they would go about doing-the methodology of your common placing. Questions that I would raise would thus be: So how did the novels reflect all these Victorian values, both in their fears and their desires? Do you think that they had greater fascination with these beliefs or fears based on the materials you’ve found? And broadly, connecting to the overall theme of the class – What would it have been like for a Victorian to read these novels? You’ve done a great job, and put in the extra mile of making it a physical book!
Hey Caitlyn,
I have really enjoyed looking at your commonplace entries over the past couple weeks. It has been very interesting to look at your entries because they tend to have a few quotes relating to criticisms or further explanation of the novel followed by at least two images that go outside the scope of the novel. Your images have made me think about modern day depictions of the pieces of the novels, because they tend to be from sources outside of the ones provided to us so they provide a different line of thinking. Your quotes focused more on contextualizing the novel and providing background information instead of looking more at the critical side of the novels.
8 thoughts on “4/15/2020”
Hi!
I love the addition of excerpts from the Gothic piece, since I did not think of Dracula as a ghostly figure considering he is so rooted in the flesh. The unreal mix of ancient ways and the modern was also interesting, and I can definitely see how it relates to Dracula, an ancient vampiric warlord, going to the very modern England. I excerpted a passage about Dracula’s pattern of invasion, one which connects to him as an ancient figure, in my Commonplace book. I also enjoy your photo of Dracula in London (he looks very much like the young Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, which I chose a picture from for my Commonplace Book as well, though the picture I chose is not the version of the Count that relates to the image you chose. In fact, the scary white haired Dracula remains for very little of the movie’s runtime, and he is mostly the handsome young gentleman similar to the one in the image you chose) and the castle (I noticed it’s Dracula’s castle from Castlevania! Castlevania is an interesting piece to connect with Dracula in this context because the current animated series on Netflix is set sometimes within Wallachia and Styria, which I did not know were actually mentioned in the source material for Dracula until reading Stoker’s work!)
Hi Caitlyn! I visited your site today to look over your CPB entry. I love the excerpts you included on Gothic Motifs and the way in which they seem to contextualize this novel. The pieces that these two excerpts touch on almost exactly mirror the pieces within Dracula, such as the idea of a strange place and modern technology. Both of these things seem to give readers an uncomfortable or unsettling feeling, something that Gothic fiction thrives off of. However, I found it interesting how modern technology was compared to ghosts, and the kinds of disruption they both cause.
Hey Caitlyn!
Nice job with your entry for this week!
It’s interesting to see that you chose to include an excerpt from the British Library article “Gothic Motifs”, as I’ve dedicated a page of my commonplace book for this course to the concept of “The Gothic” and used this particular British Library article in addition to the “Origins of the Gothic” article to construct it. Both articles repeatedly reference Stoker’s Dracula as an embodiment of numerous literary motifs characteristic of “the Gothic”. As discussed in these articles and in your entry for this week, Dracula is riddled with various unsettling contrasts and “jarring juxtapositions” (whether it be an anachronistic pairing of the ancient and the modern, or the “perverse duality” of vampires to simultaneously attract and repulse) that serve to undermine both the protagonists’ and the reader’s sense of security in the supposedly real/fixed “reality” they find themselves in/ “take for granted”. This tendency of Gothic novels to probe readers to question the nature of the “reality” in which they find themselves (to probe readers to “believe the unbelievable”) has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of reading this particular genre (or “family”) of novels, given its encouragement of readers to “expand their mind” and foster their sense of imagination, providing a charming sense of “unreality” that allows these novels to express the “inexpressible” aspects of existence in ways that “realist novels”, in some ways, cannot.
I’d never really noticed the settings in the other novels, but your mention of Dracula’s castle as a prison and this theme being common in Gothic literature recalled the settings to my memory. Similar “prisons” in the other novels include Bertha’s room, Jekyll’s study, the room where Dorian kept his portrait, and the Egyptian temple that Lessingham was trapped in. However, wide, unknown spaces are shown to be terrifying as well, as with the natural landscapes that Frankenstein pursues his creation through. I also found it interesting that Dracula could be considered a ghost and now see him acting as a reminder of the barbarism of the past and offering a contrast to the “civility” of the era that was modern at the time the book was published. Yet the book argues that religion must remain a constant during a time of advancement, so it seems that the Victorian era refuses to let some ghosts go.
I really loved how you talked about the setting of gothic novels and how every character has their own “prison”. The visuals were also really great; seeing Dracula in London looking like every other person really shows how much he blends in. In the first couple chapters he did this as the coachman when he picked up John from the other carriage. No one knew he was Dracula, only that he was going to a terrible place.
I really like your first quote about Gothic motifs and how characters tend to find themselves in strange places. It is especially pertinent to Dracula because Jonathan Harker found himself not only in a strange place at Dracula’s castle, but also with a strange person who tends to live on the more sexual side of life. I also found your second quote interesting because we tend not to think of Dracula as a ghostly figure due to his flesh and blood appearance in the novel. Your commonplace book entry this week was different than the other’s I looked at, but in a way that made it more interesting because you were focusing on something different. In my commonplace, I also looked at the role of Dracula in the novel and how he can be seen as a perfect example of gothic motifs due to the sexuality of his character.
Greetings Caitlyn!
(Just a headsup that this comment is in regards to your overall commonplace book!)
First of all, your commonplace book is rather unique in the way you’ve organized it, because you have presented it in a physical notebook. (A decomposition notebook is an excellent choice! The house on your cover reminds me of the cottage in Frankenstein.) I feel that you’ve tapped into the ancestral spirit of Victorian common placing by keeping a book rather than placing it into the digital media, while still retaining elements of modernity via the use of printed images. Your entries are methodical in that you have a format – quotes first, then images – which I feel would be similar to how Victorians may have kept their commonplace books. (I also noted your various attempts to jazz it up by highlighting sources.) Because your commonplace book is similar to what they would do, I think it would be interesting to see your reflection upon having that experience rather than the digital, to perhaps gain some insight on what it may have been like for a Victorian reader to keep a commonplace book. I noticed that you often pulled from our academic sources, the Appendices and The British Library, both for your entries and your images. (Note: I loved the that you dubbed the Beetle the “mystery being” since I had a similar annotation to denote them in my notes – I dubbed the character “Creatureman” since it was not clear what the Beetle was). Your entries often focused on the Victorian vantage point of events contemporary to the novels; for instance, in your Beetle entry you spoke about how they saw Egypt and the occult practices they found synonymous with it, in your Dorian Grey entry you spoke about how Victorians viewed aestheticism, and in your Dracula entries you spoke about how the New Woman was viewed and why Gothic fiction would be enjoyed (presumably also by Victorians). I also noticed that your photos often related to depictions of the texts, which again can speak to how the material is viewed. I feel as though you could speak well on general Victorian mindset based on your research, such as their conflicting fascination/desire and simultaneous terror with subjects that arose from movements such as occultism and hedonism. To put it somewhat more succinctly: You can delve into the Victorian View from a perspective of both how they would go about speaking-their ethics, morals, conflicting fascinations based on the passages you excerpted-and how they would go about doing-the methodology of your common placing. Questions that I would raise would thus be: So how did the novels reflect all these Victorian values, both in their fears and their desires? Do you think that they had greater fascination with these beliefs or fears based on the materials you’ve found? And broadly, connecting to the overall theme of the class – What would it have been like for a Victorian to read these novels? You’ve done a great job, and put in the extra mile of making it a physical book!
Hey Caitlyn,
I have really enjoyed looking at your commonplace entries over the past couple weeks. It has been very interesting to look at your entries because they tend to have a few quotes relating to criticisms or further explanation of the novel followed by at least two images that go outside the scope of the novel. Your images have made me think about modern day depictions of the pieces of the novels, because they tend to be from sources outside of the ones provided to us so they provide a different line of thinking. Your quotes focused more on contextualizing the novel and providing background information instead of looking more at the critical side of the novels.
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