Getting to Know You: a look into an annotator’s mind

One of the aspects I find fascinating in marginalia and that drives this research project is the ability to gain a sense of a past reader’s motivations, understanding, and attitude towards a work–as speculative as any claims may be. During my searching through tomes on Thursday, I browsed through a title whose pages point towards an annotator of purpose. I’ll be looking at the text and context of this book again soon, but for now, here are my first thoughts and the threads to explore from these heavily annotated few pages.

I stumbled across this title the same way that I found most other works containing marginalia, through a focused advanced search on Aeon (the library system at the Newberry) for “marginalia” or “m.s. notes” [I don’t recall which exactly it was that turned it up]  and bounded by the parameters of pre-1700 and in English. The title is a mouthful–His Majesties Declaration for the dissolution of his late Privy-Council,
and for constituting a new one, : made in the Council-chamber at Whitehall, April the twentieth, 1679.–for the sake of sanity, I will refer to it as “Declaration of Dissolution”. As I compiled my final list(s) of titles to be sure to browse, this one stood out because of it’s short length–a feature that is appealing when the nature of your research is to look through every single page of any given work. The title is bound in a cloth covered hard board and while no documentation of it is included in the holding description, was probably created as a preservation method by a collector or library in the last century or so, as this pamphlet would have been created originally without any sort of permanent cover. Endpapers contemporaneous to the binding have been added, and some later repairs to pages are visible to the original pages. 

The title page of the short work–which I will classify as a pamphlet, although the correct classification of what this work would be considered is something I will continue to look into–is free from any mark of a reader save for a “10.” that appears in the upper right hand corner of the page. If this numeral points towards a price once placed on the title or a marking if it was included in another collection is unclear, and I am curious to look into how other scholars have interpreted similar marks in other works.

The thorough  annotations of this Declaration of Dissolution begins on page 3 and continue throughout the rest of the work. The title of the work is self-explanatory as to the content, but for a bit of historical context, “his majesty” is here Charles II of England, whose reign ran from 1630-1685 [as a scholar who is not great at remembering dates, I really appreciate Library of Congress subject headings including date ranges when relevant!], with this particular event occurring in 1679 and this work printed the same year.

The annotator of this copy was intentional and knowledgeable–titles of posts on the Privy Council are written in the margin and numbered over pages 3 and 4, and continue haphazardly and at different angles on pages 6 and 7. Perhaps these notes were made for quick reference, or maybe our annotator was a scholar instructed to learn the titles and hierarchy of the Council. Annotations on pages 6 and 7, entitled “Names of the Lords of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy-Council”, are curious, as marginal dates are added. Preceded by what appears to be “ob” and a symbol that I need to identify are dates for most of these members names and titles; “ob” is a Latin abbreviation for death and upon looking into a sample of these lords and their ascribed dates, it seems that the annotator was accurate in these inscriptions. Granted that I only looked into a few of these names and corresponding dates of death to make this conjecture, trusting the annotator’s knowledge and assuming that these dates are not attributed through prophecy, this
will help to place the time in which annotations were created. The latest date inscribed is 1713–will looking into the dates of death of of the unannotated on the roster place the date of annotations more specifically? I hope so!

Why were the death dates of these figures significant enough to seemingly research and record in this text? Who is behind these annotations and what more can be discerned from their handwriting?

While these are the initial thoughts that come to mind in the examination of this copy of Declaration of Dissolution, there remain a lot of unanswered questions that will continue to inform ideas and speculation behind these annotations and the history of these few pages and how they relate to the shadowy world of marginalia.

Images courtesy of the Newberry Library. Special Collections Wing C2967. 

the necessary evil of a thesis statement

Friday morning saw one of the first milestones of our individual research projects: a preliminary thesis and working title was due. As a proponent for multi-sentence theses, it was a challenge to stay within the parameters we were given to draft a one sentence theses that was specific, arguable, and worthwhile. Any reader of this blog or my other work—or has even carried on a conversation with me—knows that being concise is not exactly my natural state. My theses are rarely a single sentence; usually a thesis statement is one of the last things I do in a work, often a singular statement stumbled upon as I write.

I was intimidated to come up with a thesis at this point in my research; claims and specificity seem to be as evasive as finding minuscule marginalia in a multi volume work at this point. After a long walk and dinner with friends Thursday night, I finally sat down to write down what had been rolling around my head since we were given this assignment. Embracing the hesitancy and fear that comes with a speculative research project, I set to work on distilling a thesis. And—not surprisingly—my original thesis was three (very long) sentences. This was pared down into two sentences, and over a cup of tea and some exasperation, a rather patched together single sentence.

Friday morning we met with our writing groups—peers working on research in relative areas—to go over our preliminary titles and theses. My group was perceptive, supportive, and all around phenomenal; I look forward to working with them as our projects continue and the writing process continues to evolve. We all talked about the hesitations we had with these sections so far and issues that we saw in our own and others’ work. My patched thesis became further pared down and language clarified; not completely thrown out, we agreed that the omitted section would be a good introduction or ‘companion’ statement to my thesis. To share frustrations and hold ups with peers experiencing similar challenges was very helpful. Without a concrete focus at this point and as I continue to page through immense quantities of material and establishing a background for myself in this study, my thesis is still very broad—that standard of ‘specificity’ seems very far away yet. But, there is still time and still hope, and with leads into what I may focus on, I don’t feel too hopeless.

Our professors met with us as well to give feedback, which was very helpful. With my (a bit more!) concise thesis, we talked about finding the direction of focus and about my hesitations of being speculative. In any research, to be aware of the past scholarship and finding where your work fits into that dialog. My research is almost entirely in the realm of speculation and conjecture. Marcy and Ian encouraged me to embrace this and that even though it is daunting, even as an undergrad (a phrase I’ve found myself saying a lot lately), I am still doing important and worthwhile research and have the right and drive to make claims.

A lot more helpful things were discussed yesterday morning, but these have been the things that really stick out. And so, without further wordiness, here’s my working title and working thesis:

Reading Between the Lines: Marking the Dialog of Readers in Early Modern English Marginalia

In the periphery of margins, marginal thoughts and traces of readers contribute to  an understanding of historical and social context, intellectual and popular book culture, and the place of a reader in early modern England.

Stay tuned as my research–and thesis–continue to evolve over the next weeks.

How To Get Away With Vague Language: Problematic Language & How We Talk About Race

Before our seminar dove into discussing W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk and race as a factor in social place, Marcy (our professor leading the discussion this morning) pointed out that contrary to any of the “correct” French pronunciation that some of us may have assumed for Du Bois (think “bwa”), his family did in fact pronounce it as “Du Boys”. In retrospect considering the way that our conversation in class and my thoughts on the topic evolved, this clarification is of greater significance then at first, one would think.

Based around the opening of this book was the question of “how does it feel to be a problem”–a question Du Bois was posed with as a black author in the early 20th century and one that resonates yet today in 2015. Our class diluted quickly what the real problem was–“The Black Problem”. As soon as this conversation began, it was obvious that a major problem existed in our own classroom and although it would be addressed, would not nearly be ‘fixed’ within the next two hours; this problem was how to talk about race. With purpose–and importantly so–Marcy would push for clarification when collective and ambiguous language like “we”, “they”, “it” were used. Language, it seems, even in a room of ‘progressive’, thoughtful, and well educated young scholars is a privilege often taken for granted. We (see, there I go!)–as a class, we needed  to be pushed to stand behind word choices and go beyond inference and assuming that the experiences and backgrounds of our own education and background discussing race (or even our own race) were that of everyone else in the room.

Du Bois’s writing is deliberate in this book; his language, while beautiful and lyric in many passages, are words with power, meaning, and significance. Have we lost a general understanding and respect of the power of words? Respect came up a lot in this discussion of race and as something that is necessary in overcoming the color line that Du Bois discusses between races–a line that remains burned into this country’s history and is still just as unforgiving today.

In modern race activism, the problem seems to be that of the white ally, as contradictory as that may seem to some. Du Bois discusses the hesitation (rightfully so) of trusting white “friends” post-war, something that resonated in his writing in 1903 and currently. When put to the question of what needs to occur to ease the ‘color line’, I remarked that white allies need to be cognizant of how to be an ally– to admit our own ignorance and that we have not had the experience with race and racism, and simply–to listen. To be an ally is an important and powerful thing, but it’s not about white activists organizing and leading a march against injustice, but listening and being cognizant of how to be a true ally and admit that sometimes, trying to help can be more of a problem.

Last night Viola Davis won an Emmy as best actress in a TV drama for her outstanding role on How To Get Away With Murder. If you haven’t watched her speech yet, you need to. A pivotal line is her closing of “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there”–Davis joins the dialogue of Du Bois 112 years later on the absence of opportunity for the black American population. It’s striking to consider if being PC is more important then being a POC and while I’d like to be optimistic, I don’t know if realistically, things will change any time soon. As I write this, I make no claims of being any authority or having any answer of how to address the modern world’s Race Issue, but in admitting my own ignorance, I’m ready to listen.

Image Analysis: Elizabeth and Iconography

In starting this image analysis, it’s been hard to know where to start and with the guideline of “roughly 500 words”, I suppose I better get going and not go into how this image and it’s historical and iconographical significance could easily turn into a graduate dissertation. But—before I get ahead of myself or let my love of iconography get away from me, with an overview of context in mind, let’s begin.

The image I was granted to analyze (and which any forthcoming images, courtesy of the Newberry Library, originate in if not otherwise specified) is La Grande Chronique Ancienne et Moderne, de Hollande, Zelande, West-Frise, Utrecht, Frise, Overyssel & Groeningen, Jusques à La Fin de L’ an 1600 [The Grand Chronicle Ancient and Modern of … , just at the end of the year 1600], authored by Jean François Le Petit and printed by Dodrecht in two volumes in 1601. Although I didn’t realize it until after perusing the first volume, this image appears in the second of the two books on page 522.

Before jumping into the image, a bit about the context. The book is written in French, although some of the ‘interlude’ texts (odes, poems, a preface)at the opening of each volume appear in Latin. (And before anything further, although I’ve studied French and basic Latin in my undergraduate career, it is necessary to say that while I can grasp ideas, I relied on online dictionaries for the majority of translations and the result is at best, a broken translation. I digress—) Both volumes begin with the same illustrated plate, the only difference in that of text and designation of “Tome Second” in Vol. II.

This rich plate and it’s references to muses and gods in the Roman tradition as well as illustrations of a port city, instruments of the arts, war, navigation, and education, and presence of a globe are tantalizing to analyze, but for sake of time and sanity, this overview will continue. The volumes provide a chronicle—and portraitures—of great leaders of the European world. At first glance, the first volume and title would suggest that the focus would be on the titular places around the Dutch world and after perusing the first volume, that all portraitures of influential persons would be of men. To my surprise and pleasure, the image I was assigned is a portraiture of none other then Elizabeth I.

While some may dismiss that Elizabeth’s presence in a chronicle of influential men would not be unique as she is so often cast as an ‘exceptional feminine’ to succeed in the sphere of men, in this text, she is not the exception as a portraiture of Margaret of Austria precedes her. Another aspect unique in considering this image: the next portrait is of Robert Dudley, whose influence pales in comparison to the rest of those depicted and whose close relationship with Elizabeth—both historically and in this text—is interesting.

A date on the page facing this portraiture places the text as occurring in the year 1585 at the start of the Anglo-Spanish War. Text below the image of Elizabeth references the conflict and in a rough and brief summary, emphasizes Elizabeth’s protection of England and that the Spanish are not to be feared. Other—French—text that frames the image states “Elizabeth, Queen of England and Ireland, Defendresse [sic] of the Catholics, Protectrice [sic] of the liberty of the Provinces of the Netherlands” (roughly) as well as reference to her as “virginae reginae”—virgin queen. Although—with the close relation between this portraiture and that of Robert Dudley, one begins to wonder if a commentary on that phrase was called into questions by the author, printer, and contemporaneous readers as well as a host of modern historians.

In her portrait, Elizabeth stands in an unspecified space, whereas some other portraits include some reference to a real space with a floor, etc. The Elizabeth shown here is not a young Elizabeth, but one of realistic age—she would have been sixty-six at the time of this book’s production and would die three years later. Although an image of an older Elizabeth, her images are no less striking than in her younger depictions and her visage is set strong, eyes looking off to the left and given the context of the passage, possibly poised to take in the Spanish armada with a look of resilience and bravery. Her crown is somewhere between an imperial and royal crowns still held in the British crown jewels and inexplicably resembles the coronation orb or ‘globus cruciger’ that she holds, an image that is also mirrored in the pattern and ornamentation of her globe-like skirts. Her dress is ornamental, including the Elizabethan collar of lace that is present in so many of this eras portraits of members of court. Her dress displays brocade and embroidery, jewels, and ribbon ties. At first glance, the sleeves of her dress resemble armor but on closer examination are intricate series of ties and bows—and whose shape has been under discussion as significant by some art historians, especially in contrast to the phallic nature of her scepter and the gender politics of Elizabethan’s rule as not only a woman, but a virgin. (Possibly more on those allusions another time!)

While this image on it’s own is a fascinating one, in the context of this work and the greater iconographical themes that surround depictions of Elizabeth, it joins the greater conversation of a royal and imperial ideology and rule of a feminine ruler in the early modern world.

[images courtesy of the Newberry Library Special Collections]

Nightmare Dressed Like a Daydream: Taylor Swift and Romanticized Imperialism

(click photo for larger image) 

While I intend to write an update on the first few days of adjusting to life in Chicago soon, to kick of the research side of this blog I will start with an idea that is still running through my mind from our seminar meeting earlier this morning.

In our discussion on Heart of Darkness in it’s historical context and after reading assigned texts last night (both literary and historic secondary source commentary, reinforcing the interdisciplinary pedagogy of this seminar course), one course of discussion was on the “blank spaces” of the African continent (as well as other areas of the world) being filled in over the course of a matter of years. Conrad himself wrote about a “hankering” to explore these blank spaces which within his lifetime, became claimed by European powers and the continental map ‘completed’. Discussed in depth was the point that these areas and continent being conceived as blank was an entirely Imperialistic view; the entire continent is considered–even in our own age–as primitive and underdeveloped, a perception reinforced by both realities of a continent exploited, peoples’ abducted, and as a major player in this perception: the media.

As a bit of a transition and challenge to see how this is relevant to the modern age and is overtly present in our own lives, we watched the Taylor Swift video of “Wildest Dreams” that has been under scrutiny by many critics in it’s African setting. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the video, I recommend you watch it. Here’s a link.) The music video casts Swift as a Liz Taylor-esque starlet cast in what appears to be an Old Hollywood adventure-romance shot in a landscape that anyone familiar with The Lion King would identify as African cast opposite a ruggedly handsome white male and in a few shots, it would seem a docile lion. As the video progresses with Swift in pinup style outfits and supercuts to images of typical “safari animals” (the lion is joined by a giraffe, zebra, water buffalo, condors), romance blossoms between Swift and her leading man off camera. After an affair that evokes images of Out of Africa, biplane included, the affair seems to end abruptly with the change of scenery to a red carpet event and the introduction of the actor’s fiance.

Beyond entertainment, it would appear that Swift’s intention was most likely to display a genuine dream of adventure and the wild ‘mysteries’ of Africa, as well as to be philanthropic. The video ends with this screen:

Seemingly innocent, and most likely thought to be a good a move to continue a well enforced image of “the girl next door”, unfortunately, the message of the video falls short of succeeding as a philanthropic and innocent effort. Ironic holes in the message kept cropping up: the tropes of safari culture and that all of the people appearing in the video are white to name a few. Someone summarized it as “false nostalgia”, which rings true. While intended to be a celebration and resulting in what can only be interpreted as naive call for aid, Swift herself has involved herself in a larger issue of romanticizing a colonial ideology and “white burden” in our own times.

When this comparison of Wildest Dreams was brought up, I could no longer ignore or deny that every time Conrad’s commentary on “blank space” (both in Heart of Darkness and in personal writings) came up in my reading, I thought of Taylor Swift’s song of the same title. While I at first dismissed any real connection between the Top 40 pop hit that played more times then I would like to admit among my friend group this past year, lyrics from this and other songs from Swift’s 1984 album continued to ring as relevant to this text and conversation. Some lyrics I’ve included in the header image of this post, along with a then contemporary image of the British empire as the hybrid of an octopus and a bulbous gentleman. The Polaroid images were part of the release of the album 1984 and show Swift in “home movie”-esque vintage, filtered Polaroids in conjunction with handwritten lyrics from her new album. (An analysis of Swift’s entire marketing campaign would be an interesting study that I will not be undertaking in the conclusion of this post!) The “Blank Space” lyrics that stand out the most as relevant to considering Conrad, Swift and modern society as perpetuation an imperialist ideology and the white savior complex/white man’s burden that I identify are: “Darling, I’m a nightmare dressed like a day dream”, which reads as reminiscent of some lines of Kipling’s White Man’s Burden and “I’ve got a blank space, baby–and I’ll write your name” similar to the Scramble for Africa.

While I am not suggesting that Swift is (at least purposefully, at most knowingly) perpetuating a white imperialist ideology, in the modern era of “whitesplaining” and and a renewed awareness of how we talk about race, these connections between a historic and problematic text like Conrad’s and a pop-diva are not coincidental. To borrow from current pop culture and racial tension in the media, I take a nod from Nicki Minaj’s VMA speech and will (albeit, out of context) leave any reader with this: what’s good, Conrad?