The module explores the literary and cultural significance of illustrated books from the late eighteenth century to the present, covering a variety of genres, including illustrated poetry, fiction, drama and children’s literature. You will be introduced to the history of these books and learn about their material form: how the images were designed and printed and the importance of where the pictures were positioned in the context of the book. As part of your studies, you will work with the illustrated rare books held in the University’s Special Collections and Archives and will have the opportunity to handle and examine the material.

The focus on the history and materiality of illustrated books will provide a foundation for thinking critically about the relationship between word and image that the books put into play. How do the pictures in these books relate to the words? Do they reflect or challenge them? What are the implications of this relationship for our understanding of how texts make their meanings, and of how readers interpret them? You will be taught different critical models for approaching illustration and learn how to examine these works as distinct and complex forms that combine text and image.

• identify illustrated texts in terms of both form and content
• contextualise illustrated texts in relation to their modes and periods of production
• analyse closely illustrated material and literary texts
• evaluate how the interaction between word and image generates textual and pictorial meanings.

A two-hour lecture and one-hour seminar per week.

Academic skills: the particular skills of the module involve reading and understanding how illustrated texts make their meanings in the conjunction of word and image. This requires close reading skills, an historical awareness and knowledge of the different ways in which words and pictures signify.

Employability skills: these include the ability to synthesise information; to work in an archival context; to demonstrate a critical awareness of how words and images operate independently and together; and to participate in group-based discussion involving negotiating ideas and producing clear, informed arguments. Student-led research will encourage skills of information collation, selection and synthesis.

Essay: 40% - 1200 words 

Digital Exhibition: 60% - 2000 words 

The assessment comprises of an essay and a digital exhibition of illustrations (training and guidance on how to construct the exhibition will be given in class).

Formative work to be submitted before each summative assessment: you can choose between submitting, as appropriate, a plan/structure, synopses of topic options (if undecided) or sample paragraph/s; for creative assignments, you can submit working drafts of parts of your composition, as arranged with the workshop convenor.

Indicative Syllabus:

• The politics of illustration: relations between word and image
• Illustrative techniques: engraving, etching, photography
• William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789–94)
• William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847–48)
• Pre-Raphaelite illustration
• The 1890s and beyond: the Kelmscott Chaucer (1896) and Salomé (1896)
• Children’s illustration
• Contemporary illustration