The Art of Complicated Love by Libby Blackshire

What would you do if you were on a perfectly normal date with the Geatish warrior-king, Beowulf, when suddenly a dashing Grendel arrives to stir up trouble? With her final project, Libby Blackshire offers us an interactive dating sim for the ages! We’ll let Libby explain the project in her own words:

For my final portfolio project, I decided to make an interactive visual novel in which you date different characters from the four time periods we studied. The dates and characters are modernized; this helps observe how well these characters’ actions and personalities translate to today! On these dates, you will progress through dialogue and text, sometimes making decisions about what to say or do that can impact how you enjoy! Feel free to let me know what you think after playing!

The game is packed with enough interactive content and tie-ins to premodern textual history to delight video game aficionados and literature buffs alike! We hope you will find Libby’s visual novel as creative, fun, and witty as we did.

Play the game in full >>> here <<<

 

And take a peek at some of the content below! (No spoilers, we promise.)


A bio for Libby Blackshire is in the works!

The Rolling Shawm by Nigel Becker

In his final project for 2201, Nigel Becker offers us “the latest oldest scoop on English pop culture”! His mock pop-culture website, The Rolling Shawm, is a nod to digital journalism today and pays tribute to the diverse cross-section of texts explored in 2201 this past semester. In a series of articles, Becker uses his project to explore the connections between the literature from premodern England and modern journalistic forms, including interviews, book reviews, political analysis, buyers’ guides, and music and television reviews. Very perceptive and fabulously witty, The Rolling Shawm is sure to delight fans of social commentary.

You can check out the front page here.

Preview: Margery Kempe’s Outspoken Audio-Biography

The outspoken musical mystic gives our critic at large a sneak preview of her forthcoming debut record. 

By Nigel Becker

”You already know you’re listenin’ to Miss Big C/And if you’re messin’ with Jesus, you’re messin’ with she!” warns Margery Kempe on “$tyle,” the fiery opening track on her forthcoming debut album, Autobiography. It’s a brash track, with pulsating percussion and a rapid-fire beat paired with the sort of lyrics one would expect from a woman who’s made her name for saying exactly what she thinks, when she thinks it. Although she’s always professed to travel around for the sole reason of proselytizing, winning converts, and keeping the religious faithful, she’s also seemed to relish the attention in her own right, and that holds true here.

Earlier this year, she put the finishing touches on her own autobiography, the first ever written, so it only makes sense that she should put it all to music to spread her message even farther. The album stays more or less true to her written work, tracing her life chronologically, with a couple of detours. One such detour is the aforementioned ”$tyle,” in which Kempe brags about her past and present aesthetics: sartorial, religious, and verbal. The track starts off with an invective hurled at Kempe by an elderly monk. “I wish you were shut up in a house of stone where nobody should talk to you,” she repeats mockingly, before turning it around: “Everyone tries to shut This Creature up, but TC always finds a way out/Because her love and her faith are too strong: what choice has she but to scream and shout?” For the remainder of the track — just as on the rest of the album, and in her autobiography — Kempe straddles the line between self-congratulatory and self-deprecating, and whether she’s describing her dress sense (“Gold pipes on her head, and daggings all about/They said ‘That’s no way for a lady to dress!’ – They threatened to throw This Creature out!”) or her big mouth (“This Creature said the wrong thing — should’ve stayed quiet a while/But by now you should know that’s hardly her style!”), her rhymes are engaging and very clearly her own.

After that opus, which is a quite apt thesis for the songs that follow, she walks listeners through her life: the near-death experience that forever changed her (on ”Die Tonight (Visionz)”); her fight to get her lustful husband to leave her alone (on “Outta This Bed (Pay U Off),” she strikes a deal with him; on ”Hunger,” she threatens to starve herself until he lays off); her impulsivity and the fixes it gets her into (“Talk Too Much” and the skit ”Testing Miss Big C,” in which a man offers to take her to bed — only to scoff and reveal that it was a test of her piety after she consents); and her encounter with Julian of Norwich, a pious woman with a decidedly different view on what it means to do God’s work (on ”U ’N’ Me,” the two duet as they lightheartedly spar over whose approach to faith is more becoming).

Closing out the record is a trio of tracks that again strays from the chronology of her life. On ”Virtual Lover,” she addresses her critics who accuse her of using Jesus as an excuse to do whatever she pleases. ”They say This Creature is making it up, that she and Jesus aren’t even really in love/That she lies and says Jesus approves whatever she does!” she paraphrases in a mocking tone. But, she counters, ”This Creature isn’t perfect, but it’s the trying that counts/And try, she always does, every day her trying mounts.” Then there’s ”Come 2 This Creature,” the bizzarest cut here by a mile, in which she narrates a steamy bedroom encounter with Jesus. She keeps her language more family-friendly than many of her peers, but that does little to reduce the listening experience’s strangeness: “He says he wants This Creature to treat him like her husband, to lay beside him in bed, give him a little lovin’,” she purrs, before switching roleplaying exercises: ”Love Him like a son, He’s the one, He’s the one for This Creature/When she’s lying here with Him, she’s the world’s truest believer.” Mercifully, she makes up for that misstep with ”This Creature Is.,” a reprise of ”$tyle” in which she looks back on her life and owns up to her shortcomings: ”This Creature is strange, and This Creature is sometimes wrong/And This Creature’s not always pious, and maybe she doesn’t write the best songs.” But at the end, she makes peace with herself, and for a single time switches from the third person to the first: ”But there’s only one of This Creature, and This Creature is Me.” In that moment, all the album comes together. For better or worse, this is Margery Kempe, the one and only.

The back cover — intriguingly, Kempe features an image of Christine de Pizan here, perhaps as a nod to a fellow strong female writer. (Or perhaps the printer made a mistake.)

Politics: Satan’s Shrewd Plan for World Domination

…every problem they claim they’ll solve, he’ll really just make worse.

By Nigel Becker

By now, you’ve probably witnessed Satan’s smooth politicking. As a candidate in next month’s Leader of the World election, he’ll be standing as the representative of the Devil’s Party (of which William Blake has accused author John Milton of being an unknowing member), and so far he’s run a perfect campaign.

A little too perfect.

Historically — for centuries, in fact — Satan has caught flack for being overly scary, abrasive, not approachable enough; he seemed more like the sort of fellow who would attempt to stage a coup than the sort who would stand in an election. But now, he’s seeking to ditch past perceptions and paint a new picture of himself, one in which he’s compassionate and a fighter for the forgotten man.

“All is not lost!” he roared in his campaign announcement speech, for we still have ”the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield.” In his last bid for office, he was soundly defeated, but now, he’s even spinning that into a victory, crediting all those who backed his first campaign as striking ”terror” in the hearts of tyrants and monarchs, and allowing him to learn from his mistakes.

His sudden savvy didn’t begin with that speech. In fact, the way in which he went about winning the backing of party officials was downright Machiavellian, shrewd as anything and vaguely frightening. Many contingents of the party were uninterested in participating in the election at all; many thought declaring open war on their enemies would be a better move. Embittered Party Chair Belial took this view, arguing in essence that they have nothing left to lose, being held in ill repute by most every segment of the population. Communications Director Belial stood up to him, but this seemed less borne of strategy or pacifistic leanings than laziness. And then Treasurer Mammon lashed out and argued that to bow to the tyranny of the status quo would be an intolerable sin, a moral betrayal. The party was, in short, pissed off and fragmented.

But Satan knew better than any of them how to get what he wanted. He never came right out and told party officials that he regarded the warlike plan as asinine and destined for failure; instead, he shrewdly opened the floor to debate and then enlisted a close ally, the suave Vice Chair Beelzebub, who delivered an impassioned speech in favor of electoral participation that appeared to take into account all the warring factions’ feelings. Satan was, of course, the master behind this entire exchange, but the party leadership were either too gullible or too desperate to see that, and they all ended up nominating Satan as their electoral head, delivering him a sort of ”Draft Satan” moment that permitted him to feign grassroots support.

Satan knew better than any of them how to get what he wanted.

And so it continues in the election. He’s telling everyone what they want to hear: ”Our best days are ahead of, not behind us,” he’s assured us; ”We must stand up to those who have done us ill,” he says on every campaign stop. Some voices have expressed concern that this is all part of a trap, that voters will regret it if they cast their ballots for him — that he’ll destroy everything we hold dear, and crown himself as a dictator. If people feel oppressed now, just wait till he’s the one calling the shots! If they feel humiliated, just wait and see how they feel when they realize they’ve been played for fools and enabled one of the most power-hungry, manipulative figures of our time. But those concerns aren’t being heeded seriously yet, and time is running out.

Ironically, the greatest hope for averting catastrophe might come from Satan himself, and whatever is left of his shredded conscience. Party insiders close to him have recently begun murmuring that he’s begun privately expressing doubts about his plans, wondering whether there’s another path he might have taken, one unifying rather than divisive and honest rather than deceptive. But that’s not enough. Voters seem enamored of his tell-them-what-they-want-to-hear messaging, but it’s vital for the wellbeing of all that he be handed a ballot box drubbing next month.


A bio for Nigel Becker is in the works!

Title Pages à la Defoe by Elijah Baird

Taking inspiration from Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders and previous 2201 portfolios, Elijah Baird has produced striking title pages for several of the works covered in the syllabus, including BeowulfThe Book of Margery KempeParadise Lost, and Fantomina. Each title page reveals a keen interest the finer details of early printing technology.

Baird provides a detailed overview of his process below, where he offers valuable insight for other would-be creators:

  • So, after choosing four texts, one from each literary period we covered, I was then left to decide how to approach creating such documents.
  • I first looked up free to use fonts in order to find fonts that were close to the original period that Defoe lived in.
  • After I chose what fonts I wanted, I was left to figure out how to format the documents and what information I wanted to put on them, so I rewatched the lecture video and reviewed the notes I had on Defoe, studying not just Moll Flanders’ cover page, but the other cover pages Dafoe created as well.
  • Once I had refreshed and studied up, I put the electronic (and still metaphorical) pen to paper, creating word documents that I converted into PDFs (there was no reason other than to have unaged versions in the cloud for backup).
  • Once that was done, it was time to print and let dry.
  • Once the ink was dry, it was time to begin the aging process. How would I do that?
  • The aging process:
    • Well, I saw the examples online and googled around, concluding that coffee was the way I preferred in terms of the outcome. Coffee? I have that. How to apply it was the challenge. I saw that some soaked it in coffee, but I didn’t like the results they had. The best results were from the ones that used soft clothes or cotton swabs to apply the coffee, so I decided to do that. Oh no, I don’t have cotton swabs or a soft cloth, what am I to do? Shamelessly (okay, a little shame. Not too much though, because it worked), I realized I did have Swiffer Heavy Duty Dry Sweeping Cloths. Bingo. I grabbed one of those bad boys and proceeded to use it to apply the coffee. Who says college doesn’t breed creativity? I let the pages dry and applied two more layers for a total of three layers.
    • Next was the wear and tear. I decided to age the oldest one more than the newest on in terms of the date the works came out. Beowulf is the only one I wanted to look burned, so I went out and bought what may have been the worst candlelighter I have ever used in my life, and that, for me, is saying something. I have used tens of candlelighters to start campfires and light candles over the years. But you must improvise, adapt, and overcome (not my own words, but I can’t remember who says them, I just know the meme). After Burning Beowulf, I decided to use the lighter to help create worn looking scuffs and tears on the rest of the pages as I saw fit. I then cleaned

Baird uses each page as an opportunity not only to introduce the text to follow but also to explore these narratives. For example, Paradise Lost is framed as an intra-familial struggle between father and son before it is revealed that the dramatis personae are God and Satan themselves. The “infamous” Margery Kempe’s life is defined by “adventures and misadventures” on the protagonists journey toward a life of self-determination. The singed title page for Beowulf (a nod to the fire damage sustained by the Beowulf Manuscript in the Cotton Library fire of 1731) introduces a story ultimately about “the human condition” — a story penned by “Scandinavia” herself for the use of posterity.

We hope you will enjoy Baird’s artistic skill and subtle commentary as much as we did!


A bio for Elijah Baird is in the works!

 

Sonnets in Times of Sickness by Luke Milligan

“…freedom lies in a purposeful fight
to give each day meaning in hardest times…”

Perceptive and beautifully composed, Luke Milligan’s sonnets put the literature encountered in 2201 in conversation with the events of the poet’s life. In these sonnets the reader will find a poet who has artfully adapted the sonnet form and powerful themes from literary history to address the challenges of living through a global pandemic. The poetry touches elegiac loss, isolation, the desire to “seize the day” (carpe diem), and personal narratives of love and trauma.

We are pleased to share his poems below, complete with some of his commentary.

Columbus 2020

there are times that I think upon the past
of the lights on broadway, smiling faces
would it all end? a question never asked.
joy seemed endless in all of the places

places where voices rang out, loud and clear
times when the music drowned out all the noise
stories were told in words of Shakespeare
the world united, the simplest of joys

I remember theaters full, spirits light
excitement ripe as all the lights went down
the laughter, the tears, the joys of the night
the people enjoyed a night on the town

now theaters sit silent, no shows or plays
will silence stay for the rest of my days?

This was a sonnet that I based on the “Elegy of Place” section that we covered during our first unit. One of my favorite physical locations has always been the theater or an event for performing arts. I have gone to concerts, recitals, and musicals for as long as I can remember. Live music has especially been something central to my life. I wanted to write a sonnet that described the fears I had during the darkest days of the pandemic.

 

A Sonnet From Ms. Julian

I stay by myself in my private room
I can read what I please with room for thought
some folks disapprove and call this my tomb
but I am safe and warm, wanting for naught

I dispense wisdom to people in town
they come with their conflicts, both large and small
some matters concern only a ripped gown
others include faith and fear of the fall

my life may seem boring, quiet, and dull
days filled with reading the same tired pages
staring through the window, watching the gulls
my life appears a waste for the ages

but I’m close to God, truly enlightened
and in this cell I’ve never been frightened

When I initially read Julian of Norwich’s writings, I thought her way of life was fascinating. It was so interesting to me that she chose to live the way she did and that she was able to find fulfillment in such an unusual way. I found myself wondering if I would’ve enjoyed the life that she had or if I would’ve chosen it for myself. This sonnet came out of my reflections on her experiences. I really tried to write as if I was Julian of Norwich writing from my room in the church.

 

Tomorrow Is Today

an indifferent world, each day the same
the days on the calendar blend to one
all thoughts of success, of fortune or fame
washed out by darkness, escape there is none

a wish for escape, a hope to be done
a dream to escape from the endless night
a wish to recover freedom and fun
it appears there is no end to this plight

freedom lies in a purposeful fight
to give each day meaning in hardest times
in the quietest moments, finding the light
through hearing music or reading rhymes

tomorrow is today without action
the art to escape? simple abstraction.

This sonnet is another one heavily influenced by my feelings and experiences during the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. I tried to model this sonnet around the “carpe diem” idea that was exhibited in some Renaissance poetry. When we were under the stay at home order in 2020, I really struggled to give meaning to each day. I found that every day felt the same, and I felt like I was losing my identity without friends or other people to interact with […] My version of “carpe diem” was just trying to make each day special and find reasons to get out of bed. It doesn’t seem as monumental as the attitude of some of the poetry that we read, but it certainly felt monumental at the time.

 

Sirens

each night I hear the sirens cry in song
I think silently, “Have they come for you?”
I push it away, I try to be strong
I always trust my faith to see me through

I see you there, on a hospital bed
away from my embrace, alone and cold
unfolding around me with mounting dread
thoughts of you leaving before you’re old

my mind flashes to the car, ripped and torn
My only comfort that you went ahead
the speed of life with no chances to warn
your choice was a needle carefully thread

I wake with a start, reeling from dreams’ plight
comforted by your face in morning’s light

In our last unit, I found Ignatius Sancho’s writings about his family, specifically his worries and words for his wife, to be incredibly touching. I wanted to try to emulate Sancho’s work with this sonnet and show that amount of care for someone that I love […] My girlfriend and I usually drive home together, but for some reason, it just didn’t work out this year and we ended up driving separately…

 


A bio for Luke Milligan is in the works!

Tarot Cards by Nathan Rollins

Reading literature from the past can certainly tell us much about the present, but what about the future? For his final project, Nathan Rollins has created a set of stunning tarot cards with each card representing a figure from one of the four literary periods covered in 2201. The set includes some distinguished characters: the early medieval hero(?), Beowulf; the mystic and visionary author, Julian of Norwich; the seventeenth-century philosopher and poet of the natural world, Margaret Cavendish; and the formerly enslaved memoirist and abolitionist, Olaudah Equiano.

Not only do these cards showcase Nathan’s artistic skill, but he has also created these literary representations with the meaning of each tarot card in mind, as he explains below!

Cards and Commentary

For the first card I chose to draw Beowulf holding the head of Grendel post-defeat. I altered Beowulf’s face to appear skull-like, and dubbed it the “death” card. The death card does not pertain strictly to the concept of dying, but when drawn in the upright orientation, it represents new beginnings, such as when Beowulf takes over as the new king.

The second card is the “hermit” card, which in the upward orientation represents contemplation and inner guidance. In the downward orientation, it represents loneliness and isolation. All of these characteristics are ones I would attribute to Julian of Norwich, who is featured in the second card.

For the third card I illustrated Margaret Cavendish as the “magician.” The magician represents willpower, creation, and manifestation in the upward orientation, and trickery or illusion in the downward orientation. I thought these words described The Blazing World quite well, in addition to Cavendish’s writing style.

The fourth and final card depicts Olaudah Equiano as a representative of the “sun.” The sun, in it’s upward position, represents joy, success, and celebration, but downward represents negativity, depression, and sadness. I think that the sun card adequately represents what we learned about Equiano’s life, as it encapsulates both incredibly depressing times and success despite all odds.


A bio for Nathan Rollins is in the works!

Commonplace Book by Molly Teller

Molly Teller found in her commonplace book an opportunity to collect, collate, and further ruminate on all the literary moments that made her pause this past semester. Her use of collage as the primary medium for her commonplace book as well as her thematic selection of excerpts make for a captivating, visually arresting experience. This comes as no surprise, since Molly considers herself a deeply visual learner and thinker:

I consider myself to be visually oriented when I think of how I interact with the world and so in collecting these works, I wanted them to be accompanied by visual representations that were paired with the significance of each work. I’ve grouped together these excerpts in five different groups, each containing works from the four time periods that we covered.

As Molly experimented with the mise-en-page of her book, she made conscious decisions regarding thematic organization and the overall artistic effect of each page. The pages tackle unique topics, including (1) passages to ponder; (2) wisdom from unexpected places; (3) the hands as conduits of affection and loyalty; (4) temptation; and (5) the quest for fulfillment. We’re so pleased to share Molly’s commonplace book below, along with excerpts from her insightful commentary.

Passages to Ponder

On the first page of the book lies the page full of passages that stick with me throughout the day. While not every work has been a winner in my eyes, whether due to stylistic preference or disinterest in plotlines, I’ve also found beauty in so many of them. It’s upsetting to reflect on how many recitations we held in which we reviewed the fact that so many works had been lost to time. [. . .] [This collage] came together because I felt that the eyes said what I felt about these poignant passages, but since this is for a final project I’ll give a bit more of a solid explanation here. The way that I choose to think of it at the end of the day is that I fall within that beautiful photograph of the mountain and the cowboys that sit atop them, and throughout the day the passages pop their heads in and take a long look at me to remind me of what I’ve read. How lucky to have encountered these things so much older than I.

Wisdom from Unexpected Sources

[In this collage] we have a bit of a stranger layout. This was done intentionally as the theme here is the frequency with which authors and their characters draw inspiration and wisdom from unusual places. Included here, there is the excerpt from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History noted as The Sparrow in the Hall in the textbook. You can also find Creation as a Hazelnut, Pangur Bán, Earth’s Complaint, and the section describing The Cave of Spleen. It’s no new feat for people to find solace from nature and I’d venture to say it wasn’t new in any of these passages by any means. All the way back to when I was in high school, my environmental science teacher spent a full day lecturing about the recreational and mental benefits of the natural world. I drove out to the Smoky Mountains while the world fell to a pause this summer, because to me, I find myself breathing easiest when surrounded by nature. I love to see that authors that I spend my time with find the same value in the natural things around them.

The Hands

The hands here serve to display the work and emotion involved in the name of affection and loyalty. Figuring out what was to be said with this section took me the longest. I wanted to discuss love and how it developed over the course of time that these works span, however in looking closely at those it felt improper to dedicate an entire section of the book to love and divorce that idea from the significance of faith. When I use the term faith, it does hold a connection to religion for many of these pieces but also represents the idea of loyalty and trust within relationships. I had expected for there to be a much stronger presence of religion throughout the works in this class, and it was present for a great deal of the works, but it took a backseat more often than I would have thought. The presence of religion within the works helped to give insight into societal changes that were occurring between pieces. It helped to signify what the role and independence of women was like, whether those women were characters or authors. Faith was also significant here in telling us what mattered most to people and their relationships in these times long gone.

Temptation

. . .we then come to temptation. A frequent presence within our reads was the Devil, however, unless reading through a religious lens for the entirety of the compiled works, temptation mostly comes from everyday issues and encounters. Different motives appear in each of these writings, but what stands out is how constant and at times mundane the appeal of taking the low road is. The power of temptation works against characters’ relationships with others, asking of them to betray some level of trust from one near to them, yet it’s not a topic that I included in order to condemn. The ability for the writers to have written sympathetic characters with troubled motives not only displays their own understanding of the complexity of wrongdoings, but also provides us once again with insight into what that means for life at that point in time.

Striving for Fulfillment

I’ve dedicated [the final page] to one of my favorite discussions held throughout this semester’s recitations. The mention of what fulfillment might be during our sharing of discussions between Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe brought about a spell of quiet thinking. In completing this project, I went back to see what jumped out to me as characters and authors striving for fulfillment. Fulfillment isn’t something easily defined, however, the process of achieving it seems to have quite a few common themes. [. . .] Not everyone has had or does have the ability to do what they yearn for. To feel at peace with your place in the world should not be a limited offering, and seeing the transformation in how easily the subjects of these writings were able to pursue their own purpose adds a certain urgency for myself in reflecting on what to do to even out those abilities to a greater extent today.

A full bio for Molly Teller is in the works!

Commonplace Book by Rachel Stanco

Commonplace books are not merely static collections of disparate texts; they tell us a great deal not only about the reception of literature over time but also the lives and experiences of their compilers. This example, crafted by Rachel Stanco, similarly explores premodern texts with a personality and energy unique to its creator.

Reading Rachel’s commonplace book is like walking through a guided tour of meaningful scenes: she mediates moments of joy, grief, and empowerment found across a range of premodern literary works. From unique expressions of love and loss to unlikely human-animal friendships, her book pairs literary excerpts with earnest commentary that isn’t afraid to tackle pressing questions. All the while, Rachel has created her commonplace book digitally, opening up creative avenues beyond pen and page for each of her fourteen entries.


A bio for Rachel Stanco is in the works!

Antiquarian Book Covers by Swea Kumlien

Have you ever wondered what labor goes into producing a beautiful, weathered book page? Swea Kumlien, the creator of these gorgeous covers, breaks down the process for us:

Regarding the technical steps taken to complete this project, I obtained a free period-appropriate font, typed my text into four word documents, then treated each page with coffee and a cotton ball. Next I treated all edges with candle lighter followed by a baby wipe for maximum “aged” effect.

The creative process here doesn’t begin and end with some cotton swabs; the covers effectively reimagine four premodern texts (Beowulf, Morte D’arthur, Paradise Lost, and Fantomina). In each cover, Swea offers a fascinating take on the text in question. How can we read Beowulf as a treatise on peace? Does Thomas Malory’s status as a writer during wartime alter the reception of his work? How can we read Paradise Lost as a “vivid and reasoned retelling of many epic tableaux”? Swea’s creations offer us a window into how these works are constantly re-evaluated and their meanings contested. Peruse them below along with some of her commentary!

LISTEN to this PROLOGUE of a PRESERVED WORK which depicts DIVERSE METHODS which may be employed in the NAVIGATION of KINGSHIP as demonstrated by TWO GENERATIONS within the ROYAL family of the ANCIENT SCANDINAVIANS especially within what has been called the “epic” LIFE of one BEOWULF —OR — A GRAPHIC and NOBLE EXAMPLE for PEACE-LOVING PEOPLES. [et cetera]

Morte D’arthur —OR— “THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING ARTHUR” And his Majesty’s own knights, TOLD in NINE BOOKS. [et cetera]

Paradise Lost. A POEM IN TEN BOOKS containing the VIVID and REASONED retelling of MANY EPIC TABLEAU: such as SATAN’S DEPLORABLE SEDUCTION of HIS OWN OFFSPRING: the which are presented to current readership By JOHN MILTON. [et cetera]

FANTOMINA: OR, “Love in a Maze” BEING A Secret History of an AMOUR Between Two PERSONS of CONDITION. By Mrs. ELIZA HAYWOD. [et cetera]


Swea Kumlien is an English major/Music minor at OSU. Truly, she loved 2201’s portfolio project because when she was tiny she used to make pages for books and then bind them together and read them to her dolls. When she got older she found that she never comprehended something until she paired the concept with another media-form or sense-form and then viewed the concept through both forms. It went like this: if she was reading she had to draw the action, if she was seeing a film she had to write about it, if she was reading a poem she had to put music to the poem, if she was writing a song she had to put words to the song; and today if she needs to memorize a speech she still has to make images or colors to go with each stanza otherwise she will never be able to memorize the words. The synthesizing nature of this portfolio project prompt was a way to use her natural instincts to best benefit. A prompt that asks for synthesis of time periods and media forms is a small external sanction of the way her brain works already and she is very happy to share her final project with you here.

Modernized Book Covers by Lauren Bayerl

In her final portfolio project, sophomore Lauren Bayerl reimagines four premodern works—the Old English “Ruin” elegy, Andreas Capellanus’ Art of Courtly Love, Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress,” and Haywood’s Fantomina—as modern book covers. Her artistic talent and creativity are on full display as she navigates key questions about these works and their reception: How was the text received in its time? What about today? How does a book cover capture a reader’s attention? What can a cover reveal about the text within? How do covers themselves engage with genre-specific expectations?

Below we have included each of Lauren’s covers along with her commentary. Any of her covers would find a happy home on the shelves of our local book store!

For the first time period that we covered in class, pre-conquest Britain, I decided to focus on the topic of elegies. For the modern interpretation of the cover of “An Elegy of Place,” I took several factors into account. The ruins that the author describes in their work are depicted in the illustration of a burning building. Though a fire did not necessarily destroy the city that the author describes, the symbolism has a strong correlation with the text. As the building on my cover burns, three birds emerge from the flames in different stages: one dark bird, one slowly gaining flashes of color, and the final emerging as a fiery phoenix. In “An Elegy of Place,” the author laments the lost city that they never knew while simultaneously finding a sense of beauty in the ruins. In my version of the cover, the emerging phoenix represents this beauty from the city’s destruction that the author found so noteworthy.

For the second time period that we covered, post-conquest medieval Britain, I decided to pour my focus into the week covering “The Invention of (B)romantic Love,” particularly Andreas Capellanus’s “The Art of Courtly Love.” In this work, Capellanus describes over thirty “rules” to love and successful relationships; much of this advice would be considered outdated now and is filled with contradictions, while many of these negative “tips” still linger in our culture today. For this modern cover, I formatted it much like a book from the For Dummies series. This is very much due to the fact that Capellanus lays out what he believes to be the secret to a perfect love and how to achieve this relationship. It reminded me greatly of today’s self-help and instructional texts, so I modeled it after one of the most famous examples of a modern how-to book.

The Renaissance, the third era that our class covered this semester, was filled to the brim with talk of carpe diem and living in the present. For this period, I decided to illustrate a modern cover of “To his Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell. I utilized the style of an art motif common to the time: the often “double-decker” cadaver monuments. In this case, the top casket contains a still-living depiction of Marvell’s lover that he describes in the poem. The bottom later of the tomb contains her skeleton, slowly draining the years from her living self. She holds a flower in her hands, a symbol of her current beauty and purity in life. The flower is also causing her hands to drip blood, an indication of how holding onto this fleeting state could negatively impact whatever is left of her life, which is represented to be cut short abruptly by the rest of the blood in the drawing. Marvell’s poem being a classic example of living in the present, this cover illustration stresses that idea with a grim reminder of the lover’s—perhaps near—future.

In covering the final era of our studies, the restoration and the eighteenth century, I chose to illustrate the novel Fantomina by Eliza Haywood. In the original cover, Haywood nicknames the story “Love in a Maze,” an idea that I borrowed from heavily in this drawing. The vizard that the main character of the story famously chooses as her final disguise appears as the focal point, its features divided up into a maze that can actually be completed. This cover serves as a way of making the story more interactive: just as the protagonist dodges the multiple obstacles to carve her path and creates several love affairs with the man she loves, the reader can similarly navigate the twists and turns of the cover and find their way out. The complexity of the idea and simplicity of the style and color scheme is also intentional. Throughout Fantomina , the protagonist weaves complex stories of the backgrounds of each of her characters, with the only thing keeping her true identity a secret being as simple as the skill of her acting. This modern interpretation of the cover stresses this idea as well.


Lauren Bayerl is a sophomore double-majoring in English (with a concentration in writing, rhetoric, and literacy) and biology (pre-medical concentration).  She has a wide variety of interests, though she hopes to one day become a published author while working in her chosen career.  On campus, she enjoys participating in BuckeyeThon, helping students in physiology as a “Phys Phab,” and serving as a curriculum co-chair for the First Year Leadership Initiative.  In her spare time, she can be found drawing celebrities, writing and reading, spending time with friends (over the phone, for the time being), or over-analyzing her favorite television shows.

Screenplay by David Franz

Three writers and a priest walk into a bar — uh, I mean — a dining room in Victorian England. In this original screenplay by David Franz, three authors from British literary history are given a seemingly straightforward task: write a story. Dripping with wit and bold personalities, David’s screenplay imagines the micro-interactions between the poet John Donne, the anchoress Julian of Norwich, the novelist Eliza Haywood, and an anonymous Priest. Alas, for these distinguished dinner guests, the challenge may be a bit more than they bargained for!


A bio for David Franz is on its way!