While reading Kelsey McKinney’s observations and analyses on the practice of commonplacing, I became very drawn to some of the points she was making. I had always thought of commonplacing as our way to share our ideas and ponderings with our classmates. Although this is a major purpose of the commonplace exercise, I never really had thought about the other purposes it served, such as its function of a “roadmap” of my intellectual development, as Mckinney states. However, after going back through my commonplace entries and reflecting on them, I began to notice what McKinney was referring to in her observations.
The first observation of McKinney’s that really stuck out to me was when she explained how reading an author’s commonplace book was like “climbing into a window into their mind”. I remembered hearing something like that in our discussions of commonplacing practices way back when we started, but not until I looked through the commonplace entries of myself and my peers did I really notice that to be true. Everyone’s commonplace book has its own themes that it focuses on. Obviously with us all reading the same novels at the same time, these themes are bound to be similar. However, what was really unique was the combinations of themes that each book looked at, as well as the information used to delve more into this theme. Some used literary critiques, some used maps, others used posters for movies, and the list goes on. The ability to bring in outside information from anywhere we felt was appropriate and relevant to the novel made each of our commonplace books a one-of-a-kind map of what we were interested in learning at one time versus another, and how these ideas connected throughout our other entries.
McKinney also caught my attention when she said that a commonplace book is “instinctual to intellectual cultivation.” As we continue to develop our ideas and interests, we can go back and see what really stuck out to us before and how we developed certain ideas into others. After viewing my own commonplace entries, I was able to find a few examples of how my interests and ideas developed. One of the best examples of this actually comes from my first two entries, and I have included the links below so you may also see the comparison first-hand. In my first commonplace entry from January 29, I simply included quotes from the Frankenstein about the monster’s creation and his hateful feelings about his own appearance and place in society. Although these were important themes, I never expanded upon them or included any other perspectives besides Mary Shelley’s and my own. However, my next entry after that one already shows development of my commonplace book’s ideas from the previous week. In my entry titled “February 5”, I expanded greatly on my ideas from the previous week. Rather than just include quotes from the novel along with my own words, I also included the words of several authors of online articles. One of them compared the feelings of self-loathing in Frankenstein to the feelings a woman had when going through a sex-change operation, or the feeling of someone with an unaccepted sexual orientation. Comparing these themes in Frankenstein to problems that are apparent in our society today really helped me grasp a better understanding of the emotions and feelings that the creature in the novel was going through, which helped me to better realize his intentions and motives throughout the novel. This really shows how developing your commonplace book is essentially like developing your mind and how you see things.
January 29: https://pphillips5.uneportfolio.org/2020/01/29/january-29/
February 5: https://pphillips5.uneportfolio.org/2020/02/05/february-5/
Other entries that really stuck out to me when going through my commonplace book were two from the month of March. One of these entries was for the novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the other was for The Picture of Dorian Gray. In my entry from March 4, I included passages from newspapers describing the murders of Jack the Ripper. The best part about these outside sources were that these murders were right around the same time that this novel was published, so the real-life reactions of the people at the time to the murders committed by Jack the Ripper really helped to understand the reactions of members of society in the novel. The sensationalism of the crimes committed at the time, whether it be the large headlines in the newspapers or the articles meant to strike fear into the heart of the reader, is very similar to the sensationalism seen in the novel over the crimes of Mr. Hyde. Connecting real-life examples of society at the time of the novel really helped me to get an understanding of the fears of the audience at the time, which helped me to better understand the character’s actions in the novel. In my entry from March 25, I used a book review of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray to illustrate the fears of people at the time. This is also my favorite commonplace entry. Wilde was persecuted strongly for his ideas he included in this novel, especially ones involving homosexuality and “immoral undertones”. In fact, this novel even got Wilde thrown in jail. This entry was always my favorite because it was just such an ironic situation. The fears of the time that Wilde wrote about to get a reaction out of his audience got such a fearful reaction that it ended with Wilde being thrown in jail. This in my mind is the best example of an author absolutely pinpointing the fears of his audience. He fit these fears into a story so well that his audience became afraid of him.
March 4: https://pphillips5.uneportfolio.org/2020/03/04/march-4/
March 25: https://pphillips5.uneportfolio.org/2020/03/25/march-25/
Overall, my commonplace practice involved trying to find primary source information from the time the novel was written. It could have been anything from newspaper articles, to literary reviews, to issues that were going on back then. Understanding the ideas and fears of the people at the time always helped me to better understand what I was reading. I was able to realize why a character had acted a certain way, and this really helped me be able to have an in-depth and thoughtful reading experience. One thing I could definitely expand upon is my work on mental illness, especially from the time we were reading Jane Eyre. I just feel like after going through my commonplace entries that each of these novels can be connected to some sort of mental illness today, and that we can use these past instances of mental care to better shape how we treat the mentally ill today. Commonplacing was an overall great experience and it is something I will definitely continue to make additions to.
