Relevance through Ambivalence in the Girl's Own Paper: "Robina Crusoe" as a Popular Girl's Robinsonade

Viktorya döneminin getirdiği en önemli edebi ve kültürel olgulardan birisi, popüler gençlik dergilerinin ortaya çıkışı ve yükselişi olmuştur. 1880'lerde yeni bir kadınlık anlayışı olan Yeni Kadın kavramının ortaya çıkmasıyla eş zamanlı olarak, Girl's Own Paper gibi genç kadın okuyucu kitlesini hedefleyen bazı süreli yayınlar da yayın hayatına başlayıp kısa sürede son derece popüler hale gelmiştir. Girl's Own Paper adlı derginin gücünün ve sıradışı popülerliğinin sebebi, derginin genç kadın okuyucularına kendileriyle ilişkilendirebilecekleri konuların ve duygu yapılarının ifade edildiği bir alan sağlamış olmasıydı. Bu makalede Raymond Williams, John Fiske ve Henry Jenkins tarafından tanımlanan kuramsal terimler ve yaklaşımlar kullanılarak, Elizabeth Whittaker'ın Girl's Own Paper'da 1882-83 yıllarında seri olarak yayımlanmış olan "Robina Crusoe and Her Lonely Island Home" adlı eseri ele alınmaktadır. Bu genç kız Robinsonadının baş kahramanın hem geleneksel kadını hem de Yeni Kadın'ı kendi kimliğinde barındırmak yoluyla geç Viktorya dönemindeki hakim ve ortaya çıkmakta olan duygu yapılarıyla nasıl iletişim içerisinde olduğu açıklanmaktadır. Makaledeki temel tartışma, "Robina Crusoe" adlı eserin farklı duygu yapılarıyla iletişim içerisinde kalabilme özelliğini, hem bir macera öyküsü, ki bu türün karakteristik bir özelliği akışkanlıktır, hem bir uyarlama, hem de sömürgecilik, toplumsal cinsiyet rolleri ve kadınların eğitimi gibi konulardaki söylemsel konumu belirsiz bir eser olmasına borçlu olduğu düşüncesi üzerinde kuruludur. Ayrıca, "Okur Mektuplarına Cevaplar" kısmında derginin editörü okurlarla etkileşim içerisinde bulunmuş, kimi zaman onların dünya görüşlerini değiştirirken, kimi zaman da okuyucu talepleri doğrultusunda yayının içeriğini değiştirmiştir. Girl's Own Paper Fiske'in tanımladığı anlamda "ilgili" ve "popüler" kalabilmeyi, okuyucularına onların harekete geçirebileceği ve anlamlandırabileceği içerik sağlayarak başarmıştır. Dahası, dergi okuyucularına bu ortamda içerik oluşturabilmelerine olanak sağlayacak bir alan da bırakmış ve Jenkins'in tanımladığı anlamda bir "katılımcı kültür" oluşturmuştur. Makalede bu tartışmalar "Robina Crusoe"nun incelenmesi yoluyla örneklenerek, geç Viktorya dönemi İngilteresinde modern kültürün bir prototipinin ortaya çıkmış olduğu ve Girl's Own Paper ve bu yayının okuyucuları arasındaki karşılıklı oluşturucu etkileşimin de yirminci yüz yıldan yirmi birinci yüz yıla geçilen dönemde görülen benzer bir popüler kültürün haberini o zamanlardan verdiği sonuçlarına varılmaktadır

Girl's Own Paper'da Belirsizlik Yoluyla İlgili Olma: Popüler Bir Genç Kız Robinsonadı Olarak "Robina Crusoe"

One of the most outstanding literary and cultural phenomena that the Victorian period introduced was the emergence and rise of the popular juvenile magazine. Concurrent with the rise of the New Woman as an emergent notion of femininity in the 1880s, some periodical publications targeting a female audience such as the Girl's Own Paper also emerged and gained immense popularity. The power and exceptional popularity of the Girl's Own Paper lied in the way it provided a space for the articulation of subjects and structures of feeling that were relevant for the juvenile female reading audience. Using the theoretical terms and approaches introduced by Raymond Williams, John Fiske, and Henry Jenkins, the article engages Elizabeth Whittaker's "Robina Crusoe and Her Lonely Island Home" that was serialized in the Girl's Own Paper in 1882-83 to explicate how this girl's Robinsonade accommodated conventional femininity and the New Woman in the person of its protagonist, thereby communicating with both the dominant and emergent structures of feeling in the late Victorian period. One key argument presented here is that "Robina Crusoe" as a text was able to stay in touch with different structures of feeling because it was an adventure story, a genre that is characterized by fluidity, an adaptation, and a work with ambiguous discursive positions regarding colonization, gender roles, and female education. Moreover, through the magazine's "Answers to Correspondents" section, the editor interacted with their readers, sometimes shaping their worldviews, but at other times changing the contents of the publication based on the demands of the readers. The Girl's Own Paper remained "relevant" and "popular" in the sense Fiske uses these terms by offering content which can be activated and made meaningful by its readers. Moreover, the magazine allowed a space for its consumers where they can participate in the creation of content in this particular media, thereby forming a "participatory culture" defined by Jenkins. Illustrating these arguments through a study of "Robina Crusoe," the article concludes that the last few decades of the Victorian period in Britain created a prototype of modern culture, and that the mutually formative interaction between the Girl's Own Paper and its readers presages a similar mode of popular culture that emerged at the turn of the twenty-first century

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