skip to main content
Caltech
Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences
HSS Home  /  People  /  Jenijoy La Belle

Jenijoy La Belle

Professor of English, Emeritus
B.A., University of Washington, 1965; Ph.D., University of California (San Diego), 1969. Assistant Professor of English, Caltech, 1969-76; Associate Professor, 1977-80; Associate Professor of Literature, 1980-88; Professor of Literature, 1988-2004; Professor of English, 2004-2007; Professor Emeritus, 2007-.

Profile

Jenijoy La Belle's publications concentrated in three areas: William Blake's pictorial works, issues of ideality and physicality in Shakespeare's plays, and issues of identity and physical appearance in 19th- and 20th-century texts about women.

During the 1997-98 academic year, she co-taught a course with Shirley Marneus, former director of TACIT (Theatre Arts at Caltech), which centered on Shakespeare's Henry V. After that, they conducted similar classes on seven other plays, including Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello. Unlike most academic courses on Shakespeare, these classes stressed the plays as stage performance and incorporated into the course TACIT's production of each play. From this hands-on involvement with both teaching and stage production, La Belle's research evolved towards some new perspectives on Shakespeare's theatricality.

Research Summary
William Blake; Shakespeare; Theodore Roethke; Women and Mirrors

Selected Publications

Books

  • Herself Beheld: The Literature of the Looking Glass. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1988.
  • The Echoing Wood of Theodore Roethke. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1976.
  • Co-author with Robert N. Essick, Night Thoughts or the Complaint and the Consolation Illustrated by William Blake. New York, Dover Press; Toronto, General Publishing Company; London, Constable and Company, 1975. Reprinted, 1996.
  • Co-author with Robert N. Essick, Flaxman's Illustrations to Homer. New York, Dover Press; Toronto, General Publishing Company, London, Constable and Company, 1977.