Change is something we’re used to. Our grandparents’ experience of being a teenager was probably very different to what it is like today. Life as reflected by Hollyoaks is a world away from the radio programmes, books and magazines they read.
The A Level syllabus you are studying has built into it a concern that students really grasp how texts are the product of their times. But how much do you really need to know to make sense of an author’s output?
- It helps to find out what were the key events of the era
- The tangible world of transport and technological advances, political change and social upheaval affected how people survived
- The intangible world of philosophy, faith and ideas shaped people’s expectations about life – expectations shared by both author and reader
- The existing literary world influenced how any text was received by its original and subsequent audiences
www.crossref-it.info has focussed on all these areas to help students get the most out of literature created in other eras. You don’t need to spend too long reading the material before it starts to make ‘difficult’ works seem much more accessible.
Some things don’t change
So some things are very different. What does not change however, is what writers throughout the ages have chosen as their subject matter: human nature. Love and anguish, greed and fear, the desire for power and protection – English Literature is full of human struggles we can identify with whatever times we live in.
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