Ways in to Rossetti

An intriguing poet

Featuring on a number of current A Level English syllabuses, the poetry of Christina Rossetti makes for intriguing study.

On one level she is very accessible – dealing as she does with universal themes such as love, loss and the impact of beauty. However, there is an elusive quality to many poems, as they seem to allude to a world that is closed off to the inhabitants of an empirical, materialistic, post modern 21st century.

A bid for freedom

Rossetti’s experience of life in Victorian England had a clearly defined focus, developed within the constraints of what was considered acceptable for women in her position. Her strong impulse for freedom of imagination and self expression was instead met through her Christian faith.

Opening up her world

Coming to Rossetti’s work from a background of other religious beliefs or none means that the references she used as shorthand need to be worked at in a way she would not have envisaged. But once the reader sees what she is getting at, her work sings.

Help for students

In September Crossref-it.info launched an extensive guide to Rossetti’s work, in which everything that might be less than clear to modern readers is illuminated at the touch of a cursor (or finger if you are accessing the material via your mobile).

Help for busy teachers!

If you are a teacher wondering how you can engage your students with these texts, it may help to know that this week Crossref-it.info is launching

a series of six lesson sequences on a selection of Christina Rossetti's poems which take the

headache out of planning! There are a variety of different approaches suitable for different styles of learner or levels of ability, as well as keeping in mind the requirements of differing syllabuses.

Whichever way you come to Christina Rossetti, we want you to get the most from the experience. That’s why Crossref-it.info exists!

The Madness of Hamlet

The Madness of Hamlet set in Zimbabwe? How can that be relevant to A Level English students? Well, it depends whether you want an interesting take on a (perhaps overly familiar) text, where the action has been stripped to its story-telling essentials.

• The premise seems impossible – the first folio text acted by only two (male) actors and using only two props? How can a play with multiple characters, plot lines and changes of scene be made sense of, in only 90 minutes?
• In fact the version by Two Gents Productions of Kupenga Kwa Hamlet which I saw on Monday is dramatic and exciting, never hard to follow and throws up some fascinating insights on a well known tale. Physical energy is punctuated by moments of stillness, tragedy offset by easy humour, seeming to recapture the dynamism that perhaps existed in rehearsal 410 years ago.

If you are studying Hamlet for an exam course, the opportunity to see a live performance of the play is highly likely. The central role is seen by actors as the Everest of their early career (as Lear is once they are at the other end of it). Currently performing at the National Theatre is Rory Kinnear, who has garnered rave reviews.

But if you want to think and (re)engage with this classic in a fresh way that still honours Shakespeare’s intentions, investigate http://www.watermill.org.uk/kupenga_kwa_hamlet.html for the chance to experience a great piece of theatre.

And if you want to make sure you know the play before you go, check out Hamlet on Crossref-it.info, where there are handy synopses, as well as detailed information about the text.

Answers to last week's quiz

We hope you enjoyed last week’s quiz. The two famous novels it was based on were Emma and Jane Eyre, between which there are some surprising similarities.

The correct answers are:

1. Emma & Jane

2. Wodehouse & Eyre

3. Painting

4. Their mother (Jane’s father had also died)

5. Mr (Philip) Elton & St.John Rivers

6. Harriet Smith & Rosamond Oliver

7. Mr (George) Knightly & Edward Rochester

8. Mrs (Augusta) Elton & ‘the Church’ (but if you said ‘unmarried’ you would also be correct)

9. Jane Austen & Charlotte Brontë

10.a. Since 1990, Emma has been portrayed by Doran Godwin (1993), Kate Beckinsale (1996), Gwyneth Paltrow (1996), Romola Garai (2009)

10.b. Since 1990, Jane has been portrayed by Charlotte Gainsborg (1995), Samantha Morton (1997), Ruth Wilson (2006)

How many of the possible 18 marks did you get right?

If you enjoyed this brain teaser, look out for another quiz next month – and remember that www.crossref-it.info is there to help answer your literary questions!

Something for the end of your day...

Slightly different this week, a quick literary quiz to test your knowledge!

In two famous novels from the first half of the nineteenth century, the heroines receive an unwelcome proposal of marriage from a clergyman, having previously believed that each man was in love with another woman.

1. What is the first name of each heroine?

2. What are their surnames?

3. What hobby did these heroines share?

4. Which parent had both heroines lost?

5. What are the names of the two clergymen?

6. Who are the two women which each heroine thought that the vicars loved?

7. Who did the heroines finally marry?

8. Who were the eventual ‘brides’ of the clergymen?

9. Name the author of each novel.

10. Can you name one actress who has portrayed each heroine on film or TV (since 1990)?

How did you do? If you are struggling, then a clue is that one of these novels is featured on www.crossref-it.info (take a look under the green "Texts in detail" button)

Answers will be given next week!

Reaching across borders

At Crossref-it.info we tend to focus on supporting you as you prepare for your exams and essays. However, once in a while it is ok to celebrate how far one has come and today we want to do just that.

When we launched Crossref-it.info in its current form, back in October 2008, the site got 3000 visits during the whole month.

In just two years, the site has grown to reach a global audience which numbers in their multiple hundreds of thousands. Despite or perhaps because of our focus on quality of content and academic credibility, rather than churning out as many shallow text guides as possible, thousands of you have turned to Crossref-it.info to deliver for free what you could usually only get by buying an expensive text guide in a shop.

Crossref-it.info is visited by people from almost every country in the world. We have launched 13 text guides, a vast array of contextual material and articles, timelines, author sections, blog posts, texts.crossref-it.info for reading e-books, a mobile website and the list goes on...

Going forward, we need your help!

You can do two things to massively help and to ensure that Crossref-it.info keeps going strong as a free, high-quality, English Lit resource:

1. Please recommend the website to as many people as possible. Connect with us on Facebook. Tweet about us. Tell people about us. Digg our pages. If you have a website or a blog, write about us, link to us. Spread the word!

2. Please click on the Amazon links on the website before buying things on Amazon. That way, we get a commission, which will help to keep the site going.

Thank you for your continued support!

5 tips: Crossref-it.info on your mobile

Following last weeks news about our new mobile version of Crossref-it.info we thought we would delve a bit more deeply into the new site, to showcase some of the ways you can make use of this exciting new development!

Before we start, a reminder: the mobile site is built for devices running iOS (iPhone, iPad, etc.), Android and WebOS. You can access it by simply visiting Crossref-it.info from your device's browser.

1. Navigate with ease

On the home page, everything is neatly organised into a selection of green boxes. This provides you with direct access to whatever content you're looking for. Text guides, for instance, can be found in the "Texts in detail" box.

Once you have navigated away from the home page, those green boxes become green icons which are always at the top of the screen. So wherever in the site you are, you can jump to another part of the website with

just two taps of the finger. There is also the search box, of course...

2. Use the drop-down box

The drop-down box enables you to quickly see all the content that is available within a section, for instance in a text guide, and navigate around really quickly. It is always fairly near the top of the page.

3. Take a look at the timeline

It offers a great overview of what was happening in the world during the period which you are reading about.

4. Recently viewed pages

To always have a list of the ten most recently viewed pages at your disposal, simply sign in to your free Crossref-it.info account. That way, when you tap the "My Account" button in the top right-hand corner of your screen, it will show you what you have been reading. A potential life-saver (in a manner of speaking).

5. Tooltips

Don't understand a word? Want more of an explanation? If it is orange, then there could be no simpler solution to your predicament: tap to open tooltip, read explanation, tap to close tooltip. Simples.

There is more. Lots more* actually. We think thanks to the excellent navigation you should have no trouble finding it. In fact, it should be fun! So go to www.crossref-it.info on your mobile device and check it out...

* For instance, open the Songs of Innocence and Experience text guide on your mobile device and navigate to "Pictures".

Crossref-it.info for mobiles

New: Crossref-it.info for mobiles

We are pleased to announce the launch of m.crossref-it.info - Crossref-it.info optimised* for iPhone, Google Android and WebOS. If you have such a device then simply go to Crossref-it.info on your device and you will be automatically taken to the new website.

What's the difference?

For a start, the new site is fast. Really fast. It'll load quickly even when you're far away from a Wifi hotspot. We've made sure you'll be able to quickly access all the info you want, whenever you want, wherever you are.

Also, it is optimised for touch input. Not having a mouse makes it difficult to "hover" over an A-Z Tooltip, for instance, so we have thought through the entire design of the website to make sure everything works well without using a mouse.

And, finally, we've made sure it plays well with small screens. We've worked to make sure that you get the full Crossref-it.info experience using an interface that works really well with small screen form factors. In fact, it actually works rather well on large touch-screens as well. So whether you have a Sony Ericsson X10 Mini or an Apple iPad, or anything in between, we have worked hard to make sure you will enjoy using Crossref-it.info.

As always, feedback is welcome in the comments!

* This will work on devices running the following three operating systems: iOS, Android, WebOS. Examples of supported devices: Acer - Liquid, Liquid E, Stream; Apple - iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad; Google - Nexus One; Dell - Streak; HTC - Desire, Evo 4G, T-Mobile G1 (Dream), Hero, Incredible, Magic (MyTouch 3G), Wildfire; LG - Ally, Etna, Eve, GT540, GW620, GW880, LU2300, Optimus; Motorola - Cliq, Dext, Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Milestone, Palm (HP) - Pixi, Pixi+, Pre, Pre+; Samsung - Galaxy i7500, Galaxy i5700, Galaxy S, Galaxy Tab; Sony Ericsson - Xperia X10, Xperia X10 Mini, Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Poetry – a male preserve?

Poetry – a male preserve?

Up to around fifty years ago, most people would have struggled when asked to name a famous female poet. The poetry canon was dominated by figures like the Romantics, (blogged about last week), Shakespeare, Donne and Herbert, Pope, Tennyson and Eliot. Unlike today, only a few women poets ever made it into print or continued to be read after their lifetime.

The achievement of the few that did is therefore all the more remarkable. The work of the Brontë sisters (see August blog), Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti has continued to speak to new generations of readers. The latter is perhaps less familiar than her contemporaries. She does not have the romance of illicit relationships, or dramatic landscapes attached to her name.

Quietly powerful

Instead, Rossetti lived quietly in London for most of her life, single and dogged by ill health. Yet her poetry is powerful and direct, illuminating friendship and fear, faith and death. Through her individual perspective she touches on a universal experience.

Allusions explained

Many readers today will not be familiar with the social and religious world that Rossetti inhabited, and feel somewhat daunted at approaching her poetry because of this. One of the reasons that Crossref-it.info came into existence was to provide just the kind of help that allows readers to access works of literature peppered with allusions – in this case biblical ones.

Through her poetry Rossetti was opening up many issues close to her heart; it helps to see what she meant when she referred to paths and ladders, blood and brokenness. The brand new guide to The poems of Christina Rossetti will give students and teachers all the information they need in order to fully enjoy her work.

The Romantic poets

The Romantic poets

The lonely poet

Much of today’s view of what a poem should like is down to the influence of a loose affiliation of poets who were composing in the final quarter of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth. The (charicatured) image of a spiritual wanderer profoundly affected by daffodils and nightingales marked a distinct change from the witty epigrams and clever arguments of the Augustan and Metaphysical poets.

Simple words

Using simple daily vocabulary the Romantic poets drew their reader’s attention to vivid natural images and fleeting emotional states, to the experiences of ordinary lives which spoke to them of awesome Nature.

Blake (pictured), Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron and Keats were the most famous of the movement. Their odes and lyrics are in many people’s top ten favourite poems today.

Radicals and revolutionaries

However, the Romantic poets weren’t just inspired by the natural world. Blake and Wordsworth started out as revolutionaries who supported the common people’s bid for freedom in France. Byron later fought for the Greeks in their war of independence. Shelley was a political radical who eschewed conventional social structures like marriage. He lived with the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the first notable feminist. Their poems reflect their ideals.

A window on their world

The Romantics were not ‘apart’ from their society, but fully engaged with it. Which is why it helps to get a window on their world to make better sense of what inspired them. As usual, Crossref-it.info can guide you to what you need to know in a helpful and accessible way. Whether you are reading Wordsworth, Keats or their associates, Context links: The Romantic poets will show you where relevant information is, whilst the complete guide on Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience fills out the picture of that London based poet.

Next week another complete guide to an English poet will arrive on your screens. Watch this space!

Dark Comedy

Dark Comedy

Painful laughter

If you are a fan of shows like Little Britain you’ll be familiar with the fact that, amongst sublimely funny situations of punctured pride and physical slapstick, lurk darker elements that make us laugh. The Fat Club sketches are essentially about bullying and racism, the W.I. ladies are grotesque snobs, the breast-feeding adult is disturbing.

Twelfth Night

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is defined as a comedy and regularly performed today. It includes the comic pathos in Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s aspirations to valour, the broad comedy of mistaken identities, the witty repartee of Maria etc. But in the taunting of Malvolio, and the perpetrators’ obvious enjoyment of his torture, we encounter that darker seam of what makes people laugh.

How Shakespeare’s audience understood the play

Through the antagonism between Sir Toby Belch and Malvolio on stage, Shakespeare was reflecting a cultural sea change. Elements of society, influenced by extreme reformed Protestantism in Europe and Scotland, were challenging the laissé-faire attitudes of the nobility and established church in England.

Malvolio represents the aspiring middle classes who wanted their own share of social influence and prestige – a share that others were reluctant to allow. It was a conflict that would ultimately erupt in the mid seventeenth century with the English Civil War.

Helpful links

You don’t need to know all this to enjoy the comic plot, but if you end up studying Twelfth Night for A Level, marks are awarded for your understanding of how the play was originally received and understood. The newly launched Context links: Twelfth Night will fill you in with all you need to know if you visit Crossref-it.info.

If you can get to see the forthcoming production of the play, part of the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, at Robinson College Gardens, 2-28 August (www.cambridgeshakespeare.com), even better!

Passionate Poetry

Passionate poetry

Reading poetry requires some mental space. We need to be able to resist the demands of a hectic lifestyle and allow the words to penetrate our minds and hearts. So what better time to pick up a volume during the less pressured days of the summer holidays!

The brevity of much poetry means that we encounter ideas and emotions distilled into their purest form. It is powerful stuff, particularly when it speaks of the strongest human feelings.

The poetry of the Brontës

The Brontë sisters are famous for their vivid and tumultuous novels, such as The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. But many of the themes and passions we come across in these stories exist in condensed form in the sisters’ surviving poems. It is hard to read, for example, Cold In The Earth and not think of Cathy’s love for Heathcliff which endures beyond the grave.

Another level of interest is added when we find out about the actual lives and loves of the three sisters, and see how they translated the stuff of their daily environment into these moving poems. An ideal way of discovering what they knew and what motivated the Brontës is launched this week at Crossref-it.info. Go to Context links: Selected poetry of the Brontës.

But best of all, find a quiet place on a lazy summer’s day and read these distillations of passion for yourself!

Chaucer for today

Chaucer for today

The General Prologue and The Nun's Priest's Tale

Sections of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales frequently feature on A Level syllabuses. The Tales and the descriptions of their tellers are funny and inventive, particularly coming to life when read aloud as they were originally intended. Because Chaucer was portraying the jobs and personality types familiar to his medieval hearers it helps to get a window into the world that they knew.

• How much of a say did women have in that society?
• Why were people in the Middle Ages so fussed about death and judgement?
• Why did they accept that some were superior to because of their birth?
• Why was the Church so influential in people’s day to day lives?

Quick solutions to the questions

The latest helpful student resources from Crossref-it.info this week are focused on The General Prologue and The Nun's Priest's Tale and link you to all the most helpful sections of the website. If you are studying or teaching either work look out for:

Context links: The General Prologue

Context links: The Nun's Priest's Tale

The pointlessness of tragedy

The pointlessness of tragedy

Productions of Othello

Whenever I see Shakespeare’s Othello I am always struck by how such trivial incidents – like the dropping of a hanky, the repetition of apparently innocent phrases – can result in such a momentous downfall of the protagonist and those around him. Played well, it can be almost unbearable to watch.

Yet there is an appeal to this agony, which is why the play endures and takes new generations of theatre go-ers down its tortuous paths. It is never performed as regularly as Hamlet or King Lear for example, so, if you are studying Othello in the coming year do watch out for these productions:

• Currently running until 21 August is a (semi) open air performance by Stamford Shakespeare at the Rutland Open Air Theatre, Tolethorpe Hall, Stamford, 15 June – 21 August (01780 756 133 / 763 203). www.stamfordshakespeare.co.uk
• An interesting adaptation of the Othello story is being done by the Veni Vidi Theatre Company at Lauderdale House, London, between the 10 – 13 August (020 8348 8716).

Getting a fix on the play

Unlike some of Shakespeare’s other plays, which can exist within a world of their own, Othello is set in a specific political situation. Racial and class resentment festers amidst the fears and upheaval generated by armed conflict.

To help you understand this world, Crossref-it.info has this week launched a handy guide tailored to the play, which takes you to all the most helpful sections of the website. Look out for Context links: Othello. If you find yourself studying the play in the coming academic year, this one stop resource will really help you to understand the reactions Shakespeare’s original audience might have had to the tragedy.

The Tempest

See The Tempest live this summer

If any of you are expecting to study or teach Shakespeare’s last great Romance for A

Level, then there is nothing to beat seeing a live production for a fresh perspective on

the play. The magical nature of the play inspires directors in all sorts of ways:

> The Lord Chamberlain's Men are doing a national tour into all sorts of unsual theatrical spaces until the 22nd August. Visit www.tlcm.co.uk for details

> Also performing around Britain until 5th September is a production mounted by The Festival Players. www.thefestivalplayers.co.uk

> For highbrow quality, the The Old Vic production, directed by Sam Mendes should be unmissable at the Old Vic Theatre, London, until 31st August www.oldvictheatre.com

> Regional companies are exploring the drama, with the Guildford Shakespeare Company performing at the University of Surrey Lake, 22 July - 7 August www.guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk and the Oxford Shakespeare Company staging it at Hampton Court Palace, from 21 – 30 August www.osctheatre.org.uk

Making sense of the play

A Level students tend to enjoy a quirky take on serious dramas, so the ‘B Movie’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s plot makes a great comparison piece. Catch Return to the Forbidden Planet at Morley Town Hall, 22 – 25 September (07960 766 334).

Of course any advanced study of The Tempest is going to require some in depth exploration of the Shakespeare and the Romance genre. Launched this week, at Crossref-it.info, a handy guide tailored to the play takes you to all the most helpful sections of the website. Look out for Context links: The Tempest. Either before going to see a production, or when you come to investigate it later, this one stop resource will really help you to understand the pastoral world Shakespeare conjures on-stage.

A Level reading in the holidays

Recent blogs have encouraged subscribers to tackle some of the larger texts you will be studying for the coming year, particularly any long Victorian novels, during the lazy days of the summer holidays.

Reading for yourself, but not on your own

Ideally this means that you:

• Develop a personal response
• Get a sense of what the story is about
• Engage with the characters and their situation
• Start to have a feel for the author’s perspective
• Enjoy the text!

However, a first reading will probably throw up all sorts of questions in your mind. Although term hasn’t yet started, you might like to find some immediate answers.
What to do? No-one's around, and the notes in the back of your text are too short or confusing. That's where Crossref-it.info can come in useful. You are not on your own.

Making sense of Victorian novels

At Crossref-it.info, you can click on any specific chapter of three significant Victorian novels to get a summary, an explanation of difficult words, and some pointers as to what the author is doing. If you want to switch over to read the actual text on-line in a new screen, go to texts.crossref-it.info, then you can flip between that and the explanations.

Or you can find out some biographical information about Dickens, Charlotte (and Emily) Brontë or Thomas Hardy themselves. How did each of them come to write their novels? Where in England did they set them, and why? Over the summer, four more texts by these authors are being covered by Crossref-it.info. Launched this week are helpful compilations of material relevant to two more Hardy novels: Context links: The Mayor of Casterbridge and Context links: The Return of the Native.

To get a picture of the times in which they were writing, there is a huge array of background material on the Victorian era. We are no longer familiar with things that these authors took for granted when they were writing, but a handy on-screen explanation can quickly halt confusion.

There is no substitute for reading at A Level, but for everything else, there is Crossref-it.info. It's been designed with you in mind.

Reading novels for A Level: Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Over the summer, students have a great chance to get to grips with the texts they will be examined on the following year. Make the most of it and read for pleasure! Spend indulgent hours with the longer novels (which are harder to fit in later) and be honest about your initial response.

Tess and first impressions

It's difficult not to have strong initial reactions if you are reading Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles as your Victorian novel (appearing on the AQA and OCR papers). It is a tremendous and passionate story, so let yourself be drawn in.

Many of Hardy's descriptions are very cinematographic, but one of the pleasures of reading is using your imagination to create his descriptions in your mind, and then sense the emotions that come with those pictures. They're your emotions, and they form part of your first impressions.

Imagine it for yourself

Although there are several good adaptations of the novel, it is the words on the page that make the difference. However tempting, don't substitute a DVD for your first encounter with the story. A film controls too many of your responses, and maybe edits out some of the parts you will enjoy most when you read it.

Besides, you need some hours to get acquainted with Tess herself. After all, she is one of English Literature's most iconic heroines. If you find things which puzzle you, there is a discussion of Hardy’s heroine at Crossref-it.info, - but don’t look at this until you have read her story for yourself!

Hardy’s poetry

Tess’s figure of a sensuous woman and the theme of missed opportunities recurred in much of Hardy’s poetry, which also appears on the A Level syllabus. For a way into the mind of the poems’ creator, a new mini guide links you to Hardy and his world. Find it at Crossref-it.info > Context links: Selected poetry of Thomas Hardy.

Make reading pleasurable

If you are taking A Level Eng. Lit. this coming year you know that there is bound to be a lot of reading coming your way. What is the best way to approach this?

First reading

Read for fun to start with. By the time the ASs or A2s come round in 2011, you will need to have read your exam texts at least twice, and parts of them three times. It helps to make the first reading a pleasurable experience:

• Find somewhere comfortable (hammock anyone?)
• Allow yourself some l-o-n-g stretches of time: don't just pick up a novel for a few minutes during the commercial breaks of your favourite soaps
• Don't try to make notes - go for a straight through reading
• If there are parts that really stand out, just circle the page number so that you can come back to it later.

First impressions

When you have finished, take a piece of paper and write down your first impressions. They may turn out to be incomplete (or even misguided), but they will still be very helpful later when you want to remember the ‘big picture’ in the midst of literary detail.

Examiners look out for students who are engaged in what they have read and your emotional response will shape how you approach each character. Authors write in order to connect – let their words reach into your heart and mind.

For more detailed information about how to approach novels set for A Level, visit Crossref-it.info > Successful study > Engaging with prose.

Hard Times?

That may be what you feel about reading up for next year’s courses, but at least studying this compact Dickens novel has just got easier! At Crossref-it.info, you can find out everything you need to know about the author and the world he was describing by looking at one simple route-map – Hard Times: Context links puts all the relevant information at your fingertips.

Summertime, and the living is … Victorian?

Life after exams

Now your G.C.S.E.s / AS exams are out the way, you may feel like a well earned rest! Once your brain has stopped feeling like jelly, make sure reading is part of your recuperation. With longer days and a (slight) reduction in pressure, it might remind you why you want to study Eng. Lit. in the first place.

Using the summer

If you are progressing on to AS or A2 English, hopefully you will already have found out from teaching staff which texts are coming up. If they include any Victorian novels it makes good sense to start reading them now.

‘Victorian’ literature refers to anything written between 1837-1901. That includes Dickens, the Brontës and Thomas Hardy, but NOT Jane Austen! To get a sense of what that era was like in Britain, go to Crossref-it.info > The world of Victorian writers, where there is lots of handy information.

Victorian novels tend to be long, mainly because most of them were written for serial publication over a two-year period. Those that weren't, were designed for a 3-volume edition!

Come September, you'll be fighting for uninterrupted time to get them read. So pick up one now, while you have time.

Wuthering Heights

If your chosen Victorian fiction is this dramatic novel, there’s something to help you get the lowdown on Emily Brontë’s life and imagination. Launched this week is a handy guide to link you to all the relevant information at Crosssref-it.info > Wuthering Heights: Context links.

Shakespeare’s Scottish play

See Macbeth live this summer

If any of you are expecting to study or teach Macbeth for A Level, then there is nothing to beat seeing a live production for a fresh perspective on the play. And there are some interesting ones to catch:

• Until this weekend there is as authentic a version as you are likely to get at Shakespeare’s Globe www.shakespeares-globe.org
• The Pantaloons Theatre Company’s national tour is taking the play beyond the confines of the regular theatre circuit around East Anglia and central England in July, before heading north in August www.thepantaloons.co.uk
• An open air production is being staged by the Regent’s Park Company at their Open Air Theatre, London, from 3 – 24 July http://openairtheatre.org
• In Guildford Castle, an unusual promenade performance of the tragedy runs from the 9th – 17th July by The Pranksters Theatre Company www.pranksterstheatre.org.uk
• For a more erudite take on the drama, The Shakespeare Institute Players are performing in Stratford from 8 – 10 July. www.shakespeareinstituteplayers.co.uk

Digging around the original

Of particular interest to A Level English and/or Theatre Studies groups are upcoming adaptations which explore the characters from a slightly different angle:

• Mastering Macbeth explores key scenes in terms of character, language, theme and theatrical technique at the Salisbury Playhouse, 9th-11th November www.salisburyplayhouse.com
• A Season before the Tragedy of Macbeth is at the Camden People's Theatre, 4-8 August and offers a groundbreaking new perspective on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the tragedy that befalls them. www.facsimileproductions.co.uk

Essential backup

Of course any advanced study of Macbeth is going to require some in depth exploration of the world Shakespeare was writing for. Launched this week, at Crossref-it.info, a handy guide tailored to the play takes you to all the most helpful sections of the website. Look out for Macbeth: Context links. Either before going to see a production, or when you come to investigate it later, this one stop resource will really help you to understand the zeitgeist the bard was tapping into.

Literature help over the next few months

Just like fashion magazines, who prepare their Christmas issues in the summer and do swimsuit spreads in November, so here at Crossref-it.info we are preparing materials which won’t hit your screens for a while. But we thought it might help to know what’s in the pipeline, so that you can see what will be available when you come to learn, revise, or teach texts in your chosen syllabus.

Comprehensive text guides

In the next 12 months there will be new text guides on these works, set by the following exam boards:

• Summer 2010: Selected poems of Christina Rossetti (AQA, OCR)
• Autumn 2010: Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rys (AQA, Edexcel, OCR)
• Winter 2010/11: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer (AQA, Cambs. Pre U., Edexcel)
• Spring 2011: The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Attwood (AQA, Edexcel)
• Summer 2011: Persuasion, by Jane Austen (Cambs. Pre U., OCR)

Quick context guides

If you can’t wait that long, we are soon to produce some ‘quick links’ pages, showing you where you can find helpful contextual material, relevant to selected texts. Currently under development, these include:

• Hard Times, by Charles Dickens (AQA, CIE)
• The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy (Cambs. Pre U.)
• Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë (AQA, Edexcel, OCR)
• The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy (CIE)
• Selected poems of Thomas Hardy (AQA, CIE, Edexcel)
• Selected poems of Coleridge, Keats, Wordsworth (AQA, CIE, OCR)
• Selected poems of the Brontës (AQA)

Your suggestions?

Alongside all of the above, articles on different aspects of context and literature keep being added to Crossref-it.info.

If you have got suggestions of works or aspects of literature that you would like to see featured on the site, please email us at admin@crossref-it.info.

We want to do whatever helps you!

Something out of nothing?

Where does literature ‘come from’? One of the requirements of the English A Level specifications is that students can:

‘Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts were written and received’ (AO4).

Signs of the times

Everything an author creates cannot help but reflect the nature of its creator and the times in which it was composed. Last week, just in time for these final weeks of revision a new web guide to Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus went live at Crossref-it.info.

Dr Faustus is a play which interestingly straddles the interconnection of the Medieval and the Renaissance minds, both in terms of its subject matter, its worldview and its theatrical heritage.

So, what were the ‘times’ against which we should view the play? It is interesting to see what was going on during the life of its creator.

1564 – a significant year

For example, did you know that 1564, the year Marlowe was born, also saw:

• The arrival of Italian scientist Galileo and dramatist Shakespeare
• The death of religious reformer John Calvin and artist Michelangelo?

When Marlowe was eight (1572), poets John Donne and Ben Johnson were born, and he was twelve (1576) when the first permanent theatre was built in London by James Burbage. On the international front, explorer Francis Drake set off to sail around the world the following year (1577) returning in 1581 and the first English colony was established in Virginia by Walter Raleigh when Marlowe was twenty (1584).

Tension throughout England

Marlowe was only seventeen (1581) when he became a spy for England’s secret service at a time of high political tension. There were plots to put the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne instead of Protestant Elizabeth I, which came to a head when Mary was tried for treason in 1586. Marlowe was just 22, writing his first play, Dido, Queen of Carthage.

Elizabeth’s execution of Mary the following year (1587) sent shock waves through Europe – it was the year that Marlowe wrote Tamburlaine the Great, aged 23, while Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy was also performed.

Catholic retaliation against Protestant England came in the shape of the mighty Spanish Armada, which attacked the coast in 1588 and was memorably defeated. Alert to the threat of invasion, with warning beacons ringing the kingdom, the possible doom of such a small country cannot have escaped influencing Marlowe as, aged 24, he produced Dr Faustus that year.

Literary developments

Within the next three years (by the end of 1591), Edmund Spenser had published the initial sections of The Faerie Queene, Philip Sidney’s petrachan sonnet sequence Astroplil and Stella appeared and Shakespeare’s early plays such as Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors and Richard III were being performed. Marlowe himself was busy, getting imprisoned for a street fight and writing The Jew of Malta, all before he was 27.

Drama and facts

To get a sense of the tumultuous times which Dr Faustus reflects, why not take time out to watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age (with Cate Blanchett). This dramatises (though with a degree of licence) the world in which Marlowe operated.

For the more accurate information which A Level teachers know you need, go to www.crossref-it.info where you will find detailed commentary on the text as well as the background. Literature never emerges ‘out of nothing’.

New A Level Dr Faustus resources

Launched this week at Crossref-it.info is the long anticipated guide on one of the texts being examined this summer, Dr Faustus.

By its very subject matter (a man selling his soul to the devil in return for 24 years of unlimited wealth and power) Dr Faustus is a text steeped in religious language, which can be daunting to the uninitiated. Where many resources fear to tread, Crossref-it.info jumps right in and provides clear, easy to understand explanations of these terms and ideas. If you chose it can take you to the background refs without you having to turn a page!

Whether you are exploring the A Text or B Text, the new guide tells you everything you need to know about the demonic Doctor, such as:

• The development of the Faust legend through the centuries
• Scene synopses and commentary
• Characterisation
• Theatrical, social and religious background
• Themes, imagery and symbolism
• Critical interpretations of the text

As usual with Crossref-it.info materials, this is backed up by:

• An interactive timeline
• Guidance on how to do well with essays and exams
• Zillions of pop-ups providing literary and cultural definitions, including classical and biblical references.

Coming soon – something for the teachers

To help classes explore key topics (before exams swamp the timetable), there are free, downloadable, teachers' ideas sheets. Look out for them in May!

Time to get serious

Ready for action

The summer term has started, and hopefully all the long AS /A2 Lit. assignments are safely handed in and out of the way. The weather has cheered up and everyone should be refreshed by the Easter break and ready for the intensity of the coming weeks.

For A Level English Lit. students now is the season of going back over texts studied earlier in the year. It is the time when you start to look at your notes and get a sight of how all the pieces fit together into a bigger picture…

Let down by your notes?

Unless, of course, you find yourself faced with pages of skimpy headings, half caught sentences or missing conclusions (but amazing doodles!) and you can’t actually make head nor tail of what they are referring to. We all have days when brain function isn’t sharp (obviously nothing to do with an active social life..) but now is not the time to panic.

Solutions

Ask nicely

Generally teachers really go the extra mile at this time of the year to help students. If you ask very nicely they are often willing to run additional revision sessions based on tricky texts or areas of concern. They know what the syllabus is asking for and are your first port of call.

Check out the web

Revision resources on the web are another useful tool, but do check that they actually cover the kind of areas that will be expected in your exam answers. Many sites (e.g. Sparknotes) are written for the American market, which covers a broader range of literature but in much less depth. Chapter synopses and one paragraph per character can only get you so far..

In greater depth are e-notes and York notes Advanced online – but you have to pay to access most of the material. The S-cool revision site asks some really helpful questions, and is free, but doesn’t provide detail on the texts.

Free, detailed, with helpful questions

Examiners know what students need to address as they get ready for external assessment, so there is logic in looking at a free access site they have had a hand in developing. Many of you already know that Crossref-it.info material is peppered with ‘Investigate’ boxes. If you are now needing to go back and plug the gaps in you’re A Level notes, why not use the questions posed as ‘prompts’ about what you need to cover?

Teaching Blake and pushed for time?

Happy holidays!

I hope the current Easter holidays are providing a great break for you (and not just ‘time for illness’)! Wonderful weather would be a real bonus, but this year it seems too much to hope for…

Time to assess

Within the Easter holidays there is always that scary point as an A Level English teacher when you review the work you have covered so far and realise just how much there is still to fit in. This past term has doubtless had its fair share of staff illness and school closure, which may have thrown your carefully structured lesson plan off course.

So now an element of (controlled) panic may start to assail you. Perhaps a text still isn’t properly covered - and then there are all the revision sessions to fit it, particularly on those texts which you weren’t confident the class really ‘got’ first time around.

Ready made and reliable

Whether you are getting your students ready for AS levels or A2s, you don’t want anxiety to rob you of the remaining days of your holiday. Yes, time is now of the essence, but there are some easy shortcuts you can use.

The recently launched Crossref-it.info guide on Songs of Innocence and Experience is full of information you can send your students to for research. It has the usual interactive timeline, contextual info and clear textual analyses.

Even better, it is now accompanied by a variety of teachers’ worksheets. Devised by the English HOD of a successful state school, each provides three to five lessons’ worth of different approaches to the poems, so that you can make them accessible for the weakest to the brightest of your students.

Check them out on Crossref-it.info then you have got one less thing to worry about…

Songs of Innocence and Experience - new text guide!

Sorry for a delay in the usual missives. It has been ‘heads down’ time as we get as much ready as possible, to help you do as well as possible, in the forthcoming unmentionables (duh.. exams!).

Poetry help

If you are trying to get to grips with how to identify different styles of poetry – a skill you need for any unseen lit. paper – try checking out the expanding range of articles at www.crossref-it.info > Aspects of literature > Recognising poetic form. In around 300 words each they provide a helpful introduction to some of the standard styles poets have worked within, or adapted to suit their needs.

Songs of Innocence and Experience

Many students will be answering on Blake this summer. Deceptively simple in tone and diction, they actually encompass a range of quite complex themes and ideas. Blake was idiosyncratic in his take on contemporary society, what made humans tick and his understanding of God and faith.

Conventional allusions

It’s not always easy getting to grips with the way poets have drawn on texts like the Bible to convey meaning to their readers. However, over the centuries, and in the face of conventional church teaching, a standard interpretation has arisen. This means that if a writer refers to a shepherd for example, you can be confident that s/he is expecting readers to think of:

• Caring leadership
• Practical concern
• Wise guidance
• Sacrificial love
• The call for sheep to follow

All of the above, linked to the person of Jesus, whom the Bible portrays as a ‘good shepherd’.

An unconventional understanding

Grappling with allusions like these gets trickier when the poet doesn’t use such images conventionally. This is often the case with Blake:

• The Shepherd represents a leader who is alongside, but does not rule his flock
• His care does not repress or direct the sheep but enables them to live fully as sheep
• He is full of praise for them rather than demanding obedience from them
• In fact Blake saw any idea of religious authority as the opposite to his understanding of God, even though it was a consistent theme in the Bible.

The new Crossref-it.info text guide on Songs of Innocence and Experience unpacks each poem without assuming that students know all the background that Blake was referring to. It helps readers see where Blake was in line with his society and where he developed his own unique vision.

If you are starting to revise there are lots of handy questions to focus your notes on, as well as sample essay questions and a worked example.

Meanwhile, best of luck as you get down to the serious stuff!

Poetic form – layout (part 2)

Last week we looked at how the way a poet sets out the text on the page is a way of conveying meaning. We thought about the questions:

• Why does the poet use shorter or longer lines?
• What is the impact of dividing up the work into stanzas of particular lengths?
• Why might some lines be indented before they commence? etc.

Hardy’s wintry poem Snow in the suburbs was posted as an example.

What did you come up with? Check your ideas against the ones given here, which you are free to take issue with!

• As the snow accumulates, so the lines of the first stanza grow wider
• The long lines and enjambement of l.5-6 demonstrate the meandering, circuitous journey taken by some of the snow-flakes
• l.7-8 are more solidly part of the main shape of the stanza, indicating the solidity of the snowy fence
• The white space between l.8-9 conveys the blankness of a still, white landscape, until it is broken by the sudden movement of the sparrow
• L.11-12 are longer than l. 9-10, indicating the greater size of the snowball relative to the sparrow
• The shortness of l.13-14
• increases the pace and highlights the drama of the event
• creates a visually small bundle of words, bound between the lines above and below, just as the lump of snow almost buries the tiny sparrow
• L.16 sticks out, just as the consequent fall of snow cascades more widely through the tree
• The white space between l.16-17 again conveys the cessation of movement and return to still whiteness
• L.17-8 create a steep climb up for the cat
• The cat’s colour (black?) and movement is isolated in the snow, as is l.19 in the white space
• The indentation of l.20 and the sudden ending of the stanza, capture the safe ‘gathering in’ of the hungry cat.

As you can see, there is quite a lot to see when you start looking!

Poetic form – layout (part 1)

The way a poet sets out the text on the page is a way of conveying meaning. When analysing a poem, it always helps to look at the visual impression it makes and ask:

• Why does the poet use shorter or longer lines?
• What is the impact of dividing up the work into stanzas of particular lengths?
• Why might some lines be indented before they commence? etc.

Below is a very seasonal example of a poet’s use of layout to convey meaning.

Next week there will be a few thoughts from www.crossref-it.info to check yourself against, but meanwhile have a look at Hardy’s poem and make a few jottings about its impact on your understanding of the situation:

Snow in the suburbs

Every branch big with it, 1

Bent every twig with it; 2

Every fork like a white web-foot; 3
Every street and pavement mute: 4

Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when 5
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again. 6

The palings are glued together like a wall, 7
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall. 8

A sparrow enters the tree, 9
Whereon immediately 10

A snow-lump thrice his own slight size 11
Descends on him and showers his head and eyes 12

And overturns him, 13
And near inurns him, 14

And lights on a nether twig, when its brush 15

Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush. 16

The steps are a blanched slope, 17

Up which, with feeble hope, 18

A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin; 19

And we take him in. 20

Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928

Last minute exam help

If you have managed to make it into school and are sitting any English modules this week, well done and good luck! Hopefully last week’s snow meant that you got in some uninterrupted revision time.

Select your detail

This may be your first time of needing to write an exam answer at a greater level of detail than previously. Knowing this, it is tempting to put in as much as possible, but DON’T!

The examiner knows that you are answering under pressure of time and can’t include every example – instead they are looking for you to select the most relevant instances, and to ruthlessly ignore anything that is not pertinent to exactly what you are being asked. So keep reminding yourself of the question!

Time management

The best way to lose marks is to fail to regulate the time you spend on each answer. In a paper of four equally weighted questions, one extensive piece that gains you 25% won’t make up for the fact that you only half do the third question and don’t even get to the last – that’s 37.5% lost without even trying and no-one can afford to do that!

Believe in yourself and what you have been taught – and while it snows, keep revising…

NATE digs Crossref-it.info

Those of you who teach English in the United Kingdom will know what NATE is. To keep teachers in the loop about the latest developments in the field, The National Association of Teachers of English publishes the NATE Classroom magazine, the latest issue of which has a nice spread about your favourite English Literature website!

NATE have kindly agreed to let us share the article with those of you who don't yet subscribe to their magazine: