The background to pop music

Paul Gambaccini

As the 400^th anniversary year of the publication of the King James Bible draws to its close, UK DJ Paul Gambaccini has examined the influence of this text in some unexpected places – on the songs of Elvis, George Michael and The Rolling Stones to name but a few.

Where do the stories come from?

Contemporary music draws more consistently on the Old and New Testaments than on any other text. Crossref-it.info already carries a list of literary works whose titles allude to the Bible, but in a recent BBC Radio 4 programme, Gambo reeled off a list of popular songs whose writers were influenced by characters, stories and actual verses from scripture.

Ranging across the genres of rock, blues, country & western, pop and soul, artists keep using biblical references because they anticipate that we, the audience, will have a rich cache of associations to draw on:

• For example, by simply calling the protagonist of his song about betrayed love Delilah, Tom Jones expects us to bring to mind the whole sorry tale of how love for a fickle woman destroyed a hero
  • At Crossref-it.info we know that many may not have that story in their ‘culturalkit-bag’, which is why you can read about it here or in the source version.
• Springsteen’s powerful lyric, Adam raised a Cain, resonates with the whole idea of disappointed idealism, of the inescapability of parental influence and of love bound up with pain – all issues that are seeded by the loss of Eden and Fall of humankind depicted in Genesis 3 and 4.
• The plaintive anthem of the first Shrek film, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, is actually inspired by the troubled love life of the Old Testament King David.

If you can spare 30 mins, why not listen to the programme, originally broadcast on Saturday 17^th December, 2011.

We need your help!

If you didn’t get to see Dec 7^th’s blog, please check it out and pass the message on!

We need your help!

New resources

Crossref-it.info has recently created some audio-visual clips taken from a variety of A Level texts. Featuring performances by current UK A Level pupils, each demonstrates how the author has been influenced by their own - and their audience’s - awareness of a culturally pervasive text – the Bible.

Teachers to the rescue!

We now need some teaching ideas / resources to accompany each AV clip (average length three minutes). As guidance we will send interested teachers a prototype worksheet based on one of the extracts. However, we are also looking for your own interesting ways of handling this material, whilst keeping an eye on A Level syllabus requirements.

Key facts

• The deadline for submission is Monday 9th January
• The successful resource selected for each extract will earn its creator £50.

Students, encourage your teachers to have a go!

If any of you are studying (and could tell your teacher) or teaching any of the following texts for A Level we would love to hear from you.

We are looking for resources on the following texts:

Elizabethan / Jacobean

• Dr Faustus
• Herbert - The Agonie
• Donne - Death be not proud, Hymn to God in my sicknesse
• Measure for Measure
• Paradise Lost Bk 1

Romantic Lit.

• Blake – Introduction, The Lamb
• Frankenstein
• Wordsworth - Intimations of Immortality

Victorian Lit.

• Wuthering Heights
• Jane Eyre
• Great Expectations
• Hopkins – I wake and feel
• Our Mutual Friend
• Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Modern Lit.

• Clough – The Latest Decalogue
• The Handmaid’s Tale

We can’t promise your name in lights, only that lots of other educationalists will bless you for helping them in their hour of need.

Do get in touch soon!

A theatrical response to 1611

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s winter season contains an interesting combination of dramas. The majority of actors in their new production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure are also appearing in David Edgar’s new play, Written on the Heart.

Why did 1611 matter?

Written on the Heart makes vivid the tensions and undercurrents of those involved in producing a new version of the Bible – what we know today as the King James Version. For anyone studying Shakespeare or other drama of the era (and who at A Level does not?) it provides a dynamic context for the moral dilemmas of characters as diverse as Malvolio and Hamlet.

The playwright demonstrates why exactly which word selected to convey beliefs mattered so greatly – that the committee members really were dealing with matters of life and death, in an era where the ‘wrong’ beliefs were punished by the state.

Passionate protest lives on

• Think of the passion and commitment shown by those involved in the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 - people putting their lives on the line for what they believe in.
• The debate was just as meaningful 400 years ago in Britain, which had its own uprising just thirty years after the KJB was published.

In a telling contrast to modern Western ‘been there, done that’ ennui, people like William Tyndale went to the stake for daring to create a text that could be read by everyone, rather than just those in control. In the play he haunts the consciences of the translation committees four monarchs later. This stuff matters.

Belief in Measure for Measure

So why has the RSC chosen to stage Shakespeare’s ‘problem play’ alongside a debate about beliefs? In the video below, Measure for Measure's Director speaks about the overlap and how the knowledge gained by the cast for one production informs the other.

Measure for Measure is not a neat and tidy text to pigeonhole – dramas of ideas rarely are. With an ending open to interpretation, it presents the difference between espousing a doctrine and actually living by it, and the difficulties that creates. It asks what has the greater hold over people – sexual desire or moral beliefs.

Ways in to the text

Inevitably Shakespeare refers to the ethical debates of the day, with which he would have expected his audience to be familiar. However 21st century students do not necessarily inhabit the same moral universe. It helps therefore to have a guide to this complex play which clearly defines and explains the concepts and why they were important – Measure for Measure to the rescue!

As with the context of Written on the Heart, this stuff matters. Having the ‘wrong’ beliefs is punishable by the state. Though no longer the case in Britain, our news-screens show us what it is like to die for strongly held beliefs – and at the RSC drama set 400 years ago bring it vividly home.

The White Devil

New kid on the block

Shakespeare you always expect to see on A Level exam syllabuses.
Marlowe’s Dr Faustus continues to pull in the gothic crowd.
Now Webster’s dark revenge tragedy, The White Devil, is under examination.

Full of dark deeds and tortured imaginings, this complex plot hinges on a variety of characters and motifs typical of the revenge genre.

Rather than a hero, the play has a range of anti-heroes, each trying to outwit the other, until most of them are killed, by a variety of grisly means.

Often the female roles in plays of the era are used as receptacles of virtue – think Portia in The Merchant of Venice, or Isabella in Measure for Measure – to counterpoint male machinations. But Webster eschews this approach. Although one woman does provide a positive moral balance in the drama, there are two other feisty and amoral female roles, one of which is the ‘white devil’ of the title.

Moral ambiguity

But no-one is wholly good or bad, even though Webster tries to shape his contemporaries’ response to certain roles by overlaying them with a traditional Christian or evil iconography.

Modern audiences and students do not find that these visual or verbal references register so immediately, which is why the new Crossref-it.info guide aims to make everything clear, from what is happening in each scene, to the sophisticated allusions with which Webster peppers the text.

Don’t take our word for it

A senior British academic wrote of our White Devil Guide:

‘This guide introduces students to some of the contexts that will help them understand how The White Devil fits into the wider culture of Jacobean England. Its scene-by-scene glosses and questions are very well designed to support individual study, while the discussion of critical approaches and its suggestions for further reading, provide valuable pointers… . A thorough, very useful, learning
resource.’

Dr Pascale Aebischer (D.Phil., Senior Lecturer in Renaissance Studies, Dept. of English, University of
Exeter)

The influence of the KJB on culture

Not only were Webster and his contemporaries inspired by some of the ideas and stories
from the Bible – the world of music was shaped by it for centuries too.

Until 28th November, try and catch a performance of the Concert trio In Voice and Verse,
who tell the story of Genesis to Revelation using the words of the King James Bible
interspersed with the famous pieces of music which those words inspired.

The music will include excerpts from:

• Haydn's Creation
• Handel's Messiah
• Mendelssohn’s Oh for the Wings of a Dove
• Several modern compositions.

To discover performance venues and dates, click here.

Significant anniversaries

In the coming months there are three major literary anniversaries being celebrated.

Written on the Heart

Regular followers of this blog will know that 2011 marks the 400th birthday of the King James Bible. As a dramatic marker of this, acclaimed playwright David Edgar has written a new play for the RSC called Written on the Heart.

Previewing from 27th October at the Swan Theatre, it will prove a fascinating insight for any students wanting to understand the world in which Shakespeare and other Jacobean dramatists operated. Meanwhile, it is well worth checking out the KJBT website which has a variety of helpful resources.

200 years young

Claire Tomalin has recently brought out an acclaimed new biography of Charles Dickens. Born almost 200 years ago on 7th February 1812, he has shaped our whole perception of what a novel should be. Heavily influenced by the popular theatre of his day, he created memorable villains and cliff-hanger chapter endings to engage a whole new sector of the reading public.

As a tireless social campaigner, he also used literature to change people’s perception about issues such as industrial conditions, legal reform and the treatment of the poor, to name but a few. At the same time, his mature novels explored motivation and compulsion at a deeper level, through engaging yet flawed heroes, such as Pip in Great Expectations.

At Crossref-it.info you will find lots of information to back up your knowledge of the great man, regardless of which text you are studying, as well as our invaluable guide to Great Expectations itself.

100th birthday

Last month, on 19th September, was the 100th anniversary of the birth of William Golding. This British novelist, poet, playwright, who was a Nobel and Booker prize winner, was best known for his seminal novel, The Lord of the Flies. Check out Crossref-it.info to discover where this intriguing title comes from and the ideas that lie behind the premise of the novel.

Let us know

If you are aware of any literary festival or celebration coming up which you think we ought to know about, or you want others to hear about, please contact us here and we will pass the message on.

New beginnings

Starting out

Welcome to all who are starting a new course in English at AS / A2 / Undergraduate Level! You are probably already experiencing the significant change of academic rigour compared to your studies so far.

If you have only just found out about www.crossref-it.info you will discover that there are a huge number of resources designed to help you make sense of the literature you are studying. Give yourself some time to surf around the site to get a flavour of what’s on offer.


Exciting developments

For existing users, there are some real highlights to look forward to this term:

• Two new text guides –
  • John Webster’s The White Devil
  • Jane Austen’s Persuasion

• Lots of handy biographies on frequently studied authors, from Achebe to Wordsworth

• New resources for teachers –
  • Lesson sequences on
    • Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
    • Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
  • Homework task sheets on many existing Crossref-it.info texts.

Language and film

Later in the autumn watch out for two entirely new Crossref-it resources:

• Audio-visual material linking passages of literature with a source text
• A Level English Language materials addressing the development of English.

Tell us what else you want

So that we can keep making www.crossref-it.info helpful and relevant to your studies, please let us know what else you would love to see on-site. Write here and we will see what we can do!

The Handmaid’s Tale

Contemporary social satire

In the 19th century, Charles Dickens dramatised a variety of social evils in adventure-filled novels, which alerted British society to a range of issues on which action was later taken.

In a series of novels which have drawn on elements of late 20th / early 21st century culture, the Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, has achieved a similar, chilling ‘wake up call’. Some fiction writers create idealised societies (utopias). In contrast, Atwood’s fables are dystopias, worlds whose horrific elements are shown to be only a step away from behaviours already seen in the world around us.

> Oryx and Crake (2003) deals with genetic engineering, the power of the internet and desensitising pornography

>Aspects of this story are amplified in The Year of the Flood (2009)

> Published in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale is less about science and technology than the impact of totalitarianism, religious fundamentalism and the repression of women.

A human story

As with Dickens, simply to list the issues Atwood deals with misses the heart of her novel. Her Tale is an engaging story about one woman’s desire to live as a fully recognised individual in an era when that is a dangerous quest. Atwood draws the reader in to the internal world of Offred (whose original name is possibly June), which is full of passion and sensuous appreciation, in contrast to an external environment which recognises neither.

It is a story full of unresolved tension and Atwood’s narrative methods keep the reader having to interpret, then re-interpret events, just as Offred must. This can be a dislocating experience for readers, particularly at the novel’s end, so it is handy that there is a new Crossref-it.info study guide to help students get to grips with the text.

The impact of the title

With the novel’s title, Atwood is trying to show how the impact of an entire society is refracted through the experience of one, almost anonymous, voice. In this she consciously echoes the medieval works of Geoffrey Chaucer, who tried to depict different aspects of his era through a series of individualised narratives, such as The Wife of Bath’s Tale.

Both are great, thought provoking stories. Enjoy!

Intertextuality

The effect of time and text

Writers never exist in isolation. They are affected by the era in which they live and the work of other writers. Since many tend to have an interest in books already, their literary influences can also be wide ranging.

Where a source is famous, authors can reasonably expect their readers to be familiar with it themselves, and to already have expectations shaped by the way they have encountered that original text.

Playing with expectations

A writer can play with these expectations to witty or powerful effect in the text they are creating.

An excellent example of this is Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry volume The World’s Wife (see also: The Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy: AS / A - Level Student Text Guide: Selected Poems - The World's Wife).

In this, she offers a wife’s perspective on the events and stories of famous men (whether it was recorded that they were married or not).

Living with Icarus

A well known classical myth concerns the fate of a man trying to escape from the imprisonment he shares with his father. His craftsman father creates ‘wings’ for Icarus by sticking feathers on him with wax, but warns him not to fly too close to the sun. However, his son disregards this advice, and, when his ‘wings’ melt, plunges into the sea. The story is usually framed as a narrative that warns of the dangers of too great an ambition.

In Mrs Icarus, Duffy acknowledges how it might feel to be married to a man who has doubtless failed in his grand plans on previous occasions, yet remains undaunted. Rather than maintain the high moral tone associated with the Icarus narrative, she deals with it according to the personal embarrassment of a care-worn spouse:

Mrs Icarus

I’m not the first or the last

To stand on a hillock,

Watching the man she married

Prove to the world

He’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.

With comic effect she deflates the lofty ambitions of a proud male, who seems to be blissfully unaware of the fact that he is not universally admired.

Living with Lazarus

On a more sombre note, Duffy re-uses the biblical account of Jesus bringing his dead friend Lazarus back to life. In the New Testament, this is regarded as a wonderful, miraculous reprieve for the grieving relatives, as well as evidence of Jesus’ divine power over nature (see [6John 11:176], [6John 11: 32-456]). Within a space of four days (long enough for the body to start to deteriorate in a hot climate) he turns a desperately sad situation around into one of joy and life.

In Mrs Lazarus, Duffy takes this idea of a dead man being returned to life, puts it in a modern context and, crucially, alters a key aspect of the account – lengthening the time frame from days to at least a year. And suddenly the story is framed very differently.

Having come to the poem with expectations of joy and miracle, readers are wrong-footed by Mrs Lazarus’ negative perspective. Yet we are led to share the narrator’s shock at the return of her old husband after her life has moved on:

Mrs Lazarus

I breathed

his stench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud,

moist and dishevelled from the grave's slack chew,

croaking his cuckold name, disinherited, out of his time.

By powerfully evoking the horror of the apparition, Duffy thereby get readers to re-consider their attitude to the original biblical account – after all, given the concerns of his sister, evidence of decomposition might have been an aspect of the original Lazarus’ return.

Thus one text shapes another, and is in turn re-shaped by it. Intertextuality at work.

Bringing old stories to life

Last month we blogged about the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible in 1611.

In addition to the television programmes and books which have come out in the UK this year, there has been a conference at the University of Sheffield which looked at the impact of this famous text on education today.

Delegates and lecturers expressed the very real concern that students were hampered in their studies because of unfamiliarity with biblical stories and language. And the question was raised: When there is so much to catch up with, where can you start?

Experience it live

If you live near enough to Oxford and can carve out some time THIS WEEK, a lively way of getting to grips with some of the Bible’s contents is to attend a performance of Tales from King James, by Creation Theatre Company (http://www.creationtheatre.co.uk/show-one/tales-from-king-james). Performed, appropriately enough, in St Barnabas’ Church in the Jericho area of the city, the cast use a combination of modern and Jacobean text to portray some of the biblical events in a modern context.

As Oxford’s Daily Info review puts it:

‘In their quirky condensed version of the Bible, Creation treat the audience to a whistle-stop tour of the famous book’s most marvellous stories and breathe new life into such well-known tales as Jonah and the whale, Noah’s Ark and Moses’ parting of the Red Sea.

As well as making the stories accessible to those unversed in the Old Testament, the seamless blend of old and new shows the prevalence of the language of the Bible in modern day secular life. As characters contemplate ‘the valley of the shadow of death’ or ponder ‘am I my brother’s keeper?’ the audience is reminded how the teachings of the Bible live on today in all strands of society.’

Boost your knowledge online

Don’t despair if you can’t get to Oxford. Crossref-it.info has all sorts of easy ways to get familiar with the stuff you need to know from the Bible. Check out the A - Z Glossary tab on the home page for speedy access to:

• Famous stories from the Bible
• Common sayings from the Bible
• A handy list of the key events in each book of the Bible (66 in all).

Of course there’s much more, but don’t let that daunt you – just make a start.

Whatever your personal attitude to the Bible, it has had a profound impact on literature down the centuries. Anyone who is serious about enjoying great writing cannot afford to ignore it.

Exams have arrived – it’s now or never

How on earth do you prepare for an A Level Eng. Lit exam?

Welcome to the third in a short series about how to revise English successfully.

What does it mean to revise: An author’s methods of presentation?

It is very likely that at least one of the questions you will face in the exam will focus on how an author presents his/her intentions within or across texts. How can you prepare for that?

The key aim of questions like these is to get you to focus not on ‘what happens’ but how the author has crafted the text in order to elicit a particular response in the reader.

There are basic areas to cover, regardless of the text. For each of the following:

• Try and make condensed notes / a mind map / list headwords
• Learn a quotation or specific example to illustrate.

Plot

1. With whom is a reader to identify – a 1st or 3rd person narrator, a particular character?
   
   a) How has the author achieved that sense of identification?
   b) How does it shape the reader’s perspective on the plot?
   
   
2. If there is a sub-plot
   
   a) What is its relevance to the main one?
   b) How are the main and sub-plots interwoven?
   
   
3. What is the impact of presenting events chronologically / non-chronologically?
   
   a) What is the impact of any time frame on the presentation of the plot?

Narrative perspective

1. Who is telling the story and how close is the reader to him/her?
   
   
2. At what pace do events unfold – how has the author created that effect?
   
   
3. Is there direct authorial comment and/or does tone / irony / mood guide a reader’s response?

Patterning

1. What themes brought to the fore? (See previous blog in series)
   
   
2. How are imagery and / or symbolism used?
   
   
3. Are there repetitions / echoes of:
   
   a) Events
   b) Locations
   c) Family structures?

Description

1. How would you characterise the author’s descriptive techniques?
   
   
2. What kind of language is employed when – to what effect?
   
   
3. How do these techniques create:
   
   a) Character (see previous blog in series)
   b) Location and atmosphere
   c) Drama, tension / suspense?

As you cover these ideas you always need to keep in mind the intentions of the author – and remember to tell the examiner what they are!

GOOD LUCK

Help - Exams are getting closer!

How on earth do you prepare for an A Level Eng. Lit exam?

Welcome to the second in a short series about how to revise English successfully.

2. What does it mean to revise: Themes?

It is very likely that at least one of the questions you will face in the exam will focus on how an author presents one or more themes within or across texts. How can you prepare for that?

There are basic areas to cover, regardless of the text. For each of the following:

• Try and make condensed notes / a mind map / list headwords
• Learn a quotation or specific example to illustrate.

Selected theme:

Within a text

1. Identify the theme’s emergence – instances of its recurrence
2. What imagery is associated with the theme? Does this create a particular mood?
3. How is the theme worked out through the plot / narrative arc?
4. In prose, do any relationships between characters illustrate this theme?

Across texts

1. How is the theme dealt with differently in comparative texts?
2. Look at 1 – 3 above

Author:

1. How does the author ‘use’ this theme – what ‘meaning’ does it represent?
   a) How is the theme outworked to support this (include imagery and mood)?
   b) Are there direct authorial comments that guide the reader’s interpretation of the theme?

Reader:

1. Do you have a personal response to this theme – has it made you reflect on aspects of contemporary life?
2. Are you satisfied with how the author has ‘used’ the theme?

Always keep in mind that themes are highlighted by an author to serve the purposes of the text – what are these purposes?

Looming exams - Arrggghhhh!

If you are a more recent subscriber to this blog, you probably won’t be familiar with some material we presented a couple of years ago about how to prepare for sitting A Level English exams. Unlike the obvious marshalling of facts that provides a framework for Chemistry or History for example, how to go about revising English texts is less obvious. So, for our current students:

Welcome to the first in a short series about how to revise English successfully.

1. What does it mean to revise: Characterisation?

It is very likely that at least one of the questions you will face in the exam will focus on characterisation (how an author presents a character). How can you prepare for that?

There are basic areas to cover, regardless of the text. For each of the following:

• Try and make condensed notes / a mind map / list headwords
• Learn a quotation or specific example to illustrate

Selected character:

1) The character’s narrative arc:

• How s/he is introduced
• His/her story/development through the novel
• The character’s own new perspectives by the end (what s/he has learnt)

2) His/her physical appearance and the language s/he uses (register, syntax)

3) His/her relationships with others in the text

4) The imagery associated with him/her.

Author:

1) The author’s attitude to the character – discerned through

• 2 and 4 above
• Differences in perspective
• Tone used describing that character and direct/indirect judgements on him/her (authorial intrusion?)

2) Changes in attitude / sympathy – ultimate assessment of character.

Reader:

1) Be aware of your personal response to the character – have you found the hero / heroine attractive – annoying - funny?

2) Are you satisfied with how the author created the character

• Are they believable (2D or fully rounded) – or more significant for the role they play in the text’s ‘meaning’?
• Do you have other criticisms about the characterisation?

Always keep in mind that every character is simply a literary construct, created by an author for the purposes of the text.

The impact of one book

The significance of May 2nd, 2011

Three days ago Britain marked what most believe to have been the publication date of one of the most important volumes in the English Language.

On May 2nd, 1611, the ‘Authorised’ or King James Bible rolled off the press and was circulated to every church in the United Kingdom. Not only did it become the ‘official’ Bible of Great Britain, but it was taken even further:

> by early colonisers to North America and Canada
> by traders to India and Africa
> by mission societies to Asia
> by emigrants to Australasia.

It encouraged the spread of the English language around the world, because non English speakers needed to get to grips with the Bible of the traders, colonisers, emigrants and mission societies. Thus the KJB is in part responsible for the fact that the dominant international language of the physical and electronic world today is English.

In Britain it became familiar to everyone in the land:

• through their schooling
• through their weekly religious attendance
• and ultimately through what they read.

From the era of the Metaphysical poets in the seventeenth century to that of D.H. Lawrence in the twentieth, the King James Bible has been imbibed by authors, poets and dramatists. It has shaped their thought and language, to then be shared with their readers.

More important than Shakespeare

There were other translations before it, on which the KJB drew, and there have been many since, which echo its poetry in more modern idioms. But for sheer literary dominance, the KJB cannot be touched.

According to Melvyn Bragg, the KJB has been more influential on English society than Shakespeare. Whilst culturally Shakespeare has often been the preserve of the educated, the KJB was a text for everyone, found in almost every home, sometimes as the only book people owned. And because it was a book of faith, its messages were repeated and learnt, day by day, then re-enforced by weekly readings and sermons in church and chapel. Authors knew that their readers would pick up every reference.

Today many of us do not recognise the impact of the KJB on literature, because we are not familiar with the original. That’s why Crossref-it.info materials explain every Bible reference encountered. They show users where each allusion comes from and thus how authors have created a subtext to their work.

Text / subtext / inter-textuality – these are all terms a student of English needs to get the most from what they are reading. Crossref-it.info is here to help.

The continual re-invention of Hamlet

The young actor’s Everest

Shakespeare’s Hamlet has featured on recent exam syllabuses for a number of years. At over five hours’ playing time (uncut) it calls for massive physical stamina from its lead. But more than that, it demands huge emotional depth and range to inhabit the complex and memorable language with which Shakespeare creates the part.

For most young male actors, the role stands as a benchmark against which they must compare themselves, an Everest there to be climbed, their chance not only to make a mark in the theatre world but to be ranked against their peers.

A variety of readings

Given the play’s credentials, as well as its cultural dominance, it is no surprise that every year sees the staging of a number of productions. This is a gift to any teacher wanting their students to understand the dynamics of the drama which operate beyond the page.

How does Hamlet regard Ophelia for example?

• With disgust at her complicity?
• With pain and loss?
• With confusion and despair?
• In anger that any woman may be fickle like his mother?

Any and all of these interpretations are valid readings of the text, so it relies on the tone and gesture of the actor to clearly demonstrate his decision about Hamlet’s motivation.

If you are studying Hamlet this year, see if you can get to one of the productions outlined below. If you can get to more than one, it will be illuminating to see the changes each performer (and director) make to the drama and discuss your responses to the variations.

There is no one way to read Hamlet, but a multiplicity of ways to appreciate it. Enjoy!

Hamlet productions in 2011

Royal National Theatre. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. Rory Kinnear (Hamlet), Clare Higgins (Gertrude), David Calder (Polonius). Lyttelton Theatre, London, 13 – 23 April (020 7452 3000). www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Northern Broadsides. Directed by Conrad Nelson. Nicholas Shaw (Hamlet), Finetime Fontayne (Claudius), Becky Hindley (Gertrude), Richard Evans (Polonius), Tom Kanji (Laertes) and Natalie Dew (Ophelia). Viaduct Theatre, Halifax, 29 March – 2 April; Canolfan y Celfyddyday Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, 6 – 9 April; West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, 19 – 30 April; Theatre at the Mill, Belfast, 4 – 7 May; Gaiety Theatre, Isle of Man, 19 - 21 May; The Rose Theatre, Kingston, 24 – 28 May. www.northern-broadsides.co.uk

Brentwood Shakespeare Company. Directed by Glenda Abbott. Brentwood Theatre, 13-16 April (01277 200305). www.brentwood-theatre.org.

Shakespeare’s Globe Company. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole. Joshua McGuire (Hamlet). Strode Theatre, Street, 19 – 21 April (01458 442 846); Shakespeare’s Globe, London, 23 April - 9 July (020 7401 9919); Pavilion Gardens Buxton (adjacent to the Buxton Opera House), 4 – 5 August (0845 12 72190). [Small-scale tour - Part of the Word is God Theatre Season 2011]. www.shakespeares-globe.org

Stamford Shakespeare. Rutland Open Air Theatre in the grounds of Tolethorpe Hall, Little Casterton, 5 July – 27 August (01780 756133). www.stamfordshakespeare.co.uk.

Young Vic Company. Directed by Ian Rickson. Michael Sheen (Hamlet). Young Vic Theatre, London, 28 October - 21 January 2012 (020 7922 2922). www.youngvic.org

What do you make of Frankenstein?

Ways of reading the novel

Mary Shelley’s tale about the human creation of a creature has captured people’s imaginations since it was first published in 1818. What is it ‘about’? For a selection of interesting and varied interpretations, a new section has been added to the current Crossref-it.info guide on Frankenstein which will give you lots of ideas to think about. If you are a teacher, how about distributing them around the class and asking groups to justify each one from the text? A lively classroom debate might ensue!)

Whatever your consensus, why not let us know? (Post them in the ‘Any other comments’ box!)

A live version

Meanwhile, a dramatisation of the novel has been creating waves in the press, with the lead roles of Victor and the Creature being alternated by Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch.

All advance tickets for the production at the National Theatre have sold out, though some will be available each day if you turn up at the box-office. Thanks to the NTs collaboration with national cinemas, there are still some opportunities to see the production on the big screen, where ‘encore’ performances are being shown for those who couldn’t get to the initial screenings on the 17th and 24th of March.

Check out the NT site and see if you can’t get to a performance. Take note though that the production is 15 rated.

Melvyn Bragg: The book that changed the world

Until next Saturday (19th March) you can catch this fascinating hour long programme on BBC iPlayer. Melvyn Bragg sets out to persuade us that the King James Bible has driven the making of the English speaking world over the last 400 years, often in the most unanticipated ways.

He travels to historic locations in the UK and USA where the King James Bible has had a deep impact, including Gettysburg and the American Civil War and Washington's Lincoln Memorial, site of Martin Luther King's famous speech.

He argues that while many think our modern world is founded on secular ideals, it is the King James Version which had a greater legacy. The King James Bible not only influenced the English language and its literature more than any other book, it was also the seedbed of western democracy, the activator of radical shifts in society such as the abolition of the slave trade, the debating dynamite for brutal civil wars in Britain and America and a critical spark in the genesis of modern science.

If you are studying English, the opening sections are particularly useful in relating some of Shakespeare’s ideas to their scriptural background.

Crossref-it.info will fill in the other gaps!

The world they lived in

Nineteenth century English novels

Are you studying Hard Times, Great Expectations or Tess of the d’Urbervilles this year? It is likely that a lot of current A Level Eng Lit students are examining texts like these, which demonstrate the rapid changes in social organisation that took place during the nineteenth century.

Such novels depict the huge shift of the population from rural to city living. They chart the dislocation experienced when intimate communities and familiar landscapes are left behind for faceless streets. In cities it is easier to sink into oblivion without the watchful care of those who have known someone from birth.

The opportunity to develop

Yet cities also offer the chance for change, for re-definition. There are opportunities for a ‘nobody’ to become a ‘somebody’, to escape the social position of their family. New friendships established in new locations mean that people learn to judge others according to their material markers, rather than who their parents were.

Today’s obsession with ‘location, location, location’ is a direct descendant of the nineteenth century’s urban expansion, with its stress on living in a ‘respectable neighbourhood’. If you are studying the era for History, you will have a good grasp of this process and its impact.

No time?

However, for those who don’t have the time to research it for themselves, there are two new articles from Crossref-it.info. Part of an entire section about the world of the Victorians, these give you a useful overview of the situation in Britain that created the backdrop for your set texts. Go to

• World of Victorian writers > Town and country life
• World of Victorian writers > Urbanisation and the Suburbs

Remember, examiners give you marks when you can demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts were written and received (AO4).

All about fiction

Just in time to be of huge help to any students studying for exams this summer, or still facing university interviews to study English, are three TV programmes currently airing. Yes, you really can justify sitting in front of the screen to ‘help you study’!

Wider reading and success

One of the things that a crammed term of revision no longer allows time for is wider leisure reading. And yet something that always impresses examiners and interviewers is a candidate’s ability to refer to more than just the set texts they have studied in class. If you can link your ideas on a particular text to other literature of the time, or trace the concerns of the novelist to the social movements of their era, you will be heading for an A*.

Speedy literary context help

Now the Beeb is running a season on fiction and there are some really illuminating programmes to catch:

• Faulks on Fiction - At 9pm Saturday on BBC2, author Sebastian Faulks is tracing the development of various types of character that recur in novels. So far he has covered ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lovers’, demonstrating how our perceptions of what makes a literary hero or lover have changed through the last three centuries. Lots of clips from TV adaptations bring his observations to life. Catching it on BBC i-player means that you don’t have to sacrifice your social life!
• Birth of the British Novel - At 9pm Monday on BBC4 an even more helpful series is being fronted by Henry Hitchins. This charts developments in novel writing from the earliest Robinson Crusoe to the present day. It is great for demonstrating how authors created, then adapted, different prose genres, either reflecting or subverting the literary context of their times. Again there are numerous drama clips as illustration.

English Language help

If you are taking AS/A2 English Language, another literary themed broadcast focuses on text production:

The Beauty of Books – Just before the Birth of the British Novel, at 8.30pm Monday on BBC4, as this series moves through the centuries it becomes ever more pertinent to the AS/A2 Development of Language modules. Already the second episode has considered the implications of moving from hand scribed manuscripts into print, thereby creating a medieval best seller with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Handy social context help

Meanwhile (in case you didn’t already know), Crossref-it.info has got lots of helpful articles about the worlds inhabited by Chaucer, Shakespeare, the Romantics and Victorians. They will help you to make links between your set texts and the political, social and philosophical movements of the day. Lots of brownie points there!

Every success!

Invisible barriers

One of the hardest aspects to understand about a culture are the unspoken values that govern it – the things that nobody makes clear but everybody assumes. English literature inevitably reflects English culture, which in turn has been shaped by the nation’s position as a democracy, its Protestantism and its geographical location, among other things.

It is hard to gauge how far this history has influenced British attitudes, yet it is surely part of the desire to look outward, to express individual opinions and be self determining, which we see in characters like Elizabeth Bennet, Pip, Jane Eyre and the Mayor of Casterbridge.

Class wars

However, all these literary creations also encountered another invisible value that shaped their existence – that of social class. How one sector of the population judges another is usually a mystery to the outsider, but the problems it poses are real enough. Class can determine:

> who one can marry

> what employment is acceptable

> where one may live.

Of course, encountering such obstacles has provided great material for the English novel in particular. Can the labourer Pip ever really be a gentleman? Should clergyman’s daughter Margaret Hale be united with a cotton manufacturer? Will Miss Bennet’s vulgar mother always ruin her chances in marriage?

Does it matter?

When today’s society is much more mobile and egalitarian, it may seem hard to understand what all the fuss is about. That’s why at Crossref-it.info there is now a helpful article on English class and hierarchy to guide readers through the minefield of these invisible attitudes. Next time you wonder just why Angel Clare’s parents are anxious about his marrying Tess, why not check it out?

The status of girls

Fighting for their rights

Mass demonstrations in Egypt. Our screens are filled with men and women demanding that their democratic rights are actually reflected in the way their country is governed. These are remarkable scenes, but all the more so when you realise that just 60 years ago there would have been no women involved, because before 1956, Egyptian females were not allowed to vote!

Today, girls in the UK have the same rights in law as their male counterparts:

• They can vote once eighteen
• They can get a job in almost any sphere of employment
• They are paid an equal rate as lads for comparable work
• They can have their own bank accounts, get their own mortgages, possess their own property.

But of course!

The long struggle

In fact it has taken a long time to reach this level of equality. A new Crossref-it.info article on Female emancipation gives you the gen.

The novels Crossref-it.info has featured recently demonstrate just how vulnerable young women have been in the past:

• The new guide to Wide Sargasso Sea depicts how Antoinette Cosway can be handed over as part of a financial transaction to marry a man she hardly knows. It demonstrates her anger and fear as she sees him become the possessor of all that had once been hers, while incarcerating his wife in the process.
• In the Jane Eyre guide, we see how an orphan whose relatives reject her is at the mercy of a capricious employer. When she has to escape his attentions, she can only become a vagrant. With no male to protect her or provide references for alternative employment she is powerless to change her situation, other than relying on charity.

How we got there

No girl today would expect to find themselves in the same situation, but that is owing to the long struggle by women to achieve parity with men. But if you think it’s all over, watch out for the forthcoming Crossref-it.info guide on Margaret Attwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale …

Taking time out and defying convention

Delayed publication

The author of Wide Sargasso Sea, on which Crossref-it.info has just launched an A Level guide, had quite a job in getting her manuscript to a point of publication:

• In 1957 Jean Rhys told her editor, Diana Athill, that it would be ready in six to nine months time, claiming that a large part of it was already written
• In fact, the writing of Wide Sargasso Sea was not finished until the end of March 1966
• Diana Athill wrote to Jean about ‘the labour and torment’ that had gone into its writing. No doubt she was referring to herself as the editor, as well as to its author!

A new approach

Rhys was writing using innovative forms and a variety of perspectives. It took her a while to work out how these could be utilised to create a narrative whole. During that time, her life and work disappeared from popular view.

At Crossref-it.info we too have had to take some time and work out a different approach with our guide to Wide Sargasso Sea.

Like you, we know that the future of literary study lies on-line rather than in a book-case. That’s why we developed a web-based English Literature resource and that’s why it has proved so popular worldwide. For each text we have covered that is not in the public domain, the author’s publisher has understood the power of the medium and granted permission to quote from their text.

Problems and solutions

However, we faced a problem when Rhys’ publisher seemed anxious about having her novel analysed on-line.

What to do? We knew how important it was that the text wasn’t once again rendered invisible to a new generation of students, whose automatic port of call is the internet. It has taken a while, but the whole guide has been re-worked, aiming to be as clear and specific as possible in its explanation of Wide Sargasso Sea, without actually using Rhys’ words. Not so easy for a novel that doesn’t have numbered chapters!

Result

It was worth waiting for Rhys’ masterpiece.

Hopefully everyone who uses the new Crossref-it.info guide on Wide Sargasso Sea will agree that it was worth waiting for this as well!

Why not check it out now?

Wide Sargasso Sea

Some authors are defined by one particular work which overshadows the rest of their output:

• Joseph Heller will forever be identified with his satirical masterpiece, Catch 22
• J. D. Salinger is known primarily as the creator of Holden Caulfield, narrator of The Catcher in the Rye
• Margaret Mitchell did write another novel, but nothing to match Gone with the Wind.

Until the late 60’s few people would have heard of Jean Rhys, who had produced a few collections of short stories and novellas in the 1920s and 30s. By the end of the 1950s many were not even sure if she was still alive. Then in 1966 Wide Sargasso Sea appeared.

For all sorts of reasons Wide Sargasso Sea became the work with which Rhys is for ever identified. It had a huge impact:

• With its multiple viewpoints and disjointed narrative, it echoed the multilayered interpretations of modernism, yet was also post-modern before the term had become recognised.
• Its perspective on a ‘colonial’ account (Jane Eyre), from the viewpoint of the colonised, helped to wake literate Britain up to the role of Britain’s economic world dominance within its literature
• It was revisionist in its handling of a well loved cultural icon, Mr Rochester, shaking forever the unthinking adulation of Brontë’s romantic hero
• It created a woman’s narrative voice at variance with the clear female voice of Jane Eyre herself, whom generations had learnt to love.

All these reasons and more make Wide Sargasso Sea a distinctive novel, and a popular choice on A Level syllabuses, especially when set in conjunction with Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

At Crossref-it.info a comprehensive guide to Brontë’s classic has already been available for a couple of years. Now we are about to launch one to help students studying Rhys’ most famous work.

Watch this space!