Catch it while you can!

If you haven’t yet seen BBC’s The Hollow Crown series of Shakespeare’s history plays, then go for it. As the summer holidays start or exam leave (dare we say it) begins to drag, indulge yourself in your own ‘Shakefest’ over a series of days. You might just be riveted!

Why bother?

 Shakespeare is renowned as the world’s greatest dramatist. He features on every English exam syllabus in the UK– and quite honestly, students don’t always know why. Aren’t lots of plays, lots of dramatists pretty good really?

Individually, many are. Where Shakespeare scores is that through his huge range of work he covers just about every human emotion, then explores them from a multitude of perspectives. Alongside comic cameos, he creates characters who are believably rounded, then plays with our response to them. By attracting us towards them then repelling us from them, we are left having to make our own judgements.

Make your mind up

Richard II – a gorgeous wastrel or martyred innocent? Is Henry IV a righteous leader or ambitious aggressor? Particularly intriguing is Falstaff, the joker, cheat, faithless yet loving uncle figure. Whilst we despise his cowardice and greed, we also understand his fear of aging and loneliness which comes to the fore in Henry IV Part Two.

And if these characters sound rather distant from teenage experience, try out Prince Hal, later to become Henry V, as he battles with his dad, shirks his responsibilities, disappoints peoples hopes, then rises to the huge challenges put before him. That’s a trajectory many of us might understand.

If you can, catch up the plays in order on BBC iPlayer before seeing Hal’s final triumph in Henry V this Saturday evening on BBC Two.

I hope you’ll not only enjoy them but have a more profound understanding of life. Because ultimately, that’s why Shakespeare is great.

Students demo. inter-textuality

This time last year we had some hot days (remember them?) but that didn’t stop some AS Eng. Lit. students working hard under even hotter studio lights. Students from five UK schools from Hertfordshire to Nottinghamshire had just a day each to film extracts from some of the texts being studied for A Level English Literature.

A wide range of works were covered, for example:

> plays such as Measure for Measure and The White Devil
> novels such as those by Dickens and Scott Fitzgerald
> verse by poets such as Donne and Rossetti.

A whole new understanding

 The aim of the enterprise was to illustrate how much authors use allusions within their work. They assume that their audiences will pick up the references, thereby adding a whole new layer of understanding.

Unfortunately, with changing times, not everyone stays familiar with the references that were once known so well.

For example, most people watching Hamlet today won’t register that, when Hamlet confronts his Mum about how gross he regards her hasty marriage to his step dad, he adds weight to his disgust by quoting the Bible at her. No pressure then!

 To illustrate how authors have drawn on references like these from the Bible, performances were interspersed by relevant verses, or particular narratives were used to frame the extracts.

Impressing the examiners

Given that any half decent A Level essay or exam answer will be expected to mention concepts such as inter-textuality and the context of reception, these film clips (which last from between 2 – 7 minutes) provide an easy way to delight your teachers / examiners.

To help reinforce the concept, a series of lesson downloads accompany each performance. (Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes even your teachers don’t know this stuff, so we’ve given them a helping hand.)

Why not explore Inter-textuality AV resources and see if one of the authors you are studying is featured? It could just open your eyes to a new way of reading…