That fireside feeling

Why do so many Christmas cards feature fireplaces with glowing coals?

Undoubtedly it is partly to do with the idea that Saint Nicholas (from which ‘Santa Claus’ is derived) might visit. The classic verse ’Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement C

Moore depicts his arrival:

‘As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack.’

The jolly visitor proceeds to fill up the stockings hung ready for his arrival before disappearing back up the chimney with a nod.

Not just about Santa

But a glowing hearth also symbolises other things – warmth and cosiness, a sense of togetherness and contentment. The physical comfort it brings is mirrored by a positive glow of emotions. Gathering by the fireside is what we do once we are full of Christmas dinner, too replete to want to do much anything except relax with our family or friends.

If you are lucky enough to sit by a real fire or stove, you will know how the quiet snap and shuffle of burning fuel, alongside the patterns of dancing flames, gradually draw the attention away from external diversions to a quiet contemplation of the hearth.

The new Crossref-it.info guide to the poems of John Keats features an early poem which sums up the soothing mood cast by the fireplace, as the poet sits before it with his younger brothers, Tom and George:

‘Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles, (5)
Your eyes are fix d, as in poetic sleep,
Upon the lore so voluble and deep,
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.’

You can read the rest of the sonnet and find out more about what led to its creation here. But meanwhile, as the rush of things to get done before Christmas Day may seem to overwhelm you, it is good to be brought back to a place of peace and communion by this poem. After all, peace and communion are part of the original Christmas message.

Enjoy the holiday!

Tragic early life of genius

200 years ago, it is 1815. 

He has just turned 19. 

He has almost no money, yet heads up a household of three boys and one girl, following the death of his father when he was 8 and his mother’s death when he was 14 (who had previously deserted her children for three years when he was 9).

The Duke of Wellington has at last finally defeated the French Emperor Napoleon, bringing to an end over twenty years of warfare between Britain and France.

He loves reading – in the best seller lists are novels by Walter Scott and Jane Austen, volumes of poetry by Byron, Shelley, Blake, Cowper and Wordsworth, although he cannot afford to buy them.

Political ferment is in the air – the mad old King George III has been replaced by his fat, lascivious, vain eldest son, George, Prince Regent and the press are reflecting the people’s dissatisfaction. Leigh Hunt and others are writing political pamphlets which get them arrested – pamphlets which he reads avidly, for he is a radical.

But he has no money, so he has to engage in a trade – learning how to do surgery at Guy’s Hospital in London.

It isn’t the best of starts. Life has been hard for this young man.

And in six years’ time he will be dead.

Why do we know about him – why do we care?

Because before he died of tuberculosis aged 24, John Keats had written some of the most moving and memorable poetry the world has ever read.

Immerse yourself in his world and discover what emerged from this unpromising start in the John Keats text guide.

The writing’s on the wall

By now many people will have seen the new Bond film, Spectre, and heard its haunting theme tune, The writing’s on the wall, sung by Sam Smith.
Many of Smith’s classic tracks (and the videos promoting them) focus on love, loss and death. Here he skillfully weaves the Bond iconography into that mix, with references to running, shooting, broken glass and facing the storm.

His lyrics also touch on the interior life that has emerged in recent Bond films – that of the hero’s essential loneliness. Faced with repeated loss and betrayal, Craig’s Bond has barricaded his emotions behind cold coping mechanisms. Yet Smith’s lyrics point to the plot development that casts doubt on Bond’s ability – or desire -  to keep functioning as he previously has (see the film if you want to know more!):


I want to feel love, run through my blood
Tell me is this where I give it all up?
For you I have to risk it all
Cause the writing's on the wall.

The last line of the chorus is highlighted in the promo vid when, in a clip from the film, Bond sees his name scrawled on a deserted building. But take away that immediate context (as anyone listening to an audio recording would experience) and what does this well-known phrase actually mean?

A prophecy of judgement

The saying is popularly used to allude to any dire warning of the end of something. Smith’s Catholic background means that he would probably be familiar with the origins of the phrase:

• In the Old Testament book of Daniel, arrogant Persian king Belshazzar gives a feast where he drinks from sacred Jewish vessels. Then he sees a mysterious finger writing on the wall what amounts to a judgement on the king. He is frightened, and with good reason, for later that night he dies.
• Check out the original story at Daniel 5:3-6; Daniel 5:25-30

No wonder the audience shares Bond’s trepidation when we see his name in dripping red figures above an arrow to follow – given the context of the film’s story, the song lyric and its biblical origins, we fear that this is an invitation for Bond to meet his doom.

Check out the video below and enjoy:

Cover versions

Why do recording artists do cover versions? It’s not like they are going to get lots of money from copyright fees – in fact they will usually have to pay the original authors, or their publishers, substantial amounts!

What they gain however is the pleasure of familiarity with the material, as well as being able to showcase their talents by putting a distinctive twist on their interpretation of the lyrics and mood. We listen to a cover version because we already like that type of song, but then appreciate the way the artist has enhanced the original.

Poets are the same. They often take well-known poetic styles and show how versatile they can be within that genre:

• Shakespeare wrote 150 versions of a sonnet
• More recently, Michael Symmons Roberts played around with the constraints of 15 line poems, creating 150 new verses in Drysalter.

Alternatively, poets can lead us from familiarity into new styles, just like someone wanting to listen to The House of the Rising Sun can end up encountering a folk, blues, rock, punk, dance or dubstep version of the classic folk ballad.

Keats’ experiments

John Keats (1795-1821) did not have a wealthy background or fine education, but immersed himself in books wherever he could lay his hands on them. As he developed into one of the most significant of the Romantic poets (before his premature death aged 24) he experimented with the different genres of poetry he came across. If we are to appreciate the talent he applied to each form, we need to get familiar with his starting materials.

Quatrains

In La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Keats takes the traditional quatrain verse form of a ballad (see last month’s blog) and plays against our expectations of a neatly tied up unit of sense by leaving the story sparse and unresolved. Check out here the familiar version of the quatrain.

Spenserian stanza

Just as today we are still influenced by poetry which, like Keats’, was written 200 years earlier, so Keats had a huge admiration for Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, published 200 years before he was born. Keats used Spenser’s verse form (the Spenserian stanza) as a way of paying homage in his own narrative poem, The Eve of St Agnes.

Ottava rima

In another long, dramatic poem, Isabella: or The Pot of Basil, Keats works within the Italian verse form known as ottava rima, which was brought to England in the Renaissance. His contemporary Romantic, Lord Byron, used the tight format to highlight his satiric tone (see Ottava rima, whereas in Keats’ work we almost forget the restraints of rhyme etc. as the story sweeps us along.

La Belle Dame, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes – they are all, in one sense, cover versions of an existing format. It is how Keats – or any other poet - adapts them that demonstrates real talent.

Recognising poetry

Earlier this month, the UK celebrated National Poetry Day. Across the media there was a feast of readings and a special focus in many schools.

Verse that lives on

Poetry is an enduring medium. Since the earliest days of our oral culture, handing down dramatic narratives in verse form helped make them more memorable for both the teller and the audience. Gathering together to listen to these verse stories was the equivalent of watching the telly together today, drawn in by a dramatic tale.

An exam expectation

Poetry is a key component of all A Level English Literature syllabuses today and, apart from studying the output of well-known poets, examiners also like to put candidates on the spot by asking for an analysis of a previously unseen poem. Students are expected to recognise what style of text they are looking at, so that they can see how the author has played with – or against – the expectations of that particular genre. But how are you meant to know?

At crossref-it.info you’ll find an entire section under ‘Aspects of poetry’ dealing with Recognising poetic form. Each brief article explains what is meant by a particular genre, the era in which it was most prevalent and the stylistic aspects by which it can be recognised. And this week three new articles have been added to the section.

What is alliterative poetry?

One of the earliest types of poetry in the English language was what we now call alliterative poetry:

• Rather than grouping thoughts together by a connecting rhyme-scheme (e.g. rhyming couplets) Old and Middle English alliterative poetry contained stressed words which alliterated, giving energy and narrative flow to the verse
• A very early example is Beowulf, an epic poem probably composed in the sixth century CE
• The alliterative genre endured until about 1500 and another well-known example is Piers Plowman, written by a contemporary of Chaucer’s, William Langland. 

To find an example of how the verse works, visit here.

Ballads

Another more enduring style of poem is the ballad. Originally associated with song, these simple rhyming folk narratives captured dramatic situations in an easily repeatable form and often served as commentaries on the events of the day. Later the genre was also employed by learned writers who wanted to capture the genre’s expectations of simple and direct communication. Find out more here.

Help!

Both ballads and alliterative poems are fairly easy to recognise, with regular rhymes or rhythms or familiar subject matter. But what if what you are looking at doesn’t seem to obey any of the ‘rules’ you expect of poetry, with no consistent metre, stanza form or rhyme-scheme for example?

Free verse

You may find you are analysing what is known as free verse. This twentieth century development echoed the modernist desire to forge new literary forms which were not tied to the constraints of tradition. Have a look here and see what you think.

Then watch out for more helpful definitions of poetic styles in November!

This week’s National Poetry Day celebrates LIGHT!

National Poetry Day on Thursday 8th October celebrates how poets have reflected on the theme of light.

What do you associate with it? If you are dragging yourself out of bed to get ready for school/college because a new day has dawned, you might empathise with John Donne. Having spent a seductive night with his beloved, facing up to the sunlight is the last thing he wants to do. This is turned into a witty complaint in The Sunne Rising, where he castigates the sun as a ‘Busy old fool,’ and ‘Saucy pedantic wretch’ for disturbing him.

The hopefulness of light

Yet literature through the ages reflects humanity’s primeval desire for light, whether it is the natural light of the sun, or lamp/firelight to counteract encroaching darkness. Given that darkness is so frequently associated with fear, light naturally comes to be associated with hope.

Certainly that is what the speaker of Wilfred Owen’s war poem Futility is relying on. Finding a colleague in the dawn after a bitter night, Owen personifies the sun as a nurturing, creative being whom he trusts will know how to rouse the inert soldier, just as it manages to bring forth life from seeds.

In a relatively short poem, there are seven references to the act of waking / getting up (l.2,4,6,8,9,11,14) and Owen may have been thinking of a well-known New Testament verse: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you’ (Ephesians 5:14).

But the sun cannot do what Owen desires, cannot bring the dead to life. As the poem’s speaker realises that his comrade is beyond the sun’s help, he decries its ‘fatuous sunbeams’ l.13. It is as if the sun isn’t trying hard enough, is unfeeling and careless. Instead of symbolising life, it comes to represent the meaninglessness of life.

False light, false hope

Reflecting the desolation of warfare, another of Owen’s poems undercuts the association of light and hope. In The Sentry, the ‘whizz bangs ... snuffling the candles’ l.11 throw the confined dug-out into darkness and its sentry into blindness. The dramatic irony of the poem relies on the light which, for the sentry, symbolises sight. He cannot see the candle flame when it is held close to his blinded eyes, yet when all the lights have gone out he shouts that they are visible.

Symbolically, the extinction of the lights in the dug-out represents the loss of hope in Owen and those like him. Whether the sentry is able to see or not, what is there worth noting in the nightmarish hell that humanity has created through warfare? The man’s blindness represents his self-deception about hope for the future.

Eternal constancy

Certainly man-made light is easily snuffed out and can thus be associated with fragility and inconstancy. Which is why Keats chooses a star as his symbol of enduring love. His Bright Star is ‘steadfast’ and ‘unchangeable’, seemingly eternal, just as Keats wishes his moment of rest in the bosom of his beloved to be.

But what about your associations with light? Why not get creative today and send in your own poem which reflects on this theme to info@crossref-it.info?

Ensuring you’re not left behind in A Level English

Filling in the gaps

There are five Assessment Objectives on which you will be examined for AS and A level English Literature (see blog of 9.9.15). You need to be up to speed on every one of them.

Most of you will be taught courses by teachers who have done English degrees. They will be well able to help you understand a variety of critical approaches (AO5), show you how linguistic patterns shape your responses to texts (AO2) and help you become familiar with – and confident of using -  accurate terminology to express your views (AO1).

All of that equates to 62.5% of all the marks you might score in your exam.

But there are a couple of areas that even well-educated teachers may be unaware of, which together add up to over a third (37.5%) of marks awarded –

• They may have gaps in their knowledge about the culture which produced texts and for which they were originally created (AO3 – worth a quarter of all your marks)
•  They may not recognise how frequently literary texts reference other texts (AO4 – worth 12.5% in the exam)

Topical example

In an editorial of a UK paper recently, the columnist commented on the understanding that people have of the migrant crisis and how it has been shaped by one picture:

‘Did we not know, had we not read, that migrant children drowned? What happened to the written word?’

How many of your teachers would know that the journalist was echoing another literary text which commented on people’s faulty understanding (AO4):

‘Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?’

If you – or your teacher – can tell us what the columnist was alluding to (without googling the answer!), email us at info@crossref-it.info and praise will be heaped upon you in the next blog.

If you - or those educating you - are stumped, it looks like you might need the help that www.crossref-it.info can offer!

Welcome to A Level English exam success!

We are here to help

From this September, students studying English Literature at AS and A Level are working through new syllabuses which are targeting success according to a variety of different assessment objectives.

Instead of four assessment goals there are now five, each of which www.crossref-it.info aims to help you with:

• AO1 - Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression
• How we help - crossref-it.info utilises - and explains - the kind of terminology and concepts expected at A Level
• AO2 - Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts
• How we help - crossref-it.info writers help you understand how aspects like form, narrative and language are used to shape meaning
• AO3 - Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts were written and received
• How we help - crossref-it.info is designed to help students understand the significance and influence of cultural and historical contexts: the way the beliefs and worldview of the author informed everything they wrote
• AO4 - Explore connections across literary texts
• How we help - crossref-it.info covers a range of literary texts and explains the connections and comparisons. 
• AO5 - Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations
• How we help - Commentary covers a range of different ways to interpret each text.

Crossref-it.info makes all this easy and accessible and is FREE!

Twentieth Century attitudes

The –isms that shaped a century

Fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini

Contextual awareness of what people thought and felt really helps us make sense of what people wrote in any given era. It is an intangible world of ideas which, when we understand it can help us succeed if we are studying A Level English Literature.

Often, authors don’t directly refer to widely held attitudes – they just assume that everyone is coming from a particular cultural viewpoint – even if their job is then to challenge it.

The twentieth century saw the questioning of many longstanding cultural norms, which were replaced by newly developed beliefs. For example:

• In the first quarter of the twentieth century, Enlightenment rationalism was superseded by Modernism
• This was itself discarded in the last quarter of the century, as being an inadequate perception of how life held together, in favour of Post-modernism.

But what do all these –isms mean?

www.crossref-it.info has just provided some handy explanations in its ‘Making sense of the intangible world of the twentieth century’ section. Launched this week are easy to understand pages where you can find out about the following:

Communism & Fascism – two ideologies which shaped nationhood and conflict across the world for much of the century

Feminism – the shift of authority from patriarchy to the recognition of female values and power

Modernism – the scientific, industrial ‘solution’ to human progress

Post-modernism & individualism – the loss of faith in over-arching truths

Religious attitudes – changes in religious observance and cultural certainties

Multiculturalism – a challenge to the British, white, Protestant ascendancy

Simply by living within a culture that held these attitudes at varying times, British poets, novelists and playwrights reflected them and refracted them.

As the summer holidays roll on for most, why not take some time out to explore this rich background, and therefore get the most out of the English literature of the twentieth century?

Shifts in the way we live

The World of the Twentieth Century

www.crossref-it.info has just introduced a new section on site about ‘The World of the Twentieth Century’. This week we are adding to articles about momentous events of the century with some perspectives about how the way British people lived changed between 1900 and 2000.

Recently there was much adulation over the birth of a new royal, Princess Charlotte – but did you realise that there were at least two eras in the twentieth century when the stability of the British monarchy looked in doubt? Check out Monarchy

Right now, Greece is dealing with the cumulative effects of spending without the bank reserves to pay. How did running up personal debt become the norm for many in the UK from the 1980s onwards? See Income & consumerism 

The working environment is often reflected in literature. How did this change for many Brits after the 1970s? Find out at World of work

What helped many UK citizens fall back in love with the British landscape in which few actually lived? Discover the answer at Humans & the environment

Our grandparents and great-grandparents grew up celebrating Empire Day (as Queenie remembers at the start of Andrea Levy’s Small Island). Why is this no longer the case? Find out at Colonialism & post-colonialism

These are just a few of the areas covered by the extra material being launched today to help users make sense of the tangible world of the twentieth century. Remember, it is contextual awareness like this that can help you succeed at A Level English Literature!

Moments that shook the world

2015 anniversaries 

2015 has been full of anniversaries – ways of remembering key events that shaped the course of history:

• 800 years ago this year, English King John was compelled to sign the Magna Carta, establishing that even a monarch was subject to the rule of law
• It is 200 years since the British victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo
• 100 years ago was the desperate defeat of Allied forces in the Dardanelles campaign, during the First World War
• It is 70 years since the declaration of Victory in Europe, marking the defeat and downfall of the Nazi domination of Western Europe – the liberation of their concentration camps helped others see the evils of the regime in all its grisly reality
• It is 25 years since East Germans flooded through the Berlin Wall and it fell, the symbol of division and communist oppression. That same year Nelson Mandela was freed from incarceration 
• Only 10 years ago London was rocked by the efforts of four suicide bombers which left 700 people injured or killed

Why do we memorialise these events? Because they are an anchor as life passes; they remind us of how we lived, what kind of people we were when the event happened.

Many situations in the list above commemorate the overthrow of oppression and control – the impulse of the human spirit for freedom. Events such as the end of war and liberation of Auschwitz altered the way people thought about themselves.

Perspective shifts and the arts

The Elephant Celebes by Max Ernst

It is these shifts in perspective which the arts pick up on. Just as modernist painters reflected the sense of moral disintegration in the aftermath of the First World War, so authors and poets channeled the angst or optimism of the era into their works:

• For example, the looming danger of George Orwell’s novel 1984 picked up on the very real oppression of Stalin when he attempted to blockade West Berlin in1948 (the year in which Orwell wrote his book).

If you are studying literature it is expected that you will understand how events provided a context against which writers created their texts. Indeed, examiners will award 25% of your marks in A Level English Literature on the basis of your ability to:

Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received. 

The World of the Twentieth Century

www.crossref-it.info already has lots of background material to help you make sense of literature up to the end of the Victorian era. Now it has just introduced a new section on site about ‘The World of the Twentieth Century’. Available are eight new articles focusing on key events between 1900 and 2000, such as:

• the two World Wars, the Cold War and conflict in Ireland
• The reshaping of the economy after the Wall Street Crash 
• The shift of power and territory according to ideology in post-war Europe and Palestine 
• The change in society as a result of immigration and integration.

Texts such as The Great Gatsby, The Handmaid’s Tale and Wide Sargasso Sea make better sense when you can place the worlds they depict against the reality which their respective authors faced.

There will be more to come, so keep looking out for updates!

Summer shows

Exams will soon be over 

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Yes really! And the rest of the summer term is a great time to let all you have accumulated over your year(s) spent studying AS/A2 Level English Literature sink in.

Often this is the time when, as students, you suddenly ‘get’ what the requirements of A Levels are all about, rather than feeling out of your depth after the relative shallows of GCSE English. You stop floundering and start swimming. And because of this, you might actually start enjoying literature more!

If you have been studying a play text in the past months (or are soon about to) the easing of pressure after the exam period is also a great time to catch a live production of your drama text. Unfortunately the great majority of them are in London, but with longer days and the summer holidays beckoning, perhaps you could make a day of it in the capital.

Shakespeare

Everyone covers the bard.

If your syllabus includes a tragedy see if you can get to:

• Hamlet, at the Barbican Theatre, London, 25.8 – 31.10.15 (with Benedict Cumberbatch)
• Macbeth, at the Young Vic, London, from 3.12.15 - 3.1.16
• Othello, at the RSC, Stratford, is more imminent, running from 4.6 – 28.8.15

If you are studying a problem play, like Measure for Measure, you will benefit from seeing one of these productions:

• Measure for Measure, at the Globe Theatre, London, from 20.6 – 17.10.15
• The Merchant of Venice, at the RSC, Stratford, between 15.6 – 2.9.15
• Measure for Measure, at the Young Vic, London, from 8.10 – 7.11.15

Perhaps you are studying a Romance play like The Tempest:

• At the new Sam Wannamaker indoor theatre (next to London’s Globe Theatre), a companion piece, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, will be showing from 25.11.15 – 21.4.16

Meanwhile, a Shakespearean comedy on offer is:

• As You Like It, at the Globe Theatre, London, from 15.5 – 5.9.15

Jacobean drama

Shakespeare’s contemporaries were creating a vivid range of comedies and tragedies, sometimes blurring the two so that the humour is dark and there are flashes of laughter amongst the gore. What’s it like on stage? Check out three productions at the Swan Theatre, the RSC’s more intimate venue:

• The Jew of Malta, from 1.6 – 8.9.15
• Love’s Sacrifice, from 6.6 – 24.6.15
• Volpone, from 3.7 – 12.9.15

Comedies of manners

Before the syllabuses change, current students may well be studying a seventeenth or eighteenth century ‘Comedy of Manners’ such as She Stoops to Conquer, The School for Scandal, The Rivals or The Way of the World. If you want to see how the style of writing translates onto stage, and how the comedy works, why not go to see

• The Beaux Stratagem, at the National Theatre, London, from 3.6-31.8.15
• The School for Scandal, at the Park Theatre, London, from 12.6 – 7.7.15.

Mid twentieth century

There’s hope for those of you living in the north of England or Scotland. Two productions are coming up from autumn onwards:

• Waiting for Godot, at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, from 19.9 – 10.10.15
• The Crucible, at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, from 18.2 – 19.3.16
• In London you can catch the RSC’s Death of a Salesman, currently running until 18.7.15

If you know of other productions around the regions, please let us know – email info@crossref-it.info.

Above all, enjoy the experience and - after all your hard work - remind yourself why you took English in the first place…

King Lear catch up

The count-down begins

At the start of February a new, searchable online version of Shakespeare’s King Lear was launched at http://crossref-it.info/text/king-lear.

Over the half term break a free, comprehensive King Lear text guide came out, with everything A Level English Lit. students and teachers need to ensure exam success. 

Now, as revision starts to get serious, help is at hand again in the shape of Teachers’ worksheets on King Lear.

Worksheet contents

The six Crossref-it worksheets  contain material for a number of lessons focused on Shakespeare’s tragedy. Accompanied by supplementary student handouts, they cover areas such as:

• Exploring the characters and themes established at the play’s opening, particularly the parent-child theme
• Analysing the dramatic impact of Act 3 Scene 2.
• Considerations of key themes in the play, for example
• Love and relationships
• Seeing and blindness
• Madness, wildness and disorder and how they connect
• Exploring the impact of the final scene (Act 5 Scene 3) and the play’s sense of justice.

Teaching variety

Every worksheet contains a variety of teaching approaches, including:

• An opening exercise - to help student engagement
• Textual examination of key passages
• Discussion ideas - to deepen understanding
• A recreative task - to help make connections
• Critical tasks - enabling traditional essay practice
• Extension tasks - to widen knowledge.

Student help

It’s not just teachers who will find the worksheets helpful. As a student preparing to be assessed this summer, you might just be starting to panic as you uncover any gaps in your notes / understanding / lesson attendance. Trying downloading and working through a worksheet and you will end up with lots of helpful ideas to throw back at the examiner.

Have fun!

The misfit who is chosen

Unloved misfits 

Used for centuries as beasts of burden, strong and capable, yet ugly and uncherished, donkeys and their near cousins asses (the crossbred offspring of a pony and a donkey) are in many areas of the world rather like we regard electricity – vital but taken for granted.

An unlikely subject therefore for a poet to focus on. Yet, at the start of the twentieth century GK Chesterton did just that, creating in The Donkey a simple ballad with a surprising twist.

When fishes flew and forests walked  
   And figs grew upon thorn,  
Some moment when the moon was blood  
   Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
   And ears like errant wings,  
The devil’s walking parody  
   On all four-footed things.

Many suffering from body dysmorphia might identify with the Donkey’s self-description as having ‘ears like errant wings’ and a ‘monstrous head’. It likes neither the way it looks nor the ‘sickening cry’ of its voice. It regards itself as a primeval beast, a throwback to an unsophisticated, ungainly world, an animal which has remained stubbornly uncivilized despite the progress of the millennia.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
   Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,  
   I keep my secret still. …

As such it feels an outsider, a misfit in a slick world, unable to curtail its desires and self-expression to fit the mores of modern society. Because it its ‘crooked will’ others have rejected the Donkey, mocked it, ill-treated it and punished it (the scourge was a multi-strand whip with sharp stones or twists of metal designed to tear the flesh from whatever was being beaten).

Hidden joy?

But, amazingly, this Donkey has a secret hope, a memory that outweighs all its privations.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
   One far fierce hour and sweet:  
There was a shout about my ears,
   And palms before my feet.

It remembers going for a noisy walk…..

That’s it?!

One hour trotting near palm trees is enough to make up for society’s – and the Donkey’s self – hatred?

Missing the point 

Well, if we leave it there, we have entirely missed Chesterton’s point. But to feel the punch of the poem, we you need to know a bit more about the subtext (see previous blog, 4.3.15).

The Donkey’s ‘sweet’ hour was the occasion related in the New Testament when, a week before he died, Jesus chose an ass to sit on and ride into the city of Jerusalem. He was greeted rapturously at the time, with people waving palm branches and throwing them down, along with their cloaks, to create a ‘royal causeway’ for the man they anticipated as king (an event commemorated by Christians as Palm Sunday). An easy retelling of the story can be found at Crossref-it.info or you can read the original in Matthew 21:1-11.

For the Donkey, the amazing fact was that a monarch (the ruler of all the earth according to Christian belief) chose this rejected, unattractive beast for the greatest honour it could ever experience. Chesterton portrays Jesus choosing the unloved and unlovable ass and touching its life with glory.

The poet is reminding us that those we overlook or shy away from are actually special. If you think you are the misfit, remember what this simple poem tells you.

Palm Sunday is celebrated this weekend.

Western cultural influences on literature

Getting ‘in the know’

Don’t you just hate it when there is a facebook or text conversation full of abbreviations you aren’t quite sure about? A while ago the UK Prime Minister famously mistook LOL to mean ‘Lots Of Love’ when actually those ‘in the know’ realised that LOL stood for ‘Laugh Out Loud’. David Cameron was, accidently, not sending affection but mockery.

In almost every written communication there is a context which helps the reader to make sense of the words, and often a subtext - an assumption by the writer that the reader shares an understanding as to what is being referred to.

Context

For example, in one of Wilfred Owen’s poems, Hospital Barge, the reader of the poem understands that it is written from the perspective of a First World War soldier (Owen himself) in northern France, enjoying rare time away from trench bombardment. Sitting by a canal, he observes a barge take away those wounded at the Western Front – that is the context.

Subtext

The departure of the wounded, symbolised by the scream of the barge’s funnel, makes the poet think of Avalon and Merlin. Owen is assuming that, just by mentioning these mythic names, his readers will understand the subtext he is referring to – the legends surrounding the heroic British King Arthur. Owen had recently re-read a well-known Victorian poem by Poet Laureate Lord Tennyson, with which he might have been confident his original readers were familiar.

Unlike many of the upbeat legends about Arthur, the mood of Tennyson’s poem is one of grief and loss. It chimes in with the idea that Arthur’s chivalric code ultimately did not withstand human corruptibility. By drawing on this understood subtext Owen is therefore communicating that the valiant glory of battle/the First World War is superseded by the cost of suffering and loss… But if you aren’t familiar with the subtext, you will miss this additional layer of meaning.

The most shared subtext of all

In the Western literary tradition, the most shared subtext of all is the Bible. Every writer from Chaucer onwards has assumed that readers will ‘get it’ when, within their work, they create parallels or counterpoints to famous biblical narratives, that alluding to biblical characters or events will serve as a shorthand to a shared understanding.

• When in King Lear Edmund cheats his brother out of his father’s affection (Act 1, scene 2; Act 2, scene 1), playing on the infirmities of an ageing parent, Shakespeare would expect his audience to think of another brother who tricked his sibling out of his rightful status - Jacob cheating Esau Genesis 27:1-41.
• When Dr Frankenstein is aghast at the ugliness of the monster he has created (Frankenstein, vol 1, chapter 4), Mary Shelley expected her readers to see that as a counterpoint to the goodness of God’s creation emphasized by Genesis (Genesis 1:26-31; Genesis 2:2; Genesis 2:7. The contrast of narratives highlighted Shelley’s theme that any such human creation could only come to a bad end.

Light shining in darkness

If you already know this stuff, it’s like having a light to illuminate the texts you are studying. Yet many today do not have the time or brain-space to read the entire sixty-six books of the Bible. However, this week Crossref-it.info is adding to its range of handy paraphrases of famous biblical narratives. For example:

• To find out about the cheating younger brother, go to Famous stories from the Bible > Jacob cheats Esau
• The creation account can be found at Famous stories from the Bible > The biblical account of creation 

With ninety-six of the most referenced biblical stories on site, http://crossref-it.info/repository/bible-stories can give you the low-down on what most Eng. Lit. authors assume you already know – keeping you a step ahead of your peers. LOL.

A new King Lear text-guide

New worlds of emotional experience

Part of the thrill in studying great literature is that it gives you insight into life and experiences beyond that which you already know.

I have never forgotten my A Level English teacher identifying with the middle aged Cleopatra’s desperation to hold on to her sexual allure. Now I am heading to that age myself, I understand the reality of Cleopatra’s – and Mrs C_’s - hopes and needs.

King Lear opens up worlds of relationship that you may understand (sibling rivalry, anyone?) or may not yet have observed (for example, the intense grief about one’s failing powers and memory). All of this is conveyed through dramatic plotting, full of twists and turns, and couched in memorable poetry. Encountering Shakespeare’s mighty tragedy can be a life changing experience.

Understanding technique

But of course an examiner wants to know not just how you have responded to the text, but why. They want to see your analysis of what is it that Shakespeare has done to create that reaction within you…. It is a relief to know that there is help at hand to give you a thorough understanding of Shakespeare’s technique.

Launched this week, the new Crossref-it text-guide on King Lear will help all students currently in lower or upper Sixth form, who may be studying the play for:

• A Level English Lit., with OCR and WJEC boards
• A Level Language and Lit, with AQA
• Cambridge Pre U exam.

In the new guide you can place Shakespeare within the context of his contemporaries via the Timeline. Accessing Synopses and commentaries gives you speedy reminders of what’s going on or you could explore the Themes of the play. Every tricky concept has a handy pop-up to illuminate the meaning and there is loads of advice about how to write effective essays.

Teaching the text

Meanwhile teachers may have already got an eye out for the texts they will be teaching in the reformed specifications first being delivered from this September. Has your English department opted for:

• AQA Eng. Eng. Lit. B
• Edexcel Eng. Lit. 
• WJEC Eng. Lit. or Lit. & Lang? 

King Lear appears on all these specifications and knowing that there is an accessible but academically rigorous guide to help you teach it successfully might spur you to lay claim to the class set in the stock cupboard!

Probably composed in the same year as the Gunpowder plot, Crossref-it.info Context sections help you see how King Lear reflected topical concerns about the role of the monarch and the insecure social conditions of the time. You can discover how verbal Motifs run through the play and of course can link these to our free searchable text on site. There’s lots more, so why not explore?

The Crossref-it team believe in the power of literature to transform – and take the headache out of preparation. What’s not to like!

King Lear revealed

For many critics, King Lear is the mightiest of Shakespeare’s tragedies. It is a play about age and irresponsibility, about parents and children, about the boundaries between rational and irrational behavior. Many may be studying it for A Level English Lit. with OCR and WJEC boards, or for A Level Language and Lit with AQA, or for their Cambridge Pre U exam.

If you are due to be examined on King Lear this summer, you’ll will be pleased to know that, just in time to help you, a Crossref-it.info text guide is about to be released – watch this space!

Read Lear online

To help you easily flick through the play meanwhile, you can find a searchable online version of the King Lear text. Just when you are struggling to remember in which scene the old King calls his daughters ‘unnatural hags’, Crossref-it.info’s speedy search facility will lead you to Act 2 Scene 4, where you can trace the development of Lear’s distress with his elder offspring.

Examiners keep saying that there is no substitute for knowing the text really well. Using the online version, you can quickly scan through the play a scene at a time to remind yourself of the complex plot and Shakespeare’s vivid imagery.

Catch current and forthcoming productions while you can!

Of course, the true impact of a play is only experienced when you see the relationships within it embodied in a theatre. The good news is that you don’t have to make your way to London to see Lear come to life on stage in 2015.

If you hurry, Guildford Shakespeare Company are performing until 14th February at Holy Trinity Church, Guildford, Surrey. The play’s parent/child inter-relationship will be given an added twist by the pairing of real-life father and daughter, Brian Blessed (King Lear) and Rosalind Blessed (Goneril). (Box office: 01483 304384; or www.guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk)

With slightly more time to book, it’s worth trying to get to a new touring production. Renowned director Jonathan Miller is currently rehearsing Northern Broadsides Theatre Company in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. The production will tour to:

• The Viaduct Theatre, Halifax (27 Feb-7 Mar)
• Hull Truck Theatre (10-14 Mar)
• Theatre Royal Bath (17-21 Mar)
• Everyman Theatre Cheltenham (24-28 Mar)
• West Yorkshire Playhouse (8-18 Apr)
• Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough (21-25 Apr)
• Liverpool Playhouse (28 Apr-2 May)
• The Lowry, Salford Quays (5-9 May)
• York International Shakespeare Festival (12-16 May)
• Rose Theatre, Kingston (19-23 May)
• New Vic Theatre, Newcastle under Lyme (27 May-13 June).

Meanwhile, watch out for the new text-guide and let us know if you agree that King Lear really is the mightiest of Shakepeare’s tragedies.

New texts for A Level English teaching

What goes around..

If you are an A Level English teacher preparing your resources in order to meet the requirements of the new 2015 specifications, you will notice that some texts feature prominently in the new syllabuses, whilst others, although recently taught, are no longer present. Long-standing teachers will have seen the exam ‘canon’ change a number of times over the years and will wisely archive soon to be obsolete resources for the inevitable future when they will reappear again. What goes around comes around.

However, after the upheaval to the AS and A Level English syllabuses imposed by the government reforms, most of the exam boards are suggesting that there will be few changes to the texts specified for first teaching in 2015, until 2020. The resources you draw on and create will be in use for a long time so it pays to ‘invest wisely’.

Crossref-it.info textguides on 2015 specification set texts

If you will be teaching any of the following A Level Lit. or Lang./Lit syllabuses, look out for the academically rigorous Crossref-it.info guides on the texts they feature:

AQA

• Lit. A – guides on Persuasion / Jane Eyre / Wuthering Heights / Tess of the d’Urbervilles / The Great Gatsby / The Handmaid’s Tale / The war poetry of Wilfred Owen / Measure for Measure / The Winter’s Tale
• Lit. B – guides on Tess of the d’Urbervilles / The Great Gatsby / The Handmaid’s Tale / Songs of Innocence & Experience / Hamlet / (coming soon) King Lear
• Lang. & Lit. – Frankenstein / The Great Gatsby / The Handmaid’s Tale / selected poems by John Donne

Cambridge Pre U

• Lit. in English - Jane Eyre / Dubliners / The Pardoner’s Prologue & Tale / selected poems by Herbert; Hamlet / Measure for Measure  / The Winter’s Tale

Cambridge International

• Lit. + Lang. & Lit. – Wuthering Heights / Great Expectations / The Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale / selected poems by Christina Rossetti / The war poetry of Wilfred Owen / Measure for Measure 

Edexcel

• Lit. - Frankenstein / Wuthering Heights / Tess of the d’Urbervilles / The Handmaid’s Tale  The  The Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale  / selected Metaphysical poetry / selected poems by John Donne / selected poems by Christina Rossetti / Doctor Faustus / Hamlet / Measure for Measure  / (coming soon) King Lear
• Lang. & Lit. – Wuthering Heights / Tess of the d’Urbervilles / The Great Gatsby / Great Expectations / Wide Sargasso Sea /  The Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale  / selected Metaphysical poetry / selected poems by Christina Rossetti / Hamlet / Equus

OCR

• Lit. - The Great Gatsby / The Handmaid’s Tale / selected poems by Christina Rossetti / Hamlet / Measure for Measure 
• Lang. & Lit. – Jane Eyre / The Great Gatsby / Songs of Innocence & Experience

WJEC

• Lit. - Jane Eyre  selected poems by John Donne / selected poems by Christina Rossetti/ Doctor Faustus / Hamlet / (coming soon) King Lear
• Lang. & Lit. – Great Expectations / Wuthering Heights / Tess of the d’Urbervilles / The Handmaid’s Tale  (coming soon) King Lear

Every good wish with your planning and preparation!

English teaching looking forwards

A Level English reforms

At last, all the A Level English exam boards have had each of their proposed specifications accredited. This means that, from September 2015 there are a raft of new texts and new themes around which A Level Literature study will be focused.

Yes … more planning!

Unfortunately, the introduction of different texts and the reorganisation of how they will be taught means rather a lot of work for already busy A Level English teachers. Whilst some of the new specifications have been available in their approved form since September 2014, others only came out in December, which means some rather speedy catching up!

But help is at hand

We are really pleased that Crossref-it.info resources already cover many areas suggested within the new syllabuses.

Themes linking texts

• For those considering the AQA Lit A and Edexcel Lit. exams, which feature an exploration of crime, its detection and punishment, why not have a look at the thematic ‘Only Connect’ approach on Villainy and vengeance?
• Alternatively, there is helpful ‘Only Connect’ material on Love, lust and marriage if you are considering the Edexcel Lit. & Lang., WJEC Lit. & Lang. or AQA Lit. A syllabus themes on Love, romance and loss
• ‘Only Connect’ material on Women finding a voice will also be relevant if you are planning to teach Edexcel Lit., AQA Lit A. or OCR Lit. about representations of women within literature and society. You could also explore the material here for some starting points: Women and literature

Crossref-it.info is continuing to develop resources and if you have any ideas for literary themes which you would like to see covered, please get in touch at info@crossref-it.info.

Meanwhile, look out for our next blog about which texts we have guides on to help you and your students to exam success with the new 2015 specifications.

Enjoy the term!