The season to prepare

Hot cross buns

Some shops in the UK sell hot cross buns all year round, but traditionally, they should be made and eaten in readiness for Easter.

Fasting food

Throughout the Christianised Western world, the forty days before Easter, known as Lent, is traditionally a period of restricting foodstuffs or going without some meals, a practice known as fasting. This is in order to prepare for the great celebration of Easter, with its mixture of sorrow and joy:

• Some hot cross buns were made without any dairy products, from which people abstained during Lent
• Others contained dried fruit and rich spices, as a reminder that Jesus’ followers wanted to embalm his body with spices, once he had been put to death
• All buns are marked with a cross on the top, reminding eaters of the manner in which Jesus was killed, nailed to a wooden cross. 

Feasting

Eating hot cross buns, with their depiction of a cross, might seem an odd practice, given that they commemorate such an awful event, except that, for Christians, Easter is a wonderful feast. It celebrates the sacrificial death, and coming back to life (known as the Resurrection) of Jesus, which Christians believe sets them free from the otherwise inescapable victory of sin and death.

The idea of fasting and feasting has moulded British culture, with the big feasts of Christmas, Easter and Harvest shaping our calendar. These feasts arise from events in the Bible, and a new article explaining the development of the idea of fasting and feasting has just been launched by Crossref-it.info.

A different focus

The idea of a long period of preparation before Easter also echoes another event in the Bible – when Jesus disappeared into the Judean wilderness for forty days to prepare for what would be three costly years of ministry, inaugurated by his baptism.

Experiencing the wild side

If you have ever been in a wild place, be it desert, forest, mountain or moorland, and been cut off from the usual distractions of modern life, you’ll know that it re-focuses your attention on what is around you and your place in the world.

Alone in the wilderness, we are confronted by ourselves, our physical and emotional limitations, as well as previously undiscovered capabilities. Many also feel that they find it easier to experience the divine. This experience is recounted a number of times in the Old and New Testaments and is echoed even today by many travel narratives.

The idea of escaping to the simplicity (and sometimes privation) of the wild has also been a significant factor in the development of the pastoral genre in English Literature. Find out how these ideas were inspired by Europe’s central cultural text at our article on Desert and Wilderness.

And if you want to try a brilliant hot cross bun, why not try this recipe?

http://goodfood.uktv.co.uk/recipe/hot-cross-buns/ Enjoy!

Othello

New, free, online text-guide on Shakespeare’s classic tragedy 

A popular exam text

If you are studying:

• A level English Literature with 
• AQA (A or B)
• Cambridge International
• Edexcel
• A level English Literature and Language with 
• OCR
• WJEC
• Cambridge Pre U English Literature

chances are you will encounter Shakespeare’s Othello. 

And if you want to get the most out of the play, as well as do really well when it comes to exam time, then you need to know that a new, free, online text-guide will make all the difference.

Here’s some real help

Launched this week, the www.crossref-it.info guide to Othello contains not only the usual scene-by-scene synopses and commentaries but lots more:

• The guide takes you through the key themes of the play, the imagery Shakespeare develops, the way roles are characterised through relationship, action and language. 
• There are sections dealing with what was going on in the society Shakespeare wrote for, as well as what they thought and believed, so that you can make connections with the text and see how the playwright played with the contemporary attitudes and culture of his audience.
• There are also sections about how the play was structured, how it would have been staged in Shakespeare’s day and the way critics approach it now.

All this appears alongside handy advice on how to write essays at Advanced Level. And be assured - all Crossref-it.info guides are written by experienced UK teachers and examiners, who know the best help to give students.

Let us know

We hope you will like it. Why not have a look at the Othello text guide and tell us what you think?