Exploring the Big Ideas which run through literature

Cultural foundations

There are some themes and concepts which writers play with again and again through the canon of literature. They assume that their audience are familiar with the original concepts and so can recognise where each author has alluded to the idea or tweaked it for their own dramatic purposes.

Roald Dahl does the same thing when he takes the reader’s familiarity with well-known fairy tales, then suddenly challenges expectations by changing the narrative. His Red Riding Hood doesn’t get eaten (after whipping out a pistol!).

Reading enriched

Alluding to culturally embedded images and themes adds a whole new layer of meaning to our experience of literature, as readers bring their awareness of the source material to bear on the texts they encounter.

However, this all falls down once we lose our connection with what was once ‘common knowledge’.

• For example, when Nelly accuses the elderly servant Joseph of being ‘the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee’ in Wuthering Heights (ch 5), it means very little unless the reader recognises not only what a Pharisee is, but also the connotations of the term.

Often there’s not just one source for a concept, but it has built up through repeated usage. To explain the bigger picture, Crossref-it.info has a range of Big Ideas from the Classics and Big Ideas from the Bible. Crossref-it.info has just added to the latter as we encounter texts that refer to these concepts.

• So in Rabbi, Pharisee, teacher of the law students can discover just why Nelly used the word Pharisee as term of abuse.
• By exploring Poverty and wealth, readers will have a better understanding of Cornelia’s motivation in The White Devil, or the Old Woman’s homily in The Wife of Bath’s Tale, as they gain insight into ideas that run counter to our modern culture.

These are just a couple of examples. Crossref-it.info now features one hundred Big Ideas from the Bible. Exploring them over the summer holidays will really help you get to grips with your A Level Lit. texts come September.