Halloween just got serious

The celebration of all things spooky has just passed and for many it is seen as ‘a bit of harmless fun’. Certainly the shops have enjoyed their vastly increased profits as people dip into their bank balances for ever more grotesque rubber masks and spangly witches outfits!

But there are those who take it very seriously – either in opposition to the dark arts or in support of them. For the latter, there is the allure of hidden power over others, whilst those against are alarmed by the influence of the occult and the manipulation that it implies.

An enduring tale

Through the centuries the myth of ultimate power gained by a bargain with the devil has worked powerfully on the human imagination. The most spectacular account in English Literature is that penned by Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary of Shakespeare.

Dr Faustus is appearing on a number of A level English exam syllabuses this year. It is a potent story of the ascendancy of a young student’s search for ultimate knowledge, which ends in horror. The opportunity to see this drama on stage makes the tale even more dynamic.

See it now!

Marlowe’s text was written for a public convinced of the reality of angels and demons, reflecting the contemporary Christian worldview. To help students get to grips with the play, and explain all the allusions, www.crossref-it.info is preparing a guide on it which will appear next term.

However, there is the chance to see a powerful and very accessible version this November and (probably) again in 2010. Visit www.saltminetrust.org.uk for details.

Your view of Halloween will never be the same again ...

Aiming to do English at university?

You made it!

Congratulations to those of you whose results enabled you to make it on to your chosen degree course! Now you have had time to recover from Freshers’ Week, we hope you are enjoying your studies.

If you find yourself plunging into the mysteries of Piers Plowman or the medieval pageant plays, with the benefit of hindsight, you can now appreciate how helpful it was if you were lucky enough to encounter Middle English at A Level.

You want to make it!

However, if you are taking A’s right now, and struggling through Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales for the first time, it might not seem that way! Middle English takes a bit of getting used to. Plurals and possessives are different and the spelling of words can be pretty fluid.

Actually, one of the best things to do when faced with a page of Middle English text is simply to read it aloud – it often makes the meaning clearer and you can start to get a sense of the humour and energy in much of Chaucer’s writing.

Help is on hand so you can succeed

The keen eyed among you will have spotted that www.crossref-it.info has got a new Chaucer text online – The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale. It is full of notes and background info to help you get to grips with a text which was as scabrous in its time as The Thick of It is today. Chaucer paints a wicked portrait of his narrator, whose corruption puts modern political scandals in the shade. Yet at the same time we are able to appreciate his audacity and persuasive sales ‘patter’.

It may be in Middle English, but this medieval tale has a contemporary punch!

Tougher than you thought?

Six weeks into your course, you may be realising that A Level English is more demanding than you thought it was going to be! Suddenly there are whole texts to get through at speed, rather than individual scenes, and you need to grasp far more than plot and characterisation.

We’ve noticed at www.crossref-it.info that lots of people are coming for help as they encounter the Metaphysical poets. These contemporaries of Shakespeare and Webster wrote some amazing and memorable poems. Many of them are either arguments to persuade their beloved into bed, or debates with God as the poets struggle to submit to him. Sometimes there is quite a cross over between the two!

An alien world

Both types of poem are tightly woven with images which need unpacking. They were written within a society that expected women to be chaste until they married (though not men!), and was convinced of the reality of God, heaven and hell. The poets could take for granted that everyone understood these ideas and the language associated with them – terms which today might seem alien.

If you regularly get this blog you’ll know that Crossref-it.info exists to help students confronting this sort of information. Handy pop-ups deal with unfamiliar words and concepts and everything a student needs to know about the poem is explained simply and clearly.

But don’t take our word for it. Check it out yourself.

The Brontë sisters in the media

Recently, we focussed on Charles Dicken's work and how this has been portrayed in different ways by the media. To complement this, we thought that we would continue our blog today by concentrating on how the Brontës' work has been interpreted by film, stage and audio productions. Charlotte, Emily and Anne's works remain some of the best known and most loved work in fiction and they have found their way into a variety of productions.

Some of the most recent gems include:

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (BBC, 2006)

Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (ITV, 2009) - check it out on the Brontë Blog as well!

Charlotte Brontë's Villette (Serial for BBC Radio 4, 2009)

It is worth noting that we posted an entry on Jane Eyre back in March, click here to read about Symbolism in Jane Eyre http://crossref-it.blogspot.com/2009/03/symbolism-in-charlotte-brontes-jane.html

There have been so many Brontë adaptations and hopefully there will be a lot more to come. Are there any that you have particularly enjoyed?

Charles Dickens in the media

Charles Dickens is one of the most well-loved authors of English literature. His novels are great reads even today, featuring suspense, crime, complex characters and unique insight into the social injustice that haunted Victorian Britain. In many ways, his works still speak into our time. So it should come as no surprise that his works have been popular among film makers.

Some of the most recent adaptations include:

• Oliver Twist (2005)
• Bleak House (2005)
• David Copperfield (1999)

Another fairly recent BBC project is an adaptation of Dickens' Little Dorrit. The BBC website contains plenty of information on the characters, cast and author.

Of course, if you want to go more in depth, check out the excellent Charles Dickens resources on Crossref-it.info:

• Charles Dickens biography
• Dickens' Great Expectations study guide with plenty of material on the context he was writing in.
• Read, search and study Dickens' Great Expectations at texts.crossref-it.info

What are your favourite Dickens adaptations?

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

New on Crossref-it.info: Our Tess of the d'Urbervilles text guide! Containing all the usual sections (A Timeline, Thomas Hardy biography, Context, Synopses, Narrative, Characterisation, Themes, Imagery and symbolism, Structure, Critical analysis and Exam and Essay help), this free resource will help you get to grips with the text.

Getting good A-Level results is proving harder by the year as competition heats up. So make sure you have the edge by making use of this excellent, academically verified text guide.

As always, we would love to hear any thoughts or comments on the book, the author, the text guide or Crossref-it.info generally. If there is anything you find particularly useful about this text guide, do let us know!

>> Tess of the d'Urbervilles at Crossref-it.info

Introducing: texts.crossref-it.info

Welcome back from the summer break! The Crossref-it.info blog is back and posting again, and we aim to bring you the latest and the greatest - English literature musings, essay and exam tips, and, as always, new product features.

While the blog has been on a break, we have been working on a number of new features to the site, the first of which we would like to proudly introduce today:




Texts is an effort which enables you to read, search and learn about some of the books we cover on Crossref-it.info more effectively. We have uploaded the entire text of four books to start with (there are plenty more in the works).

This means you can easily:

Read the book: for instance, for convenient study, try having the text guide open in one browser tab while keeping the the book open in the other...

Search the book: Students might want to keep this feature from their teachers / teachers might want to keep this feature from their students...

Understand the book: Yes, some of the older books might not necessarily shy away from strange words. So when a difficult word appears, you may find that you are able to simply and conveniently hover over it for an explanation, just like in the text guides on Crossref-it.info.

We are working on features and more texts. Meanwhile, enjoy reading

• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
• Charles Dickens' Great Expectations
• Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
• Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles