The White Devil

New kid on the block

Shakespeare you always expect to see on A Level exam syllabuses.
Marlowe’s Dr Faustus continues to pull in the gothic crowd.
Now Webster’s dark revenge tragedy, The White Devil, is under examination.

Full of dark deeds and tortured imaginings, this complex plot hinges on a variety of characters and motifs typical of the revenge genre.

Rather than a hero, the play has a range of anti-heroes, each trying to outwit the other, until most of them are killed, by a variety of grisly means.

Often the female roles in plays of the era are used as receptacles of virtue – think Portia in The Merchant of Venice, or Isabella in Measure for Measure – to counterpoint male machinations. But Webster eschews this approach. Although one woman does provide a positive moral balance in the drama, there are two other feisty and amoral female roles, one of which is the ‘white devil’ of the title.

Moral ambiguity

But no-one is wholly good or bad, even though Webster tries to shape his contemporaries’ response to certain roles by overlaying them with a traditional Christian or evil iconography.

Modern audiences and students do not find that these visual or verbal references register so immediately, which is why the new Crossref-it.info guide aims to make everything clear, from what is happening in each scene, to the sophisticated allusions with which Webster peppers the text.

Don’t take our word for it

A senior British academic wrote of our White Devil Guide:

‘This guide introduces students to some of the contexts that will help them understand how The White Devil fits into the wider culture of Jacobean England. Its scene-by-scene glosses and questions are very well designed to support individual study, while the discussion of critical approaches and its suggestions for further reading, provide valuable pointers… . A thorough, very useful, learning
resource.’

Dr Pascale Aebischer (D.Phil., Senior Lecturer in Renaissance Studies, Dept. of English, University of
Exeter)

The influence of the KJB on culture

Not only were Webster and his contemporaries inspired by some of the ideas and stories
from the Bible – the world of music was shaped by it for centuries too.

Until 28th November, try and catch a performance of the Concert trio In Voice and Verse,
who tell the story of Genesis to Revelation using the words of the King James Bible
interspersed with the famous pieces of music which those words inspired.

The music will include excerpts from:

• Haydn's Creation
• Handel's Messiah
• Mendelssohn’s Oh for the Wings of a Dove
• Several modern compositions.

To discover performance venues and dates, click here.

Significant anniversaries

In the coming months there are three major literary anniversaries being celebrated.

Written on the Heart

Regular followers of this blog will know that 2011 marks the 400th birthday of the King James Bible. As a dramatic marker of this, acclaimed playwright David Edgar has written a new play for the RSC called Written on the Heart.

Previewing from 27th October at the Swan Theatre, it will prove a fascinating insight for any students wanting to understand the world in which Shakespeare and other Jacobean dramatists operated. Meanwhile, it is well worth checking out the KJBT website which has a variety of helpful resources.

200 years young

Claire Tomalin has recently brought out an acclaimed new biography of Charles Dickens. Born almost 200 years ago on 7th February 1812, he has shaped our whole perception of what a novel should be. Heavily influenced by the popular theatre of his day, he created memorable villains and cliff-hanger chapter endings to engage a whole new sector of the reading public.

As a tireless social campaigner, he also used literature to change people’s perception about issues such as industrial conditions, legal reform and the treatment of the poor, to name but a few. At the same time, his mature novels explored motivation and compulsion at a deeper level, through engaging yet flawed heroes, such as Pip in Great Expectations.

At Crossref-it.info you will find lots of information to back up your knowledge of the great man, regardless of which text you are studying, as well as our invaluable guide to Great Expectations itself.

100th birthday

Last month, on 19th September, was the 100th anniversary of the birth of William Golding. This British novelist, poet, playwright, who was a Nobel and Booker prize winner, was best known for his seminal novel, The Lord of the Flies. Check out Crossref-it.info to discover where this intriguing title comes from and the ideas that lie behind the premise of the novel.

Let us know

If you are aware of any literary festival or celebration coming up which you think we ought to know about, or you want others to hear about, please contact us here and we will pass the message on.

New beginnings

Starting out

Welcome to all who are starting a new course in English at AS / A2 / Undergraduate Level! You are probably already experiencing the significant change of academic rigour compared to your studies so far.

If you have only just found out about www.crossref-it.info you will discover that there are a huge number of resources designed to help you make sense of the literature you are studying. Give yourself some time to surf around the site to get a flavour of what’s on offer.


Exciting developments

For existing users, there are some real highlights to look forward to this term:

• Two new text guides –
  • John Webster’s The White Devil
  • Jane Austen’s Persuasion

• Lots of handy biographies on frequently studied authors, from Achebe to Wordsworth

• New resources for teachers –
  • Lesson sequences on
    • Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
    • Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
  • Homework task sheets on many existing Crossref-it.info texts.

Language and film

Later in the autumn watch out for two entirely new Crossref-it resources:

• Audio-visual material linking passages of literature with a source text
• A Level English Language materials addressing the development of English.

Tell us what else you want

So that we can keep making www.crossref-it.info helpful and relevant to your studies, please let us know what else you would love to see on-site. Write here and we will see what we can do!

The Handmaid’s Tale

Contemporary social satire

In the 19th century, Charles Dickens dramatised a variety of social evils in adventure-filled novels, which alerted British society to a range of issues on which action was later taken.

In a series of novels which have drawn on elements of late 20th / early 21st century culture, the Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, has achieved a similar, chilling ‘wake up call’. Some fiction writers create idealised societies (utopias). In contrast, Atwood’s fables are dystopias, worlds whose horrific elements are shown to be only a step away from behaviours already seen in the world around us.

> Oryx and Crake (2003) deals with genetic engineering, the power of the internet and desensitising pornography

>Aspects of this story are amplified in The Year of the Flood (2009)

> Published in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale is less about science and technology than the impact of totalitarianism, religious fundamentalism and the repression of women.

A human story

As with Dickens, simply to list the issues Atwood deals with misses the heart of her novel. Her Tale is an engaging story about one woman’s desire to live as a fully recognised individual in an era when that is a dangerous quest. Atwood draws the reader in to the internal world of Offred (whose original name is possibly June), which is full of passion and sensuous appreciation, in contrast to an external environment which recognises neither.

It is a story full of unresolved tension and Atwood’s narrative methods keep the reader having to interpret, then re-interpret events, just as Offred must. This can be a dislocating experience for readers, particularly at the novel’s end, so it is handy that there is a new Crossref-it.info study guide to help students get to grips with the text.

The impact of the title

With the novel’s title, Atwood is trying to show how the impact of an entire society is refracted through the experience of one, almost anonymous, voice. In this she consciously echoes the medieval works of Geoffrey Chaucer, who tried to depict different aspects of his era through a series of individualised narratives, such as The Wife of Bath’s Tale.

Both are great, thought provoking stories. Enjoy!

Intertextuality

The effect of time and text

Writers never exist in isolation. They are affected by the era in which they live and the work of other writers. Since many tend to have an interest in books already, their literary influences can also be wide ranging.

Where a source is famous, authors can reasonably expect their readers to be familiar with it themselves, and to already have expectations shaped by the way they have encountered that original text.

Playing with expectations

A writer can play with these expectations to witty or powerful effect in the text they are creating.

An excellent example of this is Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry volume The World’s Wife (see also: The Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy: AS / A - Level Student Text Guide: Selected Poems - The World's Wife).

In this, she offers a wife’s perspective on the events and stories of famous men (whether it was recorded that they were married or not).

Living with Icarus

A well known classical myth concerns the fate of a man trying to escape from the imprisonment he shares with his father. His craftsman father creates ‘wings’ for Icarus by sticking feathers on him with wax, but warns him not to fly too close to the sun. However, his son disregards this advice, and, when his ‘wings’ melt, plunges into the sea. The story is usually framed as a narrative that warns of the dangers of too great an ambition.

In Mrs Icarus, Duffy acknowledges how it might feel to be married to a man who has doubtless failed in his grand plans on previous occasions, yet remains undaunted. Rather than maintain the high moral tone associated with the Icarus narrative, she deals with it according to the personal embarrassment of a care-worn spouse:

Mrs Icarus

I’m not the first or the last

To stand on a hillock,

Watching the man she married

Prove to the world

He’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.

With comic effect she deflates the lofty ambitions of a proud male, who seems to be blissfully unaware of the fact that he is not universally admired.

Living with Lazarus

On a more sombre note, Duffy re-uses the biblical account of Jesus bringing his dead friend Lazarus back to life. In the New Testament, this is regarded as a wonderful, miraculous reprieve for the grieving relatives, as well as evidence of Jesus’ divine power over nature (see [6John 11:176], [6John 11: 32-456]). Within a space of four days (long enough for the body to start to deteriorate in a hot climate) he turns a desperately sad situation around into one of joy and life.

In Mrs Lazarus, Duffy takes this idea of a dead man being returned to life, puts it in a modern context and, crucially, alters a key aspect of the account – lengthening the time frame from days to at least a year. And suddenly the story is framed very differently.

Having come to the poem with expectations of joy and miracle, readers are wrong-footed by Mrs Lazarus’ negative perspective. Yet we are led to share the narrator’s shock at the return of her old husband after her life has moved on:

Mrs Lazarus

I breathed

his stench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud,

moist and dishevelled from the grave's slack chew,

croaking his cuckold name, disinherited, out of his time.

By powerfully evoking the horror of the apparition, Duffy thereby get readers to re-consider their attitude to the original biblical account – after all, given the concerns of his sister, evidence of decomposition might have been an aspect of the original Lazarus’ return.

Thus one text shapes another, and is in turn re-shaped by it. Intertextuality at work.

Bringing old stories to life

Last month we blogged about the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible in 1611.

In addition to the television programmes and books which have come out in the UK this year, there has been a conference at the University of Sheffield which looked at the impact of this famous text on education today.

Delegates and lecturers expressed the very real concern that students were hampered in their studies because of unfamiliarity with biblical stories and language. And the question was raised: When there is so much to catch up with, where can you start?

Experience it live

If you live near enough to Oxford and can carve out some time THIS WEEK, a lively way of getting to grips with some of the Bible’s contents is to attend a performance of Tales from King James, by Creation Theatre Company (http://www.creationtheatre.co.uk/show-one/tales-from-king-james). Performed, appropriately enough, in St Barnabas’ Church in the Jericho area of the city, the cast use a combination of modern and Jacobean text to portray some of the biblical events in a modern context.

As Oxford’s Daily Info review puts it:

‘In their quirky condensed version of the Bible, Creation treat the audience to a whistle-stop tour of the famous book’s most marvellous stories and breathe new life into such well-known tales as Jonah and the whale, Noah’s Ark and Moses’ parting of the Red Sea.

As well as making the stories accessible to those unversed in the Old Testament, the seamless blend of old and new shows the prevalence of the language of the Bible in modern day secular life. As characters contemplate ‘the valley of the shadow of death’ or ponder ‘am I my brother’s keeper?’ the audience is reminded how the teachings of the Bible live on today in all strands of society.’

Boost your knowledge online

Don’t despair if you can’t get to Oxford. Crossref-it.info has all sorts of easy ways to get familiar with the stuff you need to know from the Bible. Check out the A - Z Glossary tab on the home page for speedy access to:

• Famous stories from the Bible
• Common sayings from the Bible
• A handy list of the key events in each book of the Bible (66 in all).

Of course there’s much more, but don’t let that daunt you – just make a start.

Whatever your personal attitude to the Bible, it has had a profound impact on literature down the centuries. Anyone who is serious about enjoying great writing cannot afford to ignore it.

Exams have arrived – it’s now or never

How on earth do you prepare for an A Level Eng. Lit exam?

Welcome to the third in a short series about how to revise English successfully.

What does it mean to revise: An author’s methods of presentation?

It is very likely that at least one of the questions you will face in the exam will focus on how an author presents his/her intentions within or across texts. How can you prepare for that?

The key aim of questions like these is to get you to focus not on ‘what happens’ but how the author has crafted the text in order to elicit a particular response in the reader.

There are basic areas to cover, regardless of the text. For each of the following:

• Try and make condensed notes / a mind map / list headwords
• Learn a quotation or specific example to illustrate.

Plot

1. With whom is a reader to identify – a 1st or 3rd person narrator, a particular character?
   
   a) How has the author achieved that sense of identification?
   b) How does it shape the reader’s perspective on the plot?
   
   
2. If there is a sub-plot
   
   a) What is its relevance to the main one?
   b) How are the main and sub-plots interwoven?
   
   
3. What is the impact of presenting events chronologically / non-chronologically?
   
   a) What is the impact of any time frame on the presentation of the plot?

Narrative perspective

1. Who is telling the story and how close is the reader to him/her?
   
   
2. At what pace do events unfold – how has the author created that effect?
   
   
3. Is there direct authorial comment and/or does tone / irony / mood guide a reader’s response?

Patterning

1. What themes brought to the fore? (See previous blog in series)
   
   
2. How are imagery and / or symbolism used?
   
   
3. Are there repetitions / echoes of:
   
   a) Events
   b) Locations
   c) Family structures?

Description

1. How would you characterise the author’s descriptive techniques?
   
   
2. What kind of language is employed when – to what effect?
   
   
3. How do these techniques create:
   
   a) Character (see previous blog in series)
   b) Location and atmosphere
   c) Drama, tension / suspense?

As you cover these ideas you always need to keep in mind the intentions of the author – and remember to tell the examiner what they are!

GOOD LUCK