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

Why is Hamlet so popular?

You may or may not find the play personally appealing, but the rest of the world and the acting fraternity certainly do! Of all the plays written by Shakespeare it is the one that generates the most performances with high profile actors (and consequent media coverage).

The most recent actor to generate column inches is Jude Law, who is proving to his critics that he can handle the huge range and complexity of the Danish Prince after the froth of chick flick offerings such as The Holiday. The production is currently running at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre until 22nd August (www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk), so try and get there if you can, even if you are not studying it. Watching any Shakespeare on stage is illuminating.

Last year everyone was raving about David Tennant’s interpretation of the role, full of angst and quicksilver wit. Even if you have seen a production before, it is fascinating to watch a new production and see how varying casts and directors can bring out so many different facets.

Haven’t yet come across the play? It always helps to get familiar with the plot and characters before you get to the theatre, so a quick trawl through the scene synopses at Crossref-it.info will fill you in. After watching a performance you can investigate the site further and see what the director chose to leave out as much as include (Hamlet runs at about five hours uncut!).

If you have been lucky enough to see a production of the play recently, why not let us know what you thought, so others can benefit from your insights?

Poetry - making sense of life

The power of words

After a year’s study of English Lit. I hope you have got switched on to the power of words. Words shape our culture, they define how we think – and when they have been carefully crafted by a poet, they have an amazing power to crystallise an emotion or situation.

The BBC has been running a significant range of programmes in its recent poetry season. One strand is ‘My life in verse’

• Last week Cerys Matthews (Catatonia) talked about the influence of the poetry and lyrics she heard around her as she grew up, and how that led to her own self expression
• The week before, Robert Mitchell (Peep Show, Mitchell and Webb) revealed how TS Eliot’s Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock connected with his sense of alienation after the death of his mother

Open up your mind

Now the revision season is over you might want to release the pent up concentration and give space to new thoughts.

Why not check out some poems that are not on your course and let the words and images sink into your psyche.

There are loads on the web to browse through and if you get stuck on any images, you can see if the handy explanations at www.crossref-it.info help make sense of it all.

Let the dynamite of poetry blow you away!