The Tempest

See The Tempest live this summer

If any of you are expecting to study or teach Shakespeare’s last great Romance for A

Level, then there is nothing to beat seeing a live production for a fresh perspective on

the play. The magical nature of the play inspires directors in all sorts of ways:

> The Lord Chamberlain's Men are doing a national tour into all sorts of unsual theatrical spaces until the 22nd August. Visit www.tlcm.co.uk for details

> Also performing around Britain until 5th September is a production mounted by The Festival Players. www.thefestivalplayers.co.uk

> For highbrow quality, the The Old Vic production, directed by Sam Mendes should be unmissable at the Old Vic Theatre, London, until 31st August www.oldvictheatre.com

> Regional companies are exploring the drama, with the Guildford Shakespeare Company performing at the University of Surrey Lake, 22 July - 7 August www.guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk and the Oxford Shakespeare Company staging it at Hampton Court Palace, from 21 – 30 August www.osctheatre.org.uk

Making sense of the play

A Level students tend to enjoy a quirky take on serious dramas, so the ‘B Movie’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s plot makes a great comparison piece. Catch Return to the Forbidden Planet at Morley Town Hall, 22 – 25 September (07960 766 334).

Of course any advanced study of The Tempest is going to require some in depth exploration of the Shakespeare and the Romance genre. Launched this week, at Crossref-it.info, a handy guide tailored to the play takes you to all the most helpful sections of the website. Look out for Context links: The Tempest. Either before going to see a production, or when you come to investigate it later, this one stop resource will really help you to understand the pastoral world Shakespeare conjures on-stage.

A Level reading in the holidays

Recent blogs have encouraged subscribers to tackle some of the larger texts you will be studying for the coming year, particularly any long Victorian novels, during the lazy days of the summer holidays.

Reading for yourself, but not on your own

Ideally this means that you:

• Develop a personal response
• Get a sense of what the story is about
• Engage with the characters and their situation
• Start to have a feel for the author’s perspective
• Enjoy the text!

However, a first reading will probably throw up all sorts of questions in your mind. Although term hasn’t yet started, you might like to find some immediate answers.
What to do? No-one's around, and the notes in the back of your text are too short or confusing. That's where Crossref-it.info can come in useful. You are not on your own.

Making sense of Victorian novels

At Crossref-it.info, you can click on any specific chapter of three significant Victorian novels to get a summary, an explanation of difficult words, and some pointers as to what the author is doing. If you want to switch over to read the actual text on-line in a new screen, go to texts.crossref-it.info, then you can flip between that and the explanations.

Or you can find out some biographical information about Dickens, Charlotte (and Emily) Brontë or Thomas Hardy themselves. How did each of them come to write their novels? Where in England did they set them, and why? Over the summer, four more texts by these authors are being covered by Crossref-it.info. Launched this week are helpful compilations of material relevant to two more Hardy novels: Context links: The Mayor of Casterbridge and Context links: The Return of the Native.

To get a picture of the times in which they were writing, there is a huge array of background material on the Victorian era. We are no longer familiar with things that these authors took for granted when they were writing, but a handy on-screen explanation can quickly halt confusion.

There is no substitute for reading at A Level, but for everything else, there is Crossref-it.info. It's been designed with you in mind.

Reading novels for A Level: Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Over the summer, students have a great chance to get to grips with the texts they will be examined on the following year. Make the most of it and read for pleasure! Spend indulgent hours with the longer novels (which are harder to fit in later) and be honest about your initial response.

Tess and first impressions

It's difficult not to have strong initial reactions if you are reading Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles as your Victorian novel (appearing on the AQA and OCR papers). It is a tremendous and passionate story, so let yourself be drawn in.

Many of Hardy's descriptions are very cinematographic, but one of the pleasures of reading is using your imagination to create his descriptions in your mind, and then sense the emotions that come with those pictures. They're your emotions, and they form part of your first impressions.

Imagine it for yourself

Although there are several good adaptations of the novel, it is the words on the page that make the difference. However tempting, don't substitute a DVD for your first encounter with the story. A film controls too many of your responses, and maybe edits out some of the parts you will enjoy most when you read it.

Besides, you need some hours to get acquainted with Tess herself. After all, she is one of English Literature's most iconic heroines. If you find things which puzzle you, there is a discussion of Hardy’s heroine at Crossref-it.info, - but don’t look at this until you have read her story for yourself!

Hardy’s poetry

Tess’s figure of a sensuous woman and the theme of missed opportunities recurred in much of Hardy’s poetry, which also appears on the A Level syllabus. For a way into the mind of the poems’ creator, a new mini guide links you to Hardy and his world. Find it at Crossref-it.info > Context links: Selected poetry of Thomas Hardy.

Make reading pleasurable

If you are taking A Level Eng. Lit. this coming year you know that there is bound to be a lot of reading coming your way. What is the best way to approach this?

First reading

Read for fun to start with. By the time the ASs or A2s come round in 2011, you will need to have read your exam texts at least twice, and parts of them three times. It helps to make the first reading a pleasurable experience:

• Find somewhere comfortable (hammock anyone?)
• Allow yourself some l-o-n-g stretches of time: don't just pick up a novel for a few minutes during the commercial breaks of your favourite soaps
• Don't try to make notes - go for a straight through reading
• If there are parts that really stand out, just circle the page number so that you can come back to it later.

First impressions

When you have finished, take a piece of paper and write down your first impressions. They may turn out to be incomplete (or even misguided), but they will still be very helpful later when you want to remember the ‘big picture’ in the midst of literary detail.

Examiners look out for students who are engaged in what they have read and your emotional response will shape how you approach each character. Authors write in order to connect – let their words reach into your heart and mind.

For more detailed information about how to approach novels set for A Level, visit Crossref-it.info > Successful study > Engaging with prose.

Hard Times?

That may be what you feel about reading up for next year’s courses, but at least studying this compact Dickens novel has just got easier! At Crossref-it.info, you can find out everything you need to know about the author and the world he was describing by looking at one simple route-map – Hard Times: Context links puts all the relevant information at your fingertips.

Summertime, and the living is … Victorian?

Life after exams

Now your G.C.S.E.s / AS exams are out the way, you may feel like a well earned rest! Once your brain has stopped feeling like jelly, make sure reading is part of your recuperation. With longer days and a (slight) reduction in pressure, it might remind you why you want to study Eng. Lit. in the first place.

Using the summer

If you are progressing on to AS or A2 English, hopefully you will already have found out from teaching staff which texts are coming up. If they include any Victorian novels it makes good sense to start reading them now.

‘Victorian’ literature refers to anything written between 1837-1901. That includes Dickens, the Brontës and Thomas Hardy, but NOT Jane Austen! To get a sense of what that era was like in Britain, go to Crossref-it.info > The world of Victorian writers, where there is lots of handy information.

Victorian novels tend to be long, mainly because most of them were written for serial publication over a two-year period. Those that weren't, were designed for a 3-volume edition!

Come September, you'll be fighting for uninterrupted time to get them read. So pick up one now, while you have time.

Wuthering Heights

If your chosen Victorian fiction is this dramatic novel, there’s something to help you get the lowdown on Emily Brontë’s life and imagination. Launched this week is a handy guide to link you to all the relevant information at Crosssref-it.info > Wuthering Heights: Context links.

Shakespeare’s Scottish play

See Macbeth live this summer

If any of you are expecting to study or teach Macbeth for A Level, then there is nothing to beat seeing a live production for a fresh perspective on the play. And there are some interesting ones to catch:

• Until this weekend there is as authentic a version as you are likely to get at Shakespeare’s Globe www.shakespeares-globe.org
• The Pantaloons Theatre Company’s national tour is taking the play beyond the confines of the regular theatre circuit around East Anglia and central England in July, before heading north in August www.thepantaloons.co.uk
• An open air production is being staged by the Regent’s Park Company at their Open Air Theatre, London, from 3 – 24 July http://openairtheatre.org
• In Guildford Castle, an unusual promenade performance of the tragedy runs from the 9th – 17th July by The Pranksters Theatre Company www.pranksterstheatre.org.uk
• For a more erudite take on the drama, The Shakespeare Institute Players are performing in Stratford from 8 – 10 July. www.shakespeareinstituteplayers.co.uk

Digging around the original

Of particular interest to A Level English and/or Theatre Studies groups are upcoming adaptations which explore the characters from a slightly different angle:

• Mastering Macbeth explores key scenes in terms of character, language, theme and theatrical technique at the Salisbury Playhouse, 9th-11th November www.salisburyplayhouse.com
• A Season before the Tragedy of Macbeth is at the Camden People's Theatre, 4-8 August and offers a groundbreaking new perspective on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the tragedy that befalls them. www.facsimileproductions.co.uk

Essential backup

Of course any advanced study of Macbeth is going to require some in depth exploration of the world Shakespeare was writing for. Launched this week, at Crossref-it.info, a handy guide tailored to the play takes you to all the most helpful sections of the website. Look out for Macbeth: Context links. Either before going to see a production, or when you come to investigate it later, this one stop resource will really help you to understand the zeitgeist the bard was tapping into.

Literature help over the next few months

Just like fashion magazines, who prepare their Christmas issues in the summer and do swimsuit spreads in November, so here at Crossref-it.info we are preparing materials which won’t hit your screens for a while. But we thought it might help to know what’s in the pipeline, so that you can see what will be available when you come to learn, revise, or teach texts in your chosen syllabus.

Comprehensive text guides

In the next 12 months there will be new text guides on these works, set by the following exam boards:

• Summer 2010: Selected poems of Christina Rossetti (AQA, OCR)
• Autumn 2010: Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rys (AQA, Edexcel, OCR)
• Winter 2010/11: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer (AQA, Cambs. Pre U., Edexcel)
• Spring 2011: The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Attwood (AQA, Edexcel)
• Summer 2011: Persuasion, by Jane Austen (Cambs. Pre U., OCR)

Quick context guides

If you can’t wait that long, we are soon to produce some ‘quick links’ pages, showing you where you can find helpful contextual material, relevant to selected texts. Currently under development, these include:

• Hard Times, by Charles Dickens (AQA, CIE)
• The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy (Cambs. Pre U.)
• Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë (AQA, Edexcel, OCR)
• The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy (CIE)
• Selected poems of Thomas Hardy (AQA, CIE, Edexcel)
• Selected poems of Coleridge, Keats, Wordsworth (AQA, CIE, OCR)
• Selected poems of the Brontës (AQA)

Your suggestions?

Alongside all of the above, articles on different aspects of context and literature keep being added to Crossref-it.info.

If you have got suggestions of works or aspects of literature that you would like to see featured on the site, please email us at admin@crossref-it.info.

We want to do whatever helps you!