The Madness of Hamlet

The Madness of Hamlet set in Zimbabwe? How can that be relevant to A Level English students? Well, it depends whether you want an interesting take on a (perhaps overly familiar) text, where the action has been stripped to its story-telling essentials.

• The premise seems impossible – the first folio text acted by only two (male) actors and using only two props? How can a play with multiple characters, plot lines and changes of scene be made sense of, in only 90 minutes?
• In fact the version by Two Gents Productions of Kupenga Kwa Hamlet which I saw on Monday is dramatic and exciting, never hard to follow and throws up some fascinating insights on a well known tale. Physical energy is punctuated by moments of stillness, tragedy offset by easy humour, seeming to recapture the dynamism that perhaps existed in rehearsal 410 years ago.

If you are studying Hamlet for an exam course, the opportunity to see a live performance of the play is highly likely. The central role is seen by actors as the Everest of their early career (as Lear is once they are at the other end of it). Currently performing at the National Theatre is Rory Kinnear, who has garnered rave reviews.

But if you want to think and (re)engage with this classic in a fresh way that still honours Shakespeare’s intentions, investigate http://www.watermill.org.uk/kupenga_kwa_hamlet.html for the chance to experience a great piece of theatre.

And if you want to make sure you know the play before you go, check out Hamlet on Crossref-it.info, where there are handy synopses, as well as detailed information about the text.

Answers to last week's quiz

We hope you enjoyed last week’s quiz. The two famous novels it was based on were Emma and Jane Eyre, between which there are some surprising similarities.

The correct answers are:

1. Emma & Jane

2. Wodehouse & Eyre

3. Painting

4. Their mother (Jane’s father had also died)

5. Mr (Philip) Elton & St.John Rivers

6. Harriet Smith & Rosamond Oliver

7. Mr (George) Knightly & Edward Rochester

8. Mrs (Augusta) Elton & ‘the Church’ (but if you said ‘unmarried’ you would also be correct)

9. Jane Austen & Charlotte Brontë

10.a. Since 1990, Emma has been portrayed by Doran Godwin (1993), Kate Beckinsale (1996), Gwyneth Paltrow (1996), Romola Garai (2009)

10.b. Since 1990, Jane has been portrayed by Charlotte Gainsborg (1995), Samantha Morton (1997), Ruth Wilson (2006)

How many of the possible 18 marks did you get right?

If you enjoyed this brain teaser, look out for another quiz next month – and remember that www.crossref-it.info is there to help answer your literary questions!

Something for the end of your day...

Slightly different this week, a quick literary quiz to test your knowledge!

In two famous novels from the first half of the nineteenth century, the heroines receive an unwelcome proposal of marriage from a clergyman, having previously believed that each man was in love with another woman.

1. What is the first name of each heroine?

2. What are their surnames?

3. What hobby did these heroines share?

4. Which parent had both heroines lost?

5. What are the names of the two clergymen?

6. Who are the two women which each heroine thought that the vicars loved?

7. Who did the heroines finally marry?

8. Who were the eventual ‘brides’ of the clergymen?

9. Name the author of each novel.

10. Can you name one actress who has portrayed each heroine on film or TV (since 1990)?

How did you do? If you are struggling, then a clue is that one of these novels is featured on www.crossref-it.info (take a look under the green "Texts in detail" button)

Answers will be given next week!

Reaching across borders

At Crossref-it.info we tend to focus on supporting you as you prepare for your exams and essays. However, once in a while it is ok to celebrate how far one has come and today we want to do just that.

When we launched Crossref-it.info in its current form, back in October 2008, the site got 3000 visits during the whole month.

In just two years, the site has grown to reach a global audience which numbers in their multiple hundreds of thousands. Despite or perhaps because of our focus on quality of content and academic credibility, rather than churning out as many shallow text guides as possible, thousands of you have turned to Crossref-it.info to deliver for free what you could usually only get by buying an expensive text guide in a shop.

Crossref-it.info is visited by people from almost every country in the world. We have launched 13 text guides, a vast array of contextual material and articles, timelines, author sections, blog posts, texts.crossref-it.info for reading e-books, a mobile website and the list goes on...

Going forward, we need your help!

You can do two things to massively help and to ensure that Crossref-it.info keeps going strong as a free, high-quality, English Lit resource:

1. Please recommend the website to as many people as possible. Connect with us on Facebook. Tweet about us. Tell people about us. Digg our pages. If you have a website or a blog, write about us, link to us. Spread the word!

2. Please click on the Amazon links on the website before buying things on Amazon. That way, we get a commission, which will help to keep the site going.

Thank you for your continued support!

5 tips: Crossref-it.info on your mobile

Following last weeks news about our new mobile version of Crossref-it.info we thought we would delve a bit more deeply into the new site, to showcase some of the ways you can make use of this exciting new development!

Before we start, a reminder: the mobile site is built for devices running iOS (iPhone, iPad, etc.), Android and WebOS. You can access it by simply visiting Crossref-it.info from your device's browser.

1. Navigate with ease

On the home page, everything is neatly organised into a selection of green boxes. This provides you with direct access to whatever content you're looking for. Text guides, for instance, can be found in the "Texts in detail" box.

Once you have navigated away from the home page, those green boxes become green icons which are always at the top of the screen. So wherever in the site you are, you can jump to another part of the website with

just two taps of the finger. There is also the search box, of course...

2. Use the drop-down box

The drop-down box enables you to quickly see all the content that is available within a section, for instance in a text guide, and navigate around really quickly. It is always fairly near the top of the page.

3. Take a look at the timeline

It offers a great overview of what was happening in the world during the period which you are reading about.

4. Recently viewed pages

To always have a list of the ten most recently viewed pages at your disposal, simply sign in to your free Crossref-it.info account. That way, when you tap the "My Account" button in the top right-hand corner of your screen, it will show you what you have been reading. A potential life-saver (in a manner of speaking).

5. Tooltips

Don't understand a word? Want more of an explanation? If it is orange, then there could be no simpler solution to your predicament: tap to open tooltip, read explanation, tap to close tooltip. Simples.

There is more. Lots more* actually. We think thanks to the excellent navigation you should have no trouble finding it. In fact, it should be fun! So go to www.crossref-it.info on your mobile device and check it out...

* For instance, open the Songs of Innocence and Experience text guide on your mobile device and navigate to "Pictures".

Crossref-it.info for mobiles

New: Crossref-it.info for mobiles

We are pleased to announce the launch of m.crossref-it.info - Crossref-it.info optimised* for iPhone, Google Android and WebOS. If you have such a device then simply go to Crossref-it.info on your device and you will be automatically taken to the new website.

What's the difference?

For a start, the new site is fast. Really fast. It'll load quickly even when you're far away from a Wifi hotspot. We've made sure you'll be able to quickly access all the info you want, whenever you want, wherever you are.

Also, it is optimised for touch input. Not having a mouse makes it difficult to "hover" over an A-Z Tooltip, for instance, so we have thought through the entire design of the website to make sure everything works well without using a mouse.

And, finally, we've made sure it plays well with small screens. We've worked to make sure that you get the full Crossref-it.info experience using an interface that works really well with small screen form factors. In fact, it actually works rather well on large touch-screens as well. So whether you have a Sony Ericsson X10 Mini or an Apple iPad, or anything in between, we have worked hard to make sure you will enjoy using Crossref-it.info.

As always, feedback is welcome in the comments!

* This will work on devices running the following three operating systems: iOS, Android, WebOS. Examples of supported devices: Acer - Liquid, Liquid E, Stream; Apple - iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad; Google - Nexus One; Dell - Streak; HTC - Desire, Evo 4G, T-Mobile G1 (Dream), Hero, Incredible, Magic (MyTouch 3G), Wildfire; LG - Ally, Etna, Eve, GT540, GW620, GW880, LU2300, Optimus; Motorola - Cliq, Dext, Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Milestone, Palm (HP) - Pixi, Pixi+, Pre, Pre+; Samsung - Galaxy i7500, Galaxy i5700, Galaxy S, Galaxy Tab; Sony Ericsson - Xperia X10, Xperia X10 Mini, Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Poetry – a male preserve?

Poetry – a male preserve?

Up to around fifty years ago, most people would have struggled when asked to name a famous female poet. The poetry canon was dominated by figures like the Romantics, (blogged about last week), Shakespeare, Donne and Herbert, Pope, Tennyson and Eliot. Unlike today, only a few women poets ever made it into print or continued to be read after their lifetime.

The achievement of the few that did is therefore all the more remarkable. The work of the Brontë sisters (see August blog), Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti has continued to speak to new generations of readers. The latter is perhaps less familiar than her contemporaries. She does not have the romance of illicit relationships, or dramatic landscapes attached to her name.

Quietly powerful

Instead, Rossetti lived quietly in London for most of her life, single and dogged by ill health. Yet her poetry is powerful and direct, illuminating friendship and fear, faith and death. Through her individual perspective she touches on a universal experience.

Allusions explained

Many readers today will not be familiar with the social and religious world that Rossetti inhabited, and feel somewhat daunted at approaching her poetry because of this. One of the reasons that Crossref-it.info came into existence was to provide just the kind of help that allows readers to access works of literature peppered with allusions – in this case biblical ones.

Through her poetry Rossetti was opening up many issues close to her heart; it helps to see what she meant when she referred to paths and ladders, blood and brokenness. The brand new guide to The poems of Christina Rossetti will give students and teachers all the information they need in order to fully enjoy her work.