Recognising poetry

Earlier this month, the UK celebrated National Poetry Day. Across the media there was a feast of readings and a special focus in many schools.

Verse that lives on

Poetry is an enduring medium. Since the earliest days of our oral culture, handing down dramatic narratives in verse form helped make them more memorable for both the teller and the audience. Gathering together to listen to these verse stories was the equivalent of watching the telly together today, drawn in by a dramatic tale.

An exam expectation

Poetry is a key component of all A Level English Literature syllabuses today and, apart from studying the output of well-known poets, examiners also like to put candidates on the spot by asking for an analysis of a previously unseen poem. Students are expected to recognise what style of text they are looking at, so that they can see how the author has played with – or against – the expectations of that particular genre. But how are you meant to know?

At crossref-it.info you’ll find an entire section under ‘Aspects of poetry’ dealing with Recognising poetic form. Each brief article explains what is meant by a particular genre, the era in which it was most prevalent and the stylistic aspects by which it can be recognised. And this week three new articles have been added to the section.

What is alliterative poetry?

One of the earliest types of poetry in the English language was what we now call alliterative poetry:

• Rather than grouping thoughts together by a connecting rhyme-scheme (e.g. rhyming couplets) Old and Middle English alliterative poetry contained stressed words which alliterated, giving energy and narrative flow to the verse
• A very early example is Beowulf, an epic poem probably composed in the sixth century CE
• The alliterative genre endured until about 1500 and another well-known example is Piers Plowman, written by a contemporary of Chaucer’s, William Langland. 

To find an example of how the verse works, visit here.

Ballads

Another more enduring style of poem is the ballad. Originally associated with song, these simple rhyming folk narratives captured dramatic situations in an easily repeatable form and often served as commentaries on the events of the day. Later the genre was also employed by learned writers who wanted to capture the genre’s expectations of simple and direct communication. Find out more here.

Help!

Both ballads and alliterative poems are fairly easy to recognise, with regular rhymes or rhythms or familiar subject matter. But what if what you are looking at doesn’t seem to obey any of the ‘rules’ you expect of poetry, with no consistent metre, stanza form or rhyme-scheme for example?

Free verse

You may find you are analysing what is known as free verse. This twentieth century development echoed the modernist desire to forge new literary forms which were not tied to the constraints of tradition. Have a look here and see what you think.

Then watch out for more helpful definitions of poetic styles in November!

This week’s National Poetry Day celebrates LIGHT!

National Poetry Day on Thursday 8th October celebrates how poets have reflected on the theme of light.

What do you associate with it? If you are dragging yourself out of bed to get ready for school/college because a new day has dawned, you might empathise with John Donne. Having spent a seductive night with his beloved, facing up to the sunlight is the last thing he wants to do. This is turned into a witty complaint in The Sunne Rising, where he castigates the sun as a ‘Busy old fool,’ and ‘Saucy pedantic wretch’ for disturbing him.

The hopefulness of light

Yet literature through the ages reflects humanity’s primeval desire for light, whether it is the natural light of the sun, or lamp/firelight to counteract encroaching darkness. Given that darkness is so frequently associated with fear, light naturally comes to be associated with hope.

Certainly that is what the speaker of Wilfred Owen’s war poem Futility is relying on. Finding a colleague in the dawn after a bitter night, Owen personifies the sun as a nurturing, creative being whom he trusts will know how to rouse the inert soldier, just as it manages to bring forth life from seeds.

In a relatively short poem, there are seven references to the act of waking / getting up (l.2,4,6,8,9,11,14) and Owen may have been thinking of a well-known New Testament verse: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you’ (Ephesians 5:14).

But the sun cannot do what Owen desires, cannot bring the dead to life. As the poem’s speaker realises that his comrade is beyond the sun’s help, he decries its ‘fatuous sunbeams’ l.13. It is as if the sun isn’t trying hard enough, is unfeeling and careless. Instead of symbolising life, it comes to represent the meaninglessness of life.

False light, false hope

Reflecting the desolation of warfare, another of Owen’s poems undercuts the association of light and hope. In The Sentry, the ‘whizz bangs ... snuffling the candles’ l.11 throw the confined dug-out into darkness and its sentry into blindness. The dramatic irony of the poem relies on the light which, for the sentry, symbolises sight. He cannot see the candle flame when it is held close to his blinded eyes, yet when all the lights have gone out he shouts that they are visible.

Symbolically, the extinction of the lights in the dug-out represents the loss of hope in Owen and those like him. Whether the sentry is able to see or not, what is there worth noting in the nightmarish hell that humanity has created through warfare? The man’s blindness represents his self-deception about hope for the future.

Eternal constancy

Certainly man-made light is easily snuffed out and can thus be associated with fragility and inconstancy. Which is why Keats chooses a star as his symbol of enduring love. His Bright Star is ‘steadfast’ and ‘unchangeable’, seemingly eternal, just as Keats wishes his moment of rest in the bosom of his beloved to be.

But what about your associations with light? Why not get creative today and send in your own poem which reflects on this theme to info@crossref-it.info?

Ensuring you’re not left behind in A Level English

Filling in the gaps

There are five Assessment Objectives on which you will be examined for AS and A level English Literature (see blog of 9.9.15). You need to be up to speed on every one of them.

Most of you will be taught courses by teachers who have done English degrees. They will be well able to help you understand a variety of critical approaches (AO5), show you how linguistic patterns shape your responses to texts (AO2) and help you become familiar with – and confident of using -  accurate terminology to express your views (AO1).

All of that equates to 62.5% of all the marks you might score in your exam.

But there are a couple of areas that even well-educated teachers may be unaware of, which together add up to over a third (37.5%) of marks awarded –

• They may have gaps in their knowledge about the culture which produced texts and for which they were originally created (AO3 – worth a quarter of all your marks)
•  They may not recognise how frequently literary texts reference other texts (AO4 – worth 12.5% in the exam)

Topical example

In an editorial of a UK paper recently, the columnist commented on the understanding that people have of the migrant crisis and how it has been shaped by one picture:

‘Did we not know, had we not read, that migrant children drowned? What happened to the written word?’

How many of your teachers would know that the journalist was echoing another literary text which commented on people’s faulty understanding (AO4):

‘Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?’

If you – or your teacher – can tell us what the columnist was alluding to (without googling the answer!), email us at info@crossref-it.info and praise will be heaped upon you in the next blog.

If you - or those educating you - are stumped, it looks like you might need the help that www.crossref-it.info can offer!

Welcome to A Level English exam success!

We are here to help

From this September, students studying English Literature at AS and A Level are working through new syllabuses which are targeting success according to a variety of different assessment objectives.

Instead of four assessment goals there are now five, each of which www.crossref-it.info aims to help you with:

• AO1 - Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression
• How we help - crossref-it.info utilises - and explains - the kind of terminology and concepts expected at A Level
• AO2 - Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts
• How we help - crossref-it.info writers help you understand how aspects like form, narrative and language are used to shape meaning
• AO3 - Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts were written and received
• How we help - crossref-it.info is designed to help students understand the significance and influence of cultural and historical contexts: the way the beliefs and worldview of the author informed everything they wrote
• AO4 - Explore connections across literary texts
• How we help - crossref-it.info covers a range of literary texts and explains the connections and comparisons. 
• AO5 - Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations
• How we help - Commentary covers a range of different ways to interpret each text.

Crossref-it.info makes all this easy and accessible and is FREE!

Twentieth Century attitudes

The –isms that shaped a century

Fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini

Contextual awareness of what people thought and felt really helps us make sense of what people wrote in any given era. It is an intangible world of ideas which, when we understand it can help us succeed if we are studying A Level English Literature.

Often, authors don’t directly refer to widely held attitudes – they just assume that everyone is coming from a particular cultural viewpoint – even if their job is then to challenge it.

The twentieth century saw the questioning of many longstanding cultural norms, which were replaced by newly developed beliefs. For example:

• In the first quarter of the twentieth century, Enlightenment rationalism was superseded by Modernism
• This was itself discarded in the last quarter of the century, as being an inadequate perception of how life held together, in favour of Post-modernism.

But what do all these –isms mean?

www.crossref-it.info has just provided some handy explanations in its ‘Making sense of the intangible world of the twentieth century’ section. Launched this week are easy to understand pages where you can find out about the following:

Communism & Fascism – two ideologies which shaped nationhood and conflict across the world for much of the century

Feminism – the shift of authority from patriarchy to the recognition of female values and power

Modernism – the scientific, industrial ‘solution’ to human progress

Post-modernism & individualism – the loss of faith in over-arching truths

Religious attitudes – changes in religious observance and cultural certainties

Multiculturalism – a challenge to the British, white, Protestant ascendancy

Simply by living within a culture that held these attitudes at varying times, British poets, novelists and playwrights reflected them and refracted them.

As the summer holidays roll on for most, why not take some time out to explore this rich background, and therefore get the most out of the English literature of the twentieth century?

Shifts in the way we live

The World of the Twentieth Century

www.crossref-it.info has just introduced a new section on site about ‘The World of the Twentieth Century’. This week we are adding to articles about momentous events of the century with some perspectives about how the way British people lived changed between 1900 and 2000.

Recently there was much adulation over the birth of a new royal, Princess Charlotte – but did you realise that there were at least two eras in the twentieth century when the stability of the British monarchy looked in doubt? Check out Monarchy

Right now, Greece is dealing with the cumulative effects of spending without the bank reserves to pay. How did running up personal debt become the norm for many in the UK from the 1980s onwards? See Income & consumerism 

The working environment is often reflected in literature. How did this change for many Brits after the 1970s? Find out at World of work

What helped many UK citizens fall back in love with the British landscape in which few actually lived? Discover the answer at Humans & the environment

Our grandparents and great-grandparents grew up celebrating Empire Day (as Queenie remembers at the start of Andrea Levy’s Small Island). Why is this no longer the case? Find out at Colonialism & post-colonialism

These are just a few of the areas covered by the extra material being launched today to help users make sense of the tangible world of the twentieth century. Remember, it is contextual awareness like this that can help you succeed at A Level English Literature!

Moments that shook the world

2015 anniversaries 

2015 has been full of anniversaries – ways of remembering key events that shaped the course of history:

• 800 years ago this year, English King John was compelled to sign the Magna Carta, establishing that even a monarch was subject to the rule of law
• It is 200 years since the British victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo
• 100 years ago was the desperate defeat of Allied forces in the Dardanelles campaign, during the First World War
• It is 70 years since the declaration of Victory in Europe, marking the defeat and downfall of the Nazi domination of Western Europe – the liberation of their concentration camps helped others see the evils of the regime in all its grisly reality
• It is 25 years since East Germans flooded through the Berlin Wall and it fell, the symbol of division and communist oppression. That same year Nelson Mandela was freed from incarceration 
• Only 10 years ago London was rocked by the efforts of four suicide bombers which left 700 people injured or killed

Why do we memorialise these events? Because they are an anchor as life passes; they remind us of how we lived, what kind of people we were when the event happened.

Many situations in the list above commemorate the overthrow of oppression and control – the impulse of the human spirit for freedom. Events such as the end of war and liberation of Auschwitz altered the way people thought about themselves.

Perspective shifts and the arts

The Elephant Celebes by Max Ernst

It is these shifts in perspective which the arts pick up on. Just as modernist painters reflected the sense of moral disintegration in the aftermath of the First World War, so authors and poets channeled the angst or optimism of the era into their works:

• For example, the looming danger of George Orwell’s novel 1984 picked up on the very real oppression of Stalin when he attempted to blockade West Berlin in1948 (the year in which Orwell wrote his book).

If you are studying literature it is expected that you will understand how events provided a context against which writers created their texts. Indeed, examiners will award 25% of your marks in A Level English Literature on the basis of your ability to:

Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received. 

The World of the Twentieth Century

www.crossref-it.info already has lots of background material to help you make sense of literature up to the end of the Victorian era. Now it has just introduced a new section on site about ‘The World of the Twentieth Century’. Available are eight new articles focusing on key events between 1900 and 2000, such as:

• the two World Wars, the Cold War and conflict in Ireland
• The reshaping of the economy after the Wall Street Crash 
• The shift of power and territory according to ideology in post-war Europe and Palestine 
• The change in society as a result of immigration and integration.

Texts such as The Great Gatsby, The Handmaid’s Tale and Wide Sargasso Sea make better sense when you can place the worlds they depict against the reality which their respective authors faced.

There will be more to come, so keep looking out for updates!