Past a certain stage in studying literature, you begin to understand, perhaps better appreciate, the fact that texts are crafted entities.
(I choose ‘entities‘ deliberately, firmly believing texts have their own independent post-publication existences: a subject for another time, perhaps)
Continue reading “[book review] Clare Asquith: Shakespeare and the Resistance”
When you teach Richard III you almost inevitably touch on the idea that ‘history is written by the winners’, as Orwell said in 1944 (and again, of course, so horrifically in Nineteen Eighty-Four). [a]
Who were victorious over Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex in the end? Would he have recognised the history they wrote for him?
Poor Isabella.
Not just married to Edward II. Not simply denounced by history as the ‘She Wolf of France‘. As if all that wasn’t enough, she was relegated to a footnote in last week‘s QotW.
It’s her turn. Be afraid.
Last week’s pre-exam discussions with Year 13 looked again at how we might adopt a Feminist critical stance to our exam texts. The fabled AO5, I hear OCR students gasp …
Is this the ultimate ‘cold case’?
The Daughter of Time arrives with some hefty baggage in terms of its critical reception.
Continue reading “[book review] Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time”
I shall despair; there is no creature loves me,
And if I die no soul shall pity me. (Richard III: V.iii) [a]
No matter how many times I watch it – with Y9, 12 and 13 classes, or alone – Benedict Cumberbatch can move me to tears, delivering what I think are the saddest lines in Shakespeare.
The saddest lines … by arguably the biggest villain?
To begin, a little quiz. What connects the following texts?
subtitled: ‘Sir’s rule number 1‘ …
‘Who’s there?’
‘Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.’ [a]
Bernardo and Francisco have a point. The entire path of the scene is determined by who is on stage. Think of the ways the conversation could go if instead of Bernardo, another unknown Dane approaches Francisco’s guard-post, or one of Fortinbras’ troops.
From Hamlet to real life, and the idea of decorum – behaving or speaking appropriately to the circumstances and audience.
Although this novel (published 2011) begins the Hew Cullan mysteries, I arrived having read the latest, ‘1588: A Calendar of Crime‘ (2016) – whose review you can read here – first.
In many ways, therefore, this felt like a prequel, assembling the cast and creating several relationships I’d already become familiar with.
Think a far superior version of Star Wars episodes I-III …
I came to this novel via Finney’s nom-de-plume, PF Chisholm, and her entertaining Sir John Carey novel, A Famine of Horses.
Appropriately enough, Firedrake’s Eye is an entirely different beast …
Continue reading “[book review] Patricia Finney: Firedrake’s Eye”
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 