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Hamlet at Telford  Cineworld 5th October!

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Poems of the Decade Study Guide

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmaTBf_Bx8&list=PLgABAkp50mccdn00MjLqZhd66IdD8p4TR

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Shakespeare Exemplar Essays

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A reminder of the AOs for the Prose exam

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THE LAMMAS HIRELING

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Streetcar A Level Lecture Day Presentation Notes

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Revision task:  Plan as many responses as you can!

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Internal and External Conflict in Hamlet.

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Internal and External Conflict in Hamlet.

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Read!

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Read these key critical ideas from the Anthology and make notes relating these ideas to the play and your understanding of  the play.

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Read these key critical ideas from the Anthology and make notes relating these ideas to the play and your understanding of  the play.

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Summaries and ideas about the poems.

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Follow the link to Dr Jain's commentaries on Poems of the Decade

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Follow the link to Dr Jain's commentaries on Poems of the Decade

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsDUK-yb4xg&list=PLaIevfqn6i7BMS3NefTsPg04ww95cGtF-

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http://victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/harrison2/1.html#approaches

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poets/christina_rossetti.shtml

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Detailed Essay Planning Example

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Goblin Market Wordle

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the idea of Purgatory.

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Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti. Rossetti was born into an artistic family and her siblings included Dante Gabriel, one of the leading lights of

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Christina Rossetti, In Our Time - BBC Radio 4

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Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti. Rossetti was born into an artistic family and her siblings included Dante Gabriel, one of the leading lights of

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Follow this link to the O Drive: O:\English A Level Literature\Year 13 Revision Videos

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Follow this link to O Drive:
Using critics teaching video

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AO2

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Coursework Marking Advice and Markscheme

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You will get your 1st draft feedback after your mocks.  For now, focus on your revision :)

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A proforma for revision notes on key chapters in 'The Handmaid's Tale'

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Comparing extracts from both texts

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Key themes/ links between texts

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Frankenstein revision

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Frankenstein and Science - SHMOOP!

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Hamlet and Streetcar Essay Questions to plan

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Final coursework deadline is your first English lesson back!

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Final coursework deadline is your first English lesson back!

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SOME LADIES

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Some ladies dress in muslin full and white

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Science Vs Religion

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Born on a dark and stormy night, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is a true masterpiece of terror that began as a fireside ghost story and grew into a worldwide phenomenon. Its teenage author, the future Mary Shelley, drew upon her nightmares to come up with a story as challenging as it is chilling. ( Read about "Frankenstein" electronic plants.)

The story took shape during the year without a summer, as 1816 came to be known. The 1815 eruption of the Mount Tambora volcano on the island of Sumbawa (part of modern-day Indonesia) had released vast amounts ash, rock, and sulfuric dust into the air, which dramatically lowered temperatures across many areas of the globe the following year. Reports of odd weather came in from all quarters in 1816: summer frosts in North America, red snow in Italy, and eight weeks of nonstop rain in Ireland.

The bizarre weather in 1816 also left an indelible mark on culture and literature. That year, a group of friends from England had been looking forward to spending the summer months together in a large house, Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva. The group included the poet Lord Byron, his personal physician John Polidori, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Shelley's teenage lover, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.

Mary had met the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in Britain in 1812. Mary was in her mid-teens, and Shelley was a married man and father of two children. The two fell in love, and in 1814, facing opposition to their relationship from Mary's father, the couple eloped to Europe. They would marry in 1818, after the suicide of Shelley's first wife.

From Nightmare to Novel

The outdoor activities they had been eagerly anticipating were washed out by the constant torrential cloudbursts in Switzerland that year. "It proved a wet, ungenial summer," Mary wrote years later, "and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house."

The group were all advocates of Romanticism, a movement that originated in the late 18th century in response to the dispassionate reason of the Enlightenment. Romantics favored nature, passion, and the experience of the individual.

To pass the time indoors, the party held stirring discussions of current scientific theories. They were particularly fascinated by the experiments with electricity carried out the century before by Luigi Galvani, who had observed how an electric current made the legs of dead frogs twitch. They speculated on the possibility of bringing dead matter back to life by using electrical impulses. Mary later recalled: "Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth."

After all this scientific talk, Lord Byron took the group in a different direction and suggested that each member of the party write a horror story. Out of this parlor game came a new kind of tale, Mary Shelley's terrifying novel, Frankenstein.

Mary, then age 18, had little writing experience. A sensitive, highly cultured woman whose mother had died when she was a baby, her frequent bouts of depression fueled a morbid fascination with death. In later years she would recall how, during that Swiss summer holiday, she experienced a nightmarish vision with "a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie." She described it: "I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy half-vital motion."

In response to Byron's ghost-story game, Mary turned her nightmare into a yarn about a scientist who creates a monstrous creature. Later, back in Britain, she expanded this initial tale into a novel. "At first I thought but of a few pages, of a short tale," she wrote later, "but Shelley [by then her husband] urged me to develop the idea at greater length." Published anonymously at first in 1818, she titled the work Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. Her name appeared on the second edition in 1823. In 1831 she republished the work, changing some of its more radical passages, adding a preface containing a tribute to Shelley's late husband, who drowned in 1822. It is the version that is best known today.

Making a Monster

Mary Shelley's novel tells the story of a Swiss scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He attends the lectures at the University of Ingolstadt, in Bavaria, where he is fascinated to learn about the latest advances in science and resolves to "pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation." He sets to work, feverishly studying anatomy and the processes whereby human tissue is generated and corrupted. Then one day in a sudden flash of inspiration, he believes he has discovered "the cause of generation and life" and become "capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter."

Frankenstein carries out mysterious experiments and constructs a titanic, hulking body. "I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet." The creature comes to life, and Frankenstein is horrified by what he has unleashed. A tragic chain of events is set into motion, and by the end of the tale, everything Frankenstein loves has been destroyed by his creation.

Frankenstein reflects the deeply felt concerns of an age conflicted over religion and science. The novel explores the boundary between life and death, and the potential dangers human arrogance might arouse when trying to "play God."

The fact that these big questions still inform the social implications of science in the 21st century is a key reason that the popularity of Mary Shelley's story has only grown over time. Since its first publication, the book has never been out of print. Stage productions of the story followed as early as 1822. In the 20th century dozens of films told and retold the Frankenstein story. The most iconic version was produced by Universal Pictures in 1931 and starred Boris Karloff in what became his signature role.

Curse of Frankenstein

Despite her literary successes, personal tragedy overshadowed much of Mary Shelley's life. She lost her husband in 1822. She suffered several miscarriages, and only one of her children survived to adulthood.

In her later years, widowed and careworn, Mary Shelley became notably less radical in her philosophy than when she had written Frankenstein as a teen. Revising the work for the 1831 edition, she made significant changes to the underlying ideas of the plot. In the first version Dr. Frankenstein makes the creature in the spirit of free, scientific curiosity; his sin is that he then refuses to love and nurture him once he comes to life. The later edition portrays Dr. Frankenstein as a victim of fate; much of the science behind the creation of the creature comes about through chance.

In some ways the very work itself seems to have become Mary Shelley's own "creature": the product of youthful ideas that in later life were replaced with more conventional notions of the forces of fate. As she wrote in a letter in 1827: "The power of Destiny I feel . . .pressing more and more on me, and I yield myself a slave to it."

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Born on a dark and stormy night, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is a true masterpiece of terror that began as a fireside ghost story and grew into a worldwide phenomenon. Its teenage author, the future Mary Shelley, drew upon her nightmares to come up with a story as challenging as it is chilling.

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There is no simple explanation for why, 500 years ago, an obscure German monk decided to risk all and challenge the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church. But by hammering 95 indictments to the door of All Saints' Church at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther launched a reformation with a singular effect. Deliberately or not, he overturned many of the bedrock assumptions of Western culture, instigating a revolution in human freedom that continues to shape the modern world.

At its heart, Luther's protest against the church was theological, an attempt to recover the historic meaning of the Christian gospel from what he saw as a legalistic corruption. The pathway to peace with God, Luther insisted, was not through good works, religious rituals, or scholastic reasoning, but rather through heartfelt faith in Jesus Christ and his atoning death on a cross.

Nevertheless, in defending a gospel of salvation "by faith alone," Luther introduced a new source of authority into the bloodstream of the West. For nearly a thousand years, every European man and woman owed allegiance to two kinds of authority: political (kings, nobles, magistrates) and religious (popes, councils, bishops, or their representatives). When it came to deciding matters of faith, however, Luther found both to be deeply flawed and untrustworthy.

This was the crux of Luther's defense of his writings at the Diet of Worms in 1521. "My conscience is captive to the Word of God," he told his accusers. "I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand." The individual believer and his conscience, standing before God and his Word-here was a confession that redefined the meaning of faith and the dignity of the human person.

In the process, Luther laid bare the scandal of Christendom: a political society that preserved spiritual unity through coercion and violence. Dissent from orthodoxy was outlawed, heresy was rooted out and punished by fire and sword. The papal bull of 1520 excommunicating Luther from the Catholic Church, for example, accused him of promoting 41 heresies and "pestiferous errors." One of the alleged errors was his view that "the burning of heretics is against the will of the Holy Spirit."

Luther did not address the issue of freedom of conscience in his Ninety-Five Theses, nor did he ever devise a political theory supporting religious pluralism. But his letters and major works leave no doubt that the father of the Protestant Reformation hoped to reconstruct the entire medieval approach to religious belief. Luther offers his fullest treatment of these issues in Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523), where he sharply distinguished the aims of church and state, limiting the reach of government to preserving life and property.

"For over the soul God can and will let no one rule but Himself," Luther wrote. "Therefore, where temporal power presumes to prescribe laws for the soul it encroaches upon God's government and only misleads and destroys the souls."

Rejecting the notion of a Christian commonwealth, Luther argued that the state possessed neither the competence nor a mandate from heaven to intrude into spiritual matters. "The soul is not under Caesar's power," he wrote. "He can neither teach nor guide it, neither kill it nor make it alive." Other reformers sought a radical separation of church and state, a concept that Luther ultimately rejected. Others went further in defending the rights of all religious believers, even heretics and non-believers, in civic and political life.

Nevertheless, virtually every important defense of religious freedom in the 17th century-the liberal politics of William Penn, Roger Williams, Pierre Bayle, and John Locke-took Luther's insights for granted. "The one only narrow way which leads to heaven is not better known to the magistrate than to private persons," wrote Locke in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), "and therefore I cannot safely take him for my guide, who may probably be as ignorant of the way as myself, and who certainly is less concerned for my salvation than I myself am."

In the 18th century, the United States became the first nation to enshrine in its constitution the Protestant conception of the rights of conscience. James Madison, the mind behind the First Amendment, was inspired by Luther's achievement. In a letter to F.L. Schaeffer, dated 1821, Madison explained that the American model of religious liberty "illustrates the excellence of a system which, by a due distinction, to which the genius and courage of Luther led the way, between what is due to Caesar and what is due God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations."

When the modern human rights movement took shape after the Second World War, a committee of public intellectuals acknowledged Luther as they searched for a philosophical basis for an international bill of rights. Their 1947 UNESCO document cited the Reformation, because of its "appeal to the absolute authority of the individual conscience," as one of the historical events most responsible for the development of human rights.

Similarly, the language of Article 18 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights-"everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion"-pays homage to Luther's vision. Its prime author, Lebanese Ambassador Charles Malik, a delegate to the original UN Commission on Human Rights, was also a student of the Reformation. "People's minds and consciences are the most sacred and inviolable things about them," Malik wrote, "not their belonging to this or that class, this or that nation, or this or that religion."

Today the Catholic Church, once a fierce opponent of religious liberty, is one of its most vigorous defenders on the world stage. "Man demands civil liberties that he may lead in society a life worthy of a man," wrote John Courtney Murray, an architect of Vatican II's support for the rights of conscience. "And this demand for freedom from coercion is made with special force in what concerns religion." Here, it seems, is a quiet tribute to Luther's revolution: "I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion."

The social realities of Christendom-the deep entanglement of church and state-prevented Luther from working out the implications of his political theology. Once Protestantism became an established faith, he approved the use of force against heretics; his rough treatment of Jews followed the woeful pattern of European Christianity.

Nevertheless, the moral courage and intellectual coherence of Luther's dissent should not be undervalued. If Luther was a flawed prophet of human freedom, his voice was nonetheless vital in the long march toward a more just and pluralistic society. In Luther, we find an advocate for human dignity who defied the forces of religious oppression and reimagined the political ideals of medieval Europe.

In his defiance, Luther delivered a challenge to the conscience of the West like no other since the Sermon on the Mount-as essential today as it was half a millennium ago.

Joseph Loconte is an associate professor of history at the King's College in New York City and the author of God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West.

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Martin Luther and the Long March to Freedom of Conscience

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There is no simple explanation for why, 500 years ago, an obscure German monk decided to risk all and challenge the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church. But by hammering 95 indictments to the door of All Saints' Church at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther launched a reformation with a singular effect.

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Skuola.net - Portale per Studenti: Materiali, Appunti e Notizie

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The meaning of the "to be or not to be" speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet has been given numerous interpretations, each of which are textually, historically, or otherwise based. In general, while Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be" soliloquy questions the righteousness of life over death in moral terms, much of the speech's emphasis is on the subject of death-even if in the end he is determined to live and see his revenge through.
Before engaging in the soliloquy itself, however, it is important to consider Hamlet's lines that occur before the passage in question. In the first act of the play, Hamlet (full character analysis of Hamlet here)curses God for making suicide an immoral option. He states, "that this too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! / Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd / His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!" (I.ii.129-132). At this early point in the text it is clear that Hamlet is weighing the benefits versus drawbacks of ending his own life, but also that he recognizes that suicide is a crime in God's eyes and could thus make his afterlife worse than his present situation. In essence, many of Hamlet's thoughts revolve around death and this early signal to his melancholy state prepares the reader for soliloquy that will come later in Act III.

When Hamlet utters the pained question, "To be, or not to be: that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles" (III.i.59-61) there is little doubt that he is thinking of death. Although he attempts to pose such a question in a rational and logical way, he is still left without an answer of whether the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" can be borne out since life after death is so uncertain.
At this point in the plot of Hamlet, he wonders about the nature of his death and thinks for a moment that it may be like a deep sleep, which seems at first to be acceptable until he speculates on what will come in such a deep sleep. Just when his "sleep" answer begins to appeal him, he stops short and wonders in another of the important quotes from Shakespeare's Hamlet, "To sleep: perchance to dream:-ay there's the rub; / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come" (III.i.68-69). The "dreams" that he fears are the pains that the afterlife might bring and since there is no way to be positive that there will be a relief from his earthly sufferings through death, he forced to question death yet again.

After posing this complex question and wondering about the nature of the great sleep, Hamlet then goes on to list many sufferings men are prone to in the rough course of life, which makes it seem as though he is moving toward death yet again. By the end of this soliloquy, however, he finally realizes, "But that dread of something after death, / The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn / No traveler returns-puzzles the will / And makes us rather bear those ills we have" (III.i.81-84). Although at this last moment Hamlet realizes that many chose life over death because of this inability to know the afterlife, the speech remains a deep contemplation about the nature and reasons for death.

The "To Be or Not To Be" speech in the play, "Hamlet," portrays Hamlet as a very confused man. He is very unsure of himself and his thoughts often waver between two extremes due to his relatively strange personality. In the monologue, he contemplates whether or not he should continue or end his own life. He also considers seeking revenge for his father's death. Evidence of his uncertainty and over thinking is not only shown in this speech, but it also can be referenced in other important parts of the play.

The topic of Hamlet's soliloquy is his consideration of committing suicide. Throughout the speech, it is obvious that Hamlet is over thinking and wavering between two different extremes: life and death. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them" (3, 1, 56-60). In this quotation, Hamlet wonders whether he should live and suffer the hardships that his life has to offer him or die in order to end the suffering. He believes that life is synonymous with suffering. The "whips and scorn of time, Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th'unworthy takes" (3, 1, 70-74) are all the suffering he sees in life. Hamlet wonders if living is worth enduring these numerous pains. "To die, to sleep -no more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks...To sleep, perchance to dream" (3, 1, 60-65). Should Hamlet choose to kill himself, all of his heartaches would be put to rest. He would no longer have to watch his uncle reign over the kingdom that he believes should belong to him and his father. He would no longer have to feel obligated to avenge his father's death. He would also never again have to watch the actions of Claudius and Gertrude, which he believes to be incestuous. Hamlet realizes that in death, his...

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Analysis of the "To Be or Not to Be" Hamlet Soliloquy

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The meaning of the "to be or not to be" speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet has been given numerous interpretations, each of which are textually, historically, or otherwise based.

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https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=david+tennant+to+be+or+not+to+be&qpvt=david+tennant+to+be+or+not+to+be&view=detail&mid=4435F2100F191E0F61C74435F2100F191E0F61C7&FORM=VRDGAR

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David Tennant - Hamlet's Soliloquy (RSC Hamlet)

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Listen

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, longest and most quoted play.

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Act 3 Scene 4 and Act 4 Scene Presentations Feedback

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Act 3 Scene 4 and Act 4 Scene Presentations Feedback

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Listen from 9mins47

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Bill Nighy, The ever-changing appeal of Hamlet, Photographer Steve McCurry, Front Row - BBC Radio 4

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Bill Nighy on his acting style, Janet Suzman on Hamlet, and Steve McCurry on Afghanistan.

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A Level_Paper 1_Section B_Other Drama_Exemplars_Produced from SAMs.pdf