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Questions for Golden Age Detective Fiction article

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Questions for Golden Age Detective Fiction article

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1.       What is the problem with the term ‘golden age’?

2.       What is the ‘central mechanism’ of Christie’s crime fiction?

3.       What is the central crime of these novels?

4.       What is notable about the setting?

5.       What is notable about the social setting?

6.       What is ignored?

7.       What is notable about the victim?

8.       How does detection work?

9.       What is the complication with ‘psychology’?

10.   How is romance placed in these novels?

11.   What is the most ‘unusual method of the clue-puzzle form’?

12.   What factors contextual factors contribute to the dominance of the clue puzzle?

13.   What is said to be unique about Christie’s work?

14.   How is Poirot said to be feminised?

15.   What is the only thing that is said to provide security in Christie’s world?

16.   What is the connection between the exposure of Christie’s criminals and the class-ridden context of the novels?

17.   What might ‘As in Christie, events are euphemised, even to the point of improbability’ mean?

18.   What is different about the worlds of Croft’s and Christie’s novels?

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Year 13 week 3 homework on Golden Age detective fiction

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The Whitsun Weddings collection includes some of Larkin's greatest poems: Dockery and Son, Faith Healing, Reference Back, Love Songs in Age, An Arundel Tomb and MCMXIV among them. But the title poem is its crowning glory. It achieves majesty through words that are not majestic. Like Hardy, Larkin had no time for the windy or the grand. Like Hardy, he believed that "the ultimate aim of the poet should be to touch our hearts by showing his own". And like Hardy, he is loved by thousands of people for whom poetry would otherwise be only a rumour.

There is far more to Larkin than exquisite melancholy, though that is something the English do well. For many years he was The Daily Telegraph's jazz critic, and his reviews continue to stand out as beacons of good sense. He detested Miles Davis ("a master of rebarbative boredom"), loathed John Coltrane, who he sarcastically dubbed "The Master", and thought that listening to Sonny Rollins was like "being pelted with slivers of granite". And that was by way of warming up!

Of modernism, in music as in poetry, he wrote: "It helps us neither to enjoy nor endure." To his ears, Coltrane was not merely ugly, but deliberately ugly, and if you were brought up, as Larkin was, on Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, you may concede his point. Armstrong sang out with joy. Davis, literally, turned his back on the audience. They weren't good enough for him.

Fifty years on, why does The Whitsun Weddings resonate? The answer may be found in Gilead, the superb novel by the American writer Marilynne Robinson. "This is an interesting planet," says one of her characters. "It deserves all the attention you can give it."

Larkin was a poet of the everyday, not to say the workaday. He gave his attention to the houses in which people lived, the places in which they worked, and the ways they took their entertainment. He described what they saw out of their windows, and reflected on the passing of time and the inevitability of death with a lyricism that makes him unique.

Born in Coventry, he lived most of his adult life in Hull. These are not glamorous places, but he wasn't interested in a metropolitan interpretation of glamour. Although he was an educated man, and his critical essays on other writers are fountains of sanity, he had no time for "lit-er-a-ture", or "creative writing", and the pseuds who pronounce upon it. Were he alive today, and saw Alan Yentob walking down his drive, he would close the curtains sharpish.

There is another reason we should read him. The rail journey he took all those Whitsuns ago winds its way through a part of England that is now home to thousands of people who were not born here but who, in the fullness of time, will become English. And if they don't, then their children will. How can we show them what being English means?

History plays a part, certainly. Institutions, laws, traditions and customs are important. But the greatest gift our country has given the world is language, and the writers who have used it. No other land has produced so many great novelists and dramatists, and no other land has produced anywhere near as many great poets. We have defined ourselves through language, so if other people want to understand us, that is the best place to start.

Larkin, with his (in the best sense) provincial eye, and his unparalleled ear, is the supreme writer of post-war England. Nobody catches more faithfully the English tone of voice. My copy of The Whitsun Weddings once belonged to an actress, who had received it as a gift from Alan Bennett. Inside, Bennett has written of "the affection and dissatisfaction" for and with England that he shares with the poet.

So, hang the expense, let's give a copy of Larkin's Collected Poems to each newcomer to our land and say: "This is the best of us." And if they want any advice, here it is: turn to the great poem we shall celebrate today at King's Cross, the one that begins:

That Whitsun, I was late getting away.

Hallowed be the name of Lord's

Of all the reasons for living in London, one of the most compelling is being close to Lord's. It is so much more than the world's greatest cricket ground - and it is, have no fear of that. It is one of the great spaces in the capital, and the pavilion, with its Long Room, through which the players must walk to reach the field, is one of London's most handsome buildings.

Perhaps the most apposite tribute to this special place came from the mouth of a Frenchman. Philippe Auclair is a journalist, broadcaster, songwriter and, glory be, a cricket-lover. He never misses a Lord's Test, so he will be on parade when England play Sri Lanka next week in the first of two Tests there this summer, the 200th year in which cricketers have played on the famous square. "Lord's," he says, "is a pendant to the Royal Parks." A chapeau for that chap.

Earful from a true master of the arts

Incensed: Kevin Spacey blew up when a phone went off mid-performance

Kevin Spacey is a great actor on stage and screen, who also happens to be a star. For the past decade, he has run the Old Vic where, the other night, he tore a strip off a theatre-goer unwise enough to leave his mobile phone on. Good for him. These wretched folk should be publicly embarrassed wherever they tip up, though the theatre and art gallery appear to be their favoured breeding grounds.

A visit to the Matisse exhibition at Tate Modern was disturbed by the loud talking, clicking of cameras and the making and taking of phone calls. Enough! It is time for strong measures, starting with the installation of stocks outside Tate Modern where offenders may be detained to reflect, as did Uriah Heep at the end of David Copperfield, on their follies. It's the only language they understand.

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Journey's end for Philip Larkin's masterful Whitsun Weddings

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The Whitsun Weddings collection includes some of Larkin's greatest poems: Dockery and Son, Faith Healing, Reference Back, Love Songs in Age, An Arundel Tomb and MCMXIV among them. But the title poem is its crowning glory. It achieves majesty through words that are not majestic.

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English Literature

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English Literature

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How might this article be related to King Lear?

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How might this article be related to King Lear?

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As someone who once got a driving licence when they really shouldn't have, I am looking forward to driverless cars. It's a shame a lot of people will lose their livelihoods, but, hey ho, that's the future. In fact, it feels a lot like the present. We currently have a driverless government. No one is in control - but nor is there a robotic system effective enough to govern us.

It is not just that the waxwork of Theresa May unveiled in Madame Tussauds looks more strong and stable - indeed, more human - than she does; it is that her government is full of braggarts, sexual harassers and people who have decided to conduct freelance foreign policies.

As ever with May, it is hard to ascertain why she wants to cling on. Her leadership is now little more than a penance to her party for not being good enough to secure a decent majority. She is surrounded by those for whom cooperation is some kind of socialist conspiracy and loyalty is for wimps. Many of her ministers wear their ignorance with pride, feeling that they can make policy in a ridiculously atomised way. They appear to have no clue how the rest of the world sees them - largely irrelevant - nor any clue of how the world is changing. In their myopic pomp, they seem not to have noticed that the US is in decline and still yearn for Reaganite certainties. This is bizarre.

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Priti Patel timeline
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13 August

Priti Patel goes to Israel on what she claims was a family holiday, which she paid for herself.

22 August

Patel met Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting was not authorised in advance and no UK officials were present. She later claimed the Foreign Office was made aware of this meetings and others during while her trip was under way.

Meanwhile, Patel's deputy Alistair Burt and David Quarrey, the British ambassador to Israel, were meeting Michael Oren, a deputy minister at the Israeli prime minister's office, according to the Jewish Chronicle. According to notes of the meeting, cited by the paper, Oren referred to Patel having had a successful meeting with Netanyahu earlier.

24 August

Foreign Office officials became aware of Patel's first meetings, according to a statement given to the Commons on 7 November, by Burt. He did not mention his own visit to Israel. Hansard quotes Burt telling the Commons: "The Secretary of State [Patel] told Foreign Office officials on 24 August that she was on the visit. It seems likely that the meetings took place beforehand."

On the same day Patel met Yair Lapid, leader of Israel's Yesh Atid party, who describes her as a "true friend of Israel".

August

On an undisclosed date during her trip, Patel visited an Israeli military field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. If confirmed, this would be a breach of a protocol that British officials do not travel in the occupied Golan under the auspices of the Israeli government.

25 August

Patel leaves Israel after 12 work meetings, during two days our of 13-day holiday. As well as meeting Netanyahu, she also held talks with public security and strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan and Israeli foreign minister official Yuval Rotem. The meetings were organised by Stuart Polak, a leading member of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He accompanied Patel on all but one one of the meetings.

On her return to the UK, Patel inquires about using the UK aid budget to help fund the Israeli army's humanitarian work in the Golan Heights. The idea is rejected because the UK does not recognise Israel's permanent presence in the Golan Heights, which were seized from Syria in the 1967 war.

7 September

Patel met Gilad Erdan, the minister for public security, and was photographed with him on the House of Commons terrace.

18 September

While in New York for the UN general assembly, Patel had another meeting with Yuval Rotem, an official from the Israeli foreign ministry.

2 November

Theresa May meets Netanyahu in Downing Street.

3 November

Patel told the Guardian that the foreign secretary knew about her trip and suggested the Foreign Office had been briefing against her. "Boris knew about the visit. The point is that the Foreign Office did know about this, Boris knew about [the trip]," she admitted telling the paper.

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Landale reported that Patel had undisclosed meetings in Israel without telling the Foreign Office. He quoted one official as saying that Patel had been "pushing to get her hands on the Palestinian Authority aid budget and we have been pushing back".

6 November

Patel apologised after admitting she gave a misleading account to the Guardian of her trip to Israel. In a statement, he admitted holding 12 meetings, including three with Israeli politicians - Netanyahu among them.

She said: "This quote [to the Guardian] may have given the impression that the secretary of state had informed the foreign secretary about the visit in advance. The secretary of state would like to take this opportunity to clarify that this was not the case. The foreign secretary did become aware of the visit, but not in advance of it."

She does not mention visiting the occupied Golan Heights or the two subsequent meetings in September.

A No 10 spokesman confirmed that Patel was rebuked for breaching the ministerial code.

7 November

Patel avoided answering an urgent Commons question about her meetings in Israel because of a "longstanding commitment" to visit Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. International development minister Alistair Burt is put up in her place. Burt pointed out that Patel had apologised for the undisclosed meetings. He added: "The department's view is that aid to the IDF [Israeli Defence Force] in the Golan Heights is not appropriate"

Downing Street initially backed Patel but later confirmed that the prime minister was not informed about providing aid to Israel during her meeting the previous day. It was suggested Patel had failed to disclose her two subsequent meetings in September with Israeli officials. A Whitehall source said: "There was an expectation of full disclosure at the meeting on Monday. It is now clear Priti did not do that. It will now have to be looked at again." But according to the Jewish Chronicle, it was No 10 who told Patel not to include her meeting with Rotem in New York in her list of undisclosed meetings for fear of embarrassing the Foreign Office.

DfiD confirms previously undisclosed September meetings with Erhad and Rotem in September.

8 November

Patel is summoned back to London at the request of the prime minister amid widespread speculation that she will be sacked or given the opportunity to resign. She flies back from the Kenyan capital Nairobi after her meetings in Uganda were cancelled.

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Trust in our institutions is collapsing before our eyes. The Paradise Papers reveal the monarchy to be tax-avoiding hypocrites. Really? Who knew? At a certain level of wealth, many simply opt out of the social contract - for that is how taxation functions - and operate according to a model that says there is no such thing as society. Huge corporations do it. Sitcom stars do it.

The idea that this government can regulate this seems far away, because it is in such disrepair itself. The promise is that a Labour government can. Certainly it is becoming hard to imagine anything more shambolic and, indeed, venal than the current shower. Yet it seems deeper than this. As a nation, we have become essentially ungovernable, in ways that no one wants to admit.

At a certain level of wealth, many simply opt out of the social contract

Anarchy in the UK has come about because Brexit has split the country. There is no definite will of the people, just different peoples who refuse to acknowledge each other's reality. Each side accuses the other side of delusion. The delusions of grandeur of the leavers are taking us over a cliff edge that will impoverish those who voted to leave, even if they voted that way because they felt no part of the future or wealth of this country. The delusion of the remainers is that everyone who voted leave now regrets it (they clearly don't); is old and will die soon (the politics of culling); and that somehow this can all be stopped with another referendum, ignoring the fact that article 50 has already been triggered.

London remains free-floating, its own country with its own financial institutions. Scotland is remain, England is leave. Things are breaking up. The idea that Corbyn - said to be keen on a " socialism in one country " model - will sort everything out is another delusion. That country could be Islington, but it is certainly not the UK as it stands.

The centre cannot hold. Everything is pulling in directions that no longer reflect long-held right-versus-left positions, but rather reveal complex emotional and cultural reactions to globalisation and its handmaiden, austerity. The forces of which the referendum made us aware signified a desire for change, a critique of power as it exists today. They also represented a closing-down, an insularity - nasty racism in some cases - and a belief in the legacy of empire.

Leavers and remainers appear to inhabit different worlds and seem entirely resistant to compromise. Many remainers I know would happily sign up to border controls around the areas where they live and despise half their fellow citizens, yet they continue to see themselves as open-minded people. It is extraordinary.

I seek not to minimise the uselessness of this government. It is monstrous and pitiful. But these problems will continue whoever is in government, for the issue is this: the way we are governed is no longer fit for purpose. The institutions do not work for the people.

The instability at the heart of the government reflects the personal inadequacy of Tory ministers, but, politically, it runs deeper. When given a vote on something important, the majority of people voted against Westminster, against London, against the elites. Obviously, they have not taken back control, but what becomes clearer daily is that neither has the government. It is incapable of doing so. Its members are like children who shut their eyes and think no one else can see them. They lie, smear and dissemble as the UK falls apart.

This may not be anarchy as we imagined it, but the chaos at the top of our system is the reckoning. We are crashing in the same car.

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The UK has become ungovernable - and no one wants to admit it | Suzanne Moore

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As someone who once got a driving licence when they really shouldn't have, I am looking forward to driverless cars. It's a shame a lot of people will lose their livelihoods, but, hey ho, that's the future. In fact, it feels a lot like the present. We currently have a driverless government.

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An Introduction to Greek Tragedy | National Theatre

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At the heart of King John is the death of his rival Arthur: this fifteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series looks at the ways history and legitimacy are complicated in this plotline.

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At the heart of King John is the death of his rival Arthur: this fifteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series looks at the ways history and legitimacy are complicated in this plotline.