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I lifted to the window a nugget of golden Dominican amber entombing a small stingless bee. The sunlight infused it and illuminated the bee caught forever in flight—gossamer wings outstretched and… Read More »An Amber Time -Machine?
Chapter eighteen of Bleak House closes with a curious and brilliant image: Mademoiselle Hortense walking barefoot through the wet grass of Chesney Wold, after she has been publicly humiliated by… Read More »Why does Hortense walk barefoot through the grass in Dickens's Bleak House?
When The Swiveller introduces The Marchioness to the cards in Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop he places two sixpences in the saucer before the game of ‘chance’ can begin: ‘If you… Read More »'What you risk reveals what you value.' Winterson, Pushkin and the 'valuable fabulous thing.'
‘It’s the park in the rain with ducks…and black flowers’ added Clara as she sniffed and walked into another room. Her mother glanced at the white paper and was surprised… Read More »Clara and Demeter
Rain. They sat side by side watching the rain. They said nothing that they would remember in later years, nothing to place scaffolding around and try to preserve. And Demeter… Read More »Rain
Simon Armitage and the problematic representation of Intimacy in the post-modern world. Simon Armitage’s poetry in The Dead Souls Collection offers the reader a highly ironic and often problematic… Read More »Simon Armitage and the problematic Representation of Intimacy in the Modern World.
One may be born with the potential for a prodigious memory, but one is not born with a disposition to recollect; this comes only with the changes and separations in… Read More »memory
‘what is past is not dead; it is not even past. We cut ourselves off from it; we pretend to be strangers.’ ( Christa Wolf, A Model Childhood) … Read More »Memory 2: Shena MacKay, The Orchard on Fire
Steve. ( A Capricorn birthday!) I was truly blessed to have Steve as my tutor at Liverpool. I had handed in a desperately worthy essay for him at… Read More »Steve J. Newman: In Memoriam.
‘’As an optimist I believe that the power for good of education is nearly limitless and that the teacher has to be vigilant for the slightest trace of diamond in… Read More »Steve J. Newman
“Regeneration” is an antiwar war novel, in a tradition that is by now an established one, though it tells a part of the whole story of war that is not… Read More »Regeneration: Pat Barker
Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918) Strange Meeting It seemed that out of battle I escapedDown some profound dull tunnel, long since scoopedThrough granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also… Read More »Owen's Strange Meeting: A Lastness was Palpably present?
‘What made the Orchard miraculous though was an old railway carriage in the far corner, set down as if by magic, its wheel gone, anchored by long grass and nettles,… Read More »Shena Mackay on Writing
Browning: My last Duchess. 1) Consider the setting of the poem and the audience. How is this relationship concerned with power and how far does this dynamic mirror the… Read More »Robert Browning's My Last Duchess: Brief Notes
Is there such a thing as a bad reading of a text ? I rather think there is…..Here is a reading of Duffy’s famous erotic Upstairs Downstairs ( and in milady’s… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy: Warming her pearls for swine.
Look closely at this famous painting. How far are the images different from a world we recognise? Think about why the painting depicts the world in this very… Read More »Guernica: Picasso's Nightmare of Representation
‘Now he knew why he loved her so. Without ever leaving the ground, she could fly…For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could… Read More »Song Of Solomon: Toni Morrison on fire!
An Arundel Tomb Side by side, their faces blurred,The earl and countess lie in stone,Their proper habits vaguely shownAs jointed armour, stiffened pleat,And that faint hint of the absurd… Read More »Nearly Intimacies? The ambivalence of Proximity!
Chapter two. A hard-boiled egg. It sat squat on the plate and Demeter pelted it with her brother’s special spoon. She was seventeen and nothing she had found magical… Read More »Chapter Two Hands: Demeter And King Kong
Pride and Prejudice and the Art of the Tease. Elizabeth Bennet teases Darcy and he cannot resist her.: ‘Indeed I do not dare…’ I have long regarded this exchange as… Read More »Pride and Prejudice: Despise me if you dare!
Of course! As Mark pointed out…Winterson has never lost her skills as Preacher in her delivery: the rule of three; the rhetorical questions; the emotive register; repetition….. And the… Read More »Winterson and the rule of three!
ForeignBy Carol Ann Duffy Imagine living in a strange, dark city for twenty years.There are some dismal dwellings on the east sideand one of them is yours. On the landing,… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy : Foreign Underworlds
Nature and death in Heaney’s ‘Storm on the Island,’ Clarke’s ‘October ,’Tennyson’s ‘The Eagle,’ Whitman’s ‘Patrolling Barnegat’ and Clare’s ‘Sonnet.’ Heaney’s ‘Storm on The Island’ begins with a very… Read More »Nature and Death In Seamus Heaney et al: GCSE AQA ENGLISH
Macbeth: Act One. ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair.’ (sc.I) 1) Consider the effects of the strange supernatural figures who greet the audience at the opening… Read More »Macbeth: Act One
AQA English Anthology- Browning: The Laboratory. I NOW that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade… Read More »Robert Browning: The Laboratory
HITCHER Consider the subversive aspects of the poem. These might be in terms of the register employed by the speaker as much as the ‘event’ of the poem… Read More »Simon Armitage: Hitcher
‘I stink and remember.’ Duffy, Dickens and the scent of solitude. ‘In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy Havisham: 'I stink and remember.'
DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE: Short Notes. ‘Clearly Stevenson’s work is a great success as a horror story but it goes well beyond that.’ … Read More »Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
PLATH AND CARY:SHORT NOTES. 1) Think of the implications of the titles? Do they contextualise or signpost the stories? ‘Growing Up’ suggests in its open way the ambiguity surrounding change in terms… Read More »Sylvia Plath's Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit and Joyce Cary's Growing Up.
‘We all tell the stories of ourselves all the time and this is part of the experience of life,not simply a secondary reflection of it…’ ( Elspeth Graham, Her own… Read More »Echoes of Passion: All Passion Spent?
