So creative writers, it’s all about what you do with your source material! This can be a little more problematical, though, when the fictional characters writers wish to create are inspired by real individuals. A flattering portrayal is usually fine, but when it is less flattering problems can arise. This means that writers can often […]

We need only look at Charles Dickens’s work to realise how complex the link between fact and fiction can be.

I have to confess a personal sense of loss every time I hear that another bookshop has closed, it does seem to happen often nowadays, doesn’t it? Does this mean that soon we will have no bookshops at all? Is it all the fault of Kindles and other similar reading devices? Will there soon be […]

Sometimes we can forget that people carried on writing about love after the death of Queen Victoria. So, let’s have a look at twentieth century literature, which gives us many different views on love, and loses many of the certainties we often found in Victorian literature. In doing so, it provides a much less judgemental […]

One of the problems with Victorian Literature is the sheer quantity, though the good news is the fact that you will probably have come across quite a few texts already in your studies at school and when you were doing your AS Literature work, so don’t panic! Drama is probably the most difficult area for […]

When it comes to love, once we get into the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century we have a lot more scope for doing a little picking and choosing… For drama, your first stop is going to be Shakespeare, and remember, if you can watch performances of plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Othello, […]

Love, especially romantic love, has always been and always will be, one of the most influential emotions on our lives. The arts reflect often on this, with English Literature no exception. When we are looking at the earliest literature of love, we are really starting with the poetical work of Chaucer, not an easy task […]

So you’ve decided to do your A2 English Literature and are thinking about that wider reading in the area of ‘Love Through the Ages’ for your A2 exam and you’re starting to worry. Let’s just think first about what the A2 exam is asking of you… Question 1 asks you to compare two unseen items […]

Anne Thomas, An English tutor  and blogger for Oxford Open Learning discusses why she finds Black History and the Arts fascinating. As a very proud Liverpudlian it is an honour to be a part of a city which has one of the oldest established black communities in the UK, something like about 300 years old, […]

The warm days of June and July are always the time when schools arrange those interesting and exciting sessions, those trips and visits that enrich the curriculum. Home educated children don’t have to miss out – they can have similar experiences, without the restrictions on time, distance and personal choice that schools have. Now is […]