Some weeks ago we read in
The Telegraph:
"Iris Murdock [sic] once told me that school students should not be studying her novels, they should only read the classics, the great Victorians, the major poets - in other words, the dead," said Ms [Susan] Hill, whose novel I'm the King of the Castle, has featured in GCSE syllabuses.
"I am sure that the brightest should indeed be studying the canon, as well as some modern writers - the key words being 'as well'.
"At GCSE, the emphasis is almost wholly on modern writers, at A-level slightly less so, but the pendulum has still swung far in the modern direction over the last few decades."
Ms Hill said too many teachers took the easy option when a choice was offered in GCSE courses because they were afraid of pupils being bored or that older work would not be considered "relevant" to pupils today.
"Once it was 'Hamlet or King Lear', now it is 'the poems of Wordsworth or Carol Ann Duffy' - and it is easier to teach Duffy than Wordsworth, I'm the King of the Castle than Wuthering Heights," she said. (Julie Henry)
We don't know if the people at
GCSEPod also read the article because they have released a package of audio learning and revision guides covering the complete GCSE syllabus of a series of subjects. In particular, they offer the following guides concerning Wuthering Heights:
Wuthering Heights: Characters
Subjects / English Language / Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights
Price: £2.95 Duration: 26mins Full topic price: £14.95
In this title we will have a close look at the characters in Emily Brontë's novel, Wuthering Heights. We will look in detail at Heathcliff and Catherine, our main protagonists, but we will also discuss some of the lesser characters and their impact on the story. It is important to remember that as well as being our second narrator, Nelly Dean is also a character in the novel and she spans the full thirty years of the text. You need to be particularly aware of her motivations to fully understand the text as a whole. Brontë has written her novel in such a way that your opinion of her characters is what matters. She deliberately makes Heathcliff, for example, indefinable. Who Heathcliff is, is up to you to decide. So let's start by trying to work him out!
Author: Nicola Greener Publisher: GCSEPod®
Narrator: Victoria Sandison ISBN: 978-1-84906-026-4
Wuthering Heights: Context
Price: £2.95 Duration: 26mins Full topic price: £14.95
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is a tale of passion, a tale of extremes. Published in 1847, a year before Brontë's death, it was not received well by the critics of the time, yet today we see it as one of the great Romantic classics. When reading Wuthering Heights we need to remember that because of its narrative structure, we have to constantly ask questions of the characters and their motives. Emily Brontë has written her novel in a way that places us, the reader, in control. We need to decide whether we believe the narrators of the story of Catherine and Heathcliff by looking at the bias and prejudice of the characters. Before we start trying to address that issue, we need to understand Emily Brontë and her situation by looking at the background to the novel Wuthering Heights.
Author: Nicola Greener Publisher: GCSEPod®
Narrator: Victoria Sandison ISBN: 978-1-84906-025-7
Wuthering Heights: Quotations and Analysis
Price: £3.45 Duration: 51mins Full topic price: £14.95
When analysing Wuthering Heights, there is a great deal to examine. Emily Brontë writes in a dense and detailed manner, meaning that most of the novel is significant and interesting to the reader. It is important that you read and understand the novel completely. In the following chapters we are going to discuss the main points of interest, where the details of Brontë's use of language and literary techniques will be explored. These techniques should also be applied to the novel as a whole.
Author: Nicola Greener Publisher: GCSEPod®
Narrator: Victoria Sandison ISBN: 978-1-84906-027-1
Wuthering Heights: Style
Price: £2.95 Duration: 20mins Full topic price: £14.95
Style means the way in which a text is written, and how a writer uses literary devices and language. Many critics have attempted to define Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights, but it will not fit into just one category. Brontë uses different genres, themes and styles to manipulate the emotions of the reader. It is important that you remember there are two narrators in Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean and Mr Lockwood, and they comment differently about the same characters and situations. Therefore, we do not always know who to believe. It is also significant that the novel is split into two volumes, showing the break between the generations. You may want to consider whether the tone of Brontë's language changes as we move from one to the next. In addition, Brontë uses pathetic fallacy to create atmosphere in her novel.
Author: Nicola Greener Publisher: GCSEPod®
Narrator: Victoria Sandison ISBN: 978-1-84906-030-1
Wuthering Heights: Symbols
Price: £2.95 Duration: 25mins Full topic price: £14.95
In this title we are going to look at the symbols that are used by Emily Brontë in the novel Wuthering Heights to help her tell her story. Brontë uses recurring images to help us understand her characters better and to provide social comments about the time in which she lived and wrote. We will be considering the significance of windows and eyes, doors and locks, books and education, death and, finally, sickness. The most important issue to consider is that of boundaries. This normally suggests some sort of change, whether this is of circumstances or a personal change within a particular character. It could be crossing the boundary between life and death, between inside and outside, or between nature and culture. Each crossed threshold or change affects the characters that make the change as well as those around them.
Author: Nicola Greener Publisher: GCSEPod®
Narrator: Victoria Sandison ISBN 978-1-84906-029-5
Wuthering Heights: Themes
Price: £2.95 Duration: 21mins Full topic price: £14.95
In this title we will be looking at the themes that Emily Brontë has used within her novel Wuthering Heights. Many of the themes reflect on the time in which the novel was written and the experiences of our author. It is important that you understand the background to the novel in order to fully connect with its themes. We will be looking closely at the themes of love, social class, the conflict between culture and nature, revenge and cruelty. These themes are strongly linked to the setting of Wuthering Heights and Emily Brontë uses recurring images, including that of the two houses, to help us identify with the themes in particular moments in the novel. Brontë cleverly interweaves these themes to provide a layered text that can be read from different points of view.
Author: Nicola Greener Publisher: GCSEPod®
Narrator: Victoria Sandison ISBN: 978-1-84906-028-8
Categories: Audio-Radio, Scholar, Wuthering Heights
This is certainly a very comprehensive package.
ReplyDeleteI read Iris Murdoch (both her fiction and philosophical works) for the love of it, sometimes while I was still a student. The last time I did it was in April 2008, though.
And the emphasis on Nelly Dean is great. She is probably the one that I ended up identifying with most, until the second half when the second generation gets in (on my first or second reading back in 1995).
Regarding courses: encourage the students to READ WIDELY inside and outside the canon(s).