Hardenhuish School
‘A High Performing Specialist Academy’
Introduction:
A-Level English Literature
Induction Task
Welcome to the exciting first stage in your new Advanced Level course! The summer
is a great opportunity to prepare for the new term and the great thing about English
is that you can do it anywhere! There are no restrictions on trips to the beach, visits
to cafes, time out in the garden even rock climbers need to stop for a while at the
top! Just take your books and a pencil with you.
This work is VITAL for you to make a good start on your new course. It is directly
linked to the syllabus and you will need to hand it in to be marked in September. The
project requires you to practice the skills needed for the literature course.
1. Close analysis of 2 texts – looking at techniques.
2. Reading and exploring texts independently. (it is crucial that you are able to
work alone and come to class with your own ideas and thoughts on the text
you are studying).
So the best place to start is here.
Looking forward to seeing you (and your completed work) in September.
Have fun!
The English Faculty
Close analysis
Read the Rupert Brooke poem ‘Home’. Analyse the poem in detail and answer the
question: How does Brook present a melancholy tone in this poem? You should aim to
write a side of A4 when answering this question.
Research and read
Research conventions of Shakespearean tragedy. Produce a poster showing your
understanding of these conventions and be prepared to discuss your ideas.
Read the extract from ‘Hamlet’ taken from Act 1: Scene 2 of the play. Make notes on
evidence that this is taken from a Shakespearean tragedy.
Choose a text from the following list (the first 5 are prose, the last 2 are drama):
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Tess of the D’Urbervilles: Thomas Hardy
The Heart of Darkness: Joseph Conrad
Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte
The Great Gatsby: F.Scott Fitzgerald
The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck
A View from the Bridge: Arthur Miller
A Streetcar Named Desire: Tennessee Williams
As reading, you need to write down:
The title and the author of the text.
Write a brief plot summary.
As you read, make notes on characters, theme and setting.
Compile a list of interesting quotations.
Additional:
Due:
Set by:
AQA A-Level English Literature Spec B : Student book: ISBN: 978-0-19-833748-5
Please bring to your first lesson in September
If you have any queries regarding the tasks set, please contact Mr M Tett, Key Stage
5 co-ordinator: mst@hardenhuish.wilts.sch.uk.
Home – Rupert Brooke
I came back late and tired last night
Into my little room,
To the long chair and the firelight
And comfortable gloom.
But as I entered softly in
I saw a woman there,
The line of neck and cheek and chin,
The darkness of her hair,
The form of one I did not know
Sitting in my chair.
I stood a moment fierce and still,
Watching her neck and hair.
I made a step to her; and saw
That there was no one there.
It was some trick of the firelight
That made me see her there.
It was a chance of shade and light
And the cushion in the chair.
Oh, all you happy over the earth,
That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the lonely gloom;
And watched the moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room,
All night I could not sleep.
Hamlet extract
ACT I SCENE II
A room of state in the castle.
[ Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND,
CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants ]
KING CLAUDIUS
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
5
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
10
With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
15
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
20
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
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Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
30
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
35
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these delated articles allow.
VOLTIMAND and Cornelius
KING CLAUDIUS
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
In that and all things will we show our duty.
40
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
45
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
LAERTES
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
50
My dread lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation,
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
55
Additional reading list
(* denotes text published after 1990)
(+ denotes text published between 1800-1945)
PROSE FICTION
Chinua Achebe
James Baldwin
Nadine Gordimer
Radclyffe Hall
Zora Neale Hurston
Andrea Levy
Patrick McCabe
Anne Michaels
Arundhati Roy
Robert Tressell
Irvine Welsh
Jeanette Winterson
Richard Wright
Kurt Vonnegut
Rose Tremain
Kathryn Stockett
PROSE NON-FICTION
Things Fall Apart (Penguin, 1958)
Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin)
July’s People (Bloomsbury, 1981)
The Well of Loneliness + (Virago, 1928)
Their Eyes Were Watching God + (Virago, 1937)
Small Island * (Headline, 2004)
Breakfast on Pluto * (Picador, 1998)
Fugitive Pieces * (Bloomsbury, 1996)
The God of Small Things * (Harper Perennial, 1997)
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists + (Flamingo, 1914)
Trainspotting * (Vintage, 1993)
Oranges are not the only fruit (Vintage, 1984)
Native Son + (Vintage, 1940)
Slaughterhouse 5 (Vintage, 1969)
The Road Home (Chatto and Windus)
The Help (Penguin, 2009)
Autobiographies and Biography, Diaries
Maya Angelou
Autobiography, especially I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (Virago, 1969)
Diana Souhami
The Trials of Radclyffe Hall * (Virago, 1999)
Nelson Mandela
Long Walk to Freedom (Abacus, 1994)
Memoirs and Interviews
Silvia Calamati
Bobby Sands
Malcolm X
Alice Walker
Travelogues
Salman Rushdie
Literary Criticism
Ralph Ellison
Dolly A. McPherson
Kate Millet
Amrit Wilson
Richard Wright
Jeremy Hawthorn ed.
DRAMA
Brendan Behan
Sudhar Bhuchar
Jim Cartwright
Caryl Churchill
Claire Dowie
Brian Friel
Lorraine Hansberry
Sarah Kane
Tony Kushner
Martin McDonagh
Sean O’Casey
Arthur Miller
Mark Ravenhill
Ntozake Shange
Timberlake Wertenbaker
Women’s stories from the North of Ireland * (Beyond the Pale Publications, 2002)
Skylark Sing Your Lonely Song (Mercier Press, 1982)
Malcolm X Talks to Young People (Pathfinder, 1964-1965)
The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult * (Phoenix, 1996)
The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (Vintage, 1987)
Shadow and Act (Vintage, 1967)
Order out of Chaos: The Autobiographical Works of Maya Angelou (Virago, 1990)
Sexual Politics (Virago, 1977)
Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain (Virago, 1978)
Blueprint for Negro Writing + (1937)
The British Working Class Novel in the Twentieth Century (Hodder Arnold, 1984)
The Hostage (Methuen, 1958)
Child of the Divide * (Methuen Modern Plays)
Road (Methuen Modern Plays, 1986)
All plays * (some will be post 1990)
Why is John Lennon Wearing a Skirt? * (Methuen Modern Plays, 1996)
Dancing at Lughnasa * (Faber, 1990)
A Raisin in the Sun (Methuen Modern Plays, 1959)
Complete Plays * (Methuen Drama, 1998-2006)
Angels in America * (Nick Herne Books, 1992)
Beauty Queen of Leenane * (Methuen, 1996)
Three Dublin Plays: Juno and the Paycock + (1924), The Plough and the
Stars + (1926), Shadow of a Gunman + (1923) (Faber)
Death of a Salesman (Penguin, 1949)
Citizenship * (Methuen Modern Plays, 2006)
Shange Plays 1- (Includes For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the
Rainbow is Enough)
POETRY
Simon Armitage
W.H Auden
Gillian Clarke
Carol Ann Duffy
Allan Ginsberg
Langston Hughes
Jackie Kay
Liz Lockhead
Audre Lorde
Grace Nichols
Adrienne Rich
Lemn Sissay
Gertrude Stein
Alice Walker
Benjamin Zephaniah
Edited by Lemn Sissay
Agnes Meadows
Gillian Clarke
Alice Oswald
Grace Nichols
Carol Ann Duffy
Jackie Kay
Liz Lochhead
Lenin Sissay
TEXTS IN TRANSLATION
Novels
Isabel Allende
Alexandra Kollontai
Manuel Puig
Alexander Solzenichen
Poetry
Pablo Neruda
Drama
Bertolt Brecht
Federico Garcia Lorca
Dead Sea Poems * (Faber, 1995)
e.g ‘The Quarry’, ‘Funeral Blues’, ‘Refugee Blues’ + (1930s)
Letter From a Far Country (1985)
The Other Country * (Anvil, 1990)
Howl (City Lights Pocket Poet Series, 1956)
Collected Poems + (Vintage, 1930-1960)
Life Mask * (Bloodaxe Books, 2005)
Dreaming Frankenstein and Collected Poems (Polygon, 1984)
Any – (some will be post 1990)
The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (Virago, 1984)
The School Among the Ruins * (Norton, 2004)
Morning Breaks in the Elevator * (Payback Press, 1999)
Tender Buttons + (Dover, 1914)
Revolutionary Petunias and other Poems (Harcourt Brae Jovanovitch, 1970)
Too Black, Too Strong * (Bloodaxe Books, 2001)
The Fire People: A Collection of Contemporary Black British Poets * (Payback Press, 1998)
Woman (Waterways, 2003)
A Recipe for Water (Carcaret, 2009)
The Thing in the Gap Stone Stile (Faber, 1996)
I Have Crossed an Ocean (Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 2010)
Love Poems (Picador, 2010)
Darling (Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 2007)
The Colour of Black and White (Polyfon, 2003)
Rebel Without Applause (Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 1992
The House of the Spirits (Chile/Spanish) (Black Swan, 1985)
Love of Worker Bees + (USSR/Russian) (Virago, 1930)
Kiss of the Spider Woman (Argentina/Spanish) (Vintage, 1976)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (USSR/Russian) (Penguin, 1962)
Residence on Earth + (Chile/Spanish) (Souvenir Press, 1933)
Mother Courage and her Children + (German) (Methuen, 1940)
The House of Bernarda Alba + (1936), Yerma + (1934), Blood Wedding + (1933) (Spanish)
(Penguin)
Non fiction autobiography/diary/travelogue
Anne Frank
The Diary of a Young Girl (Dutch) (Penguin, 1947)
Che Guevara
The Motorcycle Diaries (Argentina/Spanish) (Harper Perennial, 1952)
Nawal al-Saadawi
Memoirs from the Women’s Prison (Egypt/Arabic) (1984)