Background Review

Hello Year 12

My turn to post a review here.

We've done a quick whizz through some history, particularly looking at:
1 - the relationship between Shakespeare's Early Modern English, and the Middle English and Old English that came before it
2 - the way that Classical (Latin, Greek, French, generally Southern European) influences began to affect English language and literature after the Norman invasion
3 - the origin of the iambic pentameter in Greek poetry and drama, and the way it replaced Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse
4 - the origin of poetic form - verse, metre, etc - in the oral tradition - stories and songs performed with harps or sung without instruments etc.
5 - the continuing importance of the oral tradition at the time of Shakespeare (before books and printing were commonly available), including the continuing use of verse for drama

You should be able to see how all these things give us a sense of the background to Shakespearean Tragedy. At the end, we touched briefly on the origins of tragedy in Greece, and I asked you for homework to do some initial research into Greek Tragedy. In the coming week, we'll talk about what you've found out, and try to build a picture of some of the main features of Greek Tragedy. We'll also start reading Hamlet. And all this should also be useful in the parallel work you're doing with Mr Boulter.

You'll probably already know that one of the most famous Greek tragedies is Oedipus Rex. You may be interested in the following YouTube film - Oedipus with Vegetables. Those of you who've seen Star Wars with Vegetables already will know that you're in for a treat:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NydKPClhYgM

Have a good weekend. I'll be reading your personal introductions this weekend.

Mr Snapper