Paper 1 Definition of Terms

well I don't actually have the definition of terms but I do have this fun game I found testing your knowledge:

GAME!

Click on it people, that's how links work...

Characteristics of the Sub Genre: Prose

Okay I'm pretty lazy right now and don't really wanna type so I'm doing this in point form. Structure and narration are huge things in prose so CAPE likes to ask a lot of questions on it. Even if they don't outwardly ask you to talk about it, you mention it as a technique the writer uses or something, so it ends up coming up anyway...so KNOW it.

Wuthering Heights:
Gothic

• Supernatural Elements (Cathy's ghost, superstition)
• Gloomy Setting (the moors were described as a "misanthropist's heaven" how much more depression do you want? architecture falls under this too)
• Strong, emotional (sometimes even a tad bit melodramatic) characters like Catherine and Heathcliff, i believe the word they like to use is passionate?
• Anti Heroes (and heroines!) this is a protagonist that doesn't exactly have any virtuous qualities about them like what typical heros have (Catherine was a selfish little brat and Heathcliff was a vengeful ass) 

Brown Girl, Brownstones:
Bildungsroman

• a bildungsroman is a coming of age novel (follows the protagonist from a child to an adult)
• revolves around the conflict the protagonist goes through when trying to find their identity.
• conflict can be family related or response to the wider society
• novel ends with the protagonist's assessment of themselves and their place in society

Introductions of Essays

A lot goes into the introduction of any essay; it is the entire basis and foundation of your essay so you have a lot riding on it. So make sure it's good. There are two main things you need to do when writing the introduction of any lit essay, you need to:

1. Provide the relevant context
   here you need to give a little background into the books you're doing. You need to state the name of the book and who wrote it. You may wanna talk about the setting and maybe the literary period the book was written in. Whatever you do here don't go too in depth, just give enough context for your essay to make sense. For example if you have to do a drama essay about women in society then you may just wanna mention how society treated women then. Was it a patriarchal society? Was feminism a thing? Don't go in depth here, that's what the body of the essay is for just mention enough to justify your answer or thesis.
2. Answer the question/state your thesis.
   well obviously this would be the other part. I like to put it at the end of the intro so it'll be justified. Here you answer the question they're asking you or give your opinion if it's an argumentative essay (try to always make it an arguementative essay - you get points for analysis). It's basically your essay in one sentence - the topic sentence.

  

Here's how my intros typically look; the green part is context and the yellow part is my thesis.                                                                  

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Remember we NEVER use examples  and start discussion in the intro. If you wanna be fancy you can use a relevant quote from some third party or maybe even the person themselves relating the question. Just don't start discussing here, you'll have plently of time for that in the body. 

Poems I Like for Les Murray

If I seriously find one other person who's not from my school (or who I've peer pressured) that's doing Murray I'll be so happy. Murray is a very cool chap but you never get any info on him because let's face it; he's not Hardy. Here are some Les poems that I think are especially worth studying.

• An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow
• The Quality of Sprawl
• The Mowed Hollow
• Inside Ayers Rock
• The Tin Wash Dish
• On Home Beaches
• Late Summer Fires

And hey, if you can figure out what the hell Bat's Ultrasound is about and you feel comfortable enough talking about it then go right ahead and do it because it's a great poem to talk about sound and his technique.  Yeah I know I just gave you a list and that's shitty but I like making lists and maybe later I'll talk more about the poems.

Btw, one of my favs by him is The Meaning of Existence but there's not as much to talk about when compared to the others, but feel free to use whatever poems you want, these are just the ones I feel comfortable enough talking about in terms of amount on content and actually understanding the content. 

Love and Desire in Twelfth Night

The theme of love is introduced in the first line of the play “If music be the food of love, play on” this establishes it as a central theme. All major characters in the play experience some kind of love or desire for someone, whether it’s true love or not is something to be debated but still... There are many kinds of love in Illyria; we have romantic love, unrequited love, master/servant love and sibling love.

Love’s a funny thing here though; it’s always changing and doesn't seem to be very stable... In the beginning Orsino claims to love Olivia but as we see he doesn't really know her that doesn't stop him from showering her in bad poetry though, as soon as Viola reveals she’s a woman though he forgets all about Olivia and jumps ship and marries her.

 His melodrama is only matched by Olivia’s mourning. She claims to be so frickin sad and vows to wear a veil for 7 years but the first sexy guy to come round (Cesario/Viola) she starts throwing herself on. This seems a bit extreme doesn't it? Shakespeare seems to be making fun of the upper class here; who are more into the idea of something (like love) that they actually love someone....I mean Orsino had his little page boys go and court Olivia instead of going although he was so in love with her while Feste is the sane one who's in the background making fun of both of them.  And I mean we all know someone like that (hell we may even be someone like that ourselves) who sees a nice girl in a Mario’s line somewhere and starts writing bad poems about how her hair smells so good and he’s so in love without even knowing her name. We can't exactly call that undying love now can we?

Now let’s talk about Sebastian and Antonio; it’s pretty debated but I think it’s safe to assume that Antonio had a thing for him. And I mean it makes sense right? He saved him and took care of him and was willing to following him although he’s a wanted man in Illyria. I think there’s more of a chance of that being true love than Malvolio who just wanted Olivia’s status or Orsino who just thought they'd look super cute together. But what happened to Antonio in the end? Did he end up with Sebastian? Of course not, this was The Elizabethan era and homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness up to the 90s. The 1990s. So when everyone one else was getting married to people they basically met two hours ago poor Antonio was in jail. 

Viola and Orsino's relationship summed up 

By the end of the play people just seem t be pairing up at random with whoever; the first time Sebastian met Olivia he married her, and I mean sure she thought he was his sister but I mean still... he went along with it. "Hey this sexy rich lady wants to marry me, why not?" When Olivia found this out she didn't even have a problem, hey they must be the same person anyway...
On the other side of the spectrum we have the lower class people like Maria and Sir Toby who instead of flowery poetry have double entendres all about sexy sex stuff. Hey, at least they liked each other.
Shakes further satirizes romantic love by showing us how sibling love (Viola and Sebastian) and master/servant love (Maria and Olivia) is more constant than anything else. 

It's safe to say that there was a little exploration of homosexuality as we saw obviously with Sebastian and Antonio but also with Orsino and Viola (hey, he thought she was a guy and there were hints) and with Olivia and Viola (she was turned on by "Cesario's" feminine-ness) more about that later though.
Anyway feel free to tell me what you think about this theme and why you disagree or agree or add in something you think is important :)