The English Miscellany

While we may want to cherish Shakespeare's oratory and nobility, he was also the master-genius of the gross and shocking insult. In this blog will discover some of my favourite insults from the Bard. I find that children love to explore these types of offensive language. Whether the words makes sense of not to modern ear, its worth attending to the sonic quality of the language. And playing with these terms often helps to break down the stuffy, polite image of Shakespeare as the custodian of respectable values and the representative of a refined, civilised society. A List of Useful Descriptive Insult Words (Adjectives) Artless, Base-court, Bat-fowling, Bawdy, Beef-witted, Beetle-headed, Beslubbering, Boil-brained, Bootless, Churlish, Clapper-clawed, Clay-brained, Clouted, Cockered, Common-kissing, Craven, Crook-pated, Currish, Dankish, Dismal-dreaming, Dissembling, Dizzy-eyed, Dog-hearted, Dread-bolted, Droning, Earth-vexing, Elf-skinned, Errant, Fat-kidneyed, ...

Love ... and bitter insults ... in Shakespeare If you’ve already overdosed on the cheap sentimentality of St. Valentine’s Day, it’s worth recalling that the Great Bard of Love, William Shakespeare, often portrayed love in its most bitter-sweet terms.Typically, love is a kind of sickness, or madness, leading to death. Have you noticed how quickly romantic, unrequited love turns to death and decay ( eros and thanatos ) at the opening of his great comedy Twelfth Night ? If music be the food of love, play on;  Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,  The appetite may sicken, and so die.  That strain again! it had a dying fall:  O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,  That breathes upon a bank of violets,  Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:  'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.  O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,  That, notwithstanding thy capacity  Receiveth as the sea, nought enters the...

Robert Burns to Bob Dylan Sadly for tradition, it’s quite possible that we are celebrating Valentine's Day on the wrong date, however, due to precession of equinoxes and the use of   a Gregorian calendar since 1582. Alternatively, you might celebrate fertility, in the ancient Roman tradition of Lupercalia during 13-15th February. If you forget today, then go with the Eastern Orthodox Church, which offers both the 6th and 30th July. What's most delightful about Valentine's Day is that it is an opportunity for lovers to reach for their pens. This may not be great news for classic literature, but I think that we should celebrate the creative and the linguistic turn that is inspired by love. Romantic clichés are not in fact the invention of the modern commercial world:     The rose is red, the violet's blue,     The honey's sweet, and so are you.     Thou art my love and I am thane;     I drew thee to...

If you have been reading Valerie Martin's Property which is an optional exam set text in Britain for many 16+ A-level students, you will be familiar with the horrors of slavery, and the problems of voice, representation and point of view in black literature. I'm always surprised that so many teachers recoil from teaching texts that may be harrowing. After all, the postmodern ennui that pervades so much of contemporary society does far more harm by turning away from our violent heritage and the continuation of hatred, exploitation and abuse across all societies today. If you have not come across it, I'd also strongly recommend reading Langston Hughes' How to be a Bad Writer (In Ten Easy Lesson) 1. Use all the clichés possible, such as “He had a gleam in his eye,” or ‘Her teeth were white as pearls.” 2. If you are a Negro, try very hard to write with an eye dead on the white market – use modern stereotypes of older stereotypes – big burly Negroes, crim...

Everywhere humanity appears to be at war with itself. Yet we spend so much of our time with our mildly pained faces averted. Often we just don't know what to do. That's why creative writing really matters. It takes facts and documents them vividly. But writers also reconstruct life. By speaking out, writers re-invent the world in words. In doing this, they create new zones of possibility for liberation. Historically, the anti-slavery movement was very effective in using the printing press both to document and to imagine the life of a slave. For the critical reader these are often both historical works and timeless aesthetic creations. In most cases there will be limited perspectives and distortions of point of view. Voices stutter and stammer, and cover up, and style eloquently glosses, justifies and glorifies. Language offers enlightenment but also clouds judgments. There is much to be learned from reading a range of pro and anti-slavery texts. There are contradictio...

The Melancholy of the Abandoned Book? Reading is far more than just mouthing the words on the page. While there is a lot to be said for silence and solitude in reading, there's also a clear benefit from group discussion and collaborative exercises. For me reading is part of a continuum of activities which have been designed to be creative and engaging for the participants. For adults, as well as children, reading ideally involves creative and critical reflection. Reading harnesses a variety of brain functions, so we should cater for multiple learning styles in our approach to the activity. There is far more that can be done than the traditional closed-answer comprehension exercises. These are some of the activities that work well with readers and encourage them to be more actively engaged in storybooks: Explain what you liked or disliked about the book’s illustrations. Why not create your own illustrations, or devise a collage of cut-out images? What colours best r...

As a tutor I am often asked to help students who are having trouble with their recall of texts and quotations. But before I outline my 63 memory-recall tips, it is worth observing that many public speakers avoid trying to memorize speeches with word-perfect duplication of the original. Spontaneity and improvisation in speech making is far more natural and attractive than stressing-out over perfect recall. Momentary silences focus attention and create a sense of and sincerity, which may draw more applause than a speech that sounds arrogant and excessively confident. We want pathos not parrots. In fact, some audiences will be turned off by an artificially memorised speech that sounds like a robot in replay mode. LEARNING CLASSIC SPEECHES for RECITATION or PERFORMANCE But if you are learning a classic text , such as a speech from Shakespeare , you will need to aim for highly accurate recall, as the audience will spot errors, and mistakes may also ups...