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Did you do A-Level English Literature?

349 replies

BrilliantineMortality · 20/04/2015 10:57

When did you study it?
Can you remember what books you read?

For me, I did it between 1993-95. Can't believe I sat my exams 20 years ago Shock. I found some of my set texts recently which jogged my memory as to the other books I studied:

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Have the men had enough - Margaret Forster
Oranges are not the only fruit - Jeanette Winterson
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan
The man who mistook his wife for a hat - Oliver Sacks (non-fiction component to the course)
King Lear
The Merchant of Venice
Ted Hughes' animal poems
John Keats' poems
The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
The Revenger's Tragedy - Tourneur/Middleton (A Jacobean play)

The thing that immediately strikes me is that the novels were all relatively contemporary with a (mostly) feminist slant. Probably because both my teachers were female and in their late twenties/early thirties, so these were probably the books that they had read in the preceding decade or so.

Only the John Keats' poetry from the 19th Century, which is pretty shocking, come to think of it now. Everything was either late 20th Century or much, much earlier. I loved doing my English Lit A Level, but reading this list back I can see that it didn't do me many favours when it came to study it for my degree.

OP posts:
Skeppers · 20/04/2015 11:38

OMG- I did mine from 1995-1997 and I can only remember a couple:

Milton- Samson Agonistes
Collection of John Donne poetry
Sure we did a bit of the Canterbury Tales too.
Hamlet (I distinctly remember doing my Frank Butcher impression during the class reading: "Now might I do it, pat...")
In the second year also had a unit where we could have free choice of a text to write an essay about; I did mine on the use and impact of dialect in 'Trainspotting' because I was a teenager and the film had just come out and I wanted an excuse to use lots of swearing in an academic essay...I did get an A* for it though!
Pretty sure we did 'The Handmaids Tale' too, but that may have been GCSE. I definitely remember reading it at school.
'The Great Gatsby' which I love, love, loved and still love to this day. It makes me cry like a baby at the end.
There must have been another novel in there, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was so it must have been riveting...maybe 'Heart of Darkness'? Or 'Lord of the Flies'? I'm fairly sure it was something quite dismal like that. Although again, I'm sure that LOTF is more GCSE fare.

I can remember more accurately what I studied for my English Lit degree (every hellish text) unfortunately- apart from 'The Silence of the Lambs' which I REALLY enjoyed picking to pieces. Fantastically clever bit of writing.

Whitershadeofpale · 20/04/2015 11:45

I think we did Much Ado About Nothing in my AS year too. I thought it was GCSE but looking back that was The Merchant of Venice.

elQuintoConyo · 20/04/2015 11:50

Ooh, I studied 1992-4:

Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (with a VERY enthusiastic teacher who got us all reading aloud with correct pronunciation! Great stuff).
King Lear
another Shakey, don't remember which Blush
A Room With a View
A Streetcar Named Desire
WW2 poets (Own and Sassoon featured heavily)
Wordsworth and Coleridge (with The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, can't for the life of me remembr the name of the collection... it's on the tip of my brain... oh buggery!).

Yeah... total brain fart, I don't remember any more Blush

I also did English Literature at university, so it seems to blend into one.

elQuintoConyo · 20/04/2015 11:51

Lyrical Ballads

I'm such a cheese!

TheOldestCat · 20/04/2015 11:55

1992-94

We did:
King Lear, Persuasion, The Nun's Priest's Tale, Waiting for Godot, Seamus Heaney - North, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Paradise Lost book IV.

Loved it!

fustybritches · 20/04/2015 11:56

Oh this is tricky!

Much Ado
Utopia
Brave New World
Macbeth

I'm sure there must be more ...

LastNightADJSavedMyLife · 20/04/2015 11:57

Seamus Heaney
Handmaid's Tale - Pen is envy Grin
Northanger Abbey
Othello
Merchant of Venice
Wife of Bath and Canterbury Tales Prologue
Waiting for Godot

That was mid 90's

magimedi · 20/04/2015 12:00

Mid 1970's (!!! - eeek).

King Lear

TS Eliot

A E Housman

Seigfried Sassoon - I think it was Memoirs of an Infantry man

Vilette - Charlotte Bronte

Chaucer (can't remember what).

Paradise Lost

AGirlCalledBoB · 20/04/2015 12:00

I did A-level English Lit 5 years ago.

The texts were:
Great Gatsby
The Duchess of Malfi
Othello
The Bloody Chamber
Oranges are not the Only Fruit
The History Boys
Frankenstein
And then a load of poetry, the ones I can remember are Wilfred Owen, Robert Browning. The rest are just erased

mollyonthemove · 20/04/2015 12:01

I dit in 1982 Grin. we studied:

King Lear
Twelfth Night
Ariel -sylvia Plath
The Wife of Bath
Gullivers Travels.

Blimey that was 33 years ago

mollyonthemove · 20/04/2015 12:02

Oh and Paradise Lost!

claraschu · 20/04/2015 12:04

My sons both did (are doing) an English A level and they read MUCH less than some of you for their course.

mrsdavidbowie · 20/04/2015 12:04

1978 here
Great expectations, Wife of bath, Keats, John Donne, merchant of Venice, Tempest.
I read avidly still but nothing pre 1940.
Can't stand Austen, Brontes, anything "traditional".

iHAVEtogetoutofhere · 20/04/2015 12:06

Yes.
Mid 1980's (old gimmer).
Shakespeare was Hamlet and As You Like It (with an awful teacher who pronounced Jacques as Jay-queeeeeeeeeeeeees) Shock
Poetry was Keats, Byron, Tennyson, Arnold.
also remember The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies... (very modern in comparison).

JeanneDeMontbaston · 20/04/2015 12:07
  • Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale (thanks Mrs Young, turned me into a medievalist)
  • Duchess of Malfi
  • godawful Snow Falling on Cedars
  • some war poetry (dim memories of this)
  • The Glass Menagerie (shit)
  • Antony and Cleopatra
  • Oranges are not the Only Fruit and The Colour Purple (lovely).
SabrinnaOfDystopia · 20/04/2015 12:09

I did it 87-89.

Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale
Much Ado About Nothing
Dr Faustus
Mansfield Park
The Go Between

Seem to remember some Keats, Sonnets and the Metaphysical Poets in there somewhere too!

Takver · 20/04/2015 12:09

1986-1988, so same time as WordFactory. We did

Metaphysical poets, mainly John Donne
Ben Jonson - Volpone
Christopher Marlowe - Dr Faustus
Othello
Joseph Conrad - Nostromo
Milton - Comus
Chaucer - Nun's Priests' tale

I think that's it. I like the selection in that they were things I'd never have read otherwise, I enjoyed all of them apart from Nostromo and the Chaucer.

BrilliantineMortality · 20/04/2015 12:10

Wow, so many responses already! I'm now not sure whether The Bell Jar was for my English degree or not.

ElectricalBanana - your OU course sounds fascinating. What books are you reading for that?

I find it really interesting that so many early novels have morphed into children's stories (I'm thinking Gulliver's Travel's and Robinson Crusoe in particular). I'd love to study Children's Literature, but doubt whether I'll have time for the foreseeable future.

OP posts:
Takver · 20/04/2015 12:12

I notice no-one else had to study bloody Joseph Conrad!

Thurlow · 20/04/2015 12:13

Did mine in 1998. Handmaid's Tale was clearly very popular at that point, we did it too!

Sylvia Plath's poetry (again she seems popular), which the boy's didn't seem to enjoy too much but I think is exactly the right thing to show a load of 18 year old girls. I read all her biographies and fell hugely in love with Ted Hughes Blush

Ford Madox Ford's Good Soldier, which has remained one of my most loved books - vastly underread, sadly, but possibly the most perfect novel written in the English language.

Sons and fucking Lovers. Hated it.

Playboy of the Western World, rubbish.

I think we did Midsummer Night's Dream but somehow we only managed to do the comedies and no tragedies, so they've all blurred into one.

Chaucer's Franklin's Tale.

There must have been more because there were 11 set texts but I can't remember the rest. Apart from Pinter's The Homecoming. Which we studied in a week. A week Hmm We only did coursework and exams on 10 of the 11 texts and I think we must have been running behind because all of a sudden we had Pinter thrown at us, vaguely taught, and then rushed on to something else. They must have assumed we'd all drop that book. It remains one of the worst things I've ever read!

JeanneDeMontbaston · 20/04/2015 12:13

Oh ... and I can't in good conscience exclude Sex and the City.

We spent as much time deconstructing that as the rest! Grin

LittleIda · 20/04/2015 12:13

87 - 89.

Coriolanus
Much Ado about Nothing
Mansfield Park
The Go Between
The Metaphysical Poets

That's all I can remember.

CleanHankie · 20/04/2015 12:14

1994-1996

Poetry was Sylvia Plath
Shakespeare was King Lear and Midsummers Night Dream
Heart of Darkness
Beloved - Toni Morrison

We must have done more but these are the only ones I recall. We swapped a very Leary male teacher for a much nicer smiley female one in the second year but I only recall studying King Lear with her.

Beloved is the only book I was grateful for having studied. Showed be a depth to books I'd not seen before. Still mark it as one of my favourite reads.

LittleIda · 20/04/2015 12:15

I think we did Dr Faustus for O level rather than A Level. I could be wrong

PelvicFloorClenchReminder · 20/04/2015 12:17

Mine was 1988/89

The Wife of Bath
Richard II
The Color Purple
A Passage to India
Schindler's Ark
Selected T S Eliot

I think that's all! Would love to do it again

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