Saturday, 11 August 2018

Poets of the 1930s: what inspired them?

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The 1930s saw an explosion of poetic activity in Great Britain , with poets such as W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Louis MacNeice and...
Tuesday, 26 June 2018

There Was An Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe: what does it mean?

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There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, She had so many children she didn’t know what to do; So she gave them some broth with...
Monday, 7 May 2018

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: a play by Tom Stoppard

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Tom Stoppard took the title of his 1966 play from a line towards the end of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. All the main characters are dead, w...
Tuesday, 3 April 2018

Winnie-the-Pooh was Canadian

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Winnie-the-Pooh is one of the best loved characters in children’s literature of all time. The writer A A Milne (1882-1956) wrote a s...
Thursday, 22 March 2018

Sing a Song of Sixpence: a traditional nursery rhyme

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Sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of rye Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie When the pie was opened the birds began to sing ...
Wednesday, 21 March 2018

Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson

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“The Full History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia”, which is usually abbreviated to “Rasselas”, was the only novel written by Dr Samu...

Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been? A traditional nursery rhyme

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Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been? I’ve been to London to look at the Queen. Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there? I fr...