English Literature, The Soliloquy: Revision Enrichment Day

This one-day event is designed for Year 12 students who are currently working towards their AS in English Literature. We hope to provide an environment, away from the normal school or college routine, that will allow students to think about literary forms in new ways which will, nonetheless, address the assessment criteria for the A-level curriculum. For this event, we have chosen the soliloquy: a complex literary form whose initial context (on a bare Renaissance stage) helps explain its curious conventions (someone speaking aloud about their state of mind), but which has then to be ‘repurposed’ by later adaptors of Shakespearean drama. We will use a lecture to describe some of the physical limitations of the Renaissance stage (addressing Assessment Objective 4), and then explore in a workshop environment what is so odd about the soliloquy in the context of modern dramatic conventions (AO2). Finally, we will have a two-part seminar where students can discuss what they have learned in a small-group context, with guidance from a seminar leader