English Literature
Your Guide to AS and A-level English Literature at Astor College
This website has been designed to help all students that are studying Literature at an advanced level at Astor College.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Paradise Lost
by John Milton
in 1966 Julia Kristeva coined the term 'Intertextuality'. It means that every peice of literature is not truly original. It is built upon other texts that help shape and influence it. This means that other stories are alluded to in every text. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was influenced by a number of texts and people; without these influences the novel would not be as deep and well loved.
Paradise Lost was written by John Milton and was first published in 1667. It is an epic poem that has over 10,000 lines.
The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was written in 1797-98 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The poem tells the story of a sailor who begins to tell wedding guests a tale about how he became cursed because he killed an albatross. It was considered terrible luck to kill this bird and he is forced to suffer forever because of it.
There is two versions of the Proetheus myth. One is Ancient Greek and the other is Latin.
In both stories Prometheus is invovled with humaity and pays a price. In one version he creates humans from earth; in the other he steals fire (knowledge) from the Gods and is cursed forever.
The bible is a religous text that tells the stories of the Old and New Testament. It was written by a number of authors from around the 2nd Century BC.
Mary Shelley references the Bible by discussing the temptation of Adam and Eve to have knowledge (like Victor) and the banishment of Satan (like the Creature).
The Myth of Prometheus
The Bible: Old Testament