Hi! I'm Jen, a literary expert, innovative educator and study content creator. If you're studying English Literature at school, this channel is where you can find top grade learning resources on Shakespeare, poetry, fiction and essay writing (with an emphasis on I/GCSE, A-Level and IB - but I promise you I can analyse ANY text!).
Since graduating with a 1st Class Degree in English from the University of Oxford, I've been teaching and writing about English Literature for as long as I can remember.
My literary analysis is always detailed, insightful and creative. I love reading between the lines, and literature offers us a wonderful opportunity to do just that. My goal is to inspire you to see the fun and beauty of analysing great writing - and of course, to get top grades while we're at it!
I'll be posting weekly videos aimed at helping you become a lit expert, so make sure to subscribe.
Check out my study guides here: www.hyperbolit.com/buy
Hello and i am grateful to this extravagant video on Macbeth and its interconnection with Ecocriticism.Can you please make a video on how to write a research paper and identify research gaps? Thank you ❤
omg, i subscribed to your channel the other day because your videos have been helping me with an assignment based on new criticism in my critical theory course. we started the chapter on structuralism today, and there was an entire section on Barthes! this is fate!!
Hi! Your poem analysis videos have greatly helped me in my University Exams. I want to request that you please explain David Hume's essay, 'On The Standard of Taste'. As a bilingual student, the essay is readable, but I find it hard to understand.
Ah, I did my BA dissertation essay last year, which explored three plays, this being one of them. Why couldn't this video exist while I was writing it?! 😄
There is great ambiguity in the poem as well. Is the narrator reminiscing on their decision with relief or regret? Is the narrator throwing caution at the reader or emboldening us? I believe the narrator is essentially imparting their wisdom to us in an impartial manner by saying: the paths we choose do not determine our future, rather it is the actions we make with those decisions that dictate our outcome. And that our paths naturally navigate the unknown, uncharted territories of our lives and we cannot predict the outcome. What is important is that we move forward with life in a decisive manner and do not stand still out of hesitation, fear or mere indecisiveness.
Hi Jen, just wanting to come and say thank you for how much help you have given me in all of my english lit mocks, and eventually the real exams the next coming year. I was just wondering if you were going to do a video on ‘remains’ for the power and conflict anthology, as i noticed that one was missing from the Power and Conflict playlist. A big thank you for all your help, i was able to get a 9 on my last mocks due to how great your hard work helped me!
Thanks for letting me know the videos have been helpful! Well done on the excellent effort - I will get round to doing the 'Remains' video at some point, yes...! Stay tuned - thanks again and keep up the hard work! xxx
That was absolutely brilliant - your analysis and argument. [She is my favourite poet.] I shall certainly sign-up for watching your other videos. The only sad thing, in my opinion, is that we HAVE to do this [especially with poetry and modern art] nowadays to show we have some sort of academic understanding of the work. We can't just say anymore I like this or I don't like this without justifying why; or, it moves me, it leaves me cold. The other thing is, 'art' really should stand alone - and in the old days did. We know all about artists' lives now and start to inject that into their writing or music or art. And we don't have to go back hundreds of years - just think, the moment Ariel [as an example] hit the bookselves back in 1965 the poems were read by people [including myself - I was 13] who knew nothing about Otto or Ted Hughes because that wasn't out there in the public domain yet. So one read the lines and absorbed the images with no way of alluding to how she was treated by her father or husband. Yet, that seems now to be a pre-requisite to understanding her meaning! But it shouldn't be. Now we are looking for meaning [or reading meaning into!] people like Roald Dahl, because we are finding out all these things about his private life, philosophy and politics and because we find them unpleasant then inject that into his words or want to cancel him - yet a few years ago [when we knew nothing about his private life] we called him the greatest children's writer ever!
Hi, I really enjoy your videos, can you add a video for the medieval time period, restoration, neo classical period! Along with major themes we see during the respected time periods. Thanks!
For me, it's the fact that Nick had always been alone be it romantically or platonically. He seemed to have been an only, we never heard anything of his mother (so she may've died early in Nick's life) or other, more immediate cousins (just aunts and uncles). Then WWI came about and, if you've heard of "All Quiet On The Western Front", it was RUTHLESS with the vets. There's also the fact that Nick was supposed to have had a roommate until something happened that led Nick to live alone with his Finnish maid (who he seemed to have had a hard time conversing with due to language barriers). His own dog even ran away! Mix all that along with that girl back in the West, that secretary with her over-protective brother along with Jordan and Gatsby, Nick's life was mess. A lonely mess.
Hi! Your poem analysis videos have greatly helped me in my University Exams. I want to request that you please explain David Hume's essay, 'On The Standard of Taste'. As a bilingual student, the essay is readable, but I find it hard to understand.
Hi jennnnn🎶🎶.I got my gcse results today and I got grade 9 in my eng lit papers 158 out of 160. Massively appreciate and enjoy all of yr videos, and I am planning to do a level English lit as welll, so I think we will continue our journey in searching for the splendidness of English literature❤❤❤❤❤❤
Amazing! Congrats on the excellent results, and thanks for letting me know that the videos have been helpful xxx Keep up the great effort as you start your A-Levels!
This is amazing as always, thank you!! I’m reading Mrs Dalloway as summer reading for my English degree I start in Sept; I’m really enjoying the rich imagery and stream of consciousness style, but boy is it hard to read 😳 I know its purposefully confusing to reflect the natural flow of the complex and nuanced thoughts of the characters but its taking so long to get through!
Yep that's stream-of-consciousness for you! I would say that most Modernist novels aren't meant to be 'understood' on first (or second/third, lol) read. So don't worry about it being confusing. Narratives like Dalloway are probably more of an experience for us to dip in and out of...
You gave so much context to the subject, that it really helped me understand how the different theories can be utilized for better comprehension. ❤😀👏 Thank you.
thank you so much for making these videos they helped me get my A* in English lit - it helped me understand how to analyse Shakespeare and come up with my own ideas
I love this! Jen, since you are literally (pun intended) my favourite literature youtuber can I please ask for middlemarch content! i’m reading it for uni, love it so far but i’d love to hear some of your takes on it
