As promised, our latest Reading Guide for Terminale LLCER, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, is at the printers and will be available in the middle of November. The six novels Jane Austen published between 1811 and 1817 (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma and the posthumously published Persuasion and Northanger Abbey) have never … Continue reading “New Reading Guide: Pride and Prejudice”
Although he was one of the most cosmopolitan American authors, Paul Auster will forever remain indelibly linked with New York and specifically Brooklyn. The author of Moon Palace, The New York Trilogy and films such as Smoke, died there on 30 April at the age of 77 from lung cancer which had been diagnosed in … Continue reading “Brooklyn Mourns Paul Auster”
There are a few changes in the LLCER Terminale set texts list for 2024-2026 and we’re wondering which of the new works you’re planning to work on, so we can plan our publishing schedule for associated Reading Guides. Which is your priority between Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Jane Campion’s … Continue reading “LLCER: Your Choice of New Works for Terminale 2025?”
British choreographer Matthew Bourne and his company New Adventures pride themselves in finding new ways of “telling stories without words”. In Romeo and Juliet, Bourne has taken one of the best-known words in the English language and transformed the familiar story in a reinvention which plays on the dystopian elements of the original script. Bourne … Continue reading “Romeo and Juliet Without Words”
Siegfried Sassoon was one of the most famous of the British World War I poets but unlike Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke or Edward Thomas, Sassoon survived the war he had despised while serving brilliantly. Terence Davies’ final film traces both the war service and the long life looking for meaning which followed, with Jack Lowden … Continue reading “Benediction: Siegfried Sassoon Biopic”
If you are studying the 1961 film of West Side Story with your LLCER 1ère students, our Reading Guide will help them analyse key scenes, explore the background and inspiration to the work, and different iterations of this story of star-crossed lovers. West Side Story is a 20th century retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet set … Continue reading “Our West Side Story Reading Guide Has Arrived”
Chita Rivera, a Broadway icon, has died age 91. Her first major role was originating the character of Anita in the original stage production of West Side Story in 1957. She was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in Washington, D.C., in 1993 to a Puerto Rican father and a mother with Scottish-Irish origins. (Not … Continue reading “West Side Story Legend Dies”
Netflix has released its own version of Poe’s famous Fall of the House of Usher in which gothic becomes horror in a modern-world setting with a whirlwind of characters and action. This is a perfect occasion for LLCER students to not only work on the short story itself but also compare it to the mini-series and … Continue reading “The Fall of the House of Usher TV Series”
Poor Things, adapted into an award-winning film from the novel by Alasdair Gray, imagines a female Frankenstein’s monster who is fundamentally human, and her creator, who much like Dr Frankenstein, is perhaps more monstrous himself. Yorgos Lanthimos’s previous films such as The Lobster and The Favourite were far from mainstream, even if The Favourite won … Continue reading “Poor Things: Frankenstein Revisited”
The West Side Story production that has just finished in Paris will be touring to Bordeaux, Lyons, Rouen and Nantes in February and March. A full stage production, it is in English with French surtitles. The musical comedy by Bernstein, Sondheim and Robbins is a reworking of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with the Capulets and … Continue reading “West Side Story on Tour Around France”
