Many schools approach the Preliminary English Extension course in the same way: first, they select a “classic” text (anything from The Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer’s Odyssey to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen or a play by Shakespeare); then they introduce students to the idea of “appropriation” or “adaptation” by exploring texts that are based on or inspired by the classic or core text.
For example, my old school used Homer’s Odyssey as the core text and then everything from Virgil’s Aeneid (essentially the first fanfiction) to Margaret Atwood’s feminist Penelopiad and the Cohen Brother’s delightful film, O Brother Where Art Thou? to explore how context and values influence a text.
In the final term of the course, the students are faced with the daunting Term 3 Project, in which they must select their own “classic” (pre-WWII) text and at least two appropriations, to study. They also have to journal their responses to the texts and create their own appropriation, reflecting selected values within a given context.
The first, and most difficult, step is choosing the core text. Here are some suggestions, followed by an deeper analysis of one pair of texts.
Fairytales, think Little Red Riding Hood or Cinderella. They’re easily analysed (most are explicit about their core value in the moral at the end) and have been frequently appropriated.
Shakespeare plays, think The Taming of the Shrew or Romeo and Juliet. The analysis might be a little more difficult but there’s a fair amount of scholarly writing around them already.
Arthurian Legend, think the Marriage of Gawain and Dame Ragnelle or Tristan and Isolde. These are fun and the appropriations range from retellings for children to ribald parodies.
Greek or Roman Myth, think Icarus or Oedipus. These have strong messages and have inspired lots of clever retellings, from operas to comic books.
If you’re not familiar with any of these genres, another approach might be to take a text you already like (your favourite novel, comic book, or film) and then find out if it was inspired by a classic text.
I recently read The Hunger Games and its sequel Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. The post apocalyptic society of the novel requires each District to sacrifice two young people each year to the Hunger Games, a brutal ritual somewhere between the gladiatorial games of Ancient Rome and a reality TV show.
The sending of two young people each year to be sacrificed in an arena struck a chord with me when I first picked up the novel but my growing sense of something familiar was overwhelmed by the constant allusions to Rome. The city that rules the Districts is called the Capitol. The heroine, Katniss has a team of stylists: Cinna, Flavia, Venia and Octavia, all named after prominent Romans.
But then, just as Katniss and Peeta were boarding the train for the Games, I remembered why the scene and the idea was so familiar: Theseus. In the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, each year the city state of Athens is required to send seven young men and seven young women to the island of Minos to be sacrificed to the Minotaur as punishment for the death of a Minoan prince years before. Similarly, in The Hunger Games, the Capitol uses the games to punish the Districts for their former rebellion.
The challenge when selecting texts for the project is not to be tied down by a text type or genre. A good second appropriation for a project which centred on the myth of Theseus and then branched onto The Hunger Games could be anything from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream–where Theseus is the Duke of Athens–to the video game God of War–where, according to my husband, Kratos rips off the Minotaur’s head and wears it as a jaunty hat. The texts themselves can be just about anything, it is the focus on the context and values that influenced the creation and reception of each text.
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