About this day
For A-level students of the AQA A specification
This inspirational and enjoyable study day will provide comprehensive support for students preparing for the AQA A A-Level option ‘Love through the ages’. During the day, a series of outstanding speakers will enthuse, inform and entertain with a diverse and relevant range of talks on poetry, prose and drama. We are delighted to announce that the day will end with a presentation by former Poet Laureate Dame Carol Ann Duffy, who will read from and discuss her poetry before taking questions from the audience. The programme will give students vital information, expert insights and new-found confidence to enable them to achieve maximum examination success this year.
Programme & speakers
Poetry reading with Carol Ann Duffy Carol Ann Duffy DBE, Poet and Playwright
Dame Carol Ann Duffy reads from her collections of love poetry, including Rapture and Love Poems, offers an introduction to Feminine Gospels and takes questions from the audience.
About Dame Carol Ann Duffy DBE
Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a former Poet Laureate and Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is best known for writing love poems that often take the form of monologues, and her award-winning poetry collections include Mean Time, The World’s Wife, Rapture and The Bees. Her collection Feminine Gospels is a core set text on the A-level AQA A specification.
Tell me the truth about love: love poetry through the ages Luke McBratney, Author and former Principal Examiner
Drawing on examples from the sixteenth century to the present day, Luke McBratney examines some of the important styles and subgenres of love poetry including the sonnet and the song.
About Luke McBratney
Luke McBratney is an examiner, author, editor and trainer. A former Principal Examiner and specification writer for a major examining board, he is a member of the English Review editorial board and co-series editor of the Hodder Study and Revise guides to set texts for A-level English literature. He is co-author of a textbook for A-level English literature (OUP) and author of guides to love poetry, Skirrid Hill, New Selected Poems by Seamus Heaney and Translations (Hodder).
Love in Shakespeare Nick Hutchison, Actor, Director and Lecturer
Nick Hutchison explores how Shakespeare presents ideas about love and romance focusing on textual clues, staging issues and the role of the audience, using examples from set texts including Othello. (Image credit: Othello’s Lamentation/William Salter/Folger Shakespeare Library/CC-BY-SA-4.0)
About Nick Hutchison
Nick Hutchison is an actor, director and lecturer who has directed Shakespeare’s plays across the globe. He lectures for Shakespeare’s Globe, LAMDA, RADA and universities worldwide on Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre, specialising in theatre performance derived from close textual analysis. As an actor he has worked in film, TV, theatre and radio, including for the Royal Shakespeare Company and in films including About A Boy, Miss Potter, 102 Dalmatians, Fierce Creatures, The Bounty and Restoration.
An examiner's perspective Luke McBratney, Author and former Principal Examiner
Luke McBratney offers hints, tips and advice for making the most of revision and maximising your exam performance. This talk covers all three sections of the Love through the Ages exam and includes interactive exercises, such as commenting on strong and less strong examples of essay plans and excerpts from student answers.
About Luke McBratney
Luke McBratney is an examiner, author, editor and trainer. A former Principal Examiner and specification writer for a major examining board, he is a member of the English Review editorial board and co-series editor of the Hodder Study and Revise guides to set texts for A-level English literature. He is co-author of a textbook for A-level English literature (OUP) and author of guides to love poetry, Skirrid Hill, New Selected Poems by Seamus Heaney and Translations (Hodder).
Lessons in love: themes and issues in the novel Simon Avery, University of Westminster
Simon Avery will consider how the complexities of love are explored in the nineteenth and early twentieth century novel. The talk will discuss Jane Eyre, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Great Gatsby, and offer wider ideas for use with other set texts. (Image credit: Leo DiCaprio great gatsby raising glass gif/Raul Pacheco-Vega/Flickr/CC-BY-ND 2.0)
About Dr Simon Avery
Dr Simon Avery is Reader in nineteenth-century literature and culture at the University of Westminster, where he teaches courses on fiction and poetry from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His most recent publication is an anthology of queer love poetry from Sappho to the present, Hand in Hand With Love (2023).