Get pupils hooked on history with Game of Thrones – just don’t start too young
‘The idea of using popular fantasy could be really valuable in awakening children’s interest’
IT HAS captured the imagination with its graphic violence, explicit sex scenes and cut-throat power struggles. And the popularity of Game of Thrones could have one important side-effect: finally making medieval history cool.
The popularity of the fantasy drama should be harnessed to fill a gap in young people’s knowledge of hundreds of years of English history, according to an Oxford tutor.
Dr Carolyne Larrington, who teaches medieval English literature at the University of Oxford, said using a modern reimagining of medieval war would be “really valuable” in “awakening” an interest in the real thing. She has published a book detailing the similarities between characters and events in Game
of Thrones and real English and French monarchs, wars and societies.
Speaking at the Chalke Valley History Festival, Dr Larrington said she had been “amazed” at how many people had become interested in medieval languages through works such as those of JRR Tolkien and Beowulf, saying George RR Martin’s modern fantasies could be the next step.
“The idea of using popular fantasy, using medievalism as many scholars call this modern reimagining of the world, could be really valuable in awakening children’s interest in this kind of thing,” she told the audience. In reference to the graphic sex and violence of
Game of Thrones, she did, however, caution: “I guess it depends on the age of your schoolchildren. I’m not sure that you’d be wanting to show them some of the scenes in Game of Thrones, necessarily.” The book ‘Winter Is Coming: the Medieval World of Game of Thrones’ is out now
WRITERS should not force moral messages down children’s throats in their books because it could stop them thinking for themselves, according to Michael Morpurgo, the former children’s laureate.
He said there was already too much “propaganda” in the world for it to be in children’s books too. The author said any message must come to children naturally after they had enjoyed the story.