Wednesday, 28 May 2008

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Amy Winehouse lyrics used in university exam

Singer's music compared to the poetry of Sir Walter Raleigh

Amy Winehouse was included in a Cambridge University exam paper last Thursday

Education bodies have criticised the University Of Cambridge for including lyrics from an Amy Winehouse song in an exam paper.

English students had to compare an extract from the poem As You Came From The Holy Land, written by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1592, to Love Is A Losing Game and assess what makes them lyrical.

'It was really bizarre,' says one student who took the exam.

'I wouldn't consider a controversial pop singer a literary figure.'

But a university spokesman defended the move.

'The idea is to assess students' abilities at dealing with unseen writings from across the field of English literature,' he tells the Daily Mail.

'As for choosing Amy Winehouse, why not? Cambridge dons live in the modern world and can appreciate talent from a myriad of different fields just like anyone else.'