English A Level Spring 2024 Sessions:

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• Session 1: Unit 3 Poetry- Section A
• Session 2: Unit 3 Poetry- Section B
• Session 3: Unit 4 Shakespeare- Section A
• Session 4: Unit 4 Shakespeare- Section B

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Unit 4: The examination paper

A Level English Literature

Section A- 45 mins Extract

Section B- 1 hour 15 mins Essay

Shakespeare

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Unit 4 Revision

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Section B

Session Outline:

Section B Overview

Examiner commentary

Terms required

Example answer

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Examiner Commentary:

• Although this is a closed-book paper, candidates generally selected pertinent material from the plays and there was slightly less of the narrative, descriptive type of approach which sometimes characterises weaker responses.
• It was rewarding to see a more varied range of relevant contextual material and critical sources.
• Examiners were impressed with candidates’ ability to quote freely from their Shakespeare play, and also their ability on occasion to quote precisely from critical sources.
• However, there are still too many instances of responses where examiners have to search in vain for evidence of engagement with AO3 in Section B, and also for evidence of AO5.
• As AO3 is heavily weighted in Section B, worth 30 marks in total, it is vital that all candidates prepare for ways in which to address this key assessment objective.

Examiner Commentary:

WJEC are quite concerned about the quality of written expression at this level.

Candidates who write very long, one sentence paragraphs risk losing their focus and intelligibility, and this trend appeared to be more prominent this year.

There is also a trend away from an academic style and register towards the vernacular, which needs to be corrected.

In addition, many responses to the Shakespeare extract featured writing out large chunks of the extract for textual support, instead of brief quotations, and consequently there was a paucity of discussion or comment.

Too many candidate scripts featured page after page of random comments with no structure or shaping as if their primary goal was to fill the answer booklet. Examiners are not impressed by quantity, but by quality.

�Alliteration��

The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words.

Example: "Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood." Hopkins, "In the Valley of the Elwy."

�Parody��

A humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often playful and even respectful in its playful imitation.

��Foreshadowing���

Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story.

�Comic relief��

The use of a comic scene to interrupt a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments. The comedy of scenes offering comic relief typically parallels the tragic action that the scenes interrupt.

Comic relief is lacking in Greek tragedy, but occurs regularly in Shakespeare's tragedies.

�Climax��

The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. The climax represents the point of greatest tension in the work.

�Conflict��

A struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, usually resolved by the end of the work. The conflict may occur within a character as well as between characters.

�Metonymy��

A figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or idea.

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An example: "We have always remained loyal to the crown."

�Denotation��

The dictionary meaning of a word. Writers typically play off a word's denotative meaning against its connotations, or suggested and implied associational implications.

�Exposition��

The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided.

�Connotation��

The associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning. Poets, especially, tend to use words rich in connotation.

�Satire��

A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies.

�Stage direction��

A playwright's descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (and actors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play.

�Subplot��

A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story that coexists with the main plot.

�Setting��

The time and place of a literary work that establish its context.

�Assonance��

The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in "I rose and told him of my woe."

�Figurative language��

A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words.

Examples include hyperbole or exaggeration, litotes or understatement, simile and metaphor, which employ comparison, and synecdoche and metonymy, in which a part of a thing stands for the whole.

�Tone��

The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work.

�Irony��

A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature.

In verbal irony, characters say the opposite of what they mean. In irony of circumstance or situation, the opposite of what is expected occurs.

In dramatic irony, a character speaks in ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience or to the other characters.

�Characterization��

The means by which writers present and reveal character. Although techniques of characterization are complex, writers typically reveal characters through their speech, dress, manner, and actions.

�Antagonist��

A character or force against which another character struggles.

�Protagonist��

The main character of a literary work-

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-Hamlet and Othello in the plays named after them

�Tragic flaw��

A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero.

�Tragic hero��

A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and fate, suffers a fall from glory into suffering.

�Foil��

A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story.

�Catharsis ��

The purging of the feelings of pity and fear that occur in the audience of tragic drama.

The audience experiences catharsis at the end of the play, following the catastrophe.

�Catastrophe��

The action at the end of a tragedy that initiates the denouement or falling action of a play.

One example is the duelling scene in Act V of Hamlet in which Hamlet dies, along with Laertes, King Claudius, and Queen Gertrude.

�Symbol��

An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself.

�Theme��

The idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization.

�Tragedy��

A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the worse. In tragedy, catastrophe and suffering await many of the characters, especially the hero.

�Comedy��

A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the better. In comedy, things work out happily in the end. Comic drama may be either romantic--characterized by a tone of tolerance and geniality--or satiric.

Satiric works offer a darker vision of human nature, one that ridicules human folly.

�Pathos��

A quality of a play's action that stimulates the audience to feel pity for a character. Pathos is always an aspect of tragedy, and may be present in comedy as well.

�Convention��

A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy.

Literary conventions are defining features of particular literary genres, such as novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play.

�Aside��

Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play.

�Soliloquy��

A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, the soliloquy represents the character thinking aloud.

�Hyperbole��

A figure of speech involving exaggeration.

�Diction��

The selection of words in a literary work.

A work's diction forms one of its centrally important literary elements, as writers use words to convey action, reveal character, imply attitudes, identify themes, and suggest values.

�Dialogue��

The conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction, dialogue is typically enclosed within quotation marks. In plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names.

�Staging��

The spectacle a play presents in performance, including the position of actors on stage, the scenic background, the props and costumes, and the lighting and sound effects.

��Stage directions generally tell the reader what the audience would be seeing on stage in terms of setting, staging, entrances and exits. Shakespeare’s stage directions are also important in helping to communicate to the audience character, action, situation and atmosphere.��In comparison with a dramatist like Tennessee Williams, who wrote detailed and very specific stage directions, Shakespeare’s stage directions are understandably brief, as the stage had limited resources in Shakespeare’s time. Stage directions signal the use of some props as well as signalling characters’ behaviour. ��Characters may also draw the audience’s attention to an important prop used by Shakespeare to create dramatic tension. Shakespeare relies a great deal on language in characters’ monologues and dialogues to convey to the audience any stage effects or setting. Characters often refer to the surroundings, such as time of day or weather conditions to help the audience imagine the situation and circumstances presented before them.

�Stage Directions��

ACT 1 SCENE I. Elsinore. The guard-platform of the Castle.�FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO.

Shakespeare opens the play here with stage directions showing sentries on guard on a platform at the Castle. Immediately an atmosphere of unease is created by the staging and setting as the audience at this point have no understanding of the reason behind the guarding of the Castle.

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Let’s look at the dialogue

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BERNARDO : Who's there?

FRANCISCO : Nay, answer me. Stand, and unfold yourself.

BERNARDO: Long live the king!

FRANCISCO: Bernardo?

BERNARDO: He.

FRANCISCO: You come most carefully upon your hour.

BERNARDO: Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO: For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.

BERNARDO: Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO: Not a mouse stirring.

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BERNARDO: Well, good night.�If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,�The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

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Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

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FRANCISCO: I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?

HORATIO: Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS: And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO: Give you good night.

MARCELLUS: O, farewell, honest soldier!

Who hath reliev’d you?

FRANCISCO: Bernardo hath my place.�Give you good night.

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[Exit.]

MARCELLUS: Holla, Bernardo!

BERNARDO: Say- What, is Horatio there?

HORATIO:A piece of him.

BERNARDO:Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.

HORATIO:What, has this thing appear’d again tonight?

Example Response

Mark Scheme

Mark Scheme

Mark Scheme

Mark Scheme

Task: Take a look at the following example answer to Lear. Have a think about the evidence that is being used- what textual support is there?��What could you do to improve the answer?��Re-write a section with closer analysis of language.

Good Luck in your external examinations