AQA AS ENGLISH LITERATURE 7711/1 PAPER 1 LOVE THROUGH THE AGES WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND POETRY VERSION 1.0 FINAL QUESTION PAPERS & MERGED MARKING SCHEME | JUNE 2023

Othello – William Shakespeare Read the extract from Othello, provided below, and respond to the following: • How does Shakespeare present aspects of love in this extract? • Examine the view that, in this extract and elsewhere in the play, Shakespeare presents Iago as a character whose intelligence makes us like him rather than condemn him. [25 marks] IAGO Come on, come on: you are pictures out of doors, bells in your parlours, wild-cats in your kitchens, saints in your injuries, devils being offended, players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds. DESDEMONA O, fie upon thee, slanderer! IAGO Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk: You rise to play and go to bed to work. EMILIA You shall not write my praise. IAGO No, let me not. DESDEMONA What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst praise me? IAGO O, gentle lady, do not put me to’t, For I am nothing if not critical. DESDEMONA Come on, assay. There’s one gone to the harbour? IAGO Ay, madam. DESDEMONA (aside) I am not merry, but I do beguile The thing I am by seeming otherwise. Come, how wouldst thou praise me? IAGO I am about it, but indeed my invention Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze – It plucks out brains and all. But my muse labours, And thus she is delivered. If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit, The one’s for use, the other useth it. DESDEMONA Well praised! How if she be black and witty?