A-level
ENGLISH LITERATURE B
Paper 1B Literary genres: Aspects of comedy
Wednesday 14 May 2025 Afternoon Time allowed: 2 hours 30 minutes
7717/1B
, 2
Section A
Answer one question in this section.
Either
0 1 The Taming of the Shrew – William Shakespeare
Read the extract below and then answer the question.
Explore the significance of this extract in relation to the comedy of the play as a whole.
Remember to include in your answer relevant analysis of Shakespeare’s dramatic
methods.
[25 marks]
Enter Lucentio and his man Tranio
LUCENTIO
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy,
And by my father’s love and leave am armed
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renownèd for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincentio come of the Bentivolii.
Vincentio’s son, brought up in Florence,
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study
Virtue, and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind, for I have Pisa left.
And am to Padua come as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.
TRANIO
Mi perdonato, gentle master mine.
I am in all affected as yourself,
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray,
Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,
IB/G/Jun25/7717/1B
, 3
And practise rhetoric in your common talk,
Music and poesy use to quicken you,
The mathematics and the metaphysics
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en.
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
LUCENTIO
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
Enter Baptista with his two daughters Katherina and
Bianca; Gremio, a pantaloon, and Hortensio, suitor
to Bianca. Lucentio and Tranio stand by
But stay awhile, what company is this?
TRANIO
Master, some show to welcome us to town.
BAPTISTA
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolved you know;
That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder.
If either of you both love Katherina,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.
GREMIO
To cart her rather. She’s too rough for me.
There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?
KATHERINA (to Baptista)
I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?
HORTENSIO
Mates, maid, how mean you that? No mates for you
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.
KATHERINA
I’faith, sir, you shall never need to fear.
Iwis it is not halfway to her heart.
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legged stool,
And paint your face, and use you like a fool.
HORTENSIO
From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!
GREMIO
And me too, good Lord!
(Act 1, Scene 1)
Turn over for the next question
Turn over ►
IB/G/Jun25/7717/1B
, 4
or
0 2 Twelfth Night – William Shakespeare
Read the extract below and then answer the question.
Explore the significance of this extract in relation to the comedy of the play as a whole.
Remember to include in your answer relevant analysis of Shakespeare’s dramatic
methods.
[25 marks]
Enter Sir Toby Belch and Maria
SIR TOBY What a plague means my niece to take the death
of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to life.
MARIA By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier
o’nights. Your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to
your ill hours.
SIR TOBY Why, let her except before excepted.
MARIA Ay, but you must confine yourself within the
modest limits of order.
SIR TOBY Confine! I’ll confine myself no finer than I am.
These clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be
these boots too; an they be not, let them hang them-
selves in their own straps.
MARIA That quaffing and drinking will undo you. I heard
my lady talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that
you brought in one night here, to be her wooer.
SIR TOBY Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
MARIA Ay, he.
SIR TOBY He’s as tall a man as any’s in Illyria.
MARIA What’s that to the purpose?
SIR TOBY Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
MARIA Ay, but he’ll have but a year in all these ducats.
He’s a very fool and a prodigal.
SIR TOBY Fie, that you’ll say so. He plays o’ the viol-de-
gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for
word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.
MARIA He hath indeed all, most natural; for besides that
he’s a fool, he’s a great quarreller; and but that he hath
the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrel-
ling, ’tis thought among the prudent he would quickly
have the gift of a grave.
SIR TOBY By this hand, they are scoundrels and sub-
stractors that say so of him. Who are they?
MARIA They that add, moreover, he’s drunk nightly in
your company.
SIR TOBY With drinking healths to my niece. I’ll drink to
her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink
in Illyria. He’s a coward and a coistrel that will not
drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe, like a
parish top. What, wench! Castiliano, vulgo – for here
comes Sir Andrew Agueface!
IB/G/Jun25/7717/1B
ENGLISH LITERATURE B
Paper 1B Literary genres: Aspects of comedy
Wednesday 14 May 2025 Afternoon Time allowed: 2 hours 30 minutes
7717/1B
, 2
Section A
Answer one question in this section.
Either
0 1 The Taming of the Shrew – William Shakespeare
Read the extract below and then answer the question.
Explore the significance of this extract in relation to the comedy of the play as a whole.
Remember to include in your answer relevant analysis of Shakespeare’s dramatic
methods.
[25 marks]
Enter Lucentio and his man Tranio
LUCENTIO
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy,
And by my father’s love and leave am armed
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renownèd for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincentio come of the Bentivolii.
Vincentio’s son, brought up in Florence,
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study
Virtue, and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind, for I have Pisa left.
And am to Padua come as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.
TRANIO
Mi perdonato, gentle master mine.
I am in all affected as yourself,
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray,
Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,
IB/G/Jun25/7717/1B
, 3
And practise rhetoric in your common talk,
Music and poesy use to quicken you,
The mathematics and the metaphysics
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en.
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
LUCENTIO
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
Enter Baptista with his two daughters Katherina and
Bianca; Gremio, a pantaloon, and Hortensio, suitor
to Bianca. Lucentio and Tranio stand by
But stay awhile, what company is this?
TRANIO
Master, some show to welcome us to town.
BAPTISTA
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolved you know;
That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder.
If either of you both love Katherina,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.
GREMIO
To cart her rather. She’s too rough for me.
There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?
KATHERINA (to Baptista)
I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?
HORTENSIO
Mates, maid, how mean you that? No mates for you
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.
KATHERINA
I’faith, sir, you shall never need to fear.
Iwis it is not halfway to her heart.
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legged stool,
And paint your face, and use you like a fool.
HORTENSIO
From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!
GREMIO
And me too, good Lord!
(Act 1, Scene 1)
Turn over for the next question
Turn over ►
IB/G/Jun25/7717/1B
, 4
or
0 2 Twelfth Night – William Shakespeare
Read the extract below and then answer the question.
Explore the significance of this extract in relation to the comedy of the play as a whole.
Remember to include in your answer relevant analysis of Shakespeare’s dramatic
methods.
[25 marks]
Enter Sir Toby Belch and Maria
SIR TOBY What a plague means my niece to take the death
of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to life.
MARIA By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier
o’nights. Your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to
your ill hours.
SIR TOBY Why, let her except before excepted.
MARIA Ay, but you must confine yourself within the
modest limits of order.
SIR TOBY Confine! I’ll confine myself no finer than I am.
These clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be
these boots too; an they be not, let them hang them-
selves in their own straps.
MARIA That quaffing and drinking will undo you. I heard
my lady talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that
you brought in one night here, to be her wooer.
SIR TOBY Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
MARIA Ay, he.
SIR TOBY He’s as tall a man as any’s in Illyria.
MARIA What’s that to the purpose?
SIR TOBY Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
MARIA Ay, but he’ll have but a year in all these ducats.
He’s a very fool and a prodigal.
SIR TOBY Fie, that you’ll say so. He plays o’ the viol-de-
gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for
word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.
MARIA He hath indeed all, most natural; for besides that
he’s a fool, he’s a great quarreller; and but that he hath
the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrel-
ling, ’tis thought among the prudent he would quickly
have the gift of a grave.
SIR TOBY By this hand, they are scoundrels and sub-
stractors that say so of him. Who are they?
MARIA They that add, moreover, he’s drunk nightly in
your company.
SIR TOBY With drinking healths to my niece. I’ll drink to
her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink
in Illyria. He’s a coward and a coistrel that will not
drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe, like a
parish top. What, wench! Castiliano, vulgo – for here
comes Sir Andrew Agueface!
IB/G/Jun25/7717/1B
