AQA_2024: A-level English Literature A - Paper 1 Love Through the Ages. (Merged Question Paper and Marking Scheme)

AQA_2024: A-level English Literature A - Paper 1 Love Through the Ages. (Merged Question Paper and Marking Scheme) A-level ENGLISH LITERATURE A Paper 1 Love through the ages Friday 24 May 2024 Materials Morning Time allowed: 3 hours For this paper you must have:  an AQA 12-page answer book  a copy of each of the set texts you have studied for Section C. These texts must not be annotated and must not contain additional notes or materials. Instructions  Use black ink or black ball-point pen.  Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is 7712/1.  In Section A you will answer one question about a Shakespeare play.  In Section B you will answer the one question about unseen poetry.  In Section C you will answer one question about two texts: one poetry text and one prose text, one of which must be written pre-1900.  Do all rough work in your answer book. Cross through any work you do not want to be marked. Information  The marks for questions are shown in brackets.  The maximum mark for this paper is 75.  You will be marked on your ability to: – use good English – organise information clearly – use specialist vocabulary where appropriate.  In your response you need to: – analyse carefully the writers’ methods – explore the contexts of the texts you are writing about – explore connections across the texts you have studied – explore different interpretations of your texts. For A-level English Literature A Paper 1: Love Through the Ages, here’s a concise revision guide focusing on the key areas: 1. Themes of Love:  Types of Love: o Romantic Love: Typically idealized love between partners, often subject to obstacles, passion, and desire. o Platonic Love: Non-romantic love based on friendship, respect, and intellectual connection. o Unrequited Love: One-sided love that is not returned or reciprocated, often leading to heartbreak. o Self-love: Love for oneself, which may explore themes of narcissism or personal growth. o Parental Love: Love between parent and child, often conveying protection, sacrifice, and guidance. o Love as Obsession: Extreme attachment to a lover, sometimes leading to destructive behavior or unhealthy relationships.  Conflict in Love: o Love vs. Society: Love challenged by social expectations, family, class, or societal norms. o Love vs. Fate: Love thwarted by fate, external forces, or circumstances beyond control (e.g., death, time). o Jealousy and Betrayal: Themes of jealousy, infidelity, and betrayal that complicate relationships. 2. Key Works and Texts:  Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: Love is presented in multiple forms—romantic, self-love, and the confusion brought by mistaken identities.  Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese: A collection of poems reflecting intense, personal love, exploring emotional depth and vulnerability.  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Depicts love as an idealized and unattainable fantasy, highlighting the destructive nature of obsession and longing.  Othello by William Shakespeare: A tragedy that explores jealousy, manipulation, and trust in romantic relationships, with love as a force leading to tragic consequences.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare: Explores love through fantasy and magic, showing love’s irrational and transformative power. 3. Literary Techniques:  Imagery and Symbolism: How love is symbolized through imagery (e.g., the moon, flowers, nature) and metaphors (e.g., love as a storm or fire).  Characterization: Study the different ways characters express or are affected by love. Consider how their relationships develop and what they reveal about the human condition.  Diction and Tone: The choice of language (e.g., passionate, melancholic, idealistic) can shape how love is portrayed.  Structure and Form: Pay attention to the use of sonnets, monologues, or dialogues to convey different aspects of love. For instance, Shakespeare often uses sonnet form to express romantic love in a formal yet intimate way.  Juxtaposition: Love’s contrasts with hate, jealousy, or betrayal often highlight its complexity and potential for both joy and pain. 4. Historical and Cultural Context:  Victorian Literature: In works like Sonnets from the Portuguese, love is often idealized, and the role of women in relationships is heavily influenced by the social norms of the time.  The Modernist Period: The Great Gatsby explores love’s disillusionment, often questioning the American Dream and societal values, with love as a reflection of materialism and superficiality. 7712/1 IB/H/Jun24/G4006/E10 2 Section A: Shakespeare Answer one question in this section. Either 0 1 Othello – William Shakespeare ‘In Othello, Iago’s skills make him a likeable anti-hero rather than a hateful villain.’ In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Iago’s attitudes to love in this extract and elsewhere in the play. IAGO Come, come; good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used: exclaim no more against it. And, good Lieutenant, I think you think I love you. CASSIO I have well approved it, sir. I drunk! IAGO You or any man living may be drunk at a time, man. I’ll tell you what you shall do. Our General’s wife is now the General. I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted and given up himself to the contempla- tion, mark, and denotement of her parts and graces. Confess yourself freely to her; importune her help to put you in your place again. She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, that she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This broken joint between you and her husband, entreat her to splinter; and my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before. CASSIO You advise me well. IAGO I protest in the sincerity of love and honest kind- ness. CASSIO I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me. I am desperate of my fortunes if they check me here. IAGO You are in the right. Good night, Lieutenant, I must to the watch. CASSIO Good night, honest Iago. IAGO And what’s he then that says I play the villain, When this advice is free I give, and honest, Probal to thinking, and indeed the course To win the Moor again? For ’tis most easy Th’inclining Desdemona to subdue In any honest suit. She’s framed as fruitful As the free elements; and then for her To win the Moor, were’t to renounce his baptism, All seals and symbols of redeemèd sin, His soul is so enfettered to her love, That she may make, unmake, do what she list, Exit [25 marks] IB/H/Jun24/7712/1 3 Even as her appetite shall play the god With his weak function. How am I then a villain To counsel Cassio to this parallel course Directly to his good? Divinity of hell! When devils will the blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shows As I do now. For whiles this honest fool Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor, I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear: That she repeals him for her body’s lust, And by how much she strives to do him good, She shall undo her credit with the Moor. So will I turn her virtue into pitch, And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all. Turn over for the next question IB/H/Jun24/7712/1 (Act 2, Scene 3) Turn over ► 4 or 0 2 The Taming of the Shrew – William Shakespeare ‘Grumio and other servants are crucial to the development of the love stories in The Taming of the Shrew.’ In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Grumio and other servants in this extract and elsewhere in the play. CURTIS I prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the world? He kindles a fire GRUMIO A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine – and therefore fire. Do thy duty, and have thy duty, for my master and mistress are almost frozen to death. CURTIS There’s fire ready – and therefore, good Grumio, the news. GRUMIO Why, ‘Jack boy, ho boy!’ and as much news as wilt thou. CURTIS Come, you are so full of cony-catching. GRUMIO Why therefore fire, for I have caught extreme cold. Where’s the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept, the serving- men in their new fustian, their white stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on? Be the Jacks fair within, the Jills fair without, the carpets laid, and everything in order? CURTIS All ready – and therefore, I pray thee, news. GRUMIO First know my horse is tired, my master and mistress fallen out. CURTIS How? GRUMIO Out of their saddles into the dirt, and thereby hangs a tale. CURTIS Let’s ha’t, good Grumio. GRUMIO Lend thine ear. CURTIS Here. GRUMIO There. He boxes Curtis’s ear CURTIS This ’tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale. GRUMIO And therefore ’tis called a sensible tale; and this cuff was but to knock at your ear and beseech listening. Now I begin. Imprimis, we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress – CURTIS Both of one horse? GRUMIO What’s that to thee? CURTIS Why, a horse. GRUMIO Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not crossed me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell, and she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her [25 marks] IB/H/Jun24/7712/1 5 with the horse upon her, how he beat me because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed that never prayed before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I lost my crupper – with many things of worthy memory, which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return unexperienced to thy grave. CURTIS By this reckoning he is more shrew than she. GRUMIO Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest. Let their heads be slickly combed, their blue coats brushed, and their garters of an indifferent knit. Let them curtsy with their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my master’s horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all ready? CURTIS They are. GRUMIO Call them forth. CURTIS Do you hear, ho? You must meet my master to countenance my mistress. Turn over for the next question (Act 4, Scene 1) IB/H/Jun24/7712/1 Turn over ► 6 or 0 3 Measure for Measure – William Shakespeare ‘An audience can only be appalled by Angelo’s abuses of power in leadership and love.’ In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Angelo in this extract and elsewhere in the play. ISABELLA Must he needs die? ANGELO ISABELLA Maiden, no remedy. Yes, I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy. ANGELO I will not do’t. ISABELLA ANGELO But can you if you would? Look what I will not, that I cannot do. ISABELLA But might you do’t, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touched with that remorse As mine is to him? ANGELO He’s sentenced; ’tis too late. LUCIO (aside to Isabella) ISABELLA Too late? Why, no. I that do speak a word May call it again. Well, believe this, No ceremony that to great ones longs, Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. If he had been as you, and you as he, You would have slipped like him; but he, like you, Would not have been so stern. ANGELO ISABELLA I would to heaven I had your potency, And you were Isabel; should it then be thus? No, I would tell what ’twere to be a judge, And what a prisoner. LUCIO (aside to Isabella) Ay, touch him; there’s the vein. ANGELO Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words. ISABELLA Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once, [25 marks] You are too cold. Pray you, be gone. Alas, alas; IB/H/Jun24/7712/1 7 And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy. How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgement, should But judge you as you are? O think on that, And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made. ANGELO Be you content, fair maid, It is the law, not I, condemn your brother; Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son, It should be thus with him. He must die tomorrow. ISABELLA Tomorrow? O, that’s sudden; spare him, spare him. He’s not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season. Shall we serve heaven With less respect than we do minister To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you: Who is it that hath died for this offence? There’s many have committed it. LUCIO (aside to Isabella) ANGELO Ay, well said. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept. Those many had not dared to do that evil If the first that did th’edict infringe Had answered for his deed. Now ’tis awake, Takes note of what is done, and like a prophet Looks in a glass that shows what future evils, Either now, or by remissness, new-conceived, And so in progress to be hatched and born, Are now to have no successive degrees, But where they live, to end. ISABELLA ANGELO Yet show some pity. I show it most of all when I show justice, For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismissed offence would after gall, And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied Your brother dies tomorrow. Be cont