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AQA A Level English Literature Specification ALITA3 Reading for Meaning – Love Through the Ages

English Literature

AQA Specification A

LITA3

Reading for Meaning – Love Through the Ages

Copyright © 2011 TES English www.tes.co.uk/tesenglish 1


What do you have to do? In this examination you are required to answer two questions.

There is no choice and each question carries the same number of marks – 40 for

each question.

As such, you need to give them equal time and attention.

You must familiarise yourself fully with what is required of you because if you do

not follow the instructions correctly, you will lose marks, no matter how brilliant

your wrong answer is.

So, just to make it absolutely clear, this is what you must do.

Question 1

You are to compare two unseen texts which are of the same genre and to make relevant

reference and connections to your wider reading in the same genre.

This means that if both extracts are prose, then you must refer only to prose texts from

your wider reading.

You will receive no marks for any reference which is not prose. Therefore, any poetry or

drama that you refer to will gain you nothing at all.

Question 2

Here you are asked to compare two unseen texts from the remaining two genres.

So, if the question one extracts are prose, this means that in question two, one of the texts

would be poetry and the other drama.

Your wider reading references can be from any genre: you will be able to refer to all three

genres.

Digest this information fully. It is an awful feeling to realize that you lost marks and missed

your grade for something as basic as this. Every year a few people make this completely

avoidable mistake.



How does it look?Here is a diagram to help you visualise the structure of the examination.

Question 1 will invite candidates to compare:

Bring in wider reading only in this genre – POETRY.

Question 2 will invite candidates to compare two items in the remaining two genres.

These two texts will be from genres which did not appear as unseen texts in question one.

Bring in wider reading from any genre – POETRY,

PROSE or DRAMA.

TASK

Work in pairs to create visualtions which show two possible alternative examination

structures.

Remember Chaucer will not be set as an item in the examination.

In question two, you must use your wider reading on the theme of ‘Love Through

the Ages’ to inform your interpretations.

In total, across both questions, you will have to write about a minimum of one

wider reading text from each of the three genres of poetry, prose and drama.

Copyright © 2011 TES English www.tes.co.uk/tesenglish

Unseen POETRY

Unseen POETRY

Unseen DRAMA

Unseen PROSE

3


Prose texts can be fiction or non-fiction.

Generic question for examThis is the sort of question you will have to answer:

‘Read the two texts. They were written at different times by

different writers. Basing your answer on the texts and, where

appropriate, your wider reading on the theme of love through

the ages, compare the ways the two writers have used form,

structure and language to express their thoughts and ideas.’

Top tips Remember that at least three wider reading references must be made for the

entire paper. These references must come from each genre.

The unseen extracts should take 60 / 70% of your answer and therefore 30 / 40%

should concern your wider reading.

It is important to remember that spraying many superficial references from your

wider reading into your answer is not the best approach. It is much better to use

fewer references in your answer, and for those to be insightful and developed

connections.

Do not hurry to start writing your answer in the exam. Read, think and plan for as

much as half an hour for each question. That way you will write more quickly

when you do start to write and have your notes / plan to refer to.

In 45 minutes writing time you cannot be expected to include everything. Play to

your strengths and if there are a couple of words or phrases you do not

understand, just pass them by and don’t let them reduce your confidence.

Annotate the extracts in the exam and use a black pen as instructed.



How to prepare for the examAs ever, you need to be certain about the way in which you will be assessed, and that means

that you should have a full understanding of the requirements of the Assessment Objectives.

These are:

AO1 - Articulate creative, informed and relevant responses to literary texts, using appropriate

terminology and concepts, and coherent, accurate written expression. 7.5%

AO2 - Demonstrate detailed critical understanding in analyzing the ways in which structure,

form, and language shape meanings in literary texts. 7.5%

AO3 - Explore connections and comparisons between different literary texts, informed by

interpretations of other readers. 7.5%

AO4 - Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which

literary texts are written and received. 7.5%

Remember Each assessment objective in this unit is of equal importance.

Overall, this unit is worth 30% of your A2 Literature.



Studying for the exam The title of the Unit is Reading for Meaning – Love Through the Ages. It is worth taking a

moment to consider the significance of the title. What are your thoughts? What ‘meaning’

exactly is the exam asking you to elicit? Is your interpretation of what a text means necessarily

the same as someone else’s?

Consider also the phrase – ‘Love Through the Ages’. Love is not, as may be initially assumed,

just a reference to romantic or sexual love. Love incorporates all sorts of love. It includes

fraternal love, platonic love, spiritual and religious love, maternal and paternal love, the love of

friendship and, of course, romantic love or lust, either heterosexual or homosexual, reciprocal

or unrequited. So the scope and range of this unit is limitless, and offers the opportunity to

explore a vast array of texts.

‘Through the ages’ is an interesting phrase, too. The specification requires you to reach back

in time to Geoffrey Chaucer’s era. There is uncertainty about Chaucer’s exact date of birth, but

it is generally thought that he lived from about 1343 – 1400. He was the first poet to be buried

in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Love in 1343 may have been different from love in the twenty-first century, but it seems

unlikely. ‘Through the ages’ suggests that love is what endures among human beings and

perhaps that it is what gives life meaning.

Supporting that view is the poet, Philip Larkin, (1922 – 1985) regarded as one of the best

poets of the latter half of the twentieth century. He claimed that, ‘All that’s left of us is love.’ – a

ringing endorsement of the unit you are about to study.

Examples from LiteratureOn the following pages you will find several extracts or entire pieces from poetry, prose or drama from different ages. As you read, try to make links with other texts.



Enduring Love, Ian McEwan, 1997

This passage is taken from Ian McEwan’s 1997 novel, Enduring Love. The title itself is interesting because of its ambiguity. At first glance, the title suggests a love that lasts. It may then strike you that the word ‘enduring’ could also mean ‘putting up with’ love, an unwelcome or unreciprocated love. That ambiguity works well for McEwan, as Joe, the main character, is in a long term relationship with a woman he loves, but receives unwelcome attention from a man, Jed Parry, who claims to love Joe, and believes that Joe loves him in return. As a consequence, Joe’s relationship with Clarissa deteriorates, largely because Joe seems to be making outrageous claims about Jed’s obsessive behaviour.

On this particular day, in my study with my coffee and sandwiches, and my failure to make progress with the smile and Parry standing guard on the pavement, it came back to me again, how I ended up with this. From time to time I heard the click of the answering machine engaging. Every hour or so I went into the living room to check, and he was always there, staring at the entrance, like a dog tied up outside a shop. On only one occasion was he talking on the phone to me. Mostly he stood still, feet slightly apart, hands in pockets, the expression on his face, as far as I could tell, suggesting concentration, or perhaps imminent happiness.

When I looked out at five o’clock, he had gone. I lingered by the window, imagining that I could see his outline in vacated space, a pillar of absence glowing in the late afternoon’s diminishing light. Then I went and stood by the machine. The red LED showed thirty-three messages. I used the scan function to skip through them and found Clarissa’s voice. She hoped I was alright, she’d be back at six, and she loved me. There were three work messages, leaving Parry’s score at twenty-nine. Even as I contemplated that figure, the tape began to turn. I pushed the volume wheel. It sounded like he was calling from a taxi. ‘Joe. Brilliant idea with the curtains. I got it straight away. All I wanted to say is this again. I feel it too. I really do.’ On these last words emotion pitched his voice a little higher.

The curtains? I returned to the living room and looked. They hung as they always did. We never drew them. I pulled one aside, foolishly expecting to find a clue.

Then I sat again in my study, not working but brooding, and waiting for Clarissa, and again, my thoughts returned to how I came to be what I was, and how it might have been different, and, ridiculously, how I might find my way back to original research and achieve something new before I was fifty.

The mood in this extract is one of frustration and restlessness. How does McEwan achieve this?

Look closely at the language McEwan uses to present the character of Jed Parry.

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, 1861



Miss Havisham has adopted a girl, Estella, to ease and avenge the heartache she suffers at having been jilted. However, and although Miss Havisham has brought her up to be heartless, Estella is expected to love her adoptive mother. Pip is the narrator of this novel and he is in love with Estella, who is now a grown woman.

It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words arose between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I had ever seen them opposed.

We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham still had Estella’s arm drawn through her own, and still clutched Estella’s hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself. She had shown a proud impatience more than once before, and had rather endured that fierce affection rather than accepted or returned it.

‘What!’ said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, ‘are you tired of me?’

‘Only a little tired of myself,’ replied Estella, disengaging her arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at the fire.

Speak the truth, you ingrate!’ cried Miss Havisham, passionately striking her stick upon the floor; ‘you are tired of me.’

Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was almost cruel.

‘You stock and stone!’ exclaimed Miss Havisham. ‘You cold, cold heart!’

‘What?’ said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against the chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; ‘do you reproach me for being cold? You?’

‘Are you not?’ was the fierce retort.

‘You should know,’ said Estella. ‘I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.’

‘O, look at her, look at her!’ cried Miss Havisham, bitterly. ‘Look at her, so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!’

‘At least I was no party to the compact,’ said Estella, ‘for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to you. What would you have?’

‘Love,’ replied the other.

‘You have it.’



‘I have not,’ said Miss Havisham.

‘Mother by adoption,’ retorted Estella, never departing from the easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness. ‘Mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.’

‘Did I never give her, love!’ cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me. ‘Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me mad, let her call me mad?’

‘Why should I call you mad,’ returned Estella, ‘I, of all people? Does anyone live, who knows what purposes you have, half as well as I do? Does anyone live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!’

‘Soon forgotten! ’ moaned Miss Havisham. ‘Times soon forgotten!’

‘No, not forgotten,’ retorted Estella. ‘Not forgotten but treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving admission here,’ she touched her bosom with her hand, ‘to anything that you excluded? Be just to me.’

‘So proud, so proud!’ moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her grey hair with both her hands.

‘Who taught me to be proud? returned Estella. ‘Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?’

‘So hard, so hard!’ moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action.

‘Who taught me to be hard?’ returned Estella. ‘Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?’

But to be proud and hard to me!’ Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as she stretched out her arms. ‘Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard to me!’

Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked down at the fire again.

How does Dickens use form, structure and language here to present Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter?

What is Dickens saying about the parent / child relationship?

Equus, Peter Shaffer, 1973



This is an extract from the play Equus by Peter Shaffer, written in 1973. Alan, a young man who has an obsession with horses and has blinded six of them, is being treated by Dysart, a psychiatrist. In this extract, Alan’s mother, Dora Strang has arrived. Her visit is not welcome. She feels she is being blamed for how her son is. This, of course, is an age-old theme - blaming the parents for the actions of the child.

Dysart: I must ask you never to come here again.

Dora: Do you think I want to? Do you think I want to?

Dysart: Mrs. Strang, what on earth has got into you? Can’t you see the boy is highly distressed?

Dora: (ironic) Really?

Dysart: Of course! He’s at a most delicate stage of treatment. He’s totally exposed. Ashamed. Everything you can imagine!

Dora: (exploding) And me? What about me? …What do you think I am?...I’m a parent, of course – so it doesn’t count. That’s a dirty word in here isn’t it,

‘parent’?

Dysart: You know that’s not true.

Dora: Oh, I know, all right! I’ve heard it all my life. It’s our fault. Whatever happens we did it. Alan’s just a little victim. He’s really done nothing at all! (savagely)What

do you have to do in this world to get any sympathy – blind animals?

Dysart: Sit down Mrs. Strang.

Dora: (Ignoring him: more and more urgently) Look, Doctor: you don’t have to live with this. Alan is one patient to you: one out of many. He’s my son. I lie

awake every night thinking about it. Frank lies there beside me. I can hear him. Neither of us sleeps all night. You come to us and say, Who forbids television Who does what behind whose back? – As if we’re criminals. Let me tell you something. We’re not criminals. We’ve done nothing wrong. We loved Alan. We gave him the best love we could. All right, we quarrel sometimes - all parents quarrel- we always make it up. My husband is a good man. He’s an upright man, religion or no religion. He cares for his home, for the world, and for his boy. Alan had love and care and treats, and as much fun as any boy in the world. I know about loveless homes: I was a teacher. Our home wasn’t loveless. I know about privacy too – not invading a child’s privacy. All right, Frank may be at fault there – he digs into him too much – but nothing in excess. He’s not a bully…(gravely) No, doctor. Whatever’s happened has



happened because of Alan. Alan is himself. Every soul is itself. If you added up everything we ever did to him from his first day on earth to this, you wouldn’t find why he did this terrible thing – because that’s him; not just all of our things added up. Do you understand what ‘m saying? I want you to understand, because I lie awake and awake thinking it out, and I want you to know that I deny it absolutely what he’s doing now, staring at me, attacking me for what he’s done, for what he is! (pause: calmer) You’ve got your words, and I’ve got mine. You call it a complex, I suppose. But if you knew God Doctor, you would know about the Devil. You’d know the Devil isn’t made by what mummy says and daddy says. The Devil’s there. It’s an old-fashioned word, but a true thing… I’ll go. What I did in there was inexcusable. I only know he was my little Alan, and then the Devil came.

How does Shaffer use language here to present Mrs Strang?

King Lear, William Shakespeare

Still on the theme of love between parent and child, William Shakespeare presents this type of love in several of his plays. In fact, Shakespeare’s plays and poetry merit close examination as every type of human love is explored in his plays and poetry. In King Lear the audience witnesses the breakdown of an old man, King Lear himself, who is weary of the duties of kingship. He sets up a ‘contest’ between his three daughters, where each is expected to declare how much they love him. By assessing their answers, he will accordingly divide up his kingdom between the three of them. The fact, say many critics, is that Lear has already decided on the division, and his youngest, favourite daughter is due to receive the best part. Events, however, do not go as he had planned. In this extract, Goneril, the eldest of the three daughters, speaks first at her father’s invitation.

Lear: Tell me my daughters,Which of you shall we say does love us mostThat we our largest bounty may extendWhere nature doth with merit challenge? - Goneril, Our eldest born, speak first.

Goneril: Sir, I do love you more than words can wield the matter,Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty, Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour,As much as child e’er loved or father found –A love that makes breath poor and speech unable.Beyond all manner of so much I love you.Cordelia: (aside) What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.



Lear: Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,With shadowy forests and with champains riched, With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,We make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issueBe this perpetual. – What says our second daughter,Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall? Speak.

Regan: Sir I am made of that self mettle as my sister,And prize me at her worth. In my true heart,I find she names my very deed of love –Only she comes too short, that I professMyself an enemy to all other joys,Which the most precious square of sense possesses.And find I am alone felicitate In your dear highness’ love.

Cordelia (Aside): Then poor Cordelia!And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s more ponderous than our tongue.

Lear: To thee and thine hereditary everRemain this ample third of our fair kingdom,No less in space, validity, and pleasureThan that conferred on Goneril. –But now our joy, Although our last and least, to whose young loveThe vines of France and milk of BurgundyStrive to be interessed. What can you say to draw A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak

Cordelia: Nothing, my lord

Lear: Nothing

Lear: How? Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.

Cordelia: Unhappy that I am, I cannot haveMy heart into my mouth. I love your majestyAccording to my bond, no more nor less.

Lear: How, how Cordelia. Mend your speech a little, Lest you may mar your fortunes.

Cordelia: Good my lord,You have begot me, bred me, loved me. I Return those duties back as are right fit – Obey you, love you, and most honour you.Why have my sister husbands if they say



Thy love you all? Haply when I shall wedThat lord whose hand must take my plight shall carryHalf my love with him, half my care and duty.Sure, I shall never marry like my sistersT o love my father all.

Lear: But goes thy heart with this?

Cordelia: Ay, my good lord.

Lear: So young and so untender

Cordelia: So young my lord, and true

Lear: Let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower For by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night,By all the operation of the orbsFrom whom we do exist and cease to be – Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity, and property of blood,And as a stranger to my heart and meHold thee from this forever. The barbarous Scythian,Or he that makes his generation messesTo gorge his appetite, shall to my bosomBe as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved As thou my sometime daughter.

Kent: Good my liege

Lear: Peace, Kent Come not between the dragon and his wrath.I loved her most and thought to set my restOn her kind nursery.

Comment upon this exchange between Lear and his daughters.



(More on) King Lear

Most directors set this scene in public view of the old king’s court to emphasise how confident

Lear is assumed to be about his daughters’ declarations of their love for him. It is evident that

Lear expects a spectacularly warm, adoring answer from his youngest daughter, Cordelia, to

whom he refers as ‘our joy’ whereas the other two daughters are referred to as simply ‘our

eldest born’ and ‘our second daughter’. Taking this into account, how does Shakespeare

present Lear and his daughters? Focus closely on the language of all four characters.

A close study of King Lear is very worthwhile for Reading for Meaning – Love through the Ages.

The play addresses the love of parent and child not just in the case of Lear and his daughters.

The sub-plot, which serves to accentuate the main plot, concerns the Duke of Gloucester and

his two sons, Edgar and Edmund. Both fathers are foolish enough to turn their backs on the

virtuous child, but by the end of the play, despite Gloucester having literally lost his eyes in

horrifically cruel circumstances, and Lear having survived a storm, both literally and

metaphorically, see the errors they have made and, with great humility, try to make amends to

their wronged children.

Love, or rather lack of it, between siblings is examined here too in the five offspring of Lear and

Gloucester. The three sisters and the two brothers make for an interesting study, particularly as

Goneril and Regan, both married women, are in love with Edmund, something he is aware of -

so the nature of sexual love is explored. Interestingly, Shakespeare chooses to have both sets of

siblings motherless.

The love of a servant and a fool for their king is worthy of examination too. Kent sticks with Lear

to the end, so devoted is he to his master. The fool tries to point out to Lear the mistakes he

has made through his word play.



Othello, William Shakespeare

Othello is a most suitable play for the examination of several types of love. Because of the link with Lear, it would be a good idea to start an exploration of the different types of love dealt with in Lear by once more looking at the parent / child bond. Desdemona, a high class Venetian white woman has married without her father’s knowledge, Othello, the black general of the Venetian army. Desdemona, no matter how romantic it all may seem, has committed an act of betrayal in marrying without her father, Brabantio’s consent. Brabantio asks her directly in front of the Duke and the Senate where her loyalties should lie.

Brabantio: Do you perceive in all this companyWhere most you owe obedience.

Desdemona: My noble father I do perceive here a divided duty:To you I am bound for life and education;My life and education both do learn me How to respect you. You are lord of all my duty,I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband;And so much duty as my mother showed To you, preferring you before her father,So much I challenge, that I may professDue to the Moor, my lord.

Brabantio: God be wi’you! I have done.

Note the speed of the change in attitude here to the daughter who has wronged him, and see how similar this turnaround is to King Lear’s hasty casting off of the daughter when minutes earlier he had referred to as ‘our joy’.

Brabantio’s final words to Othello are of great significance. Can you say why?

He says: ‘Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see. She has deceived her father, and may thee.’



Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Because of the theme of parent / child relationships, it is fitting here to just briefly visit the play Hamlet, in particular, the bedroom scene, where Hamlet confronts and berates his mother for marrying Claudius - Hamlet’s uncle - so soon after the death of her husband, King Hamlet - also Hamlet’s father. This time we have mother and son, not father and daughter. This extract is taken from Act 3, Scene 4.

Hamlet: Now, mother, what’s the matter?

Gertrude: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended

Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended

Gertrude: Come come you answer with an idle tongue

Hamlet: Go go you answer with a wicked tongue.

Gertrude: Have you forgot me?

Hamlet: No, by the rood, not so:

You are the queen your husband’s brother’s wife;

And – would it were not so – you are my mother.’

Hamlet, without sparing her feelings, proceeds to condemn her further. When she asks what she has done, his reply is vitriolic.

Hamlet: Such an actThat blurs the grace and blush of modestyCalls virtue hypocrite, takes off the roseFrom the fair forehead of an innocent loveAnd sets a blister there, makes marriage vowsAs false as dicers’ oaths.

Hamlet compares the two brothers.

Hamlet: Look here, upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.See, what a grace was seated on this brow.Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;An eye like Mars, to threaten and command



A combination and a form indeedWhere every God did seem to set his seal,To give the world assurance of a man:This was your husband. Look you now what follows:Here is your husband; like a mildew’d ear,Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?You cannot call it love; for at your ageThe hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble.And waits upon the judgment; and what judgement Would step from this to this?

Gertrude: Oh Hamlet, speak no more:Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul;And there I see such black and grained spotsAs will not leave their tinct.

Hamlet: Nay but to liveIn the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making loveOver the nasty sty,-

Gertrude: O speak to me no more;These words, like daggers, enter in mine ear.No more, sweet Hamlet.

Look closely at the language Hamlet uses to compare the two brothers. Do you think he oversteps the mark in speaking to his mother this way? Is it his love for her that forces him to attack her so savagely?



(More on) Othello

After that brief diversion, let us return to Othello. Sometimes overlooked in this play, due to

the overwhelming theme of jealousy, is the devoted friendship between Desdemona and

Emilia, Iago’s wife. In Act 5, the final act of the play, it is Emilia’s distress at the murder of

Desdemona that makes her expose her husband as an evil manipulator. She reveals the truth

despite Iago’s orders to be silent, and the certainty that he would kill her for the exposure of his

heinous crimes.

Emilia: ‘Twill out, it will. I hold my peace sir? No.I’ll be in speaking liberal as the air.Let heaven, and men, and devils, let them all,All, all cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.

Iago calls her ‘a villainous whore’ after she has revealed that the handkerchief on which the

‘proof’ of Desdemona’s infidelity is based, was taken by her at the request of Iago. ‘He begged

me to steal it.’

Iago then stabs Emilia, and as she is dying, she requests to be placed on the bed alongside her

mistress, Desdemona, who Othello has murdered. Most poignantly, her final words are

addressed to Othello, in a bid to clear Desdemona’s name. ‘Moor, she was chaste; she loved

thee cruel Moor.’

Shakespeare then, depicts here a true friendship between the two women in stark contrast to

the fake friendship between Iago and Othello that is fake on Iago’s side. The famous

Shakespearean critic, Frank Kermode, wrote an essay entitled: ‘Is Othello stupid?’ The essay is

well worth reading and points out that it is not only Othello who is fooled by Iago; the truth is

that all the characters are utterly duped by this man who seems to understand people so well, a

skill which he turns to his own advantage. In one of his several soliloquies throughout the play,

Iago conveys to the audience his insight and perception about Othello. That Othello is a good

and trusting man, Iago uses to his own advantage:



‘The Moor is of a free and open nature,That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,And will as tenderly be led by the noseAs asses are.’

Once Iago has decided how he will bring about Othello’s downfall, he is jubilant in his solution.

Look closely at the language Iago uses and think about the effect of it.

‘I have’t. It is engendered. Hell and night, Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.’

By Act 4, Scene 1, Iago has so skillfully worked on Othello in his suggestions of Desdemona’s

infidelity that he has succeeded in bringing Othello to such a pitch of desperation that the

audience can only gasp at the horror and cruelty of Iago when they hear Othello seeking

comfort from the very person who has brought him to this desperate state of psychological

torture. A further layer of shock is created when the audience remembers that every word Iago

speaks is a lie.

Othello: But yet the pity of it, Iago! Oh Iago, the pity of it, Iago.’

Influenced by the crude and vulgar language Iago uses, Othello shows how his own language

has changed so much that he talks of how he will, ‘chop her into messes.’ The brutality of his

language here in this line is greatly removed from the Othello of previous acts.

Quite why Iago is so vengeful towards Othello is unclear even to himself. Early on he tentatively

implies that Othello and Emilia had an affair, but it is evident Iago is not convinced of this. It

seems the strongest possibility as to why he wishes to exact such torment on Othello is that he

was overlooked for promotion and the younger Cassio was given the job. Even so, this is in itself

not sufficiently painful to Iago to push him to such murderous extremes. Rather, he simply

states, ‘I hate The Moor’. For Iago, this appears to be justification enough.



Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare

The play Measure for Measure deals with the love between siblings. An old law has been reinstated which states that the penalty for pre-marital sex is death. Claudio is the man who has made his girlfriend pregnant and has been arrested and sentenced to death. He has a sister, Isabella, who is about to become a nun, who he asks to plead for his life to the new ruler, Angelo.

Angelo becomes infatuated with Isabella and, despite his strict reputation, propositions Isabella and promises that if she sleeps with him he will free her brother. Modern audiences may think that Isabella makes too much of a fuss about why she should not give up her virginity but, as ever, the context has to be taken into account and in Shakespearean times attitudes were different from today.

There is no doubt that Isabella loves her brother, but her conclusion to this serious dilemma is that ‘More than our brother is our chastity’. She tells her brother that, 'Were it but my life, I’d throw it down for your deliverance as frankly as a pin.’

Sonnet 130, William Shakespeare

Shakespeare, in his numerous sonnets, has written about different types of love, and shows an original, somewhat subversive view of romantic love, devoid of the usual romantic comparisons. In fact, it mocks the conventional language of love.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips’red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks,And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound.I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any belied with false compare.



A reminder about the exam

Daunting as the requirements of this examination might seem when you realise the range and scope of it, your success will largely depend upon how much time and energy you are willing to invest in your reading about Love through the Ages. Read as widely as you can and begin doing so as soon as possible, all the time making links and connections. Think about different types of love in terms of genres, content, attitudes, treatment, context, eras, gender and age and of the writer, courtship, marriage, grief, and any other aspect of love you discover. The more you read, the more you will understand about love in all its guises in literature, and the deeper, more relevant and more satisfying your references to your wide reading will be to the unseen texts presented to you, in what is, without doubt, one of the most demanding examinations you will have taken so far.

Symptoms of Love, Robert Graves

To end this resource, here is a poem by Robert Graves - more famously known for his First World War poetry - where love, romantic love in this case, is treated as an illness.

Love is a universal migraine,A bright stain on the visionBlotting out reason.

Symptoms of true loveAre leanness, jealousy,Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares -Listening for a knock,Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingersIn a darkened room,For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!Can you endure such grief At any hand but hers?



Further Reading – Some SuggestionsPoetry

John Donne (1572 – 1631) ‘The Good Morrow’, ‘Song’, ‘Woman’s Constancy’, The ‘Sun Rising’, ‘The Flea’, ‘A Valediction: Forbidding

Mourning’

George Herbert (1593 – 1633) ‘Death’, ‘Redemption’, ‘Easter Wings’

Andrew Marvell (1621 – 1678) ‘The Definition of Love’, ‘To His Coy Mistress’

Richard Lovelace (1618 – 1657) ‘To Althea, From Prison’

Sir John Suckling (1609 – 1642) ‘Love’s Clock’, ‘The Constant Lover’

Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) Lyrical Ballads

Coleridge (1772 – 1834) Lyrical Ballads

T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) ‘The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock’

W.H. Auden (1907 – 1973) ‘Funeral Blues’

Philip Larkin (1922 – 1985) ‘An Arundel Tomb’, ‘Wild Oats’

Ted Hughes (1930 – 1938) ‘The Lovepet’

Carol Ann Duffy (1955 –) ‘Warming Her Pearls’, ‘First Love’

Drama

Tennessee Williams (1911 – 1983) A Streetcar named Desire, The Glass Menagerie

Arthur Miller (1915 – 2005) All my Sons, A View from the Bridge

Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) A Doll’s House

Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) All

Edward Albee (1928 – ) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?



Prose

Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Pride and

Prejudice

Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851) Frankenstein

George Eliot (1819 – 1880) Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss

F. Scot Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) The Great Gatsby

George Orwell (1903 – 1950) Nineteen Eighty-Four

Lynne Reid Banks (1929 – ) The L-shaped Room

Margaret Atwood (1939 – ) The Handmaid’s Tale, The Robber Bride

Margaret Drabble (1939 – ) The Millstone

J.M. Coetzee (1940 – ) Disgrace

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954 – ) The Remains of the Day

Ian McEwan (1948 – ) Atonement


AQA A Level Lit A LITA3: Reading for Meaning - Love · Web viewEnglish Literature AQA...

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