OCR A Level English Literature Drama and poetry pre-1900 June 2018 question paper H472/01

Coriolanus

Answer both parts (a) and (b).

(a) Discuss the following passage from Act 1 Scene 3, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and its dramatic effects.

Rome. Marcius’ house.

Enter VOLUMNIA, and VIRGILIA, mother and wife to Marcius; they set them down on two low stools and sew.

VOLUMNIA I pray you, daughter, sing, or express yourself in a more
comfortable sort. If my son were my husband, I should freelier
rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the
embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When
yet he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb;
when youth with comeliness pluck’d all gaze his way; when, for
a day of kings’ entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour
from her beholding; I, considering how honour would become
such a person—that it was no better than picture-like to hang by
th’ wall, if renown made it not stir—was pleas’d to let him seek
danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him,
from whence he return’d his brows bound with oak. I tell thee,
daughter, I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-
child than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.
VIRGILIA   But had he died in the business, madam, how then?
VOLUMNIA Then his good report should have been my son; I therein would
have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen sons,
each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my good
Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than
one voluptuously surfeit out of action.

Enter a Gentlewoman.

GENTLEWOMAN Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.
VIRGILIA   Beseech you give me leave to retire myself.
VOLUMNIA Indeed you shall not.
  Methinks I hear hither your husband’s drum;
  See him pluck Aufidius down by th’ hair;
  As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him.
  Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:

  ‘Come on, you cowards! You were got in fear,
  Though you were born in Rome’. His bloody brow
  With his mail’d hand then wiping, forth he goes,
  Like to a harvest-man that’s task’d to mow
  Or all or lose his hire.
VIRGILIA   His bloody brow? O Jupiter, no blood!
VOLUMNIA Away, you fool! It more becomes a man
  Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,
  When she did suckle Hector, look’d not lovelier
  Than Hector’s forehead when it spit forth blood
  At Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria
  We are fit to bid her welcome.

VIRGILIA   Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!
VOLUMNIA He’ll beat Aufidius’ head below his knee
  And tread upon his neck.

And

‘The female characters are always positioned outside the main events of the play.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of women in Coriolanus.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

Hamlet

Answer both parts (a) and (b).

(a) Discuss the following passage from Act 4 Scene 4, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and its dramatic effects.

Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Others.

HAMLET   Good sir, whose powers are these?
CAPTAIN   They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET   How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?
CAPTAIN   Against some part of Poland.
HAMLET   Who commands them, sir?
CAPTAIN   The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
HAMLET   Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
  Or for some frontier?
CAPTAIN   Truly to speak, and with no addition,
  We go to gain a little patch of ground
  That hath in it no profit but the name.
  To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
  Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
  A ranker rate should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET   Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN   Yes, it is already garrison’d.
HAMLET   Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
  Will not debate the question of this straw.
  This is th’ imposthume of much wealth and peace,
  That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
  Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN   God buy you, sir.   [Exit.
ROSENCRANTZ   Will’t please you go, my lord?
HAMLET   I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before. [Exeunt all but HAMLET.
  How all occasions do inform against me,
  And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
  If his chief good and market of his time
  Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more!
  Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
  Looking before and after, gave us not
  That capability and godlike reason
  To fust in us unus’d. Now, whether it be
  Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
  Of thinking too precisely on th’ event—
  A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom
  And ever three parts coward—I do not know
  Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do’,
  Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means,
  To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
  Witness this army, of such mass and charge,
  Led by a delicate and tender prince,
  Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d,
  Makes mouths at the invisible event,
  Exposing what is mortal and unsure
  To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare,

  Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
  Is not to stir without great argument,
  But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
  When honour’s at the stake. How stand I, then,
  That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
  Excitements of my reason and my blood,
  And let all sleep, while, to my shame I see
  The imminent death of twenty thousand men
  That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
  Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
  Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
  Which is not tomb enough and continent
  To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
  My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!   [Exit.

And

‘ Hamlet is a play about indecision.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of the play Hamlet.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

Measure for Measure

Answer both parts (a) and (b).

(a) Discuss the following passage from Act 4 Scene 3, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and its dramatic effects.

Enter ABHORSON.

ABHORSON Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.
POMPEY   Master Barnardine! You must rise and be hang’d, Master Barnardine!
ABHORSON What, ho, Barnardine!
BARNARDINE [Within] A pox o’ your throats!
  Who makes that noise there? What are you?
POMPEY   Your friends, sir; the hangman.
  You must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death.
BARNARDINE [Within] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.
ABHORSON Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.
POMPEY   Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep
afterwards.
ABHORSON Go in to him, and fetch him out.
POMPEY   He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.

Enter BARNARDINE.

ABHORSON Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
POMPEY   Very ready, sir.
BARNARDINE How now, Abhorson, what’s the news with you?
ABHORSON Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers; for look you,
the warrant’s come.
BARNARDINE You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not fitted for’t.
POMPEY   O, the better, sir! For he that drinks all night and is hanged betimes
in the morning may sleep the sounder all the next day.

Enter DUKE, disguised as before.

ABHORSON Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father. Do we jest now, think
you?
DUKE   Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart,
I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you.
BARNARDINE Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more
time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will
not consent to die this day, that’s certain.
DUKE   O, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you
  Look forward on the journey you shall go.
BARNARDINE I swear I will not die to-day for any man’s persuasion.
DUKE   But hear you—
BARNARDINE Not a word; if you have anything to say to me, come to my ward; for
thence will not I to-day.   [Exit.
DUKE   Unfit to live or die. O gravel heart!
  After him, fellows; bring him to the block.

  [Exeunt Abhorson and Pompey.

Enter PROVOST.

PROVOST Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?
DUKE   A creature unprepar’d, unmeet for death;
  And to transport him in the mind he is
  Were damnable.

And

‘Shakespeare never forgets the funny side to life in Vienna.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of Measure for Measure.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

Richard III

Answer both parts (a) and (b).

(a) Discuss the following passage from Act 1 Scene 4, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and its dramatic effects.

CLARENCE If you do love my brother, hate not me;
  I am his brother, and I love him well.
  If you be hir’d for meed, go back again,
And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,
Who shall reward you better for my life
  Than Edward will for tidings of my death.
2 MURDERER You are deceiv’d: your brother Gloucester hates you.
CLARENCE O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.
  Go you to him from me.
1 MURDERER   Ay, so we will.
CLARENCE Tell him when that our princely father York
  Bless’d his three sons with his victorious arm
  And charg’d us from his soul to love each other,
  He little thought of this divided friendship.
  Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.
1 MURDERER Ay, millstones; as he lesson’d us to weep.
CLARENCE O, do not slander him, for he is kind.
1 MURDERER Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you deceive yourself:
  ’Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.
CLARENCE It cannot be; for he bewept my fortune
  And hugg’d me in his arms, and swore with sobs
  That he would labour my delivery.
1 MURDERER Why, so he doth, when he delivers you
  From this earth’s thraldom to the joys of heaven.
2 MURDERER Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord.
CLARENCE Have you that holy feeling in your souls
  To counsel me to make my peace with God,
  And are you yet to your own souls so blind
  That you will war with God by murd’ring me?
  O, sirs, consider: they that set you on
  To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
2 MURDERER What shall we do?
CLARENCE   Relent, and save your souls.
1 MURDERER Relent! No, ’tis cowardly and womanish.
CLARENCE Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
  Which of you, if you were a prince’s son,
  Being pent from liberty as I am now,
  If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
  Would not entreat for life?
  My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;
  O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
  Come thou on my side and entreat for me—
  As you would beg were you in my distress.
  A begging prince what beggar pities not?
2 MURDERER Look behind you, my lord.

1 MURDERER [Stabbing him]   Take that, and that.
  If all this will not do,
  I’ll drown you in the malmsey-butt within. [Exit with the body.
2 MURDERER A bloody deed, and desperately dispatch’d!
  How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
  Of this most grievous murder!

And

‘Evil ambition inspires all the major events of the play.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of the play Richard III.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

The Tempest

Answer both parts (a) and (b).

(a) Discuss the following passage from Act 5 Scene 1, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and its dramatic effects.

Before Prospero’s Cell.

Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL.

PROSPERO Now does my project gather to a head;
  My charms crack not, my spirits obey; and time
  Goes upright with his carriage. How’s the day?
ARIEL   On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,
  You said our work should cease.
PROSPERO   I did say so,
  When first I rais’d the tempest. Say, my spirit,
  How fares the King and’s followers?
ARIEL   Confin’d together
  In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
  Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,
  In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;
  They cannot budge till your release. The King,
  His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted,
  And the remainder mourning over them,
  Brim full of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
  Him you term’d, sir, ‘the good old lord, Gonzalo’;
  His tears run down his beard, like winter’s drops
  From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works ’em
  That if you now beheld them your affections
  Would become tender.
PROSPERO   Dost thou think so, spirit?
ARIEL   Mine would, sir, were I human.
PROSPERO   And mine shall.
  Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
  Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
  One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
  Passion as they, be kindlier mov’d than thou art?
  Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick,
  Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury
  Do I take part; the rarer action is
  In virtue than in vengeance; they being penitent,
  The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
  Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel;
  My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore,
  And they shall be themselves.
ARIEL     I’ll fetch them, sir.   [Exit.
PROSPERO Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
  And ye that on the sands with printless foot
  Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
  When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
  By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
  Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
  Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice

  To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid—
Weak masters though ye be—I have be-dimm’d
The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And ’twixt the green sea and the azur’d vault
Set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-bas’d promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’d up
The pine and cedar. Graves at my command
Have wak’d their sleepers, op’d, and let ’em forth,
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have requir’d
Some heavenly music—which even now I do—
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.

And

‘Prospero is right to give up his magic.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of The Tempest.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

Twelfth Night

Answer both parts (a) and (b).

(a) Discuss the following passage from Act 4 Scene 2, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and its dramatic effects.

Olivia’s house.

Enter MARIA and Clown.

MARIA Nay, I prithee, put on this gown and this beard; make him believe thou art Sir Topas the curate; do it quickly. I’ll call Sir Toby the whilst.

CLOWN Well, I’ll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in’t; and I would I were the
first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I am not tall enough to become
the function well nor lean enough to be thought a good student; but
to be said an honest man and a good housekeeper goes as fairly as
to say a careful man and a great scholar. The competitors enter.

Enter SIR TOBY and MARIA.

SIR TOBY Jove bless thee, Master Parson.
CLOWN Bonos dies, Sir Toby; for as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw
pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc ‘That that is
is’; so I, being Master Parson, am Master Parson; for what is ‘that’ but
that, and ‘is’ but is?
SIR TOBY To him, Sir Topas.
CLOWN What ho, I say! Peace in this prison!
SIR TOBY The knave counterfeits well; a good knave.
MALVOLIO [Within] Who calls there?
CLOWN Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the lunatic.
MALVOLIO Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady.
CLOWN Out, hyperbolical fiend! How vexest thou this man! Talkest thou nothing
but of ladies?
SIR TOBY Well said, Master Parson.
MALVOLIO Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged. Good Sir Topas, do not think
I am mad; they have laid me here in hideous darkness.
CLOWN Fie, thou dishonest Satan! I call thee by the most modest terms, for I am
one of those gentle ones that will use the devil himself with courtesy.
Say’st thou that house is dark?
MALVOLIO As hell, Sir Topas.
CLOWN Why, it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes, and the
clerestories toward the south north are as lustrous as ebony; and yet
complainest thou of obstruction?
MALVOLIO I am not mad, Sir Topas. I say to you this house is dark.
CLOWN Madman, thou errest. I say there is no darkness but ignorance; in
which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog.
MALVOLIO I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance were as
dark as hell; and I say there was never man thus abus’d. I am no more
mad than you are; make the trial of it in any constant question.

And

‘Appearances in the play often hide a very different reality.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of Twelfth Night.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

Section 2 – Drama and Poetry pre-1900

Answer one question from this section. You should spend about 1 hour and 15 minutes on this section.

In your answer, you should refer to one drama text and one poetry text from the following lists:

7 ‘Love brings difficulties as well as pleasures.’

In the light of this view, consider ways in which writers explore love relationships. In your answer, compare one drama text and one poetry text from the above lists.

8 ‘We live in a world of constant change.’

In the light of this view, consider ways in which writers explore change. In your answer, compare one drama text and one poetry text from the above lists.

9 ‘Foolish acts and their consequences are an important part of literature.’

In the light of this view, consider ways in which writers explore human folly and its effects. In your answer, compare one drama text and one poetry text from the above lists.

‘Literature is very good at exploring intense emotion.’

In the light of this view, consider ways in which writers explore intense feelings and emotions. In your answer, compare one drama text and one poetry text from the above lists.

‘We always need to be prepared for disappointment in life.’

In the light of this view, consider ways in which writers explore disappointment. In your answer, compare one drama text and one poetry text from the above lists.

‘Literature proves that human beings are intent on deceiving one another.’

In the light of this view, consider ways in which writers explore deceit and delusion. In your answer, compare one drama text and one poetry text from the above lists.