OCR A2 'Drama and Poetry pre-1800' 20th June 2012

Anyone know where you find the AO weightings for Shakespeare and the comparison texts? Are they the same or different?


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No, the dominant AOs in each section are as follows:
Section A: AO2 (analysis of language) and AO3 (critical analysis)
Section B: AO3 (critical analysis) and AO4 (historical and thematic context)

Thanks


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I think that in terms of critics you can't say, 'I usually put this many in' because then doesn't it seem rather forced, just like you are trying to tick the boxes. I think it's important that it sounds natural rather than just dumped in because you think you should have criticisms.
Having said that I usually put in at least one per main point, whether it be a quote or a reference to a production.

Does anyone know if anything about appearance/reality or verisimilitude could come up for Othello? I quite like the question, but I don't have access to all the past papers so I don't know how likely it is to come up.

verisimil-what now?

Does anyone know if anything about appearance/reality or verisimilitude could come up for Othello? I quite like the question, but I don't have access to all the past papers so I don't know how likely it is to come up.

Appearance V Reality would be a good one. (I think a word like 'versimilitude' would be a bit ambitious for an A-Level question...) There has already been one about 'the need for certainty', which probably touches on similar ideas, but I imagine it's probably sufficiently different to work. I'd like that one.

The appearance of being true/real but not being so XD I think it's relevant but I don't know how likely a question is on it.

Ah. Well, considering that most people on here think one of the questions will be Othello-centric... It might turn up in a Leavis sense - disguising Othello behind an "obtuse and brutal egotism"... the lack of self-recognition, his tendency towards self-dramatisation and narrative self-fashioning. It would actually be quite interesting to address - if not in a direct appearance/reality sense, then at least in a consideration of Othello's otherness or in an exploration of why he succumbs so easily to Iago's machinations.

That's certainly an interesting perspective, the way Othello presents himself.
I think it'd be a good one because you could also bring women into it... Women are not what they seem, as Iago points out to Desdemona early on in the play, and misconceptions as a whole.

Othello, Pardoner's Tale and Dr. Faustus anyone?
I'm finding the Othello bit harder actually, I like the comparison between the two other texts. I need help with language analysis for Othello if anyone can offer it? I can exchange contextual knowledge! haha :P

Oooh, yes! And how women are unable to change these misconceptions because their position in society prevents them from having a voice. I find it so irritating that critic upon critic targets Emilia for not saving Desdemona, but she does defend her against Othello's allegations of infidelity! Othello just says, well she's a "simple bawd" so she can't possibly know what she's talking about. She's damned if she does, damned if she doesn't...

Yeah, exactly! I like Emilia, personally XD I would love it if this came up - You could even mention how Othello is described as some sort of savage before his appearance in the play, and how different he seems, the whole appearance/preconception thing, initially anyway, so you could bring race and being an outsider into it as well.

... oh yeah, and how this initially shaped by Iago's unreliable narration, before we even meet him. Contemporary audiences would've probably been more able to relate with Iago's negative representation of the Moor in Jacobean England rather than the noble Moor that Shakespeare presents him as.

Ahem. Clearly we should just write the exam questions.