AQA A2 English Literature 2016 - Love Through The Ages. Official Thread

Hi Guys!

Is it ok if you could let me know your thoughts on my wider reading list?
Maybe have something more for the darker sides of love- i know you have obsessive maybe Enduring Love could be good. I would also become familiar with all the Jayne Austin prose. I have- but not read, have a few quotes up your sleeve and watch the versions online as they are very good and they tend to come up in exams. Also make sure you become familiar with shakespearean works for the exam too so you know what is always going on.

Prose:

Wuthering Heights - unconditional love/unrequited love
Jane EyreGreat Gatsby - unrequited love #
The Picture of Dorian Gray - unrequited love/homosexual love
The Kite Runner - Platonic Love
John Keats - Letter to Fanny Brawne - unrequited love
Our Mutual Friend - obsessive love/jealousy/unrequited love
Sense and Sensibility - obsessive love/unrequited love between Marianne and John

Poetry:John Donne; Marvell; WB Yeats; Robert Herrick; Philip Larkin; WH Auden; Shakespeare others

Drama:
Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing; Merchant of Venice; King Lear; Twelfth Night; Hamlet
Oscar Wilde - A Woman of No Importance
Tennessee Williams - A Streetcar Named Desire
Harold Pinter - Betrayal (platonic love/illicit love)

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What love can we link to chaucer? Courtly love?

What advice would you give a year 12 starting A level literature?
What literary devices do you need to know for poetry and novels?
How do I structure essays?
Is wider reading necessary?

You're right with courtly love.

agree- read widely! and keep track of your reading, understanding f,s,l and be sure to analyse what this does/ why the author has used this and how does this contribute to the text as a WHOLE. Literature is crafted- everything is that way for a reason, and be sure to use embedded examples/ quotes in your essay. I struggled with this last year (year 12), but embedded quotes/ short quotes makes such a huge difference on the fluency of your essay.
I have attached a document that you will find useful- refer to it often! a lot of it seems obvious, but you would be surprised! Good luck- you will love studying english lit at a level- but i am bias!!

Can anyone suggest any ways to revise and get an A??? My exam is soon and my teachers are rubbish and I don't know what to do! help please

i mean tips for the exam, like how to tackle the exam questions, not just "read widely"

I'm surprised how much people are referring to wider reading when the exam is primarily practical criticism... The best thing you can do is write essays from all the past papers and practice analyzing extracts on the spot. Go on Wikipedia ( yes wikipedia, it's condensed and we're only at A Level stage and writing an essay in an hour so it's unlikely you'll say something wildly inaccurate if the source is a tiny bit flawed, which it probably won't be) and just learn the basics about different literary contexts. Elizabethan conventions, Jacobean conventions, when did one period end and the other start etc. You don't need to go into too much depth, but knowing some words like carpe diem, fin de siecla, petrarchan etc. could help.

Also wiki authors. Read about metaphysicals for example. It's important to research about what you read as well as reading it, or you may miss key ideas. It will also introduce you to new ideas and concepts, not only about the text, but all literature. For example if someone is talking about the difference in flesh and spirit for metaphysicals, you know about this distinction in everything else you read. And you can see how it's treated differently by different authors too, which is prioritized? These ideas all snowball and you'll have more and more ways to think about lit.

For poetry I recommend learning the basics of form. Don't worry too much about the metre, but look for things easier to find like rhyme, alliteration, layout, quatrains, sestet, etc. If something has 14 lines it is sonnet like. These things aren't as important as things like is this carnal love ( remember this phrase for bodily lust etc. ) or obsessive love. Look for tone and mood obviously, and talk about how they're brought out by sounds etc. Look for symbols too. In drama this can be props, like even a wall or something. Also in the exam, I find if I feel it's going well and I'm positive, try and get excited about your essay.

For wider reading just find stuff which will work. If you're in trouble with time, then read the first third of the text and maybe all the important scenes too ( not ideal, but it can work because of how briefly you reference the text, though you may feel less secure with the text in the exam ). For Poetry just google one which seems to fit, or use the one the examiner report suggest. If you base your wider reading around past papers, you know it's likely to work in the exam. I did this last year for LitA1, and averaged 98% for English, trust me it works!

Victorian prose supposedly....

It seems likely that we'll get two dramas for question 1

I'm hoping for two prose pieces!