ELAT 2016 (2017 Entry)

Oh great I don't think I'll remember the content of my ELAT paper as well as my personal statement reading plus my wider reading and all my school stuff.
Cambridge just want to grill us hard..

Hmm I didn't know that they did that! Is that in place of doing another unseen five minutes before the interview do you know?


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A,B and E.

P1-The power of nature over man: talked about devices reflecting Man's vulnerability and likened effects of storm to the apocalypse.

P2-The power of the storm analogous to war in Donne whereas it mirrors the cruelty of slavery in Mansfield (both first person and using human experience as basis of understanding caprices of nature) and psychological abuse of child by parent in Mansfield (the trees seemed to offer safety and comfort but bullied the child).

P3-Donne implies storm flows from pagan Gods of Homer whereas others make Biblical allusions. Storm 'raged' like Poseidon and the Sun is described as a pedagogic vs 'shadow' of death in Ruskin and the anti-Edenic Mansfield piece reflecting Man's fall from grace.

Used loads of close analysis and referenced loads of devices + talked about texture of the text, rhythm, imagery, allusion, etc.

I think it went well. Having read what people had written in previous years on here, I was rather intimidated though. Thank God it's done

A,B and E.

P1-The power of nature over man: talked about devices reflecting Man's vulnerability and likened effects of storm to the apocalypse.

P2-The power of the storm analogous to war in Donne whereas it mirrors the cruelty of slavery in Ruskin (both first person and using human experience as basis of understanding caprices of nature) and psychological abuse of child by parent in Mansfield (the trees seemed to offer safety and comfort but bullied the child).

P3-Donne implies storm flows from pagan Gods of Homer whereas others make Biblical allusions. Storm 'raged' like Poseidon and the Sun is described as a pedagogic vs 'shadow' of death in Ruskin and the anti-Edenic Mansfield piece reflecting Man's fall from grace.

Used loads of close analysis and referenced loads of devices + talked about texture of the text, rhythm, imagery, allusion, etc.

I think it went well. Having read what people had written in previous years on here, I was rather intimidated though. Thank God it's done

That's really interesting, I can see a link to Exodus there as well.

I can't entirely remember my exact points, so I'll just have to list devices:

I spoke about the use of fricatives vs plosives, asyndeton, semantic fields, metaphor, the repetition of certain letters, allusion, enjambement, etc. I didn't really speak about rhyme scheme; but syntax and rhythm fed into my structural and textural points.

Wasn't the Ruskin piece amazing?!! When i got home, I looked at the painting; it was so perfectly conjured in the mind by the extract.

What kind of devices did you discuss?

Btw, it's really nice talking to like-minded Oxbridge English applicants.

To which did you apply?

Alas, no. I don't read Greek and only know very limited latin (I actually don't know how, but I know the Lord's Prayer in Latin, despite being an atheist lol) + love other literature too much.

Completely agree. Despite being hugely stressful, the ELAT prep has opened my eyes to new literary forms.

I've applied to Girton college, Cambridge (I know it's not very popular, I just really liked it when I visited it).

Best of luck with Oxford!

Wow, okay I feel a bit dumb for not having a clue about any of the biblical allusion but well done to everyone else, your essays sound amazing.

I did B, D and E and my thesis was basically about how depictions of storms are often representative, or linked to, loss of life and human sacrifice and then I went on to analyse the different speakers attitudes towards death and mortality. Anyone else do something similar?

My personal statement talks a lot about macabre literature and death and murder and so on... and I somehow managed to write an entire essay on death in the ELAT without realising. Don't want Cambridge to think death is the only thing I find interesting lol.

I did a paragraph on death too but I did A and E.
Which college are you applying to?