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Summary OCR GCSE English Literature Poetry
A detailed, concise summary of all the poems in the GCSE OCR English Literature course that helped me achieve a Grade 9 (A**) - incredibly useful and highly recommended.
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Poetry Revision GCSE English LiteraturePoetry Across Time J352/21
The questions:
You will have 2 questions and you must answer them both. These are each worth 20 marks. So,
together they are equal to the whole of your Macbeth essay.
The first question will ask you to compare how a theme or feeling is presented in an UNSEEN poem
and one of the poems you have learned. They will both be printed on the page. Spend 45 minutes
on this.
The second question will ask you to explore a similar theme in ANOTHER poem you have learned.
You will need to do this from memory. Spend 30 minutes on this.
You MUST write about both the unseen and the taught poem in Q1. Aim for a balanced approach
rather than writing more on one than the other.
You MUST quote little and often and discuss language and structure in the printed poems – no
excuses when they are printed for you!
You MUST refer to a DIFFERENT poem for part b.
You are not marked for context or spelling and grammar on this question so you can focus on just
dealing with the poems!
Planning:
AO1 – Show you understand the texts; write with a critical style; develop an informed personal
response; use textual evidence to support your interpretations.
AO2- Comment on how language, form and structure create meaning and effect. Use appropriate
subject terminology.
AO1 should drive your essay.
Make sure you can answer the question ‘in a nutshell’. Be able to summarise what the poems say
about that theme or feeling. Be specific here. Highlight the tone and the key similarity and difference
between the poems. This will be your introduction and you should keep coming back to this ‘nutshell
argument’ throughout.
Pick 2- 3 key points of comparison and plan your essay around these (like Q4 in the Language exam!)
Keep the question in mind throughout.
,For the second question the approach is similar. AO1 is MORE important here. You will have shown
your AO2 skills in the first question. For this one have a clear ‘nutshell’ about what the poem is
saying about the theme/feeling, how it makes the reader feel, and what are the main ideas and
techniques employed. Plan around 2-3 key points focusing on what the poem says about the
theme/feeling.
READ both printed poems a couple of times. Sum up what they are about on the surface.
What else are they about?
What is the tone?
What are the similarities?
Differences?
Then look for techniques which help to get all this across.
Active Revision.
• Read the poems again.
• Listen to them being read aloud – there are plenty of readings online!
• Make sure that for each poem you can sum up the poem ‘in a nutshell’ (see examples later
in this guide).
• Make sure that you can sum up the 3 key techniques in each poem.
• Look at how the title links to each poem.
• Look at how the first and last lines of each poem link.
• Summarise each poem in only 5 quotations.
• Summarise how each poem makes you feel and why.
• Look at poems online and try to find comparisons to the taught poems.
• What is the central image in each poem? Can you draw it? Explain it?
, The Poems:
An Arundel Tomb
In a nutshell – The poem explores time, identity, legacy and the human desire to believe in love. The
tomb becomes symbolic of how time can change us, with people looking at it and seeing not the
powerful names and wealth but the hand holding. The persona wonders if this ‘gesture’ is real or if
we just want to believe that something wonderful will survive of us. Although much of the poem
dismisses the ‘gesture’ as ‘untruth’, the persona recognizes that we all have an ‘instinct’ to believe it
anyway which makes it almost true.
Key quotes and techniques:
“Side by side, their faces blurred
The earl and countess lie in stone”
“Such plainness of the pre-baroque”
Symbolism of the tomb itself. The poem begins just describing the tomb, but the poem is actually
about love and death and identity. The tomb allows Larkin to explore all these issues. Look at how
the tomb is presented and the way the attitude to it changes.
The tomb is meant to demonstrate their power and wealth – but over time the focal point of the
tomb has turned into the handholding of the figures – nothing else has lived on. The poet argues
that love stays and is what endures the test of time. It sparks a debate of what will survive of us and
the persona wonders if this was meant for people to remember or if it is what we want to see.
“The air would change to soundless damage”
“How soon succeeding eyes begin to look, not read”
“Rigidly they persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths of time”
“Snow fell, undated”
“Each summer thronged the grass”
“The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity”
“Time has transfigured them into Untruth”
Language associated with time and language which suggests effacement/slow gradual change – this
imagery runs throughout, usually about the tomb, to demonstrate that not much survives of us, or
that we are powerless to control our legacy.
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