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EnglandEnglish Language & LiteratureQuick questions
Component 2: Varieties in Language and Literature
Quick questions on Poetry as language and literature - Edexcel A-Level English Language and Literature
4short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the constructed speaker?Show answer
A poem constructs a speaker, a voice that is not simply the poet. Identify the speaker and how the poem builds and positions them: the pronouns and address (a lyric "I", a "you" addressed, a "we" included), the deixis that locates the speaker in time and place, and the tone carried by lexis and rhythm. Reading the speaker as a construction, and analysing how the poem positions the reader toward them (intimate, distanced, complicit), is the narratological move applied to verse, and it keeps the analysis on AO2.
What is q1?Show answer
Why is form a method rather than background in poetry? [2 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
What is a volta, and why might a poet use one? [2 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
How do you keep poetry analysis integrated rather than literature-only or language-only? [3 marks]
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