1. Your English Literature gcse
Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19th century novel.
Paper 2: Modern texts and poetry.
60% of your English Literature GCSE..
40% of your English Literature GCSE.
Section A: One essay question on An Inspector Calls.
Section B: Compare two poems from the Power and Conflict anthology.
Section C: Unseen poetry where you will answer one question on a poem you haven’t seen before to compare with another unseen poem.
Section A: One question on a Shakespeare play.
Section B: One question about Pride and Prejudice.

2. Key things to remember
You have to compare 2 poems. This means that you need to write an essay where you will find SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCES between the ideas in the poems.
Only ONE poem is printed out on the exam paper. SO, you will have to revise quotations for every poem so that you are prepared.
It is marked out of 20. For the highest band Level marks the essay will be critical and make INSIGHTFUL comments about both poems.
You will be tested on how good your subject terminology is!

3. What will the question look like?

4. Investigate what you think this poem is about
You need to do FIRST OF ALL get a feel of the poem. You have no idea what it is called, what it is about and who it is written by. Let’s use that lack of knowledge! In your groups you have been given a few lines of the poem. You have 10 minutes to do the following tasks around the lines of the poem.
Group Work Tasks:
What do these lines suggest about the man in the poem?
Can you highlight two key words from the lines? What are the connotations? What type of words are they?
Make a prediction about what you think this poem is all about.

5. C/L
Wednesday 15th March 2017
My Last Duchess

6. The poem is a dramatic monologue.
Rumour has it, it’s about a guy called Duke Alfonso II.
It is set in 1564 but written during the Victorian times.
Duke Alfonso married the daughter of a powerful Spanish family when she was 14. She died at 17 under ‘suspicious circumstances’
In the poem, the Duke invites a man (a Count) to his house because he wants to marry his daughter (moved on quickly or what?).
The Duke shows him around his house showing off his wealthy possessions then stops at a painting. A painting of his last wife who he killed. He keeps this painting behind a curtain.

7. That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
“my” possessive pronoun. He sees her as his object like most men in the Victorian times (when it was written) felt.
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her?
Imperative Verbs “sit” and “look” put him in power. The interrogative: not a question but an order.
“that” (a demonstrative) emphasises it is just an object to him and not someone he loved.

8. “I have drawn for you” sinister tone as if he has done her a favour
Fra Pandolf is a famous painter. He says this to impress the Count. The reader doesn’t know who this artist is so we are made to feel inferior to the Duke.
I said “Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
“but I” at the end of the sentence as if he is desperate to finish it focusing on him
“I have drawn for you” sinister tone as if he has done her a favour

9. What word is repeated here and in the first lines that illustrates that she is his possession?
“Durst” = dare
If they dare. A threatening tone Shows how arrogant he is because he thinks people are afraid of him.
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’
She has blushed cheeks in the painting. He thinks she blushed from the painter complimenting her. How does he feel about this?

10. The mantle is the sleeve of her costume
The mantle is the sleeve of her costume. This meant the sleeves of her costume went over her wrist too much. Like she pulled it down to far. A symbol that she pushed boundaries all the time. Maybe she was trying to show her skin?
cheek; perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy.
The blushing fades when it gets to her throat. Why does he say “dies” instead of fades. What connotations does it have? How does it make the reader feel?

11. Ha! I make her happier than the Duke could ever make her feel!
Dashes break this sentence up. He draws us into that question in the middle. It adds to the CONVERSATIONAL TONE.
She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least.
He lists the things that pleased her: the sunset, cherries from a tree and riding a mule (donkey). He is annoyed that she was made happy by simple things when he has given her his status and name.
Ha! I make her happier than the Duke could ever make her feel!

12. What is a monster? On your sticky note
A monster is…
On your sticky note
1.) What do you think a monster is?
2.) How does this noun relate to The Duke?

13. Thursday 16th March 2017 C/L My Last Duchess LESSON OUTCOME:
LESSON OBJECTIVE:
To understand the poem My Last Duchess (AO1).
LESSON OUTCOME:
To annotate the poem with subject terminology and strong language analysis (AO2).

14. We are focusing on Paper 2 Section B.
Bigger Picture
You have to COMPARE two poems.
One is p_____ on the paper but then you have to ……….
We are focusing on Paper 2 Section B.

15. She thanked men—good! but thanked
The Duke believes that he has been generous giving her his name. He is furious that she wasn’t grateful enough for this status and wealth that the name gave her!
She thanked men—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling?
The verb “stoop” shows that he didn’t want to lower himself to discuss her “behaviour” with her.

16. His attitude is that she should have let herself be lessoned by him
His attitude is that she should have let herself be lessoned by him. She shouldn’t have stepped out of line.
Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Repetition of “stoop” he can’t get status off his mind. “I choose never to stoop” is full of arrogance.

17. Questioning tone adds to how he wanted to control her.
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.
Sibilance- adds a smoothness to the sound like how smoothly his plan to control her worked.
This is the moment we realise the smiles stopped and he killed her!

18. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I repeat,
A dowry is a contract where a father passes on his daughter like an object to the husband she marries. This one word shows how he wants power and control over women.
Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
It is HUGELY important that he shows him a statue of the Greek God Neptune who tames sea-horses.
Why is this important at the end. What is it a BIG SYMBOL for?

19. MY LAST DUCHESS revision card
4 key quotations to this poem

20. What is a monster? On your sticky note
A monster is…
On your sticky note
1.) What do you think a monster is?
2.) How does this noun relate to The Duke?