1. Paper 1 Love Through the Ages
L.O. to understand the types of question in the paper
to understand how to create new questions
to understand how to respond to the tasks

2. Section A The Winter’s Tale
You will have an extract (around 60 lines) from your play and a question related to love.
A view will be presented, e.g. ‘Paradoxically, texts often present jealousy as springing from the very deepest kind of love.’
Then you will be asked to explore this further, e.g. In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Leontes’ feelings for Hermione in this extract and elsewhere in the play. (25 marks).

3. Section A The Winter’s Tale
In this question, as throughout the paper, the assessment objectives are all assessed.  As a result, almost all the words in the question should be addressed, as these are clearly connected to the assessment objectives: paradoxically, jealousy, springing from, deepest kind of love; in the light of this view, discuss how, Shakespeare, presents, feelings, this extract, elsewhere in the play.

4. Section A The Winter’s Tale
AO1 is tested through the ways you organise and express your ideas as you are analysing the passage and exploring the view. Value is placed on technical accuracy, appropriate use of terminology and the structure of the argument.

5. Section A The Winter’s Tale
AO2 is set up in the requirement to 'discuss how Shakespeare presents Leontes feelings for…..'  This requires analysis of Shakespeare's dramatic methods through a consideration of his use of language, imagery and other stylistic devices which determine how meanings are shaped.

6. Section A The Winter’s Tale
AO3 is addressed when you demonstrate your understanding of the literary, dramatic and cultural contexts in which The Winter's Tale is placed. You will show your understanding of the wider social and cultural expectations of marriage; you will also be able to explore contexts of audience reception through awareness of the different ways in which this scene can and has been performed.

7. Section A The Winter’s Tale
To address AO4 you should link the typicality of the extract and the play as a whole to the theme of 'Love through the Ages', with particular reference to the the ways in which love can be destructive: what may turn a positive emotion like love into something damaging, how it affects other characters and influences events. You could usefully explore the idea of tragic-comedy and the characteristic features of Shakespeare's so-called 'romances' or 'late plays'.

8. Section A The Winter’s Tale
Finally, AO5 tests your skills when engaging with different interpretations arising out of the point of view at the beginning of the question.
Look closely at the response from AQA - this achieved B5 - read it, annotate it and consider why it was awarded B5?

9. Section A The Winter’s Tale Examiner commentary
AO1 – Ideas are organised and almost always well-expressed. There is no slavish plodding through the extract from start to finish, but a confident, perceptive and wide-ranging exploration of the issues through argument or debate. The question is answered, and focus on the key words is sustained. Appropriate terms are used and technical accuracy is of a high standard. Just occasionally the style becomes awkward but this is work produced under the pressure of exam conditions.
AO2 – Assertions are supported with direct or indirect reference to the passage and, importantly, to other parts of the play. Attention is paid to the detail of the text, i.e. the words and actions of significant characters. Quotations are skilfully embedded, and often accompanied by perceptive explanation and/or analysis.

10. Section A The Winter’s Tale Examiner commentary
AO3 – Contextual material is used appositely to demonstrate the 'reception' of the play and the impact on audiences, including those of Shakespeare's time - e.g. the material on cuckolds - which frequently and genuinely enhances the argument.
AO4 – The representation of Leontes' passionate nature and consequent behaviour through the play - as it moves from love to suspicion to jealous rage to regret to penitence - is perceptively explored, and thereby connected to the broader representation of jealousy as a central  issue of the 'love through the ages' theme.
AO5 – Alternative interpretations are investigated and expounded with understanding, assurance and some insight, evidence of a personal and well thought-out response to the play.

11. Section A Making your own questions The Winter’s Tale
Choose a type of love you know is present in WT

12. Different kinds of love
Section A
The Winter’s Tale
Different kinds of love
romantic love of many kinds
love and sex
love and loss
social conventions and taboos
love through the ages according to history and time
love through the ages according to individual lives (young love, maturing love)
jealousy and guilt
truth and deception
proximity and distance
marriage
approval and disapproval.

13. Section A The Winter’s Tale Creating and exploring your own questions
Take a view of love from above or make your own. I've focused on the idea of love as being destructive for this question and phrased it in exactly the same way as the AQA sample question:
'Paradoxically, love is often presented in texts as causing irreparable harm and damage.'
In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Hermione's and Leontes' feelings for each other in this extract and elsewhere in the play. (25 marks).

14. Section A Making your own questions The Winter’s Tale
Select an extract in which you know elements of this love can be found

15. Section A
The Winter’s Tale
I’ve selected the opening of the trial scene - Act 3 scene 2.
The first thing you must do is annotate very quickly, considering all the elements of the question: love/irreparable harm/damage (and the paradoxical elements here) plus
feelings of Hermione/Leontes and their different presentations

16. Section A
The Winter’s Tale
Then plan - consider all the AOs - you will need some specific terminology: hamartia, tragedy, hubris, proxemics

17. Section A you should identify some features of form, structure:
The Winter’s Tale
you should identify some features of form, structure:
the entrance of Hermione, guarded
the setting of a court
The position in the play (Act 3 scene 2) - central act in a Shakespeare play, a pivotal moment in a tragedy
Dramatic irony

18. Section A
The Winter’s Tale
Language: Leontes’ persuasive speech seeking to sway the court
Hermione’s dignified, calm and rather eloquent speech with its reflection of ‘tyranny’ which is initially repudiated by Leontes

19. Section A The Winter’s Tale Context:
Literary: use of the oracle reflects Greek Tragedy - classic Renaissance 5 act play
‘high treason’ reflects the severity of the charge - Henry VIII’s wife Ann Boleyn beheaded, Jacobean audience understand the danger to Hermione
the sanctity of marriage in the early seventeenth century

20. Section A The Winter’s Tale Context:
Leontes’ fear of being a cuckold reflects men’s fears at this time
The power of the male in a patriarchal society and of the king in an era which believed strongly in the chain of being and of the divine right of kings

21. Section A The Winter’s Tale connections :
love leading to destruction a common theme in literature - the passion of love can be so extreme it leads to violent passions when love seems to be repudiated.
Sense of betrayal resulting from hubris
This appears to fit totally with the sense of tragedy but our knowledge of later in the play means we recognise that this will change - relevance to later plays

22. Section A The Winter’s Tale
connections : love leading to destruction a common theme in literature - the passion of love can be so extreme it leads to violent passions when love seems to be repudiated.
Leontes’ emotions as they move from love to suspicion to jealous rage to regret to penitence while Hermione’s remain steadfast & how she is here represented as a victim of Leontes’ hamartia and her reported death accords perfectly with our expectations of tragedy

23. Section A The Winter’s Tale Sense of betrayal resulting from hubris
This appears to fit totally with the sense of tragedy but our knowledge of later in the play means we recognise that this will change - relevance to later plays

24. Section A The Winter’s Tale different interpretations/debate:
AO5 – make sure you can investigate alternative interpretations and develop these with understanding, assurance and some insight; you must show evidence of a personal and well thought-out response to the play.
Remember that a well thought out plan should lead to a strong introduction which then will lead naturally to a well thought out essay

25. Section A
The Winter’s Tale
It may be helpful if you begin your answer by establishing where the extract comes in the text of the play and by saying what it is about as well as establishing a thesis (your idea for argument).

26. Section A
The Winter’s Tale
'At this stage of the play, Leontes has convened a court in order to give his wife, Hermione, a fair trial for her imagined adulterous relationship with his life-long friend Polixenes. Leontes declares that Hermione has been 'too much beloved' by him but, 'Despite his 'great grief' which 'pushes 'gainst our heart' he appears determined to 'Proceed in justice'.

27. Section A
The Winter’s Tale
It is dramatically surprising and shocking that Hermione enters 'guarded' and is accused of 'high treason', something the Jacobean audience would immediately recognise as punishable by death.

28. Section A
The Winter’s Tale
Both contemporary and modern audiences are able to perceive how paradoxically, the positive emotion of love has become tragically destructive and produced irreparable harm and damage; Hermione feels she has already been cruelly and unfairly punished, later in the scene lamenting that she has been 'Proclaimed a strumpet' and had 'The child bed privilege denied.'