Love through the ages: Specimen question commentary

This resource explains how a question taken from the Sample Assessment Material addresses the assessment objectives, with some suggestions of how the task might be approached. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every point that could be made but it gives teachers and students some guidance that will support their work on this paper.

Paper 1, Section A

As this is a closed book exam students will need to know their texts very well and be able to recall specific details that can be used in their responses.

Sample Question

Question 4: The Winter's Tale

[Extract from The Winter's Tale, I. ii. 264-318]

'Paradoxically, texts often present jealousy as springing from the very deepest kind of love.'

In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Leontes' feelings for Hermione in this extract and elsewhere in the play.

How the question meets the Assessment Objectives:

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.

AO1 is tested through the ways the students organise and express their ideas as they are analysing the passage and exploring the view. Value is placed on technical accuracy, appropriate use of terminology and the structure of the argument.

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.

AO3 is addressed when students demonstrate an understanding of the literary, dramatic and cultural contexts in which The Winter's Tale is placed. Students will show their understanding of the wider social and cultural expectations of marriage; they 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. 

To address AO4 students 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 destructive power of jealous behaviour, what may cause it, how it affects other characters and influences events. They could usefully explore the idea of tragic-comedy and the characteristic features of Shakespeare's so-called 'romances' or 'late plays'.

Finally, AO5 tests students' skill when engaging with different interpretations arising out of the point of view at the beginning of the question.

It may be helpful if students begin their answer by establishing where the extract comes in the text of the play and by saying what it is about. For example: 'At this stage of the play, Leontes' life-long friend Polixenes has been a guest in the Sicilian court for nine months. He says he must now return home to Bohemia. Egged on by Leontes, Hermione urges him to stay. In the course of their conversation she 'gives her hand to Polixenes', an action which galvanises Leontes into suspicion of their motives ('Too hot, too hot! . . O, that is entertainment my bosom likes not, nor my brows.'), which very quickly turns to an irrational and jealous rage. Camillo, a hitherto trusted friend at Leontes' court, feels he has to speak up.'

Possible content: the extract

Students could chose to write about the following dramatic features in the extract: the rapid deterioration of the relationship between Leontes and Camillo which turns to abuse ('gross lout', 'mindless slave') and accusations of lying; the excessive nature of Leontes' jealous outburst; the sudden build-up of anger in Leontes' first speech; his latent anxiety about being cuckolded; Camillo's defence of Hermione – who he believes to be innocent - and concern for her husband's sanity; the torrent of offensive language, suggesting that Hermione is guilty of unfaithful, licentious behaviour ('slippery', 'hobby-horse', 'flax-wench that puts to Before her troth-plight', 'horsing on foot'); the listing of physical intimacies, in which Polixenes is also implicated ('meeting noses', 'kissing with inside lip'); the imagery of infection, disease and cure; the chilling, categorical and emphatic repetition of 'nothing'; the closing lines in which Leontes contemplates having Polixenes murdered ('mightst bespice a cup') thereby placing an intolerable burden on Camillo's loyalties to both men.

Possible content: the wider context

In investigating Leontes' jealousy, which seems to be at such odds with ('paradoxically') the deep love he shows for his wife elsewhere in the play, students will be connecting with one of the central issues of the theme of love. Jealousy and suspicion are represented as having a devastatingly destructive power (as they are in other plays by Shakespeare, e.g. Othello and King Lear and even in Much Ado About Nothing). Thus the extract offers a way into a broader and richer understanding of 'literary representation'. Candidates could provide comment on the idea of tragi-comedy or 'romance'; the high price typically placed by husbands upon the purity and fidelity of their wives; the fear and shame of being mocked as a cuckold, by other men and by society at large.

Examples of 'love' between characters are provided by Leontes and Hermione; Mamillius and his parents; Paulina and Antigonus; Perdita and Florizel; Old Shepherd and Perdita (although the emotional tie here is primarily one of fatherly pride); Camillo and Leontes and Polixenes (love expressed in loyal service to a king).

Significance

Candidates might enlarge upon any of the above points and suggest what 'meanings' arise from the ideas contained in them. Observations could be made about the following: how Leontes' moves in a trice from speaking lovingly of his wife (1. ii. 87-106) to suspecting her of adulterous behaviour; the precipitate development of his jealousy which is to drive the plot of the play and result in his ordering Camillo to kill Polixenes, his rejection of his new-born daughter, and to Hermione's supposed death; the social and cultural expectations of marriage from an early 17th century point-of-view (cp. the ideal marriage of Paulina and Antigonus, and the good omens for the imminent marriage of Perdita and Florizel); the great value placed on a queen's virtue in the patriarchal context of a court; contemporary ideas about love as a sickness; a woman seen as a man's possession in every sense; pure women; cuckoldry.

Debate could centre on questions such as: Is Leontes fully responsible for his thoughts, feelings and actions? Is he suffering some form of mental breakdown? Should the audience feel pity for him, as well as for Hermione and Camillo?

Consideration might be given to: Leontes' horror immediately the Oracle's pronouncements are read out (3. ii. 149ff.); Polixenes' and Camillo's acknowledgement that Leontes' jealousy must spring incomprehensibly from his love for Hermione; Leontes' behaviour in Acts 4 and 5, where he passes successively through stages of sorrow, mourning, penitence and reverence before Hermione's statue; the conclusion that true love outweighs or triumphs over jealousy in the end.

Students might spot a possible parallel between Leontes' love for Hermione and that of Florizel for Perdita, each man recognising in his love something stronger than the rational, a kind of 'madness' even (Florizel at IV.4.483ff and Leontes at V.3.72-73).

Of course, students can disagree with the view put forward in the question, asserting with appropriate textual illustration that: jealousy – at least temporarily - is stronger than love; Leontes is fickle, foolish, stubborn, arrogant ('There is no truth at all i' th'Oracle . . this is mere falsehood.'), possessive and tyrannical, shown best of all by his persisting with the trial of Hermione, which seems particularly callous seeing she has just given birth.

This resource is part of the Love through the ages resource package.