IB English Genre Study (Poetry): PAST PAPER PLANS

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Does background knowledge limit/enhance understanding of the work? Shooting Stars

(historical and social context THERE CAN BE NO POETRY AFTER AUSCHWITZ- Adono), Anne
Hathaway (biographical, social), Havisham (historical and social context), Batter my Heart
(Donnes biographical, religious)
Use of portrayal of landscape to explore human experience At Grass (pastoral?), Sonnet
60 WHAT DEFINES LANDSCAPE
Puts into words what we already know but had not thought of saying LARKIN??? WHAT
Language is never usual, casual or arbitrary Ambulances/Aubade, Church Going, At Grass,
Anne Hathaway, Shooting Stars, Mrs Tilchers Class, Sonnet 116
Role of imagination and success with which they use it as a means to interpret the
external world Anne Hathaway??? WHAT DO THEY MEAN BY ROLE OF IMAGINATION
Poetry should be difficult because life is complex Reasons for Attendance, Batter my
Heart, Shooting Stars (difficult subject matter)/ Sonnet 18 (to oppose) WHAT DOES IT MEAN
BY DIFFICULT
Discuss how atmosphere is conveyed and its contribution to the overall effects of their
poems Shooting Stars (fear, paranoia, acceptance of fate), The Ecstasy (celestial = spiritual
connection), Sonnet 129 (angry, resentful tone), Anne Hathaway (happiness, nostalgia), Mrs
Tilchers Class (cosseted, comforting foreboding) Atmosphere vs. Tone???, Death be Not
Proud (defiant), Ambulances/Aubade (fear, paranoia)
Discuss the ways in which art of any kind (other than literature) has been presented
Reasons for Attendance (dancing, art if you like ehh)
Exploring the concept of creative inspiration Anne Hathaway (act of imaginative
creation), Sonnet 18 (nature???), The Flea??, At Grass (Larkin inspired by snapshot of
images?)
The familiar as a way of entering the unfamiliar Ambulances (symbol of inevitability of
death), Death be Not Proud (short sleep), Church Going (assigning meaning through
religion???)
Intensity of love Sonnet 116, Sonnet 18, The Ecstasy, Anne Hathaway, Batter My Heart
(love for deity)
Poetry makes surprising connection between diverse experiences or ideas At Grass
(horses AGING), Shooting Stars (is it diverse? War memory), Church Going (individual
reflects on fate of humanity and necessity of religion), Reasons for Attendance (dancing and
observer calling life)
Choices of structure and form offer the poet limitless scope Anne Hathaway (Sonnet
form, doesnt completely abide by rhyme scheme, turn, female perspective, manipulates the
form for her own aims), Mrs Tilchers Class (first 2 are 8 lines, second 2 are 7 lines = loss of
innocence, physical/mental change), Batter My Heart (Sonnet form and subject = tension
between physical, earthly love and sacred, spiritual love, cannot be contained within 14
lines)
Discuss how effectively diction, whether precise or not, is used Sonnet 129 (anger,
negative connotations), Shooting Stars (Jewish names, stars, violent connotations of words,
biblical reference), Mrs Tilchers Class (contrast between childhood environment and
adolescence, reference Brady and Hinley, sweet shop, laugh of a bell swung by a running
child), Ambulances (far from the exchange of love, unreachable inside a room, they come to
rest at any kerb, all streets in time are visited, wild white face, closed like confessionals,

IB English Genre Study (Poetry): PAST PAPER PLANS

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thread, they whisper at their own distress, sense the solving emptiness that lies just under
all we do)
Choice and nature of speaker/persona is of crucial importance to the poem Shooting
Stars (female victim, WWII, horror/atrocity of war, need for remembrance), Anne Hathaway
(Sonnet form, relationship with husband, creative, imagination, female voice, love was
reciprocated)
Importance of gender to poets Anne Hathaway (subverts traditional male voice to convey
love from female to male), The Flea (male voice, but action of female in squashing flea), The
Ecstasy/Sonnet 116 (unity of two genders to create a unified whole, marriage of true minds,
engrafting of violet, equality, alchemy)
Role of memory and recollection in shaping poems Shooting Stars (need for
remembrance), At Grass (recollection, memory as a human construct), Sonnet 18
(remembrance of Hamnet???) HELP
Poems work because they recover the surprising, even the shocking, nature of familiar
ideas Ambulances/Aubade (symbol of ambulance/wardrobe, familiar ideas related to
death), Death Be Not Proud (short sleep past, we wake eternally idea in religion), Mrs
Tilchers Class (is it shocking and surprising?) HELP
Artifice- what it means and whether it helps our appreciation of works The Flea (clever
conceit of humble flea) HELP
A clever trick or stratagem; a cunning, crafty device or expedient; wile.
Trickery; guile; craftiness.
Cunning; ingenuity; inventiveness: a drawing-room comedy crafted with artifice and
elegance.
Skillful or artful contrivance or expedient.
Use of common speech and its effects Church Going (contrast between speaker and
formality of the church setting), The Flea (common at that time???), Mrs Tilchers Class (?)
more accessible to readers HELP
Importance of regularity of rhythm, if absent, by what means can poets differentiate
poetry from prose More emphasis on structural features/constrained = composition more
difficult than prose (e.g. staying within particular meter, rhyme) HELP
The ways in which poetic devices are used to support ideas ANYTHING
Importance of multiple meanings in a poem Church Going (different meaning of title),
Reasons for Attendance (Justification for calling in life and...???) WHAT DO THEY MEAN BY
MULTIPLE MEANINGS
Movement from the particular to the universal to explore human experience
Ambulances (death of one = death is inevitable for all), Reasons for Attendance (reflection of
speaker = justification in life), At Grass (horses = aging and death), Church Going (reflection
of speaker = importance of religion to humanity), Shooting Stars (Holocaust victim = need to
remember HISTORY and its atrocities to learn from our mistakes), Mrs Tilchers Class (???),
Anne Hathaway (love between two individuals liberating force and happiness found in
human relationships)
Unified wholes (words, lines, stanzas, thoughts, metaphors, rhythms working in perfect
harmony) Sonnet 18, Ecstasy (ABAB rhyme scheme etc) HELP!!!
Ways in which poets challenge our understanding and feelings to produce new insights
Church Going (speaker reflective of modern lack of belief BUT reflects on reasons as to why

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people go to church), Batter My Heart (peaceful, loving God vs. Donnes desire to be
overthrown with force), Anne Hathaway (understanding of Shakespeare as a loving
character, unlike Sonnet 130 addressed to the Dark Lady), Ambulances (challenges possible
idea of afterlife), Death be Not Proud (defiant),
Use of form and structure COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE FLEA (AABBCCDDD multiples of
three, trinity, union and flea), Mrs Tilchers Class (2 stanzas of 8, 2 stanzas of 7 loss of
innocence and mental/physical change), Sonnet 129 (using 14 lines but rhythm shifts,
enjambment etc)
True function of poetry (incompatible with teaching wisdom or virtue) HELP HELP HELP
Impact of structural features on poem Aids meaning = THE FLEA (AABBCCDDD multiples
of three, trinity, union and flea), Mrs Tilchers Class (2 stanzas of 8, 2 stanzas of 7 loss of
innocence and mental/physical change), Sonnet 129 (using 14 lines but rhythm shifts,
enjambment etc)
Importance of presentation of relationships/role of relationships to workAnne
Hathaway (love between two individual) = important as their love was reciprocated???,
Sonnet 116 (marriage of true minds, guiding people through love), Sonnet 18 (Hamnet,
lover, preservation), Death be Not Proud (relationship between him and death = he is
superior)
Contribution of visual imagery to meaning Mrs Tilchers Class (sugar paper, CANDY SHOP,
metaphor of froggies, sky split open into a thunderstorm, skittle of milk), At Grass
(unmolesting meadows, silks at the start), Sonnet 116 (star, tempests, scythe), Shooting
Stars (dying, shooting, killing, concentration camp scenes), Sonnet 60/73 (natural imagery),
aging,
The extent and means by which poems can transport us beyond the material world ???
The Ecstasy?

Material world = nature, the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general