Edexcel English Literature A Level Paper 3
Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass
Mock Epic poem
Free verse - speaker lost in thought, frustration
History
Verse is irregular and fragmented
Some parts are in Iambic Pentameter
Lots of enjambment
White space - speaker is distracted by planes flying overhead
An Easy Passage
Single stanza with long enjambed lines
Vignette
Lots of enjambment
Free verse - engrossed in the girl’s task
The Deliverer
Tercet stanzas → normalises infanticide
Free verse + no rhyme scheme → conversational
Poem begins + ends in India → broader cycle has not been broken
The Lammas Hireling
Free Verse
Dramatic monologue
4 Stanza each with sestets
Lots of enjambment
To My Nine-Year-Old Self
No rigid rhyme scheme or stanzas → carefree youth
A Minor Role
Punctuation creates an awkward rhythm
Lines are enjambed
No rhyme scheme
6 irregular stanzas → random thoughts
The Gun
No rhyme scheme/ regular structure → gun is not predictable or constrained
The Furthest Distance I’ve Travelled
Rhyme scheme → AABB
Half rhymes → conversational
Lack of meter → conversational
Varying stanza lengths → novelty of travels
Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn
Based on John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn
Ekphrastic poem → praising art
Structure is very traditional
Iambic pentameter
Rhyme scheme = ababcdedce
Giuseppe
Six irregular stanzas + line length
Free verse and enjambment creates a steady, sinister pace
No rhyme scheme makes it seem more like a nightmare
Out of the bag
Divided into 4 parts
Part one: 13 stanzas, all tercets except one
Part two: 10 stanzas
Part three: 4 tercets
Part four: 5 tercets
Each part is a different train of thought
Use of colloquial language brings childhood to life
Enjambment creates moments of surprise and suspense
Recalls scenes from his boyhood
Free verse creates an intimate, confessional quality
Autobiographical
Effects
One continuous stanza for 50 lines
Only 2 sentences
Internal monologue explores memory
Sprawling punctuation
1st half → Mother learns she should have appreciated her husband
2nd Half → Son learns he should have appreciated his mother
Genetics
Iambic pentameter is deliberate and lyrical like a heartbeat
Poem’s format is a villanelle → 5 tercets followed by a single quatrain. The 1st and 3rd lines of the 1st tercet recur alternately and form the final couplet
Parallel grammar = combination of parents
Villanelle is poetry equivalent of double helix of DNA
Slant rhymes = not identical like children
From the Journal of a Disappointed Man
No rhyme scheme
11 quatrains
Title is from Barbellion who was too disabled to sign up to war
Look we have come to Dover
Uses language in an unconventional way that a native would not do → carving their space in the language
Dramatic monologue
5 quintains → perhaps 5 oceans?
Structure of stanzas are identical
If you turn the poem sideways it looks like cliffs/waves
Enjambed lines create a sense of urgency
Lengthening lines = flow of tide/movement of people
Eat Me
ten rigid tercets - controlling atmosphere
dramatic monologue
no strict meter - calm, conversational.
slant AAABBBCCC rhyme scheme - control
Material
Nine fairly consistent octaves
Occasional iambic tetrameter - nostalgia for the past
ABCBDEFE rhyme - like a nursery rhyme = childhood/past
Please Hold
Free verse - conversational, frustration.
Lines are fairly uniform in length - static, predictable future.
Same words at the end of lines - technology is tedious, flat, repetitive
No rhyme scheme - mundane, colloquial
On Her Blindness
22/23 stanzas are couplets - measured, restrained
Free verse - conversational
Same line lengths often enjambed - reflects how her mother moved meticulously through the world.
No rhyme scheme