Friday 18 January 2013 – Morning
AS GCE ENGLISH LITERATURE
F661/01/QPI

Poetry and Prose 1800–1945 (Closed Text)

QUESTION PAPER INSERT
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Duration: 2 hours

This is a Closed Text examination. No textbooks or sources of information are allowed in the examination room.
INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
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This Insert is for your reference only.
Answer two questions: one question from Section A and one question from Section B.
Read each question carefully. Make sure you know what you have to do before starting your answer.

INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES
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The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question. The total number of marks for this paper is 60.
This document consists of 12 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.

INSTRUCTION TO EXAMS OFFICER / INVIGILATOR
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Do not send this Question Paper Insert for marking; it should be retained in the centre or recycled. Please contact OCR Copyright should you wish to re-use this document.

© OCR 2013 [D/500/8464]
DC (NH) 61108/4

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SECTION A – Poetry
Robert Browning
Emily Dickinson
Edward Thomas
W B Yeats
Answer one question from this section.
Robert Browning
1

‘So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all.’
Discuss ways in which Browning portrays love in ‘Love in a Life’ and ‘Life in a Love’.
In your answer, explore the effects of language, imagery and verse form, and consider how these two poems relate to other poems by Browning that you have studied.
[30]
Love in a Life*
I
Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her –
Next time, herself! – not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew:
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.
II
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune –
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest, – who cares?
But ’tis twilight, you see, – with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

© OCR 2013

F661/01/QPI Jan13

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Life in a Love*
Escape me?
Never –
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again, –
So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me –
Ever
Removed!

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*This pair of poems is set to count as one poem.

© OCR 2013

F661/01/QPI Jan13

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Emily Dickinson
2

‘We waited while She passed –
It was a narrow time – ’
Discuss ways in which Dickinson presents death and dying in poem 1100, ‘The last Night that
She lived’.
In your answer, explore the effects of language, imagery and verse form, and consider how this poem relates to other poems by Dickinson that you have studied.
[30]
1100
The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying – this to Us
Made Nature different
We noticed smallest things –
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized – as ’twere.
As We went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame
That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A Jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite –
We waited while She passed –
It was a narrow time –
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.

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She mentioned, and forgot –
Then lightly as a Reed