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Edexcel GCSE English Literature revision notes

Concise notes per spec point, written in plain English with worked examples. AI-generated, admin-verified.

  1. AOAssessment Objectives
  2. AO1AO1 — Read, understand and respond to texts; maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response, using textual references including quotations to support and illustrate interpretations
  3. AO2AO2 — Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate
  4. AO3AO3 — Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written
  5. P1Paper 1: Shakespeare and Post-1914 Literature
  6. P1.ASection A — Shakespeare (40 marks): one extract-based question + one essay on a wider theme. Closed book. Assesses AO1, AO2 and AO3 (with SPaG via AO4)
  7. P1.A.MACMacbeth — ambition, kingship, the supernatural, gender and the corrupting nature of power; key characters Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, the witches
  8. P1.A.RJRomeo and Juliet — love, fate, conflict, family loyalty; the Capulet–Montague feud and the Petrarchan conventions
  9. P1.A.TMPThe Tempest — power, colonialism, magic, forgiveness; Prospero, Caliban, Miranda and Ariel
  10. P1.BSection B — Post-1914 British play or novel (40 marks): one essay from a choice of two. Closed book. Assesses AO1, AO2, AO3 and AO4 (SPaG)
  11. P1.B.AFAnimal Farm (George Orwell) — totalitarianism, propaganda and the corruption of revolutionary ideals
  12. P1.B.AICAn Inspector Calls (J. B. Priestley) — capitalism vs socialism, social responsibility, the dramatic device of the Inspector and the Birling family
  13. P1.B.BBBlood Brothers (Willy Russell) — class, fate, nature vs nurture and the narrator’s framing
  14. P1.B.DNADNA (Dennis Kelly) — peer pressure, group dynamics, moral cowardice and the structure of the play in scenes
  15. P1.B.HCHobson’s Choice (Harold Brighouse) — class, gender, late-Victorian Salford and Maggie Hobson’s rise
  16. P1.B.LFLord of the Flies (William Golding) — civilisation vs savagery, leadership and inherent human evil
  17. P2Paper 2: 19th-century Novel and Poetry since 1789
  18. P2.A.ACCA Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) — redemption, poverty, social injustice, Victorian Christmas and the allegorical structure of the staves
  19. P2.A.FKFrankenstein (Mary Shelley) — ambition, knowledge, parental responsibility, isolation and Romantic vs Enlightenment ideas
  20. P2.A.GEGreat Expectations (Charles Dickens) — social mobility, guilt, gentility and the bildungsroman of Pip
  21. P2.A.JEJane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) — selfhood, gender, class, education, religion and the gothic; the bildungsroman of Jane
  22. P2.A.JHDr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (R. L. Stevenson) — the duality of human nature, repression in Victorian London and the gothic detective frame
  23. P2.A.PPPride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) — marriage, money, class and reputation in Regency England; the satirical voice of the narrator
  24. P2.B.CONConflict cluster (15 poems): A Poison Tree (Blake), The Destruction of Sennacherib (Byron), Extract from The Prelude (Wordsworth), The Man He Killed (Hardy), Cousin Kate (Rossetti), Half-caste (Agard), Exposure (Owen), The Charge of the Light Brigade (Tennyson), Catrin (Clarke), War Photographer (Duffy), Belfast Confetti (Carson), The Class Game (Casey), Poppies (Weir), No Problem (Zephaniah), What Were They Like? (Levertov)
  25. P2.B.RELRelationships cluster (15 poems): La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Keats), A Child to His Sick Grandfather (Baillie), She Walks in Beauty (Byron), A Complaint (Wordsworth), Neutral Tones (Hardy), Sonnet 116 (Shakespeare), My Last Duchess (Browning), 1st Date – She and 1st Date – He (Duffy/McMillan), Valentine (Duffy), One Flesh (Jennings), i wanna be yours (Cooper Clarke), Love’s Dog (Robertson), Nettles (Scannell), The Manhunt (Armitage), My Father Would Not Show Us (Krog)
  26. P2.C.UNS1Single unseen poem analysis: explore meaning, language, form and structure with quotation
  27. P2.C.UNS2Comparative unseen poetry: compare how each poet presents a theme, idea or feeling, balancing both poems