Poetry: a paraphrase is not a central idea
In the half-yearly paper the Poetry section asked a five-mark question on Rupert Brooke's 'The Soldier' and a four-mark explanation of four lines. Three candidates began their long answers like this. A: 'The poem is about a soldier who may die abroad. He says that the corner of a foreign field where he is buried will be for ever England, so his death is not a loss but a gift; the tone is calm and even thankful.' B: 'The poem shows that war is very bad and the poet is against war because so many soldiers die.' C: 'The poet says that if he dies we should think that the corner of a foreign field will be for ever England, because England has won that land and the English are superior to other people.' For the explanation question, a fourth candidate simply rewrote each line in easier English and stopped there, and could not understand why the answer scored two out of four.
1. Mark A, B and C out of 5 with reasons, and say which candidate has actually read the poem.
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- A: 5 out of 5. It states the central idea, anchors it in the poem's key image, and interprets the tone. Central-idea questions want exactly this combination: what the poem is about, what it says about it, and how it says it.
- B: 0 out of 5. This is a general opinion about war, not an answer about this poem. 'The Soldier' never condemns war; it accepts the soldier's death and makes it meaningful. Marks can only come from the text.
- C: 1 out of 5. Some of the words are right, but the inference is wrong. The poem does not say England won the land or that the English are superior. Its argument is that the soldier's body carries England with it - the foreign earth is 'richer' because it holds an English body. Right vocabulary, wrong reading, so at most a mark for the accurate quotation.
A has read the poem. B has read the question and answered from general knowledge; C has half-read a line and supplied an inference the poem does not make.
2. What is missing from the fourth candidate's explanation, and what two moves would you add to reach four marks? Model those moves on the quoted lines.
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What is missing is everything except the literal sense. An 'explanation' mark scheme normally rewards three layers: (i) the plain sense of the lines, (ii) the context - where the lines sit and what they are doing in the poem, and (iii) the significance - theme, tone, and a device if one is visible. The fourth candidate stopped at (i).
Move 1 - context: 'These are the opening lines, and they set up the conditional that controls the whole poem: the soldier speaks about his own death before it happens, which is why there is no self-pity in the poem.'
Move 2 - significance: 'By calling the burial place "for ever England", the poet turns dying abroad into a kind of homecoming, and the alliteration of "foreign field" makes the phrase linger. This is what gives the poem its calm, grateful tone.'
Add those two sentences to an accurate paraphrase and the answer moves from 2 to about 3.5–4 out of 4. The lesson: paraphrase is the floor, not the ceiling.
3. A follow-up question asks, 'Do you think the poem glorifies war?' How do you answer an opinion question in a prescribed-text paper without losing marks?
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Treat it as a text question wearing the clothes of an opinion question. The safe shape is: a clear position, two pieces of textual support, one acknowledged counter-point, and a short conclusion.
Model answer: 'The poem does not describe fighting at all. It describes a soldier's death as a gift, and turns a foreign grave into a piece of England, so it idealises sacrifice rather than war itself. Because it never mentions the enemy, the horror or the fear, it can be read as lending glamour to dying for one's country - a reader who has seen a war memorial may find the tone too sweet. On balance I would say the poem glorifies the soldier's death rather than war.'
Two things to avoid: do not import the poet's biography or the history of 1914–18 unless you are sure of it, and do not write a free-floating moral essay. Every opinion sentence needs a line of the poem behind it. If you genuinely hold the opposite view, argue it the same way - markers reward a supported reading, not a particular verdict.