Prescribed Poetry
What the poetry section tests
The prescribed poetry domain asks you to read a poem closely: identify the speaker, paraphrase stanzas, explain figurative language, recognise tone and relate form to meaning. Questions often ask for device plus effect, not device alone.
Core rules
- Separate poet, speaker and addressee. A dramatic monologue may voice a character, not the poet.
- Paraphrase in plain prose first; then explain what the image suggests.
- Name the device accurately: simile (like/as), metaphor, personification, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, irony, refrain.
- Link sound to sense: a harsh consonant cluster may suggest effort; a refrain may suggest obsession or grief.
- For rhyme and metre, comment only on what you can identify confidently. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter; a ballad uses quatrains and refrain.
Worked example
From Wordsworth's 'The Solitary Reaper': 'No Nightingale did ever chaunt / More welcome notes to weary bands.' Question: How does the comparison shape our view of the reaper's song? Reasoning: The nightingale is a famous source of beautiful song for tired travellers. By saying the reaper's song is more welcome, the speaker raises her above a celebrated bird. The comparison also makes the song sound both natural and healing. A strong answer names the comparison, explains the effect and notes the hyperbole. 'It is a simile' alone is incomplete.
Traps
Listing devices without effect; calling the poet the speaker; quoting a line but not explaining it; confusing the reaper's song with the poet's own voice; and ignoring the question's focus on tone or theme.
Revision move
For each poem, prepare a three-column table: image, device, effect. Add one line on the shift in mood between stanzas. This prepares both annotation and appreciation answers.