Writer’s Methods & Techniques (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Examiners want students to analyse a wide range of poetic methods (AO2), not just the language. Remember, analysing methods means evaluating all of a poet’s choices, which includes a lot more than just the words they have chosen. It includes perspective, structure, form, and the meanings behind certain characters and symbols. On this page you will find guides on:

• Analysing the meaning of a poem
• How to quote anthology poets in your essay
• Analysing poets’ methods

Much more important than knowing a long list of poetic techniques, or analysing a poem’s language, form and structure separately, is to understand the meaning of each of the anthology poems and the ideas the poet explores in their poem. This section will detail how to begin your analysis with a poet’s meaning and ideas, rather than the methods they have used, and include the following:

• Ideas and themes, not methods
• Tone
• Perspective

Ideas and themes, not methods

• Examiners warn against structuring your analysis based on poets’ methods
• This means that they don’t like when students identify a poet’s method first, and then analyse what it means
• For example, spotting that a poem includes sibilance or caesura, and then attempting to say something relevant about that method
• Often, this won’t work because students will fail to identify a convincing link between the method, and the theme of the question
• Instead, examiners suggest students focus their essays “on meaning and ideas, and use methods as a means of illustrating meaning rather than the methods driving the focus of the response”
• So your argument should start with the poets’ overarching ideas in terms of the question, and then find evidence from the poems that illustrate these ideas
• This can mean that you will include fewer poetic techniques, and use simpler language in your response, but the exam board encourages this
• For example, if the question was about how poets presented ideas about marriage, we wouldn’t want to structure our analysis like this:
• “The poet uses caesura in line 13. This caasura could show how…”❌
• But instead, like this:
• “Both poets present marriage as something challenging, which requires mutual respect. Poet A shows this when…”✅

Tone

• Another way to understand the meaning and ideas of an anthology poem is to consider its tone
• In poetry, tone is the ‘mood’ of a poem
• This could be the mood that:
• A speaker expresses in a poem
• A poet has towards their speaker
• The poet creates in terms of the setting of the poem
• The poet creates in terms of the poem’s subject matter
• The tone of a poem reflects its ideas and meaning
• It is therefore something you should consider when thinking about how a poet expresses their ideas and meaning
• Because a poem’s mood is created by the poet’s language, pace and rhythm, symbolism and grammar, it works perfectly as evidence in your essay
• So think: what is the tone the poet is trying to convey in their poem?
• And how - via their choices - do they create this effect?
• Another sophisticated way to explore ideas and meanings presented by a poet is to consider whether the tone of a poem changes:
• Think: why has the author created this tonal shift?
• And how - via their poetic choices - do they create this shift?
• This also enables you to say something relevant about structure

• So think first about why a poet has created a certain tone, and what its effect is, before thinking about what methods they have used to create it:
• For example, you wouldn’t want to structure your analysis like this:
• “The poet uses pathetic fallacy in line 1. This creates a tone of …”❌
• But instead:
• “The poet suggests that the corruption of power has negative impacts on nature itself. They do this by creating a tonal shift in line 6, from a jovial to an ominous mood, with the use of pathetic fallacy…”✅

Perspective

• Considering perspective is another sophisticated way to explore a poet’s intention and messages
• Perspective in poetry is the point of view from which the poem is being told
• It could be narrated in the first person (using the pronoun “I”)
• It could be narrated in the third person (“he”; “she”; “they”, etc.)
• Poems often also contain a persona:
• A persona, or speaker, is the invented character through which the poem is narrated
• Remember, the persona of a poem is not the same as the poet themselves, and this separation allows poets to explore ideas with more nuance and subtlety
• Poets often create a fictional narrator (a persona) when writing in the first person
• For example, Robert Browning writes from the perspective of an arrogant Duke in My Last Duchess
• This enables Browning to inhabit the mind of the Duke and express opinions about power from the point of view of the powerful
• Browning uses this perspective to indirectly criticise inherited power

• Sometimes, writing in the first person can give a poem more immediacy
• For example, in London, William Blake uses the pronoun “I” to give the poem a directness which highlights the horror his persona sees
• Perspective is therefore a very deliberate choice made by the poet, in order to better get across their ideas and message
• As such, it counts as a writer’s method
• Just like the tone above, it is directly linked to the writer’s intention, and so serves as excellent evidence for a poet’s meaning and ideas

• The poetry anthology exam is a closed-book exam, which means you don’t get a copy of your anthology to use in your exam, only the one printed ‘given’ poem
• This means that examiners do not expect you to memorise dozens of direct quotations from each of the poems
• The given poem has been chosen for you to use to answer your essay, which means it will contain much that you can use as evidence in your essays
• As much as you should take a “connective”, comparative approach to your essay, there will be plenty of excellent quotations that you can, and should, select from the given poem
• If you are memorising quotations, focus on learning a few, short quotations that are relevant to the key themes of the anthology you are studying
• The given poem should serve as a springboard to your chosen, second poem
• This means that - when you are thinking about what other poem to compare to the given poem - you should be led by the themes and ideas in the poem printed in the exam paper, and not by the quotations you have memorised
• References don’t need to be direct quotations
• They can be references to things that happen in the other poems in the anthology
• They can be references to the choices and methods another poet uses (“this idea is expressed when the poet uses first-person narration/a tonal shift/symbolism relating to X in order to…”)
• Examiners repeatedly stress that textual references are just as valuable as direct quotations when referencing your second, chosen poem:
•  “You don’t get extra marks for more quotations, but you do get more marks for making plenty of interesting comments about the references you have selected.”
• The most important thing is that these references are directly related to the ideas and themes you are exploring in your essay, and provide evidence to prove your thesis

In order to achieve the highest AO2 marks, think about methods as a poet’s choices, not just the language they are using. What overall decisions have they made in relation to language, tone, perspective, structure and form? For what reasons have they made these choices? What overarching message do they help to convey?

What not to do when analysing a poet’s methods

• Don’t “spot techniques”
• Examiners dislike when students use overly sophisticated terminology unnecessarily (“polysyndeton”; “epanalepsis”)
• Knowing the names of sophisticated techniques will not gain you any more marks, especially if these techniques are only “spotted” and a poet’s intentions are not explained
• Instead of technique spot, focus your analysis on the reasons why a poet is presenting their poem the way they do
• Don’t unnecessarily label word types
• Similar to technique spotting, this is when students use “the noun X” or “the verb Y”
• This doesn’t add anything to your analysis
• Instead, examiners suggest you focus on ideas, or images, instead of words, or word types
• Instead of “The poet uses the noun “X” to show…” use “The poet uses the image “X” to show… “
• Don’t limit your analysis to a close reading of a poet’s language
• You gain marks for explaining all of a poet’s choices, not just their language
• Only focusing on language, therefore, limits the mark you will be given
• Instead, take a whole-text approach and think about a poet’s decisions about:
• Form
• Structure
• Tone
• Perspective
• You do not need to include quotations to analyse the above, but you will still be rewarded well by the examiner
• However, do not feel the need to include analysis of form, or structure, if it is not relevant to the question
• This will more likely lose you marks than gain any
• Don’t focus only on the given poem
• You will not be responding to the full task and text, and your mark will therefore suffer if you focus only on one poem and not also a second of your choice
• Use the given poem as a springboard to ideas and themes for your chosen poem
• Never retell the story of a poem
• “Narrative” and “descriptive” answers get the lowest marks
• Move from what a poet is presenting to how and why they have made the choices they have

What to do when analysing a poet’s methods

• Take a whole-text approach to each of your poems
  • This could involve commenting on structure: “ ‘at the start / this changes when / in contrast…’ “
  • This could involve commenting on a poet’s choice of form
    • How have they conformed to, or subverted the form of sonnet/dramatic monologue etc.?
    • What deliberate choices has the poet made with their verse form? Are there reasons there is a regular, or irregular rhyme structure?
  • Think about how tone is presented and develops: Why has the poet chosen to present this tone? Why have they included a tonal shift?
  • Are characters in the poems presented differently from each other? Why? What does each represent?
  • Do characters’ relationships with each other change? Why might a poet have chosen to do this?
• Remember that personas, and characters in a poem, are constructs, not real people
  • Think about what each character’s function is in the poem
  • What does the poet use their persona, or characters, to say about love, or about power?
  • Why has the poet chosen to write their poem in the first, or third person?
  • Is the first-person narrator reliable or unreliable? 
• Always frame your essay with the poets in mind
  • As the examiners say: “writers use methods, including language and structure, to form and express their ideas – the choices the writer makes are conscious and deliberate”
  • Therefore, write that a poet “highlights X”, “suggests Y”, “challenges Z”
  • Use the words “so” and “because” to push you to explain your own ideas further
    • William Blake presents blood running down palace walls because he is commenting on the fatal consequences of submitting to the will of monarchy” 

• Zoom out to big ideas in your analysis
  • Go from analysing language, or other writer’s choices, to a poet’s overall intention, or message
  • This should also link to your thesis, and argument throughout
  • You can begin these “zoom-out” sentences with “The poet could be suggesting that because X, then Y” or “The poet could be using the character of X to challenge contemporary ideas about Y”
  • Use modal language to present sophisticated ideas
    • Using words like “could”, “may” or “perhaps” shows that you are thinking conceptually