English Literature Exams

English Literature Exams
By Robin McConnell (askpaddy)

Have you ever wondered what Wordsworth or Shakespeare would make of the thousands of essays English Literature students have written about them since they died? I’ll bet if you put all the words end to end they would go round the world a thousand times. I certainly added a good few in my school days.

University professors somehow get satisfaction analyzing what was going through the poet’s mind when they wrote their piece. We, the students, then have to regurgitate their deductions and add a few comments of our own. But the authors are dead, so we will never know if our reasonings are correct. They are not going to appear on TV next week and tell us we have got it all wrong.

Let’s take a simple poem called “Chocolate Cake” and explore the argument.

Chocolate Cake I so adore
Chocolate oozing from every pore
Just can’t eat it any more
So obese, can't fit through door

Fast Forward to School English Literature Exam in 2034
Question 10 – write an appreciation of the poem ‘Chocolate Cake’ by Anon E. Mouse 1941- 2031

A typical model answer

Anon E. Mouse was a poet of the old school preferring rhymes to the free form word poems which became increasingly common in the late 19th and 20th century. He wrote mainly in rhyming quadlets.

The symbolism in his poem “Chocolate Cake” is dramatic and represents a major social and health commentary on the early 21st Century. Many believe he is referring to dark chocolate reflecting the darker side of his psyche. The use of the word oozing represents his horror tendencies which also came out in his poem “The Birth of a Virgin Rocking Horse.”

Another school of thought is that the term Chocolate Cake reflects his love for Afro-Caribbean women. It is known that he visited Jamaica for a few hours while on a cruise ship holiday. His reference to a door in the final line is symbolic of the Captain upping anchor and sailing off into the sunset.

On the other hand, his motivation may simply be greed, leading to obesity and finally a tragic death, by drowning, in a vat of molten chocolate.

Well, there you have it, a load of crap. I wrote the poem because the Creative Writing teacher said “You’ve got ten minutes to write a poem using the word chocolate.” Panic, followed by eight minutes of writer’s block, then between the ninth and tenth minute I scribbled ‘Chocolate Cake.’

For all we know, Wordsworth might have been hanging round the house, getting under his sister’s feet, and suffering from writers block. In total frustration Dorothy probably shouted at him. “For God’s sake Wordy, get your coat. It’s a lovely day, there’s only a lonely cloud floating in the sky, we’ll have a nice wander through the vales and hills. With any luck, down by the lake, we’ll see a host of golden daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze. If that doesn’t cure your writers block, nothing will.”

For all we know, Queen Elizabeth I might have commanded William Shakespeare to come to the Palace. The conversation could have gone like this.

“Master Shaky, forsake the mead and write your Queen a play.”

“Good Queen Bess, ‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’”

“Cut out the flattery, Bard of Stratford. Is my play to be or not to be, that is the Question?”

“Dear sweetest Bess, what wouldst thou have me write?”

"Write of something rotten in the state of Denmark. Write of princes and queens, of ghosts, madness, drowning, poison and tragedy. Bring me the script by the Ides of March or I’ll have ye thrown in the Tower and the key cast in the Thames.”

Can we not just enjoy the poem and appreciate the play? Do we really have to spoil them racking our brains to write millions of words about things we’ll never really know?

By the way, I suggest you keep this paper somewhere safe. If for some mysterious reason the poem ‘Chocolate Cake’ should appear in an English Literature exam paper around 2040 you will be one of the very few to have the dead author’s own model answer. On second thoughts, bin it. The Examiner’s model answer will be better and entirely different.