AQA A-Level English Literature A Paper 2: Texts in shared contexts (2A), June 2025: Question 1

25 marks · Hard difficulty · Extended Response

Examine the view that 'the most powerful poems focus on passive endurance rather than active combat' with reference to at least two poems from the anthology Up the Line to Death.

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01 ‘The most powerful poems focus on passive endurance rather than active combat.’

Examine this view of the anthology.

You must write about at least two poems in your answer.

[25 marks]

Mark scheme

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Question 01

Up the Line to Death – ed. Brian Gardner

‘The most powerful poems focus on passive endurance rather than active combat.’

Examine this view of the anthology.

You must write about at least two poems in your answer.

[25 marks]

Possible content:

Please refer to pages 4 to 7.

AO5 Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations

Students might consider:

• later poems such as Owen’s ‘Exposure’ which focus on the passive endurance of soldiers and the

harsh conditions of the front line

• poems that focus on the passive, inactive nature of trench warfare; for example, Nichol’s ‘Noon’

and Sassoon’s ‘The Dugout’

• poems such as Aldington’s ‘Bombardment’ and Owen’s ‘The Sentry’ which present the passive

suffering endured during prolonged bombardment

• the extent to which many poems consider the anticipation and aftermath of action, but rarely active

combat itself

• poems which celebrate active combat in heroic terms such as Seeger’s ‘The Aisne’

• poems such as Grenfell’s ‘Into Battle’ that focus on the exhilaration of active combat that seems

part of a natural order

• poems such as Sassoon’s ‘Attack’ which present the chaos and suffering of active combat

• varying approaches to ‘powerful poems’; for example, through a consideration of powerful poetic

effects such as voice and diction, or a poem’s impact in the anthology as a whole

• the keywords ‘passive’, ‘active combat’, ‘endurance’ and ‘powerful’ in the given view

• etc.

AO4 Explore connections across literary texts

Focus might be on:

• typical representations of trench warfare in the literature of WW1 and its aftermath

• the typical presentation of the varying emotions and attitudes associated with passive endurance

and more active combat

• etc.

AO3 Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which

literary texts are written and received

Focus might be on:

• how poems written early in the war might idealise the active nature of combat

• the structuring of the anthology by Gardner

• the differing poetic approaches to the presentation of combat and the reality of trench warfare

• the war experience of individual poets and the differing perspectives they offer

• etc.

AO2 Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts

Focus might be on:

• aspects of poetic form and genre

• aspects of structure, eg use of stanzas

• aspects of language, eg rhyme, rhythm, imagery

• the organisation of the anthology

• etc.

AO1 Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated

concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression

• quality of argument

• organisation of ideas

• use of appropriate concepts and terminology

• technical accuracy.

Accept any valid interpretations, any valid comments on contexts and any valid discussion of

authorial methods.

How to answer it

Up the Line to Death: Passive Endurance vs Active Combat

What this question tests

Assessment Objectives Focus: AO1 (Argument & Expression), AO2 (Poetic Methods & Structure), AO3 (Context & Anthologist Curation), AO4 (WW1 Literary Conventions), AO5 (Debating Multiple Interpretations).

AO1 & AO5: Formulating an evaluative debate on whether poems depicting static waiting, weather, and bombardment are more emotionally/artistically powerful than those depicting hand-to-hand fighting or going "over the top".
AO2: Close, comparative analysis of poetic craft (meter, rhyme schemes, sensory imagery, stanzaic pacing, tone).
AO3 & AO4: Awareness of historical reality (industrialized attritional warfare vs outdated cavalry charges) and editorial structure (how Gardner organizes the progression of disillusionment).

Question 01 Breakdown

Deconstructing the Prompt & Assessment Requirements

"The most powerful poems focus on passive endurance rather than active combat." Examine this view of the anthology. You must write about at least two poems in your answer. [25 marks]

💡 Defining "Passive Endurance"

Waiting & Monotony: Time suspended; freezing winter, mud, sleep deprivation (e.g., Owen’s Exposure, Nichol’s Noon).
Helpless Exposure: Enduring relentless shelling with no agency to retaliate (e.g., Aldington’s Bombardment, Owen’s The Sentry).
Psychological Attrition: Watching comrades suffer while confined to trenches (e.g., Sassoon’s The Dugout).

💡 Defining "Active Combat"

The Kinetic Assault: The frenzied, terrifying charge over the parapet (e.g., Sassoon’s Attack).
Heroic/Chivalric Action: Early-war enthusiasm that romanticizes battle as destiny and glory (e.g., Grenfell’s Into Battle, Seeger’s The Aisne).
Chaos & Carnage: Sudden physical annihilation rather than prolonged psychological erosion.

Textual Selection

Selecting High-Scoring Anthology Pairings

To access Level 5 (Band 5), your chosen poems must provide sharp, meaningful points of comparison that allow you to challenge the absolute binary of "passive" vs "active".

Pairing A: The Attritional Stalemate

Wilfred Owen – Exposure vs Siegfried Sassoon – Attack

Contrast: Exposure uses cyclically dragged hexameter and pararhymes to embody endless waiting ("nothing happens"); Attack uses compressed, breathless enjambment to depict the frantic 60-second terror of zero hour.
Debate: Does the slow agony of freeze-and-rot resonate more deeply than the violent shock of scrambling over the bags?

Pairing B: Ideology & Disillusionment

Julian Grenfell – Into Battle vs Siegfried Sassoon – The Dugout / Richard Aldington – Bombardment

Contrast: Grenfell presents active combat as natural, joyful fulfillment ("all the bright company of Heaven"); Aldington/Sassoon present war as paralysing immobility and dread.
Debate: How Gardner uses earlier Georgian verse to set up the tragic bathos of the later poetry of passive decay.

Essay Planning

Step-by-Step Essay Architecture (AO1 / AO5)

📐 4-Stage Comparative Argument Pipeline

Thesis Statement: Challenge the terms immediately. Argue that while poems of "passive endurance" represent the dominant psychological reality of industrialized trench stalemate, poems of "active combat" derive their concentrated power from puncturing that prolonged stasis with sudden visceral horror.
Paragraph 1 & 2 (Passive Endurance): Analyse how passive endurance is rendered poetically. Focus on how nature/artillery replaces human agency (e.g., Owen's half-rhyme monotony, personification of the wind, Aldington's explosive paralysis). Contextualise with the reality of attritional warfare (AO3).
Paragraph 3 & 4 (Active Combat): Analyse poems dealing with the attack. Contrast Sassoon's mechanized kinetic onslaught (Attack: "tanks creep and topple" ) with early war active chivalry (Grenfell). Show how combat poems expose the myth of heroic action.
Synthesis / Gardner's Curation: Discuss the anthology as a structured whole. Gardner curates poems moving from active romantic expectation to passive, hollow endurance—demonstrating that endurance itself became the ultimate form of resistance and suffering.

Model Analysis (AO2)

Top-Band Method Integration

✅ Passive Endurance: Wilfred Owen (Exposure)

"Our brains ache, behind the night the iced east winds that knive us... / But nothing happens."

Structural Frustration: The recurring refrain "But nothing happens" acts as an anti-climax, subverting traditional martial narratives where action resolves tension.
Sonic Craft: Consonantal half-rhymes ( knive us / nervous , silent / salient ) deny the ear harmonic resolution, mirroring the unresolved psychic tension of waiting.
Contextual Weight: Highlights the 1917 winter as an existential battle against environment rather than human foes.

✅ Active Combat: Siegfried Sassoon (Attack)

"Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, / They leave their trenches, going over the top."

Kinetic Momentum: Single 13-line stanza written largely in continuous enjambment, simulating the uncontrollable forward rush toward machine guns.
Diction of Desolation: Depicts combatants not as heroic warriors but as dehumanised figures ( "muttering faces" , "flounders in mud" ).
Ironic Climax: The desperate, anti-heroic plea ( "O Jesus, make it stop!" ) captures the sheer psychological breaking point of active assault.

Examiner Takeaway on AO2: Top marks are awarded when poetic form directly reinforces the essay's core debate. Do not just name features (e.g. "it has an ABBA rhyme scheme"); explain how that specific meter or rhyme recreates the physical exhaustion of enduring trench life or the claustrophobia of going over the top.

Examiner Warnings

Pitfalls to Avoid vs Top-Band Strategies

❌ Common Errors (Lower Bands)

Ignoring the Anthology Context: Treating poems like unseen, disconnected texts without referencing Brian Gardner’s editorial arrangement or common WW1 literary tropes.
Neglecting the Word "Powerful": Simply describing what happens in the poems without evaluating why one mode is more emotionally, politically, or aesthetically impactful.
Biographical Storytelling: Writing long paragraphs on Owen meeting Sassoon at Craiglockhart instead of analysing poetic language and structural choices.
Absolute Binary Thinking: Treating active combat and passive endurance as entirely isolated, rather than seeing endurance as the consequence of modern mechanized combat.

🧠 What Distinguishes Band 5 Responses

Conceptual Nuance: Recognising that "endurance" was not passive by choice, but forced upon soldiers by artillery technology that made active battlefield initiative suicidal.
Interrogating the Anthology's Trajectory: Showing how Gardner’s sequencing from naive, active enthusiasm (*Up the Line to Death*) to fatalistic endurance deepens the anthology’s overall power.
Sustained AO5 Engagement: Explicitly balancing both sides before reaching a justified, sophisticated conclusion.

Topics

WW1 and its aftermath · Up the Line to Death

Question and mark scheme from the AQA A-Level English Literature A examination, Paper 2: Texts in shared contexts (2A), June 2025. QuestionVault is an independent revision resource; questions remain the copyright of the awarding body.