John Donne A Level Revision Pack

This is a condensed revision pack that covers all of the key material needed to succeed in the John Donne portion of the A-Level exam (tailored to Edexcel, but the information is widely applicable).

This pack will walk students step-by-step through what they need to do to revise for their John Donne exam.

This pack includes:

Key Vocabulary

• A list of key vocabulary that can be used to dissect Donne’s poems, broken down by theme and covering the breadth of his work. Allows students to enhance their essay writing with higher level language.

Timeline

• A timeline of when the poetry was published, or believed to be published, as well as what Donne was commenting on at this time. Allows for a visualisation of when Donne was writing and for what purpose.

Understanding the Poems

• Poem Groupings: Poems grouped by theme and date.
• Donne’s Essential Arguments: A breakdown of the essential arguments
• Donne puts forward in regards to love, romance, women, gender, the physical vs the spiritual, grief, death, religion, God, and the afterlife.

Donne’s Argument and Style

• Donne’s Literary Influences: A breakdown of all his major allusions and intertexts, including the Metaphysicals, Plato, Petrarch, and the Bible.
• What is Donne’s Point? Sentence stems organised by argument, brekas down his key arguments and how they are posed.
• Donne’s Craft: Sentence stems organised by theme that allow for in depth exploration of Donne’s craft, compares to his wider body of work at the metaphysical movement.
• Key Context: All of the overarching key context that relates to Donne’s poetry, dual coded and organised into a grid.

Exam Technique

• How to Approach an Exam-Style Question
• What if I Need Support? How to Break Down a Poem