Henry Clerval — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Henry Clerval
Characters
What you need to know
How Shelley presents Henry Clerval, and how the character develops across the text: Victor's loyal friend, his love of nature and poetry, his care for Victor, and his murder.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger, for its own sake', 'the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species', 'not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce', 'Henry was my only nurse', 'he again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children', 'A selfish pursuit had cramped and narrowed me', 'This is what it is to live', 'the very poetry of nature', 'His wild and enthusiastic imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his heart', 'in Clerval I saw the image of my former self', 'I had rather be with you', 'the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched before me'.
Clerval as a foil to Victor: poetry, languages and nature against science and secrecy.
Context: the Romantic love of nature, and the lines of Wordsworth's poetry Victor uses to describe him.
Edexcel's novel question has two parts, and neither marks context: part (a) on the printed extract marks language, form and structure (AO2); part (b) on the novel elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1), not language analysis. Use context only where it explains a reading, and say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
