How Shakespeare explores rank and wealth in Messina, from the Prince of Aragon to the watch, and their part in the play's marriages across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio', 'Hath Leonato any son, my lord?', 'No child but Hero; she's his only heir', 'he is of a noble strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty', 'No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days: your grace is too costly to wear every day', 'Good Lord, for alliance!', 'That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow', 'Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony'.
Context: marriages that join families of rank and wealth, a prince's visit as an honour to a governor's house, the bastard brother with no inheritance, and the watch at the bottom of Messina's order.
OCR's question on this play is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the play elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the play, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts as the play shows it, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
