Context
There are only a maximum of six marks available in the Shakespeare question for context. This may not seem like a lot, but six marks can be the difference between two entire grades at GCSE. Furthermore, if you understand how to effectively incorporate contextual understanding of your studied play into your essay, it can even boost your mark in AO1 too, and help you create a more sophisticated and conceptualised response.
Exam Tip
It is absolutely essential that you understand what the exam board means when it talks about “context”. Context is not:
- Biographical information about William Shakespeare
- Random, irrelevant historical facts about the Elizabethan or Jacobean era
- Information that is unrelated to the characters or themes of your studied play
Context should be better understood as:
- The ideas and perspectives of the Elizabethan or Jacobean era
- The typical behaviours and attitudes of the time
- And crucially, how the above ideas and perspectives give us a better understanding of Shakespeare’s intentions, or messages
Understanding these ideas and perspectives will give you further insight into, as the examiners say, “why the characters behave in the way they do, why the scene is set in this particular place, why this theme is significant in the text.”