How to compare two poems

Section B of Literature Paper 2 has one question on the poetry cluster you have studied. It names one poem and prints it on the paper. You compare it with one other poem from the same cluster. You cannot take the anthology into the exam, so the second poem comes from memory.

In June 2023 the Power and Conflict question was: “Compare how poets present the effects of power in ‘My Last Duchess’ and in one other poem from ‘Power and conflict’.”

The question is worth 30 marks: 12 for your response and your quotations (AO1), 12 for the poets’ methods (AO2) and 6 for context (AO3). There are no marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar in this section. Paper 2 lasts 2 hours 15 minutes for three sections, so give this question about 45 minutes.

Choosing the second poem

Underline the focus of the question first. In 2023 it was the effects of power. Then choose the poem you know best that fits that focus. A good partner shares the idea and uses a different method, or uses the same method for a different purpose.

Have two or three partners ready for every poem, so you are never stuck. For example:

• ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘Ozymandias’: two proud rulers, one shown in a painting and one in a statue.
• ‘Exposure’ and ‘The Prelude’: nature stronger than people, a soldier freezing in a trench and a boy frightened by a mountain.
• ‘Remains’ and ‘Poppies’: memories that will not leave, one a soldier’s and one a mother’s.
• ‘Kamikaze’ and ‘The Émigrée’: people cut off from the home they knew.

Choose a partner for the idea in the question, and make sure you can say what the two poems share. In 2025 the examiners noticed that students who paired ‘Exposure’ with ‘Storm on the Island’ wrote about the weather in each, but “were often less successful in trying to write about conflict in Northern Ireland”.

Compare from the start

The 2025 report found that every choice of poems worked best when students had “a clear idea from the beginning of their essays as to why these poems were similar or different”. So open with a comparative thesis: one or two sentences that answer the question for both poems at once.

For example: Shelley and Browning both show proud rulers who expect their power to last, but Shelley makes time mock the king, whereas Browning makes the Duke condemn himself in his own words.

Two ways to organise your answer

You can compare in every paragraph, taking one idea at a time and moving between the poems. Or you can set up the comparison in your introduction, write about one poem and then the other, and bring them together at the end.

AQA accepts both. Its 2025 report reminds schools that “there is no requirement for students to write an integrated comparison”, and says it is “absolutely fine” to write about one poem then the other and draw the ideas together in the conclusion. Choose the way you can do well in 45 minutes. If comparing in every paragraph makes your writing feel forced, use the second way and make the links clear.

Linking words

Use comparison words to move between the poems: both, similarly, likewise, whereas, in contrast, however, on the other hand. They work best inside sentences. For example: Shelley’s king survives only as a broken statue, whereas the Duke is still talking and still in control of his story.

Quotations from memory

Your second poem is not printed, so you need its quotations in your head. Short ones are easiest to learn and to use. “Nothing beside remains” is three words from ‘Ozymandias’, and it sums up the poem. Learn three or four short quotations for every poem, with the method each one shows.

Power and Conflict: the fifteen poems in brief has one quotation for each poem to start from, and How to learn quotations has a way to make them stick.

Context

Context is worth 6 marks here. Keep it short, and put it where it explains why a poet wrote as they did, inside the paragraph. Using context in your answers shows how.

Sources

• AQA, GCSE English Literature 8702 specification (Paper 2, Section B, and closed-book exams)
• AQA, Mark scheme: Paper 2, June 2023
• AQA, Report on the examination: Paper 2, June 2025