_On the Grasshopper and Cricket._

Essay Questions

1. *How does Keats use the structural division of the Petrarchan sonnet to explore the relationship between summer and winter in On the Grasshopper and Cricket?*

Consider how the octave and sestet each establish a distinct seasonal world, and evaluate how the formal turn between them reinforces or complicates the poem's central claim about nature's continuity. Tag: AQA AO2 (form and structure); AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis; IB guiding concept: Form & Structure

1. *To what extent does Keats present silence as a creative force rather than an absence in On the Grasshopper and Cricket?*

Explore how the two moments of silence — one caused by summer heat, one by winter frost — function within the poem's argument, and consider whether silence is portrayed as threat, opportunity, or something more ambiguous. Tag: AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis

1. *How does Keats use personification and symbolism to elevate the grasshopper and the cricket beyond their literal roles in On the Grasshopper and Cricket?*

Analyse how each insect is characterised and what each represents, considering how the poet's choice of human qualities shapes the poem's broader statement about art and nature. Tag: AQA AO2; IB guiding concept: Imagery & Symbol

1. *"The poem's true subject is not nature, but the unbroken continuity of art itself." To what extent do you agree with this reading of On the Grasshopper and Cricket?*

Draw on the poem's framing of the two insects as carriers of "earth's poetry," its warm and celebratory tone, and its biographical context as a competitive composition exercise to construct a sustained argument. Tag: AQA AO1/AO3; IB guiding concept: Intertextuality & Context

1. *How does the domestic setting of the sestet in On the Grasshopper and Cricket transform the poem's relationship with nature?*

Consider how the stove, the drowsy listener, and the cricket's indoor song alter the poem's spatial and emotional register, and evaluate whether the warmth of the interior strengthens or dilutes the Romantic celebration of the natural world. Tag: AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis

1. Compare how two poets use contrasting seasons to explore a unifying idea about the natural world.

Using On the Grasshopper and Cricket as one of your texts, consider how seasonal contrast is employed structurally and thematically, evaluating the degree to which each poet presents nature as a source of comfort, meaning, or continuity. Tag: AQA AO1/AO2/AO3 (comparative); IB guiding concept: Connections across texts

1. *To what extent is On the Grasshopper and Cricket best understood as an early expression of Keats's emerging Romantic voice rather than a fully realised artistic statement?*

Draw on the poem's biographical context — its composition at age 21 in dialogue with Leigh Hunt's circle — its formal tidiness, and the themes of beauty and transience it shares with Keats's later work, to assess how far the poem anticipates or falls short of his mature style. Tag: AQA AO3 (context); IB guiding concept: Time, Place & Context

1. *How does Keats use tone and the sensory details of warmth and drowsiness to argue that nature's poetry is felt as much as heard in On the Grasshopper and Cricket?*

Explore how the poem's sleepy, satisfied atmosphere — particularly in the sestet — shapes the reader's experience of the cricket's song, and consider what this suggests about the relationship between perception, comfort, and the appreciation of art. Tag: AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis; IB guiding concept: Reader, Culture & Context