For those that are studying English Literature at A level on the Pearson Edexcel board of examiners, here is a list of the required poems analysed. This includes all the selected poems, mentioned in Appendix 5 of the GCE Level 3 Advanced Subsidary in English Literature (9ET0). Please feel free to skip to the poem most relevant to you. If you want a poem to be analysed that you cannot find on the site too, please feel free to contact us.
Edexcel A Level (9ET0) English Literature Poems Analysed
Post-2000 Specified Poetry
- Eat Me Patience by Agbabi (still analysing)
- Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass by Simon Armitage (still analysing)
- Material by Ros Barber
- History by John Burnside (still analysing)
- An Easy Passage by Julia Copus
- The Deliverer by Tishani Doshi
- The Lammas Hireling by Ian Duhig
- To My Nine-Year-Old Self by Helen Dunmore
- A Minor Role by U.A. Fanthorpe
- The Gun by Vicki Feaver
- The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled by Leontia Flynn
- Giuseppe by Roderick Ford
- Out of the Bag by Seamus Heaney (still analysing)
- Effects by Alan Jenkins
- Genetics by Sinéad Morrissey
- From the Journal of a Disappointed Man by Andrew Motion (still analysing)
- Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra
- Please Hold by Ciaran O’Driscoll
- On Her Blindness by Adam Thorpe (still analysing)
- Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn by Tim Turnbull
Pre-1900 – The Medieval Period
- Noah’s Flood (Chester) Anon 33 by Amal Dunqul
- The Second Shepherds’ Pageant (Wakefield)
- The Crucifixion (York)
- Noah (Chester) Anon
- The Second Shepherds’ Play
- The Crucifixion
- The Wife of Bath’s Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer
- The Wife of Bath’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer
Note for prescribed list of poems for medieval poetry:
- Noah’s Flood/Noah is counted as the equivalent of seven poems
- The Second Shepherds’ Pageant/Play is counted as the equivalent of seventeen poems
- The Crucifixion is counted as the equivalent of six poems.
- The Wife of Bath’s Prologue is counted as the equivalent of twenty poems
- The Wife of Bath’s Tale is counted as the equivalent of ten poems
Pre-1900 – Metaphysical Poetry
- The Flea by John Donne
- The Good Morrow by John Donne
- Song (‘Go and catch a falling star’) by John Donne
- Woman’s Constancy by John Donne
- The Sun Rising by John Donne
- A Valediction of Weeping by John Donne
- A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day,Being the Shortest Day
- The Apparition by John Donne
- Elegy: To his Mistress Going to Bed by John Donne
- At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners by John Donne
- Death be not Proud by John Donne
- Batter My Heart by John Donne
- A Hymn to God the Father by John Donne
- Redemption by George Herbert
- The Collar by George Herbert
- The Pulley by George Herbert
- Love III by George Herbert
- To My Mistress Sitting by a River’s Side: An Eddy by Thomas Carew
- To a Lady that Desired I Would Love Her by Thomas Carew
- A Song (‘Ask me no more where Jove bestows’) by Thomas Carew
- A Letter to her Husband, Absent upon Public Engagement by Anne Bradstreet
- Song: To Lucasta, Going to the Wars by Richard Lovelace
- The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn by Andrew Marvell
- To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
- The Definition of Love by Andrew Marvell
- Unprofitableness by Henry Vaughan
- The World by Henry Vaughan
- To My Excellent Lucasia, on Our Friendship by Katherine Philips
- A Dialogue of Friendship Multiplied by Katherine Philips
- Orinda to Lucasia by Katherine Philips
- The Canonization by John Donne
- Song (‘Sweetest love I do not go’) by John Donne
- Air and Angels by John Donne
- The Anniversary by John Donne
- Twicknam Garden by John Donne
- Love’s Growth by John Donne
- Love’s Alchemy by John Donne
- A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by John Donne
- The Ecstasy by John Donne
- The Funeral by John Donne
- The Relic by John Donne
- Holy Sonnet I (‘Thou hast made me’) by John Donne
- Holy Sonnet V (‘I am a little world’) by John Donne
- Holy Sonnet VI (‘This is my play’s last scene’) by John Donne
- Holy Sonnet VII (‘At the round earth’s imagined corners’) by John Donne
- Holy Sonnet X (‘Death be not proud’) by John Donne
- Holy Sonnet XI (‘Spit in my face, you Jews’) by John Donne
- Holy Sonnet XIV (‘Batter my heart’) by John Donne
- Goodfriday, 1613. Riding Westward by John Donne
- Hymn to God my God, in My Sickness by John Donne
- A Hymn to God the Father by John Donne
Pre-1900 – The Romantic Period
- Holy Thursday by William Blake
- The Sick Rose by William Blake
- The Tyger by William Blake
- London by William Blake
- Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth
- Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth
- Ode: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth (still analysing)
- Lines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed from a Skull by Lord Byron
- So We’ll Go no more A Roving by Lord Byron
- On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year by Lord Byron
- ‘The cold earth slept below’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- The Question by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Sonnet on the Sea by John Keats
- ‘O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell’ by John Keats
- On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer by John Keats
- On the Sea by John Keats
- ‘In drear-nighted December’ by John Keats
- On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again by John Keats
- ‘When I have fears that I may cease to be’ by John Keats
- To Sleep by John Keats
- Ode to Psyche by John Keats
- Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
- Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
- Ode on Melancholy by John Keats
- ‘Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art’ by John Keats
- To Autumn by John Keats
- The Eve of St Agnes by John Keats.
Pre-1900 – The Victorian Period
- From In Memoriam: VII ‘Dark house, by which once more I stand’ by Alfred Tennyson
- From In Memoriam: XCV ‘By night we linger’d on the lawn’ by Alfred Tennyson
- From Maud: I.xi ‘O let the solid ground’ by Alfred Tennyson
- From Maud: I.xviii ‘I have led her home, my love, my only friend’ by Alfred Tennyson
- From Maud: I.xxii ‘Come into the garden, Maud’ by Alfred Tennyson
- From Maud: II.iv ‘O that ’twere possible’ by Alfred Tennyson
- The Visionary by Emily Brontë
- Grief by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- From Sonnets from the Portuguese XXIV ‘Let the world’s sharpness, like a closing knife’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- The Best Thing in the World by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- ‘Died…’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
- Home-Thoughts, from Abroad by Robert Browning
- Meeting at Night by Robert Browning
- Love in a Life by Robert Browning
- ‘The Autumn day its course has run–the Autumn evening falls’ by Charlotte Brontë
- ‘The house was still–the room was still’ by Charlotte Brontë
- ‘I now had only to retrace’ by Charlotte Brontë
- ‘The Nurse believed the sick man slept’ by Charlotte Brontë
- Stanzas – [‘Often rebuked, yet always back returning’] Charlotte Brontë (perhaps by Emily Brontë)
- Remember by Christina Rossetti
- Echo by Christina Rossetti
- May by Christina Rossetti
- A Birthday by Christina Rossetti
- Somewhere or Other by Christina Rossetti
- At an Inn by Thomas Hardy
- ‘I Look into My Glass’ by Thomas Hardy
- Drummer Hodge by Thomas Hardy
- A Wife in London by Thomas Hardy
- The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy
- Some ladies dress in muslin full and white by Christina Rossetti
- The World by Christina Rossetti
- An Apple-Gathering by Christina Rossetti
- Maude Clare by Christina Rossetti
- At Home by Christina Rossetti
- Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti
- Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
- What Would I Give? by Christina Rossetti
- Twice by Christina Rossetti
- Memory by Christina Rossetti
- A Christmas Carol by Christina Rossetti
- Passing and Glassing by Christina Rossetti
- Piteous my rhyme is by Christina Rossetti
- ‘A Helpmeet for Him’ by Christina Rossetti
- As froth on the face of the deep by Christina Rossetti
- Our Mothers, lovely women pitiful by Christina Rossetti
- Babylon the Great by Christina Rossetti
Post-1900 – The Modernist Period
- The Runaway by Robert Frost
- Mending Wall by Robert Frost
- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
- Mowing by Robert Frost
- The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
- Out, Out by Robert Frost
- The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
- This is just to say by William Carlos Williams
- Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams
- The Hunters in the Snow by William Carlos Williams
- The Great Figure by William Carlos Williams
- Snake by D.H. Lawrence
- To a Snail by Marianne Moore
- What Are Years? by Marianne Moore
- La Figlia Che Piange by T S Eliot
- The Love Song of by J. Alfred Prufrock by T S Eliot
- Time does not bring relief; you all have lied… by Edna St Vincent Millay
- Recuerdo by Edna St Vicent Millay
- Wild Swans by Edna St Vicent Millay
- The Fawn by Edna St Vicent Millay
- in Just by E. E. Cummings
- what if a much of a which of a wind by E. E. Cummings
- pity this busy monster, manunkind by E. E. Cummings
- Stop all the Clocks by W. H. Auden
- Lullaby by W. H. Auden
- Musée des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden
- The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden
- Portrait of a Lady by W. H. Auden
- Preludes by T.S. Eliot
- Rhapsody on a Windy Night by W. H. Auden
- Gerontion by W. H. Auden
- Sweeney Erect by W. H. Auden
- Whispers of Immortality by T.S. Eliot
- The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
- I. The Burial of the Dead by T.S. Eliot
- II. A Game of Chess by T.S. Eliot
- III. The Fire Sermon by T.S. Eliot
- IV. Death by Water by T.S. Eliot
- V. What the Thunder said by by T.S. Eliot
- The Hollow Men by by T.S. Eliot
- Ash-Wednesday by T.S. Eliot
- Ariel Poems: Journey of the Magi (1927) by T.S. Eliot
Post-1900 – The Movement
- Hospital for Defectives by Thomas Blackburn
- Felo De Se by Thomas Blackburn
- Horror Comic Robert Conquest by Thomas Blackburn
- Man and Woman by Thomas Blackburn
- Toads by Philip Larkin
- Coming by Philip Larkin
- At Grass by Philip Larkin
- Take One Home for the Kiddies by Philip Larkin
- Nothing to be Said by Philip Larkin
- The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin
- Apology for Understatement by John Wain
- Au Jardin des Plantes by John Wain
- A Song about Major Eatherly by John Wain
- Brooklyn Heights by John Wain
- Delay by Elizabeth Jennings
- Song at the Beginning of Autumn by Elizabeth Jennings
- Answers by Elizabeth Jennings
- The Young Ones by Elizabeth Jennings
- One Flesh by Elizabeth Jennings
- Photograph of Haymaker, 1890 by Molly Holden
- Giant Decorative Dahlias by Molly Holden
- Metamorphosis by Peter Porter
- London is full of chickens on electric spits by Peter Porter
- Your Attention Please by Peter Porter
- Warning by Jenny Joseph
- The Miner’s Helmet by George Macbeth
- The Wasps’ Nest by George Macbeth
- When I am Dead by George Macbeth
- Story of a Hotel Room by Rosemary Tonks
- Farewell to Kurdistan by Rosemary Tonks
- Lines On A Young Lady’s Photograph Album by Philip Larkin
- Wedding-Wind by Philip Larkin
- Places, Loved Ones by Philip Larkin
- Coming by Philip Larkin
- Reasons for Attendance by Philip Larkin
- Dry-Point by Philip Larkin
- Next, Please by Philip Larkin
- Going by Philip Larkin
- Wants by Philip Larkin
- Maiden Name by Philip Larkin
- Born Yesterday by Philip Larkin
- Whatever Happened? by Philip Larkin
- No Road by Philip Larkin
- Wires by Philip Larkin
- Church Going by Philip Larkin
- Age by Philip Larkin
- Myxomatosis by Philip Larkin
- Toads by Philip Larkin
- Poetry Of Departures by Philip Larkin
- Triple Time by Philip Larkin
- Spring by Philip Larkin
- Deceptions by Philip Larkin
- I Remember, I Remember by Philip Larkin
- Absences by Philip Larkin
- Latest Face by Philip Larkin
- If, My Darling by Philip Larkin
- Skin by Philip Larkin
- Arrivals, Departures by Philip Larkin
- At Grass by Philip Larkin
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