2026 AQA A-level ENGLISH LITERATURE A 7712/1 Paper 1 Merged Question Paper + Mark Scheme

2026 AQA A-level ENGLISH LITERATURE A 7712/1 Paper 1 Merged Question Paper + Mark Scheme

Section A: Shakespeare
Answer one question in this section.
Either
0 1 Othello – William Shakespeare
‘In Othello, Iago’s skills make him a likeable anti-hero rather than a hateful villain.’
In the light of this view, discuss how Shakespeare presents Iago’s attitudes to love in this
extract and elsewhere in the play.
[25 marks]
IAGO Come, come; good wine is a good familiar creature if
it be well used: exclaim no more against it. And, good
Lieutenant, I think you think I love you.
CASSIO I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!
IAGO You or any man living may be drunk at a time, man.
I’ll tell you what you shall do. Our General’s wife is
now the General. I may say so in this respect, for that
he hath devoted and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and graces.
Confess yourself freely to her; importune her help to
put you in your place again. She is of so free, so kind, so
apt, so blessed a disposition, that she holds it a vice in her
goodness not to do more than she is requested. This
broken joint between you and her husband, entreat her
to splinter; and my fortunes against any lay worth
naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than
it was before.
CASSIO You advise me well.
IAGO I protest in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.
CASSIO I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will
beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me.
I am desperate of my fortunes if they check me here.
IAGO You are in the right. Good night, Lieutenant, I must
to the watch.
CASSIO Good night, honest Iago. Exit
IAGO
 And what’s he then that says I play the villain,
When this advice is free I give, and honest,
Probal to thinking, and indeed the course
To win the Moor again? For ’tis most easy
Th’inclining Desdemona to subdue
In any honest suit. She’s framed as fruitful
As the free elements; and then for her
To win the Moor, were’t to renounce his baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemèd sin,
His soul is so enfettered to her love,
That she may make, unmake, do what she list,