Adapted from Act 1, Scene 1, ln. 78-119 of The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (1604) in Vol. XIX, Part 2 of The Harvard Classics (1909-1914)

FAUSTUS: How am I glutted with conceit of this!

Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,

Resolve me of all ambiguities,

Perform what desperate enterprise I will?

I’ll have them fly to India for gold,

Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,

And search all corners of the new-found world

For pleasant fruits and princely delicates;

I’ll have them read me strange philosophy

And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;

I’ll have them wall all Germany with brass,

And make swift Rhine circle fair Wittenberg;

I’ll have them fill the public schools with silk,

Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;

I’ll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,

And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,

And reign sole king of all the provinces;

Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war

Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp’s bridge,

I’ll make my servile spirits to invent.

\[Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS\]

Come, German Valdes and Cornelius,

And make me blest with your sage conference.

Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,

Know that your words have won me at the last

To practice magic and concealed arts:

Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy

That will receive no object, for my head

But ruminates on necromantic skill.

Philosophy is odious and obscure,

Both law and physic are for petty wits;

Divinity is basest of the three,

Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile:

’Tis magic, magic, that hath ravish’d me.

Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt;

And I that have with concise syllogisms

Gravell’d the pastors of the German church,

And made the flowering pride of Wittenberg

Swarm to my problems, as the infernal spirits

On sweet Musaeigus, when he came to hell,

Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,

Whose shadows made all Europe honor him.

Which of the following best describes Faustus' tone in this passage?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Within the bowels of these elements,

Where we are tortured and remain forever.

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed

In one self place, for where we are is hell,

And where hell is must we ever be. (5)

And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell that is not heaven.

(1604)

What is the tone of this passage?

NESTOR: Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man

When Hector's grandsire suck'd: he is old now;

But if there be not in our Grecian host

One noble man that hath one spark of fire,

To answer for his love, tell \[them\] from me (5)

I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver

And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn…

I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.

… ULYSSES: Give pardon to my speech:

Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector. (10)

What is the tone of Nestor’s speech?

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies 5
Over men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider web;
Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams; 10
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut, 15
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight; 20
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.

(1597)

The speaker's tone in this excerpt can best be described as ________________.

PROSPERO:

1. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
2. And ye that on the sands with printless foot
3. Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
4. When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
5. By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
6. Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
7. Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
8. To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
9. Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
10. The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
11. And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
12. Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
13. Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
14. With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
15. Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
16. The pine and cedar: graves at my command
17. Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
18. By my so potent art. But this rough magic
19. I here abjure, and, when I have required
20. Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
21. To work mine end upon their senses that
22. This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
23. Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
24. And deeper than did ever plummet sound
25. I'll drown my book.

The tone of this passage can best be described as ________________.

Caliban: This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first,
Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me
Water with berries in't, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee
And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:
Cursed be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o' the island.

Which two words best describe Caliban's attitude towards the addressee of the monologue?

Then, I confess,
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love:
Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit;
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love
For loving where you do: but, if yourself,
Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever in so true a flame of liking
Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and Love; O! then, give pity
To her, whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.

(1605)

The overall tone of the above passage would best be described as _________________.

TROILUS: Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,

When with your blood you daily paint her thus.

I cannot fight upon this argument;

It is too starved a subject for my sword. (5)

What is the tone of this passage?

NESTOR: Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man

When Hector's grandsire suck'd: he is old now;

But if there be not in our Grecian host

One noble man that hath one spark of fire,

To answer for his love, tell \[them\] from me (5)

I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver

And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn…

I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.

… ULYSSES: Give pardon to my speech:

Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector. (10)

Which line is most self-deprecating?

KING LEAR: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, (5)

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,

Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill at once,

That makes ingrateful man!

(1606)

Which of the following could not describe the tone of this passage?