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?

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?

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?

Passage adapted from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand (1897)
Translated by Gladys Thomas and Mary F. Guillemard (in public domain)

\[Cyrano speaks to Roxane.\]

CYRANO:

1. Ay, true, the feeling
2. Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly
3. Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports!
4. Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!
5. I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down,
6. --E'en though you never were to know it,--never!
7. --If but at times I might--far off and lonely,--
8. Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!
9. Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,--
10. A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,
11. To understand? So late, dost understand me?
12. Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?
13. Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!
14. That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!
15. Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,
16. I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me
17. But to die now! Have words of mine the power
18. To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches?
19. Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!
20. You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it,
21. Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling
22. Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!

The overall tone of the speech is ___________.

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?

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?

Passage adapted from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand (1897)
Translated by Gladys Thomas and Mary F. Guillemard (in public domain)

\[Cyrano speaks to Roxane.\]

CYRANO:

1. Ay, true, the feeling
2. Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly
3. Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports!
4. Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!
5. I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down,
6. --E'en though you never were to know it,--never!
7. --If but at times I might--far off and lonely,--
8. Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!
9. Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,--
10. A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,
11. To understand? So late, dost understand me?
12. Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?
13. Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!
14. That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!
15. Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,
16. I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me
17. But to die now! Have words of mine the power
18. To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches?
19. Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!
20. You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it,
21. Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling
22. Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!

The overall tone of the speech is ___________.

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 ________________.

RAPHAEL
The Sun, in ancient guise, competing
With brother spheres in rival song,
With thunder-march, his orb completing,
Moves his predestin'd course along;
His aspect to the powers supernal
Gives strength, though fathom him none may;
Transcending thought, the works eternal
Are fair as on the primal day.

GABRIEL
With speed, thought baffling, unabating,
Earth's splendour whirls in circling flight;
Its Eden-brightness alternating
With solemn, awe-inspiring night;
Ocean's broad waves in wild commotion,
Against the rocks' deep base are hurled;
And with the spheres, both rock and ocean
Eternally are swiftly whirled.

MICHAEL
And tempests roar in emulation
From sea to land, from land to sea,
And raging form, without cessation,
A chain of wondrous agency,
Full in the thunder's path careering,
Flaring the swift destructions play;
But, Lord, Thy servants are revering
The mild procession of thy day.

(1808)

The tone of the passage can best be described as _________________.