Meaning of Specified Text: Drama
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AP English Literature and Composition › Meaning of Specified Text: Drama
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.
In context, the underlined and bolded phrase "glutted with conceit" most closely means what?
Filled with the idea
Fooled by deceit
Confused by the notion
Overwhelmed by information
Filled with pride
Explanation
In context, the phrase "glutted with conceit" most closely means "filled with the idea." In this context, "conceit" would most closely be said to mean "idea", "notion," or "concept". Faustus is stating that he is filled (with feeling) at the idea of having necromantic powers, and of possibly having the spirits do his bidding. The voluminous imagining of what he might do with his powers is evidence of his being "full with the idea" of these powers.
"Conceit" can be used in reference to deceit, but it is important to remember that Faustus is the speaker, and as evidenced by his speech that follows, he does not believe that anyone is deceiving him. He does not express confusion, nor does he seem particularly overwhelmed. While Faustus is obviously filled with pride and arrogance in his speech, the term "conceit" does not refer to pride in this context, as the rest of his speech focuses on the idea or notion or his powers, not his own self-conscious pride.
PROSPERO:
- Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
- And ye that on the sands with printless foot
- Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
- When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
- By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
- Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
- Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
- To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
- Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
- The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
- And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
- Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
- Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
- With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
- Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
- The pine and cedar: graves at my command
- Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
- By my so potent art. But this rough magic
- I here abjure, and, when I have required
- Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
- To work mine end upon their senses that
- This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
- Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
- And deeper than did ever plummet sound
- I'll drown my book.
In the context of the passage, the word “bolt” (line 14) means _________________.
lightning
an iron bar
a lock
an axe
a bonfire
Explanation
Prospero states that he has created a storm at sea, and has added lightning (“fire”) to the “rattling thunder”. He then took the lightning and used it to split an oak tree. (Jove was the Roman god of lightning, and the oak was sacred to him, so Prospero is using one of the god’s symbols to destroy another one.) Once we see how the storm/thunder/lightning idea is developed, it’s clear that “bolt” in this context has nothing to do with bars, locks, or axes. “Bonfire” can be eliminated because it has nothing to do with thunder and lightning.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611)
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:
- Ay, true, the feeling
- Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly
- Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports!
- Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!
- I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down,
- --E'en though you never were to know it,--never!
- --If but at times I might--far off and lonely,--
- Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!
- Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,--
- A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,
- To understand? So late, dost understand me?
- Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?
- Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!
- That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!
- Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,
- I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me
- But to die now! Have words of mine the power
- To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches?
- Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!
- You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it,
- Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling
- Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!
The word “guerdon” (line 16) is best understood as ______________.
reward
suffering
imprisonment
hubris
treachery
Explanation
“Guerdon” means “reward”. Even if you don’t know the word, you can still home in on the correct answer if you understand that Cyrano is exclaiming about something positive. He’s saying something like, “Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined anything as wonderful as this \[guerdon\] that I’m getting now!”
The other answer options — “suffering”, “imprisonment”, “hubris”, and “treachery” — are all negative and don’t make sense in the context.
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:
- Ay, true, the feeling
- Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly
- Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports!
- Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!
- I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down,
- --E'en though you never were to know it,--never!
- --If but at times I might--far off and lonely,--
- Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!
- Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,--
- A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,
- To understand? So late, dost understand me?
- Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?
- Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!
- That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!
- Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,
- I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me
- But to die now! Have words of mine the power
- To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches?
- Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!
- You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it,
- Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling
- Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!
The word “hearken” (line 14) most nearly means __________________.
listen
beware
ignore
reject
grieve
Explanation
“Hearken” means “listen”. Even if you don’t know the word, you can still home in on the correct answer if you understand that Cyrano is exclaiming about something that Roxane might do to give him joy. Try plugging in all the answer choices. "Listen" is the only one that makes sense in the context.
1 Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
5 From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
9 The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
13 The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
(1595)
In line 14, what is "our toil" referring to?
The performance of the play
The lover's struggle
The grief over the lovers' death
The writer's effort in composing this
Laborers in Verona
Explanation
It is clear from line 12--"Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage"--that this speech is the introduction to a play. Because of the context of the plot outline, and because the phrase used is "our stage," it is clear that in this passage one of the actors is introducing what is going to be performed. This, combined with a reference in line 13 to the audience's "patient ears," makes it clear that "our toil" in line 14 refers to the effort of the actors as they perform the play.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1595).
Adapted from Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare, III.i.1126-1185 (1623)
Enter Judges, Senators and Tribunes, with MARTIUS and QUINTUS, bound, passing on to the place of execution; TITUS going before, pleading
Titus Andronicus:Hear me, grave fathers! noble tribunes, stay!
For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent
In dangerous wars, whilst you securely slept;
For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed;
For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd;
And for these bitter tears, which now you see
Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks;
Be pitiful to my condemned sons,
Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.
For two and twenty sons I never wept,
Because they died in honor's lofty bed.
\[Lieth down; the Judges, &c., pass by him, and Exeunt\]
For these, these, tribunes, in the dust I write
My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears:
Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite;
My sons' sweet blood will make it shame and blush.
O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain,
That shall distill from these two ancient urns,
Than youthful April shall with all his showers:
In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;
In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow
And keep eternal spring-time on thy face,
So thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.
\[Enter LUCIUS, with his sword drawn\]
O reverend tribunes! O gentle, aged men!
Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death;
And let me say, that never wept before,
My tears are now prevailing orators.
Lucius: O noble father, you lament in vain:
The tribunes hear you not; no man is by;
And you recount your sorrows to a stone.
Titus Andronicus: Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead.
Grave tribunes, once more I entreat of you,—
Lucius: My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.
Titus Andronicus: Why, tis no matter, man; if they did hear,
They would not mark me, or if they did mark,
They would not pity me, yet plead I must;
And bootless unto them \[—\]
Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;
Who, though they cannot answer my distress,
Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes,
For that they will not intercept my tale:
When I do weep, they humbly at my feet
Receive my tears and seem to weep with me;
And, were they but attired in grave weeds,
Rome could afford no tribune like to these.
A stone is soft as wax,—tribunes more hard than stones;
A stone is silent, and offendeth not,
And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.
\[Rises\]
But wherefore stand'st thou with thy weapon drawn?
Lucius:To rescue my two brothers from their death:
For which attempt the judges have pronounced
My everlasting doom of banishment.
Titus Andronicus:O happy man! they have befriended thee.
Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive
That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?
Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey
But me and mine: how happy art thou, then,
From these devourers to be banished!
Which of the following most closely summarizes the content of the bolded and underlined excerpt?
Titus begs the tribunes to spare his two condemned sons. He claims that he never cried for his twenty-two other sons who died honorably, but he will mourn for these two, who have been sentenced to death.
Titus begs the tribunes to spare his two condemned sons. He claims that he would not weep for these sons if they died honorably, as they are adults in their twenties, but he would weep and mourn for them if they were sentenced to death.
Titus begs the tribunes to spare his condemned sons. He says that he has wept for and mourned the death of twenty-two of his sons, even though they all died honorably in battle, but he would feel a depth of sadness he has never before known for the sons condemned to die.
Titus begs the tribunes to spare his condemned sons because they are completely innocent. He notes that he has had two twenty-year old sons die in battle, and both of these young, now honored men, were less pure of heart than his condemned sons.
Titus begs the tribunes to spare his condemned sons because they are completely innocent. After the tribunes reject him, he goes into an extended comparison between the tribunes and silent rocks.
Explanation
The answer that most closely summarized the content of the excerpt is "Titus begs the tribunes to spare his two condemned sons. He claims that he never cried for his twenty-two other sons who died honorably, but he will mourn for these two, who have been sentenced to death." In this context, "two and twenty" means twenty-two, so Titus is, indeed, stating that he has lost twenty-two sons in battle, for whom he "has never wept" because they died honorably in battle defending Rome.
While Titus does claim that his sons' "souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought," this is not the central aspect of his argument against their being sentenced to death; rather, he leans heavily on his own sadness and past sacrifices for Rome. He does not compare the quality of his twenty-two dead sons to his current condemned ones, only the nature of their demises and his reaction to those demises; he never cried for the sons who died honorably.
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.
The lines: "and teach me how/ To name the bigger light, and how the less,/ That burn by day and night" most likely describe ________________.
the sun and the moon
how to build a fire
Caliban's emotional state
a buried treasure
Caliban's mother
Explanation
This description of Caliban being taught to name the "bigger light" and "the less" is a description of him learning the names for the sun and the moon. The elaboration that the lights "burn by day and night" should make it clear to students that that is what is being described. Students who do not read closely or struggle with comprehension may choose one of the other answers, but the passage contains no direct evidence to support those answers.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611).
Adapted from Richard III by William Shakespeare, I.i.1-42
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,
About a prophecy, which says that 'G'
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here
Clarence comes.
When he speaks of “dissembling nature,” underlined in the passage, the speaker is referring to __________.
a personification of nature
his own personality
tricking nature
the tendency of all people to lie under pressure
taking apart nature’s features systematically in order to better understand the natural world
Explanation
While it may be tempting to pick the answer choice “his own personality” given that the narrator describes himself as “subtle, false and treacherous,” it is important to consider the context of the underlined phrase. “Dissembling nature” appears in the context of the lines, “I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion / Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, / Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time / Into this breathing world . . . “ By considering the context, you can see that the narrator is not describing “his own personality,” “tricking nature,” “the tendency of all people to lie under pressure,” or “taking apart nature’s features systematically in order to better understand the natural world”; he is instead referring to “a personification of nature.”
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)
Which of these terms does not describe an characteristic of nature as described in the passage?
The ability to move about independently
The ability to appear in a different form
The ability to outshine other planetary bodies
The ability to assist the powers of heaven
The ability to be mysterious to humans
Explanation
Since the sun is moving on a "predestind course," it cannot not choose its own course nor move independently.
Passage adapted from Johann von Goethe's Faust (1808)
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:
- Ay, true, the feeling
- Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly
- Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports!
- Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!
- I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down,
- --E'en though you never were to know it,--never!
- --If but at times I might--far off and lonely,--
- Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!
- Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,--
- A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,
- To understand? So late, dost understand me?
- Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?
- Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!
- That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!
- Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,
- I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me
- But to die now! Have words of mine the power
- To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches?
- Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!
- You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it,
- Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling
- Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!
The word “mine”(line 5) refers to ____________________.
Cyrano’s joy
Cyrano’s feeling
Cyrano’s life
Cyrano’s passion
Cyrano’s rage
Explanation
The word “mine” refers to Cyrano’s own joy. “I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down” means, “I would gladly sacrifice my own joy for yours.”
The archaic syntax of this sentence makes it tricky to parse. The verb is “would lay down”. The subject of that verb (i.e., the doer of the action) is “I”. In modern English, the subject and verb would be right next to each other: “I would lay down . . .” Here, a prepositional phrase — “for your joy” — has been stuck in between. We have to keep reading the end of the sentence to find out what that phrase means, and what it has to do with the verb.
Contrasting words or phrases are usually a big clue to meaning. Here, Cyrano is contrasting his own joy with Roxane’s:
“I for YOUR joy would gladly lay MINE OWN down.”
This is the quickest way to see that “joy” is what the two contrasting elements have in common. Therefore, that’s what they’re both referring to.