Review the Dramatic Monologue Form
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Pro Tip: It's Like a Little Play
A dramatic monologue sounds pretty much like what it is. It's a monologue, meaning that it's a long speech spoken by one person to an audience who says nothing directly quoted in the poem. It's also dramatic, meaning that the speech occurs during a point of change or tension for the speaker. Something has happened to make them speak here at length, and part of the pleasure of reading a dramatic monologue is figuring out that situation as we learn more about the speaker.
Like in a play, a monologue's function is often to reveal character. As we hear a speaker speak, we learn the inner workings of their mind, the choices they made that brought them to that point, and the possible future ending of their lives as they live it. Robert Browning is widely considered to be the greatest writer of dramatic monologues in English poetry. This poem, "Andrea del Sarto," is one of his greatest. |
Basic Background from Wikipedia
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Andrea del Sarto (US: /ɑːnˌdreɪə dɛl ˈsɑːrtoʊ/, UK: /ænˌ-/, Italian: [anˈdrɛːa del ˈsarto]; 16 July 1486 – 29 September 1530) was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. He was known as an outstanding fresco decorator, painter of altar-pieces, portraitist, draughtsman, and colorist.[1] Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori ("without errors"), his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
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Prereading Questions
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Read and Annotate the Poem
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Andrea del Sarto (Excerpt)
But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart? I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the money into this small hand When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly? Oh, I'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love! I often am much wearier than you think, This evening more than usual, and it seems As if—forgive now—should you let me sit Here by the window with your hand in mine And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, Both of one mind, as married people use, Quietly, quietly the evening through, I might get up to-morrow to my work Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this! Your soft hand is a woman of itself, And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve For each of the five pictures we require: It saves a model. So! keep looking so-- My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds! —How could you ever prick those perfect ears, Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet-- My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, Which everybody looks on and calls his, And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, While she looks—no one's: very dear, no less. You smile? why, there's my picture ready made, There's what we painters call our harmony! A common greyness silvers everything,-- All in a twilight, you and I alike —You, at the point of your first pride in me (That's gone you know),—but I, at every point; My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; That length of convent-wall across the way Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; So free we seem, so fettered fast we are! I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie! ... I can do with my pencil what I know, What I see, what at bottom of my heart I wish for, if I ever wish so deep-- Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge... Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. ... Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey, Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! I know both what I want and what might gain, And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another and myself, "Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt. Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate who died five years ago. ('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and through his art—for it gives way; That arm is wrongly put—and there again-- A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right—that, a child may understand. Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: But all the play, the insight and the stretch-- (Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out? Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael, I and you! Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think-- More than I merit, yes, by many times. But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare -- Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged "God and the glory! never care for gain. "The present by the future, what is that? "Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo! "Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!" I might have done it for you. So it seems: Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules. Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; The rest avail not. Why do I need you? What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat—somewhat, too, the power-- And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict, That I am something underrated here, Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth... And had you not grown restless... but I know-- 'Tis done and past: 'twas right, my instinct said: Too live the life grew, golden and not grey, And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. How could it end in any other way? ... If you would sit thus by me every night I should work better, do you comprehend? I mean that I should earn more, give you more. See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. Come from the window, love,—come in, at last, Inside the melancholy little house We built to be so gay with. God is just. King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with! Let us but love each other. Must you go? That Cousin here again? he waits outside? Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans? More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that? Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend? While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth? I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit The grey remainder of the evening out... ...Yes, You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night. This must suffice me here. What would one have? In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance-- Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me To cover—the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So—still they overcome Because there's still Lucrezia,—as I choose. Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love. |
Basic Questions
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Look at the Details
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Questions About Detail
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Find the Message
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Look at the End
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Student Assessment: Write a Multiple-Choice Section for This Poem
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Write Your Own!
Using the directions on this page, students will get in a group of about 5 or so to write a multiple-choice section using the MC question stems and the Auden poem. As a reminder, here are some of the most common stems. Students should come up with at least 5 different questions covering all parts of the poem and using 5 different stems. They should generate at least two distracters and one correct answer for a total of three answer choices per question. Multiple-Choice Stems In order to write an effective multiple-choice passage, you will need to use multiple-choice "stems." Those are the basic questions most AP passages include as part of their question set. Stems (Certain words are underlined for emphasis)
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