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English
329
Milton
Wendy Furman-Adams |
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A Mask at
Ludlow Castle (1634; 1645)
1. Some initial questions (based on Kenneth
Burke's Pentad):
Act--what is this work? What is a masque, and
how does this one fit in that tradition?
Scene--double: "a wilde wood"--but where are we,
really?
Act (2)--what is the action, the plot (Aristotle
would say, the fable) of the mask?
Agents--doubled all over the place:
The Attendant Spirit, soon disguised as Thyrsis,
actually who?
The Lady, actually Lady Alice Egerton.
The brothers--her actual brothers.
Comus and Sabrina
Parents and courtiers (at end) as themselves.
Agents (2), in the sense of forces:
The Attendant Spirit
Comus
Lady
Brothers
Sabrina
Agency--how does Milton convey his ideas in the
mask?
How does he use scenes and scenery (what do you
picture?)
What about costumes?
Dialogue?
Music?
How much are we able to get from reading the
text? Are there things we might
gain by coming to the text this way?
Purpose--again double.
What might Milton's motives be in providing such
an entertainment? What's in it for him?
Do these motives exclude others? Are there also
things Milton wants to "say" in
this work? What?
2. The Mask itself.
Prologue (123-127, ll. 1 - 92).
1. How does the Attendant Spirit speak?
2. What does he tell us about his origin and his
errand?
3. What is Comus' story up to this point? Who
were his parents and what is his "lifestyle"?
Scene 1 -- The Wood.
A. Comus and his revelers (127-131, ll. 93 - 169).
1. Note stage directions. What do we "see" and
"hear"?
2. What happens to the meter when Comus starts
to speak? Why?
3. What is the "drift" of his song? What are the
images that give rise to its meaning?
4. What happens to his song and his meter when
he hears the approach of the Lady?
5. Why does he choose the disguise he does?
B. Enter the Lady (131-134, 1l. 170 - 243).
1. What is the "style" of the Lady's speech--its
meter and imagery?
2. What is her assessment of her predicament?
3. What is the significance of her reference to
Philomela the nightingale in her song?
C. Comus and the Lady Meet (134-138, ll.
244 - 330).
1. What is Comus' first response on hearing the
song of the Lady? (Remember this later, when
Satan first encounters Eve in Paradise Lost 9.)
2. How does he greet her?
3. What is her response to him and to his
disguise? What irony might Milton's audience
find in it?
4. Where do we find her at the end of the scene?
D. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest . .
. the Brothers (138 - 145, ll. 331 - 488).
1. What is the drift of all their lovely poetry
in ll. 331 - 348?
2. What are they worried about?
3. What is the older brother's view? (See
359-385; 408 - 75).
4. What is the younger brother's? (See 386 - 407).
5. Who seems to have a more accurate appraisal
of the situation? In what sense?
E. Enter the Attendant Spirit, disguised as
Thyrsis (145 - 152, ll. 489 - 668).
1. How does the elder brother describe Thyrsis?
(See ll. 493 - 500.)
2. How does "Thyrsis" describe his errand? What
is he worried about? What was he doing when the
alarm came?
3. How does he view the Lady's predicament? (See
ll. 461 - 575.)
4. How do the brothers respond to his news? (ll.
580 - 610.)
5. What do you make of Thyrsis' story of the
haemony root? Why is it "yet more med'cinal"
than the moly Hermes gave to Odysseus (Ulysses)?
What is it literally? What morally? What,
perhaps, spiritually? Why does it look so
different growing in different environments?
Scene 2--the Stately Palace.
*A. Comus' Encounter with the Lady (153 - 159, ll.
659 - 813).
1. What do we "see" and "hear" inside the
palace?
2. What is the Lady doing stuck in that chair?
How does her predicament comment on the earlier
dialogue between her brothers? (See especially
ll. 659-665.)
3. What, essentially, is Comus' aim, and what
are the arguments he employs to the Lady? (pp.
153-157).
4. What are the Lady's counter-arguments? (155,
ll. 703-705; 157, ll. 756-799).
5. What is Comus' reaction to her speech?
6. What, do you imagine, would be the outcome if
no external rescue were to come?
B. The Rescue (159 - 166, ll. 814 - 957).
1. How do the brothers do in their rescue
attempt? Why is it flawed?
2. What is Sabrina's story? (Can you relate it
in any way to the Castelhaven scandal, as set
forth on p. 111?)
3. Notice the meter of the Spirit's song of
invocation. How is it like, and unlike, Comus'
spells?
4. How is Sabrina portrayed?
5. What the heck is "glutinous heat"?
6. What is the significance of the ritual
Sabrina performs?
7. What are our heroes doing as the scene ends?
How is that significant in terms of romance, as
well as in terms of bringing the action full
circle?
Epilogue (166 - 171, ll. 958 - end)
1. What is the significance of the children's
return to their parents? (Take a quick look at
the end of both Samson Agonistes and Paradise
Regained--contrasting both to the end of
Paradise Lost.)
2. Where is the Attendant Spirit going? What
kind of a world is it? Does it comment in any
way on the action that has gone before?
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