What a triumph to get to a point in the Duchess of Malfi when I can give the students a selection of speeches by different characters and ask them to identify both the speaker, the person to whom the speaker is talking, and the possible context. I gave the twelfth grade speeches from a scene we hadn't looked at yet. They were beautifully able to identify who might have been speaking, and what they might have been saying. These were difficult speeches. Here are some of them.
1.
This proclaims your breeding.
Every small thing draws a base mind to fear,
As the adamant draws iron. Fare you well, sir:
You shall shortly hear form's.
2.
You counsel safely.
Best of my life, farewell, since we must part:
Heaven hath a hand in't: but no otherwise,
Than as some curious artist takes in sunder
A clock, or watch, when it is out of frame,
To bring't in better order.
3.
Look, madam, what a troop of armed men
Make toward us.
O, they are very welcome!
When fortune's wheel is over-charg'd with princes,
The weight makes it move swift: I would have my ruin
Be sudden. I am your adventure, am I not?
1. Student rightly identified that this is probably someone who is likely to insult someone. That put Ferdinand and Bosola in the running. Sama, brilliantly, identified that this would be another "Mean Bosola" moment like the time he insulted the old woman on stage. We've seen both good and bad sides to him, and this would be a bad side. Indeed it is Bosola, speaking to Antonio, saying his lowly birth makes it no surprise that he has a mind as easily drawn to fear as iron to a magnet (adamant).
2. This is perhaps my favourite speech in the whole play. And I was astonished at how ably the students picked up on this simile in which "heaven" or "god" is compared to a "curious artist" who takes apart a malfunctioning clock or watch in order to put it back together in better order, or in better fashion. Our love is so right, he seems to say, that God would only separate us in order to bring us together again in more beautiful fashion later. Unfortunately they will only be brought together again in heaven.
3. Cariola informed the Duchess that there are armed men headed their way. The duchess says "They are welcome!" I was very impressed at how both classes identified the nuanced difference we see in the Duchess here - in the past she has been defiant, with a splash of sass (as Tamara would say). But here she is defiant but in a more defeated way. She seems to have given up on the game, the heist of keeping up with her brothers. In fact, winner of the "best comment of the day" context would be Nadia, who read and commented on this speech of the Duchess's, saying that Fortune's wheel, which represents the way the world works, is o'er charged with princes when people in positions of authority are too controlling, and overrun what nature would have had in store. Thus, they make the wheel turn too quickly, and bring on events that wouldn't naturally happen the way they do, like the death of the Duchess and Antonio. I was so impressed with this interpretation of a line I had been skipping over in my own reading because I didn't understand it.
This week we're going to cruise through as much of the last two acts as we can - this book has been one of the highlights of my teaching career. Along with Romeo and Juliet, Eveline, Raisin in the Sun, and Things Fall Apart. Can't wait for All My Sons in January.
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