1/3/07 - Enlgish Literature - Shakespeare: The Tempest

The lecture outline is as follows:

1. The Tempest and its place in the Shakespearean canon
2. Traditional interpretations of The Tempest: Shakespeare's valedictory play - Prospero as Shakespearean self-portrait
3. Romance v tragi-comedy
4. Comic and tragic elements in The Tempest
5. Romance: forgiveness and reconciliation
6. A qualified forgiveness?
7. Returning to Italy: marriage and death.

1. The Tempest and its place in the Shakespearean canon
The Tempest was written and staged in 1609-10. It is thought to be the last play Shakespeare wrote, although he did collaborate on The Two Gentleman of Verona and Henry VIII after this time.

Shakespeare started off as a writer of comedies and he eventually mastered this literary canon. They began to become morbid and couldn't securely contain the issues which he wanted to explore. These are his so-called 'problem plays'. He then began to write tragedies, and had a long and sustained engagement with them. He finished with four 'romances'. Although there is a definite natural progression to his work, he did also absorb parts from other peoples' works into his plays.

2. Traditional interpretations of The Tempest

Is The Tempest the culmination of Shakespeare's dramatic career? He seems to impart his wisdom, knowledge and experience to us in the play. The Tempest is invested with Shakespeare's genius, through the figure of Prospero. Prospero is described as a puppeteer who directs the actions of others by pulling their puppet's strings. His magic is a reflection of Shakespeare's own theatrical art. Prospero is Shakespeare's mouthpiece and manifestation of self-reflection. Prospero creates illusion and enchantment; he is the source of books and the manipulator of language. At the end, Prospero renounces his magic and drowns his books - a metaphor for Shakespeare's retirement from theatre? Is Prospero a Shakespearean self-portrait? Scholars have ascribed Prospero's characteristics to Shakespeare himself, but this is distorting. Frank Kermode sees Prospero more as a white witch, something malign.

3. The Tempest as Romance

"Although they weren’t classified as romances in Shakespeare’s day, modern critics have identified in his last four plays – Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest – qualities that have come to be characterised as romantic or romance-like.

"It is fair to say that Shakespearian romance frequently includes the separation and disruption of families, followed by their eventual reunion and reconciliation; scenes of apparent resurrection; the love of a virtuous young hero and heroine; and the recovery of lost, royal children."
[Stanley Wells, ‘Shakespeare and Romance’, in Later Shakespeare: Stratford-upon-Avon Studies 8 (London, 1966), pp. 49-80, p. 50]

Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest are viewed as romances by contemporary critics because they have salient features that are similar, yet differ from Shakespeare's other plays. Wells lists what he believes are the characteristics of Shakespeare's romances. The Tempest certainly has these features contained within it: the journey of exile and return, both literal and figurative, is delivered through Prospero and Miranda and the Neopolitans; there is much disillusion in the play, through Prospero's magic; the reconciliation of families such as Ferdinand and Alonso; the loss and restoration of identity such as Ferdinand's and the madness of the Neopolitans; symbolic death and resurrection of Prospero and all of the shipwrecked people; the marriage of the young lovers symbolising hope for the future.

4. The Tempest as a tragi-comedy

A tragi-comedy is usually a composite of both tragic and comic elements, a mixture of both bleakness with laughter. Yet The Tempest seems to be split down the middle, with the tragic elements in the tone and subject matter at the beginning and the comic elements coming at the end with the resolution of the plot. At the same time, it is more complicated than that; The Tempest seems to be a 'hybrid.' It contains such tragic elements as Antonio conspiring to depose his brother and niece to almost certain death, and his later conspiracy to murder Alonso in a political and familial plot, the inclusion of courtly characters and courtly dissembling. Yet there are such comic elements as the young lovers overcoming obstacles and marrying at the end, and such parallels with Twelfth Night as a shipwreck, marriage and the belief that particular relatives are dead.

5. The Theme of Forgiveness and Reconciliation

It is the opinion of Stanley Wells that forgiveness and reconciliation are a crucial element of romances, however in tragedy they are an impossibility. Although Prospero was deposed and left for dead, the play is about Prospero's struggle to forgive his brother. The plot also includes sundered kingdoms being reunited.

Gonzalo
Was Milan thrust from Milan that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars! In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find in Tunis,
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle, and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own.
[Act 5, Scene 1, lines 205-13]

Often reconciliation is found through marriage, and forgiveness also leads to reconciliation:

Ferdinand She [Miranda]
Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never saw before; of whom I have
Received a second life; and second father
This lady makes him to me.
Alonso I am hers.
But O, how oddly will it sound that I
Must ask my child forgiveness!
[Act 5, Scene 1, 191-98]

The encounter between Ariel and Prospero:

Ariel
Your charms so strongly work ‘em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
Prospero
Dost thou think so spirit?
Ariel
Mine would so were I human.
Prospero
And mine shall.
Hast thou, which are but air, a touch of feeling
Of their affections, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply
Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury
Do I take part. The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose does extend
Not a frown further. Go, release them, Ariel.
My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore,
And they shall be themselves.
[Act 5, Scene 1, lines 17-32]

Prospero has the choice to either take revenge or to forgive; he chooses to forgive. Notice the theme of 'otherness'. Are they entitled to be treated equally to 'us'? "Nobler reason" suggests there is a social model of human identity. Prospero considers nobility to lead to virtue, not vengeance. Why is forgiveness the "rarer" action? Because the nobility are fewer than the poor. Prospero contrasts himself, a noble, with the fury of the many.

6. A qualified forgiveness?

Caliban is forgiven despite his unnaturalness.

Prospero I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art.
[Act 5, Scene 1, lines 78-79]

Prospero forgives his brother, but note that it is not out of generosity, and there is the threat that Prospero might later tell tales.

Prospero (Aside to Sebastian and Antonio) But you my brace of lords,
were I so minded.
I here could pluck his highness’ frown upon you,
And justify you traitors. At this time
I will tell no tales.
Sebastian (aside) The Devil speaks to him!
Prospero No.
For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother
Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
Thy rankest fault – all of them – and require
My dukedom of thee, which perforce I know
Thou must restore.
[Act 5, Scene 1, lines 126-34]

It is a political, convenient forgiveness and there is no trust involved. In terms of tone, the ending is muted. Other romances end in unqualified joy and everything is made right. Here, Prospero abandons magic but the world to which he returns is no different to the one to which he was exiled. He still has a murderous brother, and lives in a corrupted world.

7. Returning to Italy

The retrospective nature of the play may be what makes the tone muted: it seems to come from Prospero's point of view, that is, from the view of an old man rather than the view of the young lovers.

Prospero
I’ll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,
Where I have hope to see the nuptial;
Of these our dear belov’d solemnised,
And thence return me to Milan, where
Every third thought shall be my grave.
[Act 5, Scene 1, lines 307-11]

This speech comes before the epilogue, and highlights the fact that Prospero is not overly optimistic about the future. Prospero spends the whole play looking back, and when he looks to the future he sees death (and even his view of marriage is unoptimistic; it is to be "solemnised"). He has a cynical view of the world.