The Tempest: Y12 OCR Revision Booklet

NAME & FORM: ____________________________________________ “WE ARE SUCH STUFF / AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON; AND OUR LITTLE LIFE / IS ROUNDED WITH A SLEEP.” (PROSPERO IV.i) NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

THE TEMPEST (1611)

AO5: "The action of the play is Prospero's discovery of an ethic of forgiveness" (Doran)

AO2, FIVE ACT STRUCTURE: Aristotle (350 BC): beginning / middle / end Developed by Aelius Donatus: protasis (to stretch out) / epitasis (a stopping, stoppage) / catastrophe (overturning, sudden turn). Modern: dramatic arc The use of hamartia and catharsis are integral to the structure of this play. The play focusses upon the character flaws (hamartia) of the Milanese (as perceived by Prospero, Prospero seizing power could also be hamartia) and uses the action of the play (sea change) as catharsis (purification or cleansing that results in renewal and restoration), a key characteristic of the Late Plays. The epilogue also implicates the audience in the process of catharsis: they are asked to release the actors from liberate the actors from the anxiety of performance.

‘AN ENIGMA’ (PETER BROOK) MERCURIAL: ‘AN EXTRAORDINARILY OBLIGING WORK OF ART THAT WILL LEND ITSLEF TO ANY INTERPRETATION” (ANNE BARTON) A PLAY ABOUT CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS? SHAKESPEARE’S FAREWELL TO HIS ART? (THOMAS CAMPBELL, MONTÉGUT, GIRARD) A COLONIALIST TEXT? (AMERICAN NEW HISTORICIST AND BRITISH CULTURAL MATERIALIST CRITICS) A PLAY ABOUT POWER AND AUTHORITY (BLOOM)

ACT 1 Exposition: establishes character and setting

Protasis SCENE 1 THE STORM AT SEA Usurpment of natural order?

Benjamin Smith (1797)

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creative, conceptualised argument use of subject terminology quality of expression

analysis of how meaning is shaped (language, form and structure)

significance and influence of contexts in which text is written and received

connections across literary texts

interpretations (critics, adaptations etc.)

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 Hiatus, devise to separate passengers from civilisation. Island setting throws the characters of the Neapolitans into stark relief. We can examine the calibre of their character under duress.  Storm as allusion to classical gods’ wrath (‘Jove’s lightening’), biblical allusion to the great flood or as elemental/natural disorder – Prospero’s magic disrupts Christian chain of being  Instigates possibility of Christian allegory

 Spectacle of storm – introduces separation from civilisation and puts characters under duress  Gonzalo: ‘Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him’ – personifies and addresses fate, initiates extended metaphors relating character to water and the elements  Boatswain: ‘A plague upon this howling!’ Passengers ‘assist the storm’ with their hellish cries.

Echoes Mercutio’s ‘A plague on both your houses’ at the point R&J turns to tragedy (III.i).  ‘What care these roarers for the name of the king?’ – natural order presented as supreme (link to figurative use of elements throughout)  Boatswain: ‘Have you a mind to sink?’ Introduces a key focus on characters’ nature and behaviour – predestination?  Gonzalo: ‘The King and Prince at prayers! Let’s assist them, / For our case is as theirs.’ Characters representative of a central Christian moral core strength?

Sebastian and Antonio’s profanities are a start contrast to these prayers.

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Age of Discovery / Age of Exploration – widespread colonialism and mercantilism Francis Drake’s voyage around the world completed 1580 Strachey’s Virginia diaries Christian chain of being, divine right of kings and feudalism Superstitions, wheel of fortune, fate Death of Elizabeth I, succession of James I (1603) Magic, witchcraft, James I and Daemonology and ‘natural’ vs ‘black’ magic

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Twelfth Night (1602) – storm at sea, supposed deaths of twins, character pairings and inversions Romeo and Juliet (1594) – Mercutio’s Act III curse in raging heat bears comparison to The Tempest’s opening storm.

Opens with the ‘downturn’ allowing the fates to turn to resolution by the close of the play.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1594) – most of the action is played out in the magical forest before returning to civilisation with issues ironed out; Puck like Ariel; reign of selfish magical and/or authoritarian powers Dr Faustus (1592) – blasphemous power to rival god’s will, necromancy Macbeth (1606) – Macbeth must be killed as usurper.

The question of who is the tyrant is more complex in The Tempest however.

Much Ado, R&J, Cymbeline, All’s Well – false death and resurrection Sinners submerged in pitch in Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto XXII

 A play about “the problem of power”.

(Russ McDonald)  “All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

(Lord Acton)  Prospero’s “holy magic” and Sycorax’s “natural”, “devilish magic” (Kermode) – rejected by Margreta de Grazia  Prospero’s power seen as “blasphemous” by Sir Peter Hall  Prospero "is the controller, the manipulator" (Robert Wilson)  "Prospero's Art controls nature" (Kermode)  "When Ariel causes the tempest, he becomes the tempest; he is Prospero's conscious vengeance, his upset and his anger" (Beck)

Genre: opens in tragedy, at the bottom of the wheel of fortune. Theme of art and artifice introduced – the spectacle of supposed death is used to begin the process of ‘seachange’ or catharsis. Play moves from a staged tragedy towards a comic ending – resolution and marriage.

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

ACT 1 Exposition: establishes character and setting

Protasis

SCENE 2 BACKSTORY TO PROSPERO’S PURPOSE – usurped as Duke of Milan INTRO TO MIRANDA ARIEL,CALIBAN AND FERDINAND

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creative, conceptualised argument use of subject terminology quality of expression

analysis of how meaning is shaped (language, form and structure)

significance and influence of contexts in which text is written and received

connections across literary texts

different interpretations (critics, adaptations etc.)

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Miranda and Backstory

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Presents as caring father, but reassurances give way to audience’s realisation of Prospero’s motivations.

Miranda is controlled by limitation of information and experience. She is naïve in the world.

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Prospero’s marriage plan for Miranda is entangled with self-interest. She is a

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political pawn (link to later game of chess).

JW Waterhouse (1916) 

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Miranda’s fate can be paralleled with Claribel’s.

Link to P and Alonso’s later consolations: “and you the like loss” – loss of daughters = political gain. Both daughters are at the mercy of their fathers’ wishes and ambitions.

Prospero’s “zenith” – via the hiatus of the storm – takes him from usurped and exiled to father of a future queen.

Ariel and Caliban (‘Shakespeare’s natives’) are enslaved by Prospero. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/lit hum/gallo/tempest.html Prospero unleashes his temper multiple times across this scene.

Prospero is presented as a tyrant.

William Hamilton (1797)

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Nurture and benevolence are expressed to Ariel, Caliban, Miranda and Ferdinand but are withdrawn when they question or disobey Prospero’s wishes.

Ariel (“sea nymph”, “flam’d amazement etc.) and Caliban (“thou earth”) are presented as elemental which illustrates Prospero’s theurgist power.

Psychological argument: Ariel and Caliban could also be understood as facets of Prospero’s intellect and psychological make-up. E.g.

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M: “O, I have suffered / With those that I saw suffer!” – use of apostrophe, naivety, limited experience P: “Obey and be attentive.” – imperative, authoritarian P: “Thy father was the Duke of Milan and / A prince of power.” – alliterative emphasis of position in hierarchy, borrows a biblical epithet cf. AO4 P: “so reputed / In dignity, and for the liberal arts” – Renaissance man, cf.

AO4 P: “in my false brother / Awak’d an evil nature” – twinning / pairs / character foils M: “Good wombs have borne bad sons.”

P: “bountiful Fortune, […] hath mine enemies / Brought to this shore […] I find my zenith doth depend upon / A most auspicious star” – personification of fortune, trajectory of protagonist linked to rise in fortune, genre: tragedy to comic resolution

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Ariel 

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A: “I flam’d amazement […] Jove’s lightning […] sulphurous roaring” – figurative use of the elements, St Elmo’s fire, links to hell, life-death inversion, wrath of gods P: “who was so firm, so constant, that this coil / Would not infect his reason?”

– Prospero aims to take characters to brink to test character A: “Not a soul / But felt a fever of the mad […] Ferdinand cried ‘Hell is empty, / And all the devils are here.’’ Ariel creates a living purgatory – Dante (“pitch”) Ariel’s songs: “Come unto these yellow sands” and “Full fathom five”+ repetition of “burden dispersedly”, “sea-change” – water used metaphorically for spiritual cleansing / purification /

Marriage: for Prospero, the ‘holy rites’ of marriage, ceremony and ritual, are what distinguish mating from the mating of other animals, and he is fiercely opposed to premarital sex.

Progeny as power – inheritance, dynasty and the younger generation; Miranda and Claribel as political pawns Virginity, blood-line, fear of bastard sons – male anxiety Daughters at mercy of father’s wishes and ambitions Renaissance rise of philosopher-scientistmagicians, alchemists etc.

Sycorax as practitioner of ‘natural magic’, a goetist; Prospero as a theurgist – use of Art to achieve supremacy of the elementary, celestial and intellectual worlds Shakespeare’s use of Montaigne’s essays, Age of Discovery continued: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/c ulture/books/10877821/Steph en-Greenblatt-onShakespeares-debt-toMontaigne.html . From ‘Of the Cannibals’: The people recently discovered in the New World, Montaigne writes, “hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politic superiority; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no successions, no dividences, no occupation but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no

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Dr Faustus (1592): obsessed with learning, Faustus’ relationship with Mephistopheles similar of that between Prospero and Ariel Othello (1603) – Caliban as Shakespeare’s fourth moor / as cultural Other, Desdemona’s selection of ‘the moor’ Aimé Césaire, Une Tempête (1969): https://firstyear.barnard.edu/s hakespeare/tempest/tempete - Ariel and Caliban portrayed as mulatto and black slaves.

Cesaire’s work in general sought to recognise the collective colonial experience of those who subject to occupation and enslavement.

Bible: “the prince of the power of the air” – Satan is now “the ruler of this world,” and until the Lord casts him out (John 12:31) he will continue to rule. The power [or authority] of the air probably refers to Satan’s host of demons who exist in the heavenly sphere.

T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922): line 48 “Those are pearls that were his eyes.

Look!”; line 191-192 “Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck [Sebastian’s POV] / And on the king my father’s death before me [Ferdinand’s POV]” and 257 “This music crept by me on the waters.” Considers opportunism vs mourning. The five sections of the poem also relate to the play:

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Sidney Lee (1898) introduced idea that the isle is Bermuda and Caliban is an “aboriginal American”. Narrative of play indicates an island in the Mediterranean between Tunis and Italy.

“Caliban is bound by his nature to service” (Traversi). For two thousand years, philosophers from Aristotle to Hulme have defended slavery by arguing that some people, or worse, peoples, are “natural” slaves.

“It is difficult to argue that the play is not about Imperialism.”

(Greenblatt) Prospero is “a formative producer and purveyor of a paternalistic ideology that is basic to the aims of Western imperialism” (Thomas Cartelli) “What pleasure can a woman and a feminist take in this text beyond the rather grim one of mapping its various forms of exploitation?” (Ann Thompson) "Caliban is 'the other' and Prospero has power over him through language" (Cicily Berry) "Language is the perfect instrument of empire" (Greenblatt on the Bishop of Avila) "By rejecting language, Caliban is rejecting knowledge itself" (O'Toole)

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

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baptism / rebirth / fertility rites, sense that the spirits of the island / circumstance are tasked with removing the burden of sin from the travellers

Caliban could be construed as the Freudian Id – a supressed violent, destructive and sexualised part of Prospero’s nature. Ariel perhaps represents Prospero’s imaginative faculty, imagination unfettered. Such a reading can only explore how the work anticipates Freud’s thinking however (David Lindley).

Caliban

Prospero as colonialist.

Hypocrisy – the usurped

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becomes the usurper. Is Prospero any less monstrous than Antonio?

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Caliban as tragic hero: tragedy genre charts the fall of kings and state changing play.

Caliban’s fatal flaw is trust – as Miranda, he is initially naïve to world beyond the island and political power play.

Paul Woodroffe (1905)

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John Carter (1820)

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Theory of Natural Human (Jean Jacques Rousseau) The

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first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine', and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. State of nature as normative guide vs Hobbes: no idea of goodness = naturally wicked. + ‘Montaigne’s Noble Savage’

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Parallelism in characters and situations: Prospero and

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Antonio, Caliban and Ferdinand as suitors / menial servitude, Miranda and Claribel etc.

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Human vs humane. Insistence that Caliban is not human later, “borne devil”.

P: “thou shalt have cramps” – Caliban mirrors Prospero’s curses C: “This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother” - matrilineage C: “Thou strok’st me […] name the bigger light […] I lov’d thee, / And show’d thee all the qualities of the isle […] I am all the subjects you have […] first was mine own king”[…] here you sty me” Caliban vividly evokes the isle.

His physical and tactile evocations give him the greatest affinity and sense of ownership of the island. Zoomorphism – kept as pig.

P: “till thou didst seek to violate / The honour of my child.”

C: “Would’t had been done […] I had peopl’d else this isle with Calibans.”

M: Abhorred slave, / Which any print of goodness wilt not take […] I pitied thee, / Took pains to make thee speak” C: “You taught me language, and my profit on’t / Is, I know how to curse.”

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apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulations, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon were never heard of amongst them.”

Language and education as power. Cultural Imperialism: Nurture vs nature – removal of natural state and imposition of philosophy and politics, refer to Rousseau.

St Elmo’s fire: The phenomenon sometimes appeared on ships at sea during thunderstorms and was regarded by sailors with religious awe for its glowing ball of light, accounting for the name.

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P: “The fringed curtains of thine eye advance” – eyes as windows to soul M: “It carries a brave form. But ‘tis a spirit.”

P: “This gallant […] A goodly person.”

M: I might call him / A thing divine; for nothing natural / I ever saw so noble.”

– aesthetics as measure of goodliness F: “Myself am Naples, / Who with mine eyes never since at ebb, beheld / The King my father wreck’d” – metonym, figurative use of water F: “ O if a virgin […] I’ll make thee Queen of Naples” – preoccupation with purity of bloodline, lineage / Caliban as bastard son

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Ferdinand and the concept of Chivalrous conduct – qualities idealised by knighthood, such as bravery, courtesy, honour, and gallantry toward women.

These traits distinguish Ferdinand from Caliban – refer back to use of ritual mentioned in the marriage point above. Use of masque within the play (covered later) emphasises the civilising intent of ritual.

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The Burial of the Dead (disillusionment, brink of despair, fertility cycle) A Game of Chess (experiential vignettes that could be related to the play’s use of masque) The Fire Sermon philosophical meditation in relation to the imagery of death and views of self-denial.

Purgatorial burning shifts to sense of clarity via purification – link to “sea-change”. In the Buddha’s Fire Sermon, he describes the sense bases and resultant mental phenomena as "burning" with passion, aversion, delusion and suffering.

Death by Water - describes a man, Phlebas the Phoenician, who has died, apparently by drowning. In death, he has forgotten his worldly cares as the creatures of the sea have picked his body apart. The narrator asks his reader to consider Phlebas and recall his or her own mortality. Focus on mortality throws how life is lived into the spotlight.

What the Thunder Said – sense of judgment, relate to natural order, elements, the storm, god of Christian and Classical myth.

Hamlet: ‘Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ Princes Hamlet and Ferdinand both lose their fathers; Ferdinand’s nobility does not crack under the pressure of his father’s supposed death; he demonstrates strength of character in the face of Prospero’s trial by drowning / ‘sea-change’.

WORK INSPIRED BY THE TEMPEST FILM The Forbidden Planet (1956) Prospero’s Books (1992) MUSIC Tchaikovsky’s The Tempest Sibelius wrote a suite for a 1926 production of the play at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen Full Fathom Five and The CloudCapp’d Towers were two of three Shakespearian songs set to music by Vaughan Williams Full Fathom Five, Marianne Faithfull (1965) Thomas Ades produced an operatic version of the play on 2008.

LITERATURE Percy Bysshe Shelley: With a Guitar, To Jane Robert Browning: Caliban upon Setebos W.H. Auden: The Sea and the Mirror Ted Hughes: within the Crow poems T.S. Eliot: elements of The Waste Land Joseph Conrad: Victory J.M. Coetzee: Disgrace Marina Warner: Indigo PAINTINGS: See cover of booklet and illustrations provided for each scene. https://uk.pinterest.com/theatre_lit_ art/the-tempest/

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

ACT 2 Conflict Epitasis SCENE 1

THE SHIPWRECKED COURT GONZALO’S UTOPIA MACHIVELLEAN OPPORTUNISM – Sebastian and Antonio attempt regicide

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creative, conceptualised argument use of subject terminology quality of expression

analysis of how meaning is shaped (language, form and structure)

significance and influence of contexts in which text is written and received

connections across literary texts

different interpretations (critics, adaptations etc.)

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Edmund Dulac (1908)

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The plots that animate the Tempest are all about seizing power.

Antonio forces Prospero out of Milan and as soon as the passengers of the ship been washed ashore, Antonio begins to persuade Sebastian that he should kill Alonzo and seize power.

This plot echoes Prospero’s usurpment. It is then echoed again in the next scene when Caliban persuades Stephano and Trinculo to murder Prospero. Do not forget that Prospero has also usurped Caliban.

Prospero seems to tempt Antonio and Sebastian. He puts the others to sleep via Ariel and offers an opportunity for the two men to reveal their true natures.

Gonzalo delivers a utopian fantasy about a commonwealth without laws; Antonio and Sebastian demonstrate that laws are necessary to control individuals like them.

Machiavelli also warns against liberality.

This backs up Montaigne’s argument that so-called savages are often superior, in human and moral terms, to civilised savages like Antonio and Sebastian.

Caliban’s comments on language demonstrate it is impossible to revert to natural ideal.

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Structure: A.D. Nutall and other critics have suggested that the constant echoes and parallels help the play to seem dream-like.

Shakespeare paraphrases Montaigne: GONZALO I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries / Execute all things, for no kind of traffic / Would I admit; no name of magistrate; / Letters should not beknown; riches, poverty, / And use of service, none; contract, succession, / Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; / No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; / No occupation; all men idle, all, / And women too, but innocent and pure; / No sovereignty— Characterisation: offered tabular rasa, a fresh start yet remain true to type. Antonio even acknowledges rebirth / baptismal washing away of sin: ANTONIO “We all were sea-swallowed, though some cast again, / And by that destiny to perform an act Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come / In yours and my discharge.”

ANTONIO “Th' occasion speaks thee, and / My strong imagination sees a crown / Dropping upon thy head.” Metonym + ebb, flow and standing water metaphors. A: “I'll teach you how to flow.” Water is related to the essence or nature of the characters. The “ebb” in Ferdinand’s eyes in the previous scene is sorrow, here it is treacherous ambition.

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Bible: free will vs predetermination Michel de Montaigne, ‘Of the Cannibals’ – frequent superiority of so-called ‘savages’ – Antonio as a ‘Montaignean contrast’ to Caliban. Repeated from above: Shakespeare’s use of Montaigne’s essays, Age of Discovery continued: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cult ure/books/10877821/StephenGreenblatt-on-Shakespearesdebt-to-Montaigne.html . From ‘Of the Cannibals’: The people recently discovered in the New World, Montaigne writes, “hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politic superiority; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no successions, no dividences, no occupation but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corn, or metal.

The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulations, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon were never heard of amongst them.”

Italian disunity, city states, the power of the Medici

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Prospero’s temptation of Antonio looks forward to Milton’s Paradise Lost where the omniscient, omnipotent God creates a hell in advance of sin.

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia.

More (1577 – 1535) imagined an island utopia. http://www.bl.uk/learning/his tcitizen/21cc/utopia/more1/m oreutopia.html. There is no private property on Utopia and a welfare state.

The Prince (1532) by Niccolò Machiavelli - Machiavelli composed The Prince as a practical guide for ruling (though some scholars argue that the book was intended as a satire and essentially a guide on how not to rule). This goal is evident from the very beginning, the dedication of the book to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the ruler of Florence.

Considered to be one of the first works of modern political philosophy.

Sebastian and Antonio make fun of Gonzalo's efforts and wit in a satirical running commentary made in asides, until they mock the old counsellor directly as Hamlet (c. 1601) does with Polonius.

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"The Machiavellians see nothing of reality" (McFarland) "[Antonio and Sebastian] are the real dreamers, sunk in the hallucination of greed" (Northrop) Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton, called for a Caliban school of thought in 1986 – proCaliban to replace pro-Prospero readings.

Referring to the parallels and repetitions: Karl Marx warns that if we cannot learn from history we are doomed to repeat it.

Critics who emphasize the New World in The Tempest have seized on something important in the play. The notion of Europe's connection with Africa and America occurs in passing, in brief allusions and in sources. It is a significant subtext that Shakespeare uses but does not stress explicitly. For ethical and political reasons, critics have increasingly felt the need to focus on the theme of colonizer and colonized. The ideal commonwealth, which Gonzalo borrows from Montaigne, is something Antonio and Sebastian scorn in their continued mockery of the old man.

"Gonzalo is a speaker of a certain truth" (McFarland) "[Antonio and Sebastian] are the real dreamers, sunk in the hallucination of greed" (Northrop)

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

ACT 2 Conflict Epitasis

SCENE 2 SUBPLOT REBELLION – plan to kill the tyrant Prospero, Caliban as usurped prince of isle MISCONSTRUED FREEDOM

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creative, conceptualised argument use of subject terminology quality of expression

analysis of how meaning is shaped (language, form and structure)

significance and influence of contexts in which text is written and received

connections across literary texts

different interpretations (critics, adaptations etc.)

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Johann Heinrich Ramberg

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 H. C. Selous

Subversion of poetic dramatic convention: A contrast to ‘high’, ‘serious’ conspiracy of the previous scene, this plot is ‘low’ and ‘comic’.

The Lords, Antonio and Sebastian, are, however, morally lower than the subplot characters.

Predetorial will to power vs. rebellion / Caliban’s desire to overthrow the tyrant that tortures him.

The presence of Caliban in the Stefano/Trinculo scenes allows Shakespeare to use the murder sub-plot to reinforce the dark, conspiratorial world of the play, and emphasise the important themes of the master-servant relationship and the elusive nature of power and freedom.

The Tempest when published in the First Folio was grouped with Shakespeare’s comedies.

Renaissance comedies typically contained a romantic plot in which two young people overcome odds to get married and a comic sub-plot.

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Scene begins with Caliban’s eloquent soliloquy that describes his torture at the hands of Prospero. “All the infections…”

CALIBAN “I'll swear upon that bottle to be thy true subject, or the liquor is not earthly.” (2.2.129-130) Alcohol, knowledge and power and elided metaphorically demonstrating the danger of intoxication with any of these phenomena.

CALIBAN “I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island, And I will kiss thy foot. I prithee, be my god.” (2.2.154-155) Repeats mistake made with Prospero, trust, generosity and/or subservience rather than will to power are reiterated as flaws. Further: “here is that that will give language to you”, “here kiss the book”.

Humour that is undercut with sadness. We can see the folly of Caliban’s belief that he has found a better master in drink and a drunkard. “'Ban, 'ban, Ca-caliban Has a new master. Get a new man.

Freedom, high-day! High-day, freedom! Freedom, high-day, freedom!” (2.2.186-193) merely exchanges frame of exploitation.

Paralinguistic humour created by the gabardine

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There were prominent philosophical debates in Renaissance Europe about whether it could ever be right for a subject to kill a tyrant king.

Montaigne – admiration of noble qualities in the natives of the New World Slavery in Italy during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Whereas huge shipments of grain used to arrive by ship annually in this city, now they arrive laden with slaves, sold by their wretched families to alleviate their hunger. An unusually large and countless crowd of slaves of both sexes has afflicted this city with deformed Scythian faces, just like when a muddy current destroys the brilliance of a clear one. (Petrarch)

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Macbeth – Is Macduff right to kill the tyrant king?

“Man is stark mad; he cannot make flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozens.”

(Montaigne) The subplot’s stylistic inheritance comprises the mystery play, the morality, the interlude and the playwithin-the-play. The earliest example dates to the first half of the fifteenth century.

Use of subplot often leads to the introduction of a different class of the social hierarchy supported by the characteristics relevant to the respective classes. The existence of unifying themes between the main plot and the subplot offers a startingpoint in the discussions on the various functions of the subplot. These functions pointing to analogy and/or contrast resulted in a crossfertilization of the respective levels.

Twelfth Night: The main plot follows the love triangle of Olivia, Orsino, and Viola, while the subplot follows the hilarious Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria in addition to their misadventures with Malvolio, Sebastian, and eventually the love triangle of the main plot.

Repetition of triangulated relationships / dualisms in The Tempest.

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"Many audiences believe Caliban to be nobler than Stephano and Trinculo" (Goodwin) Interest in the work of Roman dramatists brought into currency Terence's dramatic technique of doubling the types in his plays, which Richard Levin calls the "duality-method". Terence's types, such as lovers, fathers, or servants, came from the same social stratum. This was developed by Shakespeare who introduced the same type, of lovers, for instance, by taking them from different social backgrounds. In connection with the ideas of decorum attached to rank current in Renaissance England these different social backgrounds constituted a mingling of tones.

Consequently, the introduction of a secondary level, namely the subplot as a dramatic convention, was a fact and became well-established.

“You get a sense of the subplot echoing the main plot, parodying those other characters. It allows us to review the central plot, when we return to it with greater clarity. So their purpose in the play is important.” (Sam Mendes, RSC director)

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

ACT 3 Rising action, including climax (catastasis) of plot

SCENE 1 FERDINAND’S TRIALS MARRIAGE PLEDGE

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Pierre Antoine Branche (1805)

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Over turning epitasis / stoppages: Rebellion from Miranda, turning point in Prospero’s hold over the other characters.

Over turning epitasis / stoppages: The trial – bearing logs, literally a material stoppage – is not conceived as such by Ferdinand. Instead, it is a means to an end that he readily completes.

Miranda shifts her loving obedience from Prospero to Ferdinand. Her father observes from a distance and is delighted. The match is tied to his own ambitions however.

Love versus power values: Miranda and Ariel both seek compassion in Prospero and Caliban rails against his harsh treatment. Many Shakespeare plays favour power values over love. Machiavelli’s argument from Chapter XVII of The Prince: Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved […] Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present.

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F: “There be some sports are painful, and their labour / Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness / Are nobly undergone and most poor matters / Point to rich ends.”

Ferdinand’s nobility of character is borne out through the hardship he is confronted with. Does he undergo “sea-change” – no, he needn’t, but he demonstrates that his character doesn’t break under duress.

M: “Miranda – O my father, I have broke your hest to say so!”

F: “My heart fly to your service; there resides / To make me slave to it; for your sake / Am I this patient log-man.” A direct contrast to Caliban’s response to enslavement.

This scene echoes the opening of the previous: Caliban enters bearing logs.

M: “Do you love me? […] My husband, then?”

F: “Here’s my hand.”

P: “my rejoicing / At nothing can be more.” – legally binding act Contrast Miranda’s direct language to the extended courtly flourishes of Ferdinand’s – emphasises his restraint, Miranda leads

Transferal of female obedience from father to husband – bares comparison with Caliban’s exchange of masters.

In English law at that time, the praesenti contract or ‘handfasting’ was legally binding.

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King Lear and Anthony and Cleopatra – power values favoured over love values.

Measure for Measure and All’s Well That Ends Well depend upon this law – e.g. Angelo is not legally married to Mariana, abandons her and then is tricked into sleeping with her.  Romeo and Juliet: Friar Lawrence, chastising Romeo for abandoning Rosaline for his new love, Juliet Capulet, "Young men's love then lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes." Eyes are considered windows to the soul in this era – FL plays on this idea, inferring attraction to appearance rather than love. Prospero notes that M and F ‘They are both in either’s powers’ (I.ii) but continues to fiercely guard against physical consummation of the relationship.

"The action of the play is Prospero's discovery of an ethic of forgiveness" (Doran) Miranda is the catalysis of the story. Had it been possible for her to have remained forever a child in a child’s body the Tempest would have been unnecessary.” (director Nancy Meckler)

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

ACT 3 Rising action,

SCENE 2 PROGRESSION OF SUBPLOT MURDER PLAN

including climax (catastasis) of plot

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According to conventions of poetic drama, servants/slaves would usually speak in ‘low ‘prose and Kings in verse. However Caliban often speaks in verse and Shakespeare gives him some of the play’s greatest poetry.

Stefano's leadership is a parody of the real court. Though he is rooted in the spirit of the pastoral (bawdy, drunk, and quick to fight), Stefano puts on the airs of the court and reveals how silly these formalities are against such a backdrop (while also casting some doubt as to how serious they are in any context).

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Sir John Gilbert c.19th

ACT 3 Rising action, including climax (catastasis) of plot

SCENE 3 COURT BANQUET JUDGEMENT DELIVERED BY ARIEL AS HARPY

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TRINCULO: “Servant-monster”? The folly of this island. They say there’s but five upon this isle. We are three of them. If th' other two be brained like us, the state totters.”

CALIBAN: “How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe.”

CALIBAN: “I’ll yield him thee asleep, / Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head […] Having first seized his books; or with a log / Batter his skull […] or cut his wezand with thy knife.”

CALIBAN Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again. (3.2.148-156)

Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences revelled in shocking drama. While patrons liked a good comedy, they consistently packed the theatres to see the newest foray into treachery, debauchery, and murder. Scenes of bloodshed were staged with maximum realism. An account of the props required for George Peele's The Battle of Alcazar (1594), for example, lists three vials of blood and a sheep's lungs, heart, and liver. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy calls for an arbour with a dead body swinging from it (as described in Karl J. Holzknecht's, The Backgrounds of Shakespeare's Plays).

Easy to over sentimentalise Caliban. “Caliban is anything but a Noble Savage.” (Greenblatt)

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Example of Jacobean masque design

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This scene presents the next stage of the royal group’s journey towards self-knowledge.

Once Ariel has delivered judgment, the characters susceptible to guilt are left to contemplate their actions.

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ARIEL You are three men of sin, whom Destiny, That hath to instrument this lower world And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;

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"A disturbing affinity between Ariel and the mythical sirens, whose seductive singing mariners had to resist"(Lindley)

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"Ariel challenges Prospero's absolute punitive control and precipitates the

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

And even with such-like valour men hang and drown Their proper selves.

ACT 3, SCENE 3 COURT BANQUET JUDGEMENT DELIVERED BY ARIEL AS HARPY

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ACT 4 Falling action Catastrophe

SCENE 1 MARRIAGE MASQUE ‘OUR REVELS NOW HAVE ENDED’ SPEECH SUBPLOT DEALT WITH

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Harpies in the infernal wood, from Inferno XIII, Gustav Doré (1861) Chapman’s translation of the Odyssey took place between 1611 and 1615.

rejection of his magic"(Lindley)

Virgil’s Aeneid: The Strophades are two very small islands on the western side of Greece. They are the mythological home of the Harpies.

King Phineus of Thrace was given the gift of prophecy by Zeus. Angry that Phineus gave away the god's secret plan, Zeus punished him by blinding him and putting him on an island with a buffet of food which he could never eat because the harpies always arrived to steal the food out of his hands before he could satisfy his hunger, and befouled the remains of his food. This continued until the arrival of Jason and the Argonauts.

In Millington's book, Heraldry in History, Poetry and Romance, it is stated that unlike the generality of such mythical beings, the harpies appear originally in Homer's Odyssey, as persons instead of personations; while later authors for the most part reduced them to whirlwinds and whirlpools. Homer mentions but one harpy. Hesiod gives two, later writers three. The names indicate that these monsters were impersonations of whirlwinds and storms. The names were: Ocypeta (rapid), Celeno (blackness), Aello (storm).

Pericles: "Thou art like the harpy, / Which to betray, doth wear an angel's face, / Seize with an eagle's talons."

In Canto XIII of Inferno, Dante Alighieri envisages the tortured wood infested with harpies, where the suicides have their punishment in the seventh ring of Hell.

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The masque represents Prospero’s vision of future power, alliance with royalty and continuation of his bloodline.  Ferdinand notices sense of harmony represented by alliance and marriage. Is this soporific effect of control?  Masque = a visual summary of Prospero’s project achieved? There is little sense of repentance from some of the characters in V – perhaps this is less important than the establishment of the structure of power and inferred obedience / deference?  Prospero remains benign until the end of the Act IV marriage masque – warns the couple not

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FERDINAND This is a most majestic vision, and Harmoniously charmingly. May I be bold To think these spirits?

PROSPERO Spirits, which by mine art I have from their confines called to enact My present fancies. (4.1.131-136) PROSPERO Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air; And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life

 Expectations of marriage for sake of dynastic alliance still alive, particularly within the older generation.  There was a startling growth in popularity of the court masque in the Jacobean period (the reign of James I, 1603-1625). The court masque was a type of performance and was influenced by court theatre on the continent, particularly Italy and Spain. The masque consisted of a series of dances, spectacles, and lavish scenery, costume and display.

Writers such as the poet and public dramatist Ben Jonson supplied the text (in reality a series of speeches and choruses) and the court architect and neo-classicist Inigo Jones supplied the Italianate perspective scenery. http://shalt.dmu.ac.uk/media/uploads/documents/reports/cer-4.pdf  The professional actors performing in many of these masques, as hags, gods and – in Jonson’s Neptune’s Triumph – a turkey and other kitchen ingredients, would often have been the King’s Men: Shakespeare and his colleagues.  There is a tradition that The Tempest contains, or was itself, a court masque. Even if this isn’t the case, David Daniell states that ‘it is probable that the first performance of The Tempest was spectacular and masque-like’. Daniell also notes that the scene wherein Caliban, Trinculo NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

to consummate their marriage and remembers Caliban’s “foul conspiracy”. 

In describing the results of his magic, Prospero creates a metaphor for the theatre: What happens in the playhouse is not any more real than magic, but it has the same effect.

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Is rounded with a sleep. (4.1.165-175) TRINCULO [seeing the apparel] O king Stefano! O peer! O worthy Stefano! look what a wardrobe here is for thee! (4.1.245-249) ARIEL Then I beat my tabour, At which, like unbacked colts, they pricked their ears, Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses As they smelt music: so I charmed their ears That, calf-like, they my lowing followed through Toothed briers, sharp furzes, pricking gorse, and thorns,

and Stephano are chased by “divers Spirits, in shape of dogs and hounds” (IV.i.253) could be thought of as a variation of the antimasque.  The earliest comment we have on The Tempest must be the king’s command performance at court, to take place in the Banqueting House at Whitehall on 1st November 1611, Hallowmass or All Saints Day – thus opening the winter season of court entertainments.  The Tempest had probably played at the Blackfriars before that, but at the Banqueting House it would go well in the hall so fitted up for court masques, with machinery for transformation scenes, flying chariots, clouds, and performers’ flying entrances.

Inigo Jones C17th costume design, ‘A Star’ – link to Ariel, spirits and subplot characters assuming robes of power.

SCENE 1 MARRIAGE MASQUE ‘OUR REVELS NOW HAVE ENDED’ SPEECH SUBPLOT DEALT WITH

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 R&J: Miranda and Juliet are both 14 – cusp of independence and then, legally permitted to marry.  It has also been suggested that The Tempest’s masque draws many elements from Jonson’s Hymenaei (1606), including several of the same mythical characters. Prospero’s masque, however, ‘continues Jonson’s hymenal theme but with several important differences’ in terms of the thematic emphases.  Hamlet: "To be, or not to be: that is the question: / Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep;" – link to arguments about whether or not Prospero justly seizes power to manipulate his circumstance. Both soliloquies set the activities of life in the context of mortality and use ‘sleep’ as a euphemism for death.  Macbeth, upon learning of the queen's death: "Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing." Use this comparison to discuss the idea of art and artifice, construction of character, personality and performance of roles both in everyday life and theatrically. Use in a discussion of morality, fragility of life and confrontation of life coming to an end.

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“Miranda, like Claribel, is at the mercy of her father’s wishes and ambitions.” (Ann Thompson)

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"Shakespeare dramatises the handover of power and responsibility from one generation to the next" (Allan)

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Inigo Jones's ingenious settings, "his ability to do the impossible" were the prime manifestation of the royal will. (Orgel, The Illusion of Power)

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Trevor R. Griffiths provides a useful analysis of the ways in which Shakespeare uses verse, form and language to stylistically isolate the masque from the ‘real’ world of The Tempest: ‘The language of the masque itself is clearly marked off from the rest of the play by use of couplets, the choice of vocabulary and the formal, rather convoluted used of language, where the build-up of epithets creates a rather Latinate, almost Miltonic, atmosphere. Reversed word-orders create a stiff and hieratic tone that is perhaps appropriate to the theme of chastity.’

The Arden third series edition of The Tempest includes a detailed thematic analysis of the masque, outlined as follows: The masque is shaped by Prospero’s insistence on abstinence: “Do not give dalliance/Too much the rein… Be more abstemious” (4.1.51-3). His concern for his daughter’s chastity is linked to his hopes for her fruitful marriage and the legitimacy of his dynasty.

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NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

ACT 5 Dénouement: demonstrates workings of plot; establishes tone and moral

SCENE 1 PROSPERO’S PROJECT ‘GATHER[S] TO A HEAD’

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 Does the island only exist for Prospero as a place of exile and a source of nature-spirits which can be coerced into serving his purposes? He seeks total domination over nature and natural processes. He has continued his studies in both 'rough' (i.e. black) magic, and in the refined magic of alchemy, developing both into a potent Art.  Is Prospero a reformed Faustus? Power given up with repentance – biblical allegory.

Marlowe presents a magician who is unable to repent, i.e. who must pay for his sins and who would go directly to hell.

Cf. AO3 entry on Reformation theology.  The character of Prospero is often identified with the Bard at career’s end, bidding adieu to his books and magic. Magic and ‘art’ can be considered the world conjured up by the playwright, director and performers.  Catharsis – will the results have longevity without Prospero’s charms? We also consider how Shakespeare has devised the ‘traffic of our stage’ (R&J prologue – look at general use of prologues and epilogues) and why he draws our attention to the construction of theatre.  Series of spectacles throughout the play:

PROSPERO recalls the ways in which he's used his art to harness the forces of nature.

Go release them, Ariel: My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore, And they shall be themselves.

Catastrophe

‘YE ELVES OF HILLS AND BROOKS’ SOLILOQUY – PROSPERO GIVES UP MAGICAL POWERS REVEAL 1: COURT REVEAL 2: YOUNG COUPLE REVEAL 3: CHASTENED SERVANTS ARIEL FREED

Victorian illustration

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, And you 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 you be, I have bedimmed The noontide sun, called 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 plucked up The pine and cedar; graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth By my so potent art. (5.1.42-59) – use of sound devices, e.g. alliteration and onomatopoeic vocabulary, that recall the sounds of the storm.

Infers the power that Prospero’s incantations to throw nature off balance.

But this rough magic I here abjure, and, when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do, [Prospero gestures with his staff] 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. (5.1.59-66) – collision of the elements: earth confused with water (measured by ‘fathoms’ recalling Ariel’s song) and air as the medium of sound also ‘plummeted’ into the earth. ‘Rough magic’ evident even in the process of giving up its use.

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The 'Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves' speech, derives directly from a passage in Ovid's Metamorphoses spoken by the black witch Medea. The same passage was put by Middleton into the mouth of Hecate in a play called The Witch. Kermode claims that 'only those elements which are consistent with "white" magic are taken over for Prospero' (149). This is not so: ‘graves at my command Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth By my so potent Art.’ Link to Marlowe’s Dr Faustus – cf. the second point of AO1 in this section and the AO4 Faustus commentary in the first section.

From Medea’s incantation: “I have compelled streames to run cleane backward to their spring. / By charmes I make the calme Seas rough, and make y rough Seas plaine / And cover all the Skie with Cloudes, and chase them thence againe.” These lines differ most from Shakespeare’s adaptation but are useful applications to his storm and the idea of ‘seachange’ – natures ebbing and flowing in relation to another’s command.

Genre place within body of Shakespeare’s work. The Late Plays, Romances, tragi-comic: The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline and Pericles. Consider and compare the following: openings, endings, familial roles, stage properties, spectacle and song.

The Late Plays explore the redeeming qualities of nature as opposed to the corrupt staleness of city and court life; the regeneration that the younger generation represents; and encounters with spiritual experiences. This is instead of flawed characters dying as a result of their deficiencies, as found in the more Aristotelian models like Macbeth. Flawed protagonists are redeemed by a daughter or by nature or by a combination of both. The characters are able to

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Cf. Kermode comment included in first AO4 pint for this section.

As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare; witness his 'Venus and Adonis', his 'Lucrece', his sugared sonnets among his private friends (Francis Meres, 1598).

We may feel rather that it is not so much in these poems as in certain of the plays that the spirit of Ovid lives on, notably in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. (L P Wilkinson, Ovid Recalled, 1955) Schlegel identified Ariel with air and Caliban with earth.

“Shakespeare, as if conscious it would be his last, and as if inspired to typify himself, has made its hero a natural, a dignified, and a benevolent magician.”

(Campbell)

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

http://shakespeare.let.uu.nl/ masque.htm. Each scene is presented or overseen by Prospero with the audience allied to his PoV.  The epilogue breaks the diegesis of the play and the speech is interdigetic, i.e. it breaks the fourth wall, addressing the audience emphasising the play’s commentary on the audience’s participation in the process of catharsis and  ‘sea-change’.  Upon Ariel’s release, Prospero humanity is presented as essentially flawed and subject to mortality. Caliban is ‘earth’ and Prospero returns to ‘earth’ – ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ (Book of Common Prayer, drawn from Genesis 3:19, Genesis 18:27, Job 30:19, and Ecclesiastes 3:20)  The resolution of Prospero’s project is imperfect. Several resist reconciliation and some are just left reeling from their ordeal. It is unclear if their pain is self-imposed or the result of Prospero’s belligerent control.

REVEAL 1: COURT PROSPERO “Behold, sir king, / The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero. / For more assurance that a living prince Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body, [He embraces Alonso.]

And to thee and thy company I bid / A hearty welcome. (5.1.117-122) PROSPERO [aside to Sebastian] / No. / [To Antonio.] 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.” (5.1.148-154) The language of disease and infection is used to describe both Caliban and Antonio. Antonio’s silence demonstrates lack of repentance.

REVEAL 2: YOUNG COUPLE Here Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda, playing at chess (5.1. Stage Direction).

Elements of masque, chess game is a metaphor for the young couple taking up the reins of power and management of political systems.

REVEAL 3: CHASTENED SERVANTS PROSPERO This thing of darkness I Acknowledge mine.

CALIBAN Ay, that I will. And I’ll be wise hereafter And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass Was I, to take this drunkard for a god And worship this dull fool!

Resignation to hierarchy? Most seem to fall in with reestablishment of former status quo. Subplot characters all seem to be recovering from drunken intoxication. Stephano describes himself as ‘but a cramp’ and Prospero describes Sebastian’s conscience as ‘inward pinches […] most strong’ – are they aching from Prospero’s coercions or is this evidence of the growing pains of their reforming characters?

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repent for their mistakes and bad deeds and are allowed to live, to embark on a new life that those things had taught him.

Andrew Marr presents a special edition of Start the Week, celebrating the later life and works of William Shakespeare. Recorded at the Globe's candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the actor Simon Russell Beale and Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole discuss the late romances: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06sg1tz Film and TV adaptations of Shakespeare's final works:

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1083061 / “I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.” (Montaigne) – link this to Prospero’s recognition of Caliban as ‘mine’.

King Claudius, admitting to himself that his prayers are not heartfelt. (Hamlet) "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: / Words without thoughts never to heaven go." Ariel and Caliban as anthropomorphisation of Prospero’s psychology.

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"Repentance in The Tempest is a largely unachieved goal" (Orgel) The play does not fit entirely with Northrop Frye's characterisation of the genre even if he thought that it was a romance. Romance, according to Frye, dominates the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods of English literature, for instance by taking over Sidney's Arcadia, Spenser's The Faerie Queene and the plays of Shakespeare's last phase. This genre was successful even though it was scorned for its extravagance, neglect of the unities, incredible actions and characters, and attention to 'nature.' Unlike The Winter's Tale, The Tempest more or less obeys the classical unities, but, as Frye implies, it is extravagant, represents unbelievable characters and actions and focuses a great deal on nature.

ARIEL FREED Why, that’s my dainty Ariel. I shall miss thee, But yet thou shalt have freedom.—So, so, so.— To the king’s ship, invisible as thou art.

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Faustus illustrates the worst-case scenario of the doctrine of predestination. He originally decides to pursue magic after convincing himself that he is doomed be damned: ‘Why then belike we must sin, / And so consequently die ... / What will be, shall be... / Divinity, adieu!’ In choosing to sin, he then guarantees that his prediction will come true: the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

Detail of how the play raises the problems inherent in the Calvinist theory of predestination can be found here: http://people.virginia.edu/~jdk3t/DrFaustusPooleEss.pdf The Renaissance and post-Renaissance period marked both the high point and the turning point of alchemy in the West. During the same years in which Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton wrote their revolutionary scientific works, more alchemical texts were published than ever before.

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

EPILOGUE

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PROSPERO ADDRESSES AUDIENCE, REQUESTS LIBERTY OF PLOT, IDEAS AND ACTORS

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PROSPERO Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have’s mine own, Which is most faint. [theme or mortality, handing power to new generation] Now, ’tis true, I must be here confined by you [audience have similar power to playwright, director and those who govern systems of power – power of the individual’s imagination], Or sent to Naples. Let me not, Since I have my dukedom got And pardoned the deceiver, dwell In this bare island by your spell, But release me from my bands With the help of your good hands.

Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, [figuratively, in terms of metatheatricality, this refers to applause and the discussion of the ideas presented within the play by audience members – longevity of Shakespeare’s work. Current study and discussion of the play metaphorically keep the body of ideas sailing on to new generations.]

Which was to please. Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant, And my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardoned be, Let your indulgence set me free. [Responsibility and interpretation: the audience assume Prospero’s power and he/the play, the role of Ariel – we can confine to personal interpretation or open interpretative power out to discursive possibilities.]

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Montaigne in ‘Of the Affection of Fathers to Their Children’: children in fact “have youth and strength in their hands, and consequently the breath and favour of the world, and do with mockery and contempt receive these churlish, fierce, and tyrannical countenances from a man that hath no lusty blood left him.”

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Hamlet explaining to Horatio the appearance of a ghost.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

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“To unpathed waters, undreamed shores” (Camillo in The Winter’s Tale IV. iv)  The closing lines of Shakespeare’s plays: http://www.factacular.com/sub jects/Shakespeare_Closing_Line s

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Play(s) within a play and metatheatricality: the action of the play is a performance presented to us by its protagonist. Once Prospero breaks the illusion of the charmed action the additional ‘outer layers’ of the play are brought into focus. I.e. we focus on Prospero’s construction of an environment geared to Revisit point in previous section about Reformation theology, Calvinism and repentance.

General run down of the conventions of Elizabethan / Jacobean plays: http://www.thedramateacher.com/elizabethantheatre-conventions/

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There has been a great deal of speculation on whether Prospero's farewell to magic is intended to announce Shakespeare's retirement from the stage. When Prospero asks the audience to free him from his imprisonment, is it instead the voice of Shakespeare asking the audience to free him from his craft?

After the completion of Prospero's story, Shakespeare did continue to write, composing parts of three more plays. It would be unwise to focus solely on The Tempest as somehow representative of Shakespeare's farewell to the stage and thus overlook the many other important strengths of the play.

20th Century sensibilities: Throughout The Tempest Prospero’s character portrays an image of a nearly Nietzchean superhuman capable of disclaiming authority, killing God. He is in control of every situation and event as if the chain of causes and effects would be a conductible melody waiting for an artist’s touch. On the other hand he is very human: a wronged duke and a father, a symbiosis which Shakespeare displayed with the use of Prospero’s garment as a theatrical tool.

An artist is the creator, the maker of realities yet he remains human, an animal with feelings and urges, ties only waiting to be cut. The view implied is not far from the ideologies that emerged from the great suffering of the Second World War: a man is capable of constructing himself a framework of personal and social meaning, but his true animal nature remains unchanged.

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To listen to the language of The Tempest “is to become deeply sceptical about the operation of all kinds of power – poetic, political, and critical too.” Russ McDonald) Coleridge: “the appeal of the play was to the imagination”.

John Dryden, In Defence of the Epilogue (1672): Shakespeare “wears almost everywhere two faces; [… and} is the very Janus of poets”.

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST

NRL 2017 – OCR PRE-1800 DRAMA REVISION / THE TEMPEST