The Tempest
Lecture Notes

Click here for general background

The Tempest

1.1 Opening scene = storm at sea
issue of staging (Study Question #1)
Question: What does the storm represent? (Recall Lear.)

1.2.242-301 ("Is there more toil?")
Ariel's contract with Prospero
Prospero's need to remind Ariel of the past
Prospero's anger
"The foul witch Sycorax ..."
Sycorax = figure of feminine evil & sexuality
- similarity of Prospero's dialogue with Miranda

1.2.310-376 ("We'll visit Caliban ...")
Caliban = slave = necessary figure
(Caliban's mother is Sycorax; his father is perhaps Setebos, a pagan god or demon)
Caliban is marginally human (1.2.282-283)
- name = anagram of cannibal: see Montaigne's essay
- issue of "natural man" v. "wild man"
Click here for mini-lecture on Two Ideas of Nature

- see 4.1.188-189 ("A devil, a born devil ...")
- Study Question #4

1.2.399-408 ("Full fathom five ...")
Ariel's musical answer to Ferdinand's grief (1.2.392-396)
- death & transformation: "... suffer a sea-change ..."

1.2.462-484 ("Follow me.")
Prospero treats Ferdinand as Caliban
Question: Why is he so harsh with Ferdinand, Prince of Naples?
And what is happening with Miranda?

2.1
Italians were shipwrecked on return voyage from Africa
- King's daughter Claribel married King of Tunis
Questions: What is the relevance of this theme?
Is it reminiscent of any other Shakespearean play?

2.1.138-164 ("Had I plantation of this isle ...")
Gonzalo's utopian paradise
- demi-Prospero
note negations: perfection by denial ("Idealization requires denial.")
Sebastian & Antonio provide cynical counterpoint
Contrast Gonzalo's ideal with actual political plot
• Click here for a NY Public Library exhibit •

2.1.193ff. ("What a strange drowsiness ...")
Antonio urges Sebastian to kill his brother, Alonso (regicide)
- echoes of Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth (especially)

2.2.24-42 ("What have we here?")
Caliban as "monster" (Latin monstrare, to show)
= creature of earth + water = lower elements
= figure of wild man
= "dead Indian": custom of showing native Americans in Europe

2.2.117-164 ("These be fine things ...")
parody of Prospero's colonizing of island & Caliban

2.2.184-185 ("'Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban / Has a new master: get a new man")
- & Prospero does: see 3.1.1

3.1.1-14 ("There be some sports ...")
Ferdinand labors under same conditions as Caliban (carrying wood)
- but he understands work as "baseness ... nobly undergone" in service of love
= Caliban is enslaved; Ferdinand is being tested
--- (see 4.1.5-7)

3.3.53-102 ("You are three men of sin ...")
elaborate show of banquet (3.3.17 S.D.) broken by Ariel "like a Harpy"
Ariel's "business" is to enforce memory of Milan & Prospero's overthrow

4.1.1-32 ("If I have too austerely ... ")
Prospero's "test" of Ferdinand
- his insistence / curse re: pre-marital chastity
- Ferdinand's ambivalent agreement
--- denial of Caliban-like nature

4.1.59-118 ("Enter Iris S.D.")
Masque of Goddesses, Nymphs, & Reapers
= Shakespeare's imitation of or homage to Jonsonian masque
= elaborate stage production
= technology of Blackfriars Theatre
pertinence to themes of The Tempest:
-- dramatic enactment of imagination
-- celebration of love, but without Venus+Cupid
--- Ceres objects to Venus+Cupid because they provoked Dis (Pluto) to rape Proserpina
= Prospero's artistic repression of natural desires

4.1.118-124 ("This is a most majestic vision ...")
Ferdinand's simple acceptance of magic
Prospero's explanation = piece of plot + "magic" of theater
-- metadrama

4.1.138-166 ("Enter certain Reapers ..." S.D.)
disrupted entertainment (like broken banquet)
Prospero forgets conpiracy of Caliban & others
-- similar to prior moment in Milan?
Prospero is angry; Ferdinand & Miranda are worried
Prospero explains: "Our revels now are ended ..."
-- examine speech inside & outside the play

4.1.254ff ("A noise of hunters ..." S.D.)
Prospero lets the dogs out = enactment of his anger
- his "enemies" are at his "mercy"
- his plot is coming to an end

5.1.17-57 ("Your charm ...")
Prospero recovers "affections"
- "reason" v. "fury" » "the rarer action"
= classic + Christian forgiveness
Prospero' abjuration of his magic
- declaration of powerful magic at moment of release
- "... potent Art. ... rough magic ..."
- magic returned to elements

5.1.74-79 ("Flesh and blood ...")
difficult forgiveness of brother, who remains silent
- see also 5.1.130-135

5.1.79-82 ("Their understanding ...")
metaphor & model

5.1.172 S.D.-174 ("Here Prospero discovers ...")
Ferdinand & Miranda at chess
- Study Question #10
-- local (play-specific) issues & general (Shakespearean) issues

5.1.198-200 ("There, sir, stop:...")
styles of memory: not repetition or revenge, but repentance & redemption

5.1.274-276 ("Two of these fellows ...")
"... this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine"
- Study Questions #8 & #14

Epilogue
Prospero as character & actor
contract with audience
= 2 sides of metadramatic coin
"this bare island": What is it?
final language of religion & criminality: Why? (note pun on "indulgence")

 

 

 

Page last updated: August 30, 2004
Send comments to: Professor David Willbern