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The Tempest SAMPLE
The Tempest SAMPLE
CONNELL GUIDE
TO SHAKESPEARE’S
A L L YO U N E E D T O K N OW A B O U T T H E
P L AY I N O N E C O N C I S E VO LU M E
by Graham Bradshaw
1
The
Connell Guide
to
Shakespeare’s
The
Tempest
by
Graham Bradshaw
2
Contents
Introduction 4 What is distinctive about
Shakespeare’s use of language in
A summary of the plot 6 The Tempest? 82
What is The Tempest about? 9 How seriously should we take
What does the play tell us about power? 12 Prospero when he argues that life
itself is an illusion? 90
If The Tempest is so sceptical about
power, why did James I like it? 17 So what view of the world does
Shakespeare leave us with at the
How are the themes of the play reflected end of The Tempest? 102
in its structure? 22
Are we meant to sympathise with N OT ES
Prospero? 26
A list of characters 5
Why has Prospero been so vilified in
The whereabouts of Shakespeare’s island 18
recent years? 32
Prospero’s magic 32
Isn’t Prospero right when he describes Playing politics with The Tempest 44
Miranda’s marriage 52
Caliban as a “born devil”? 40
Ten facts about The Tempest 64
How does Miranda rebel against her Staging The Tempest 68
father? 49 Six key quotes from the play 73
Shakespeare’s late plays 91
When does Prospero decide to be What the critics say 100
merciful? 58 Shakespeare’s retirement 103
A short chronology 110
How much weight should we attach Bibliography 114
to psychological readings of the play? 75
Introduction about his view of art, and of the human condition?
This short guide sets out to answer these and
In the 400 years since The Tempest was first other questions. Its aim is to illuminate the text,
staged, millions of words have been written about as clearly and concisely as possible, and to show
it. Critics, directors and actors have interpreted what an extraordinary work of art The Tempest
it in widely different ways and developed theories is. It draws on and discusses the most interesting
ranging from the more-or-less plausible to and arresting criticisms of the play, explains the
the eccentric and the completely outlandish. issues which have perplexed and divided scholars
It is undoubtedly one of Shakespeare’s greatest through the ages, and, most importantly, offers
plays, and as well as its bewitching music, its a bold, incisive and authoritative view of its own.
hallucinatory quality and its enchanted island
setting, it contains some of Shakespeare’s most THE CHARACTERS
beautiful poetry and most famous lines. From
Caliban’s “The isle is full of noises” to Prospero’s PROSPERO, the rightful Duke of Milan
“We are such stuff/As dreams are made on”, MIRANDA, a daughter to Prospero
The Tempest haunts our collective imagination. ANTONIO, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan
But what is it actually about? Is it about British ALONSO, King of Naples
colonialism, as so many modern critics, especially SEBASTIAN, his brother
modern American critics, firmly maintain? Is it a FERDINAND, Alonso’s son
Christian play? Or is it, as Sir Peter Hall believes, GONZALO, an honest old Councillor of Naples
the “most blasphemous play Shakespeare wrote”, ADRIAN and FRANCISCO, Lords
about a “man on an island who’s allowed to play ARIEL, an airy spirit
God and who doesn’t just dabble in witchcraft CALIBAN, a savage and deformed slave of Prospero’s
but actually performs it”? TRINCULO, a jester
Is it an anti-feminist play, as some feminist STEPHANO, a drunken butler
critics believe? Or does it, on the contrary – in MASTER of a ship
common with Shakespeare’s late plays – present BOATSWAIN
a softer, more feminised view of the world than MARINERS
his earlier works? And what does The Tempest , the Spirits appearing as Iris, Ceres, Juno, nymphs and reapers
last play Shakespeare wrote on his own, tell us
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A summary of the plot Act Two
Alonso and his companions are searching for
Act One Ferdinand. Ariel, who remains invisible, sends
In a fiercely realistic first scene, a terrible everyone to sleep except Antonio, the usurping
tempest batters a ship returning from Tunis to Duke of Milan, and Sebastian, Alonso’s brother.
Naples. Aboard are Alonso, King of Naples, his The two men plot to murder Alonso and the
brother, Sebastian, and son Ferdinand, Antonio, courtier Gonzalo while they lie asleep, but Ariel
Duke of Milan, and Gonzalo, an old and trusted prevents this by waking everyone up just in time.
councillor. Shipwrecked, they are cast ashore On another part of the island, Trinculo, the jester,
on a strange and apparently deserted island, comes across Caliban, to their mutual surprise;
unaware that the tempest has been caused when the drunken butler, Stephano, arrives,
by the magic of Prospero, the former Duke of Caliban thinks he must be a god and offers to serve
Milan, who now lives on the island with his him in the hope of escaping Prospero’s control.
daughter, Miranda.
Questioned by Miranda, Prospero relates Act Three
how they arrived on the island twelve years Prospero has enslaved Ferdinand and made him
earlier: as Duke of Milan, he had handed some carry logs, but Ferdinand does so willingly in order
duties to his brother Antonio who, gaining a to serve his beloved Miranda. Watched secretly by
taste for power, usurped Prospero with the aid a delighted Prospero, the two pledge to marry each
of Alonso. Cast adrift in a small boat, Prospero other. Caliban tells Trinculo and Stephano that he
and the young Miranda eventually landed on is Prospero’s slave; he proposes that they murder
the island, where they found the half-human, the magician, and that Stephano marry Miranda
half-savage Caliban and the spirit Ariel. Prospero and rule in Prospero’s stead. Alonso and his party,
made Ariel his servant and Caliban his slave. meanwhile, have given up hope of finding Ferdinand
Now, told by Ariel that he at last has his enemies when, to the sound of strange music, spirits
where he wants them, Prospero the magician materialise in front of them and produce a banquet.
moves to the next stage of his plan. He lures Before they can eat, however, Ariel appears, and
Ferdinand into his presence and encourages makes the banquet vanish. Ariel then taunts Alonso,
him and Miranda to fall in love, while pretending Antonio and Sebastian for their part in trying
to disapprove. to kill “good Prosper” and his “innocent daughter”.
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Act Four What is The Tempest about?
Prospero admits that the tasks he set Ferdinand
were to test his love for Miranda, and he now The Tempest has often been described as
blesses their marriage with a masque performed Shakespeare’s most elusive play. The director
by spirits. Then he suddenly remembers Caliban’s Peter Brook calls it “an enigma”, while the critic
plot against his life, angrily halts the performance Anne Barton describes it as “an extraordinarily
and calls Ariel to him. He despatches Ariel to obliging work of art that will lend itself to almost
fetch the hapless Caliban and his accomplices. any interpretation”. Certainly, it has been read
They are brought to Prospero’s cell, where they and staged in widely different ways over the years.
are then chased by spirits disguised as hunting Many critics have seen it as a “serene” play about
dogs. Prospero rejoices that all of his enemies Christian forgiveness, with Prospero as a kind
are finally at his mercy, promising Ariel he will of Christ-figure who – like Duke Vincentio in the
soon be free. final scene of Measure for Measure – refuses to
punish his enemies. There are difficulties with this
Act Five Christian reading. Christianity does not have a
Ariel reports that Alonso and the other Neapolitans monopoly on mercy and forgiveness, and Prospero
are broken men, and Prospero tells Ariel to fetch does not decide to be merciful until the final scene.
them. Alone, he promises to give up his magic It never occurred to earlier, great and profoundly
powers. When the chastened group arrive, Christian critics like Dr Johnson or Coleridge
they are amazed to find Prospero, who fiercely that they should be regarding Prospero – or Duke
reprimands the “three men of sin” who conspired Vincentio – as Christ-figures. Finally, there is no
to exile him. Prospero then reveals Ferdinand reference to Christianity in the play.
and Miranda, playing chess, to Alonso’s great There have been many other allegorical readings,
joy. Prospero forgives his enemies, releases Ariel, which explain the play as an account of survival
acknowledges Caliban as “my own” and announces after death, or even as an allegory of the history of
that they will all return to Naples where he will the Church. The more familiar idea that Prospero
resume his role as Duke. is Shakespeare and that The Tempest represents
Shakespeare’s farewell to his art is also allegorical,
as well as Romantic, and was first propounded by
Thomas Campbell in 1838; it was most elaborately
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developed by Montégut in his argument that the Tempest is a play about the New World.
play presents an “account, feature by feature, of This way of reading The Tempest is now very
the English theatre and transformation to which influential, and is perhaps still dominant. These
Shakespeare subjected it”. Rather surprisingly, critics frequently and sometimes effectively draw
Montégut’s thesis was further elaborated in 1991 on the extraordinarily rich and suggestive range of
by the distinguished critic René Girard. There “native” African, West Indian, and Latin American
were many passionate readers of allegory in responses to The Tempest . But inevitably they are
Shakespeare’s lifetime, but we have no record preoccupied with the relationship between Prospero
that any of his contemporaries thought any of and Caliban. They barely discuss Ariel, and, in their
Shakespeare’s plays were allegorical. A. D. Nuttall, obsession with the political “message”, often treat
whose study, Two Concepts of Allegory, thoroughly Shakespeare’s poetic drama as though it were – or
explores the question of whether The Tempest is might as well have been – written in prose.
allegorical, concludes that it is not. As the American In fact, as the play’s second scene shows, the
scholar Professor Harold Bloom succinctly puts it: relationship between Prospero and Caliban is just
“Allegory was not a Shakespearean mode.” one of a whole web of different familial, master-
More recently, the teaching of Shakespeare in servant and political relationships in the play. At
university English departments has been powerfully the centre of the web, of course, is Prospero. We
influenced by so-called American “New Historicist” first see him with his daughter Miranda, who is
and British “cultural materialist” critics.* These deeply worried about whether – to put it simply –
critics have been most concerned with the political her magician-father is a good man. We then see
significance of The Tempest as a colonialist text, Prospero with the spirit Ariel, who is forced to
in which Prospero is the grasping colonial invader carry out his commands, then with the enslaved
and Caliban the innocent native victim. They Caliban, and finally with Prince Ferdinand. We see
have also revived the 19th-century idea that The him becoming enraged with all of them, even with
Miranda, when she attempts to defend Ferdinand.
* New Historicism is a school of literary theory developed in the All of these different relationships are power
1980s, primarily through the work of the critic Stephen Green-
blatt: it aims to understand works through their historical context, relationships – as Prospero’s rages confirm. So,
and cultural and intellectual history through literature. Cultural if we are attending to this whole web or nexus of
materialism, a similar movement, traces its origins to the British
critic Raymond Williams. The term was coined by him to describe relationships when we ask what this play is about,
a theoretical blending of Leftist culturalism and Marxist analysis. it makes good sense to suppose that it is about
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