The Tempest (play)

The Tempest is traditionally considered to be William Shakespeare's last play. Its first known performance was on November 1, 1611 at Whitehall Palace in London. It would also have been performed at the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre.

The Tempest belongs to the class of plays commonly grouped as Shakespeare's Late Romances. In these plays, Shakespeare shows a concern with family ties and reconciliation in a mythic setting.

It is one of two William Shakespeare plays in which he generally abides by the prescribed unities of classical drama, the other being The Comedy of Errors. Unity of place is achieved by setting the play on a remote island and unity of time is achieved by having all the action take place within the space of a few hours, although unity of action is not precisely observed.

One author notes: "Why Shakespeare observed the three unities in The Tempest is not known. In most of his other plays, events occur on several days and characters visit numerous settings. Some scholars have suggested that, because The Tempest contains so much fantasy, Shakespeare may have wanted to observe the unities to help audiences suspend their disbelief. Others have pointed to criticism that Shakespeare received for ignoring the unities; they say he may have wanted to prove once and for all that he could follow rules if he felt like it."^*

Plot

The sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda, have been stranded for twelve years on an island in the Adriatic, after Prospero's jealous brother Antonio—helped by Alonso, the King of Naples—deposed him and set him adrift with the three-year-old Miranda. Possessed of magic powers due to his great learning and prodigious library, Prospero is reluctantly served by a sprite, Ariel, whom he had rescued from imprisonment in a tree. Ariel was trapped therein by the African witch Sycorax, who had been exiled to the island years before and died prior to Prospero's arrival; Prospero maintains Ariel's loyalty by repeatedly promising to release the "airy spirit" from servitude, but continually defers that promise to a vague, future date. The witch's son Caliban, a deformed monster and the only non-spiritual inhabitant before the arrival of Prospero, was initially adopted and raised by the Milanese sorcerer. He taught Prospero how to survive on the island, while Prospero and Miranda taught Caliban religion and their own language. Following an alleged attempt to "violate" Miranda (the references by both Prospero and Caliban are ambiguous, and whether he attempted to rape Miranda, sought to woo her, or had successfully seduced her is left up to the reader's imagination) he had been compelled by Prospero to serve as the sorcerer's slave, carrying wood and gathering pig nuts. In slavery Caliban has come to view Prospero as a usurper, and grown to resent both the magus and his daughter for what he believed to be their betrayal of his trust; Prospero and Miranda in turn view Caliban with contempt and disgust.

The play opens as Prospero, having divined that his brother, Antonio, is on a ship passing close by the island (having returned from the nuptials of Alonso's daughter Claribel with the King of Tunis), has raised a storm (the tempest of the title) which causes the ship to run aground. Also on the ship are Antonio's friend and fellow conspirator, King Alonso, Alonso's brother Sebastian, Alonso's royal advisor Gonzalo, and Alonso's son, Ferdinand. Prospero, by his spells, contrives to separate the survivors of the wreck into several groups and Alonso and Ferdinand are separated, and believe one another dead. Three plots then alternate through the play. In one, Caliban falls in with Stephano and Trinculo, two drunken crew members, whom he believes to have come from the moon, and drunkenly attempts to raise a rebellion against Prospero (which ultimately fails). In another, Prospero works to establish a romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda; the two fall immediately in love, but Prospero worries that "too light winning ^* make the prize light", and so compels Ferdinand to become his servant so that his affection for Miranda will be confirmed. He also decides that after his plan to exact vengeance on his betrayers has come to fruition, he will break and bury his staff, and "drown" his book of magic. In the third subplot, Antonio and Sebastian conspire to kill Alonso and his advisor Gonzalo. When they attempt to murder them they are thwarted by Ariel, at Prospero's command. Ariel appears to the three "men of sin" as a harpy, reprimanding them for their betrayal of Prospero. Alonso, Sebastian and Antonio are deeply affected while Gonzalo is unruffled. Prospero manipulates the course of his enemies' path through the island, drawing them closer and closer to him. In the conclusion, all the main characters are brought together before Prospero. He forgives Alonso, neglects to mention his brother's betrayal of him, or Sebastian's attempted betrayal of Alonso, and finally uses his magic to ensure that everyone returns to Italy. However, the final decision is left to the imagination of the audience of whether he deserves to return or not.

Sources

The Tempest is one of the few Shakespeare plays for which there is no definitive source for the overall narrative. However, some of the words and images in the play seem to derive from a report by William Strachey of the real-life shipwreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 on the islands of Bermuda of sailors travelling toward Virginia. Strachey's report was written in 1610; although it was not printed until 1625, it circulated widely in manuscript and Shakespeare may have taken the idea of the shipwreck and some images from it.

The play draws heavily from the tradition of the Romance, which featured a fictitious narrative set far away from ordinary life. It was typically based around themes such as the supernatural, wandering, exploration and discovery. Romances were often set in coastal regions, and typically featured exotic, fantastical locations; they featured themes of transgression and redemption, loss and retrieval, exile and reunion. As a result, while The Tempest was originally listed as a comedy in the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, subsequent editors have chosen to list it as a romance.

The overall form of the play is modelled heavily on traditional Italian commedia dell'arte performances, which sometimes featured a magus and his daughter, their supernatural attendants, and a number of rustics. The commedia often featured a clown-figure known as "Arlecchino" (or his predecessor, "Zanni") and his partner "Brighella," who bear a striking resemblance to Stephano and Trinculo; a lecherous Napolese hunch-back named "Pulcinella," who corresponds to Caliban; and the clever and beautiful "Isabella," whose wealthy and manipulative father, "Pantalone," constantly seeks a suitor for her, thus mirroring the relationship between Miranda and Prospero.

In addition, one of Gonzalo's speeches is derived from 'On Cannibals', an essay by Montaigne that praises the society of the Caribbean natives; and much of Prospero's renunciative speech is taken word for word from a speech by Medea in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Themes / Tropes

Kingship

The concept of usurping a monarch occurs frequently throughout the play: Antonio usurped Prospero; Caliban accuses Prospero of having usurped him upon the latter's arrival on the island; Sebastian plots to kill and overthrow his brother the King of Naples; Stephano has designs to depose Prospero and set himself up as "king o'the isle." As such, the play is simultaneously concerned with what constitutes virtuous kingship, presenting the audience with various possibilities. In the twentieth century, post-colonialist literary critics were extremely interested in this aspect of the play, seeing Caliban as representative of the natives invaded and oppressed by Imperialism.

Tempe-

The play repeatedly extols the virtues of temperance. Prospero repeatedly urges Ferdinand and Miranda to not indulge in lust but be temperate in their love, warning Ferdinand that "If thou dost break her virgin knot before / All sanctimonious ceremonies may / With full and holy rite be minister'd.../ Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew / The union of your bed". Similarly, the masque with which Prospero entertains the couple centres around Juno, goddess of chaste marriage, and explicitly excludes Venus and Cupid, deities of lust. The masque concludes with "watery naiads" joining with "sunburned sicklemen", in an allegorisation of the idea that humours - associated with the elements - need to be balanced in order to create a virtuous temperament, in the individual or in a union: water and fire balance each other out.

The play likewise warns against intemperance; most noticeably with the drunkards Stephano and Trinculo being brought to justice, but also through Prospero's punishment of Caliban when the latter attempted to rape Miranda. Prospero himself - whose magic is repeatedly linked with alcohol - is said to be "with anger so distemper'd", and learns through the play the need to control his violent temper, ultimately clearing the sky of the tempest, which had been its principal manifestation.

The Theatre

The Tempest is overtly concerned with its own nature as a play, frequently drawing links between Prospero's Art and theatrical illusion. The shipwreck was a "spectacle" "performed" by Ariel; Antonio and Sebastian are "cast" in a "troop" to "act"; Miranda's eyelids are "fringed curtains". Prospero is even made to refer to the Globe Theatre when claiming the whole world is an illusion: "the great globe... shall dissolve... like this insubstantial pageant". Ariel frequently disguises himself as figures from Classical mythology, for example a nymph, a harpie and Ceres, and acts as these in a masque and anti-masque that Prospero creates.

Early critics saw this constant allusion to the theatre as an indication that Prospero was meant to represent Shakespeare; the character's renunciation of magic thus signalling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage. This theory has fallen into disfavour; but certainly The Tempest is interested in the way that, like Prospero's "Art", the theatre can be both an immoral occupation and yet morally transformative for its audience.

Magic

Colonialism

In Shakespeare's day, most of the world was still being discovered, stories were coming back from far off Islands, with myths about the Cannibals of the Caribbean, faraway Edens, and distant Tropical Utopias. With the character Caliban (whose name is a rough anagram of Cannibal), Shakespeare offers an in-depth discussion into the morality of colonialism. Different views are discussed, with examples including Gonzalo's Utopia, Prospero's enslavement of Caliban and Caliban's resentment of this. Caliban is also shown as one of the most natural characters in the play, being very much in touch with the natural world (and far nobler than his two old world friends Stephano and Trinculo).

... 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

Shakespeare's treatment of this subject matter is thought to have been influenced by Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals" which was published in 1603 and discussed the values of societies that had not been affected by European civilisation.

List of Characters

Alonso, King of Naples
Sebastian, his brother
Prospero, the right Duke of Milan (the story's protagonist)
Antonio, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan
Ferdinand, son to the King of Naples
Gonzalo, an honest, optimistic old councillor
Adrian and Francisco, lords
Caliban, deformed slave of Prospero and son of Sycorax

The name is suggestive of "Carib(be)an", and - given looser 17th century spelling - an anagram of "cannibal", both of which come from the same word. Both implications suggest he is representative of the natives of the New World, and a reference to one of Shakespeare's sources: the essay Des Cannibales by Montaigne.

Trinculo, a jester

The name is linked to the Italian verb "trincare" meaning, as can still be heard, "to drink"; appropriate as he is one of the two drunkards of the play.

Stephano, a drunken butler (sometimes Stefano)

"Stephan" means "King" in Greek; appropriate as the play concerns itself with the notion of kingship, which this character is used to parody. Shakespeare also may have named him Stephano to suggest a popular rhyme - alluded to by Trinculo and sung in Othello - that begins "King Stephen was an a worthy peer/ His breeches cost him but a crown"; ironic as Stephano's ambition to rule the island is thwarted when he starts stealing clothes (his breeches cost him his "crown"); likewise Prospero lost his crown when he turned his attention to his Art, symbolised by a cloak.

Master of a ship
Boatswain
Mariners
Miranda, daughter to Prospero, often called "a wonder".

The name comes from the Latin root "mira-", to wonder. All other words in the play that come from the same root (admired, miracle, etc), can be understood to be referring to Miranda.

Ariel, an airy spirit

The name is certainly suggestive of the "air" element, directly opposing the character to Caliban, who is called "thou earth" by Prospero. In Hebrew the name means "lion of God" - it is therefore interesting that Ariel's voice is once mistaken for the roar of lions.

Iris
Ceres
Juno
Nymphs
Reapers
Spirits

(mentioned but never seen:)

Sycorax a witch, and mother of Caliban.

The name includes the Latin for "raven", with which she is frequently linked in the play. The stresses individually sound like "sick" and "wracks"; sickness and "wracking" people being two of the more insiduous ways Prospero uses his own magic.

Claribel daughter to Alonso

''Her name comes from the French "clair et belle": "clear and beautiful" - words which can only describe musical notes, the weather, and bodies of water. She is thus the symbolic opposite to the titular tempest, which disrupts the weather, disturbs the sea and creates discordant sounds - and therefore has been absented from the play's action before it has begun.

Adaptations

See also Shakespeare on screen (The Tempest).

Sir William Davenant and John Dryden adapted a deeply cut version of The Tempest, "corrected" for Restoration audiences and adorned with music set by Matthew Locke, Giovanni Draghi, Pelham Humfrey, Pietro Reggio, James Hart and John Banister. Dryden's remarks, in the Preface to his opera Albion and Albanius give an indication of the struggle later 17th century critics had with the elusive masque-like character of a play that fit no preconceptions. Albion and Albinius was first conceived as a prologue to the adapted Shakespeare (in 1680), then extended into an entertainment on its own. In Dryden's view, The Tempest

"...is a tragedy mixed with opera, or a drama, written in blank verse, adorned with scenes, machines, songs, and dances, so that the fable of it is all spoken and acted by the best of the comedians... It cannot properly be called a play, because the action of it is supposed to be conducted sometimes by supernatural means, or magic; nor an opera, because the story of it is not sung." (Dryden, Preface to Albion and Albinius).

The Tempest has inspired numerous later works, including short poems such as that by Robert Browning, and the long poem The Sea and the Mirror by W. H. Auden. John Dryden and William D'Avenant adapted it for the Restoration stage, adding characters and plotlines and removing much of the play's "mythic resonance". The title of the novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley is also taken explicitly from Miranda's dialogue in this play:

O, wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world

That has such people in't! (V.i.181-4)

There has been many different films based on the Tempest .The 1956 science-fiction film Forbidden Planet was inspired by the play, especially with regards to the motives (but not names) of several of the characters, but the story replaces Caliban with a 'Monster from the id' and Ariel with Robby the Robot. In turn, Joss Whedon's movie Serenity picked up many of the themes, and some of the names, of both Forbidden Planet and The Tempest, especially the exploration of the appropriate scope of control of other people.

The 1968 The Original Series episode entitled "Requiem for Methuselah" also was also inspired by the play.

A cheeky stage musical adaptation, entitled Return to the Forbidden Planet (London, 1990) successfully merged the plot of the film with more Shakespearean characters and dialogue.

In 1979 British filmmaker Derek Jarman delivered a visually lush screen version of the play. The 1982 film Tempest, directed by Paul Mazursky, is a comedy loosely based on the play starring John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, Raul Julia, Susan Sarandon and Molly Ringwald.

In the early 1980s an Australian surf rock adaptation, "Beach Blanket Tempest", was written by Dennis Watkins and Chris Harriott. It has been produced a number of times, mostly in Australia.

In 1991, Peter Greenaway directed Prospero's Books a film adaptation in which Prospero speaks all the lines.

In 1994 Garen Ewing wrote and illustrated a black and white comic strip adaptation.

In 1994 Tad Williams published the novel Caliban's Hour in which Caliban tracks a now-grown Miranda to her home in Italy and insists on recounting his own version of events and exacting revenge. Notable for its sympathetic presentation of Caliban and its representation of Ariel as a fallen angel.

In the 1998 version of Fantasy Island, Mr. Roarke (Malcolm McDowell), was assisted by a number of residents of the island, including a shape-shifter named Ariel and another named Cal.

Lost, appears to be majorly influenced by Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", which is also about a group of people being brought to an island in a rather mystic fashion for unknown reasons.

The Tempest has also been the frame for multiple social commentary plays including Aime Cesaire's Une Tempete and Philip Osment's This Island's Mine.

Theatrical Adaptations

The Tempest or, The Enchanted Island. By John Dryden and William Davenant. 1670
The Mock Tempest or the Enchanted Castle. By Thomas Duffet. 1675
The Tempest; An Opera. David Garrick. 1756
The Shipwreck. Anonymous. 1780
The Virgin Queen. Francis Godolphin Waldron. 1797
The Enchanted Isle. William and Robert Brough. 1848
Caliban. Ernest Renan. 1877
L’Eau de Jouvence. Ernest Renan. 1879
Une Tempête. Aimé Césaire. 1969
This Island’s Mine. Philip Osment. 1988
Return to the Forbidden Planet. Bob Carlton. Mid 1980s. A Rock musical. Originally billed as "Shakespeare's forgotton rock and roll masterpeice".

Musical Adaptations

Tchaikovsky wrote a fantasy overture inspired by The Tempest.

"Prospero's Speech", the final soliloquy by Prospero in The Tempest, is sung by Loreena McKinnett in her 1994 album, The Mask and Mirror.

Jean Sibelius, as one of his last compositions, wrote incidental music for a production of the play. Two suites were published.

External links

The Tempest at Wikisource
The Tempest - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
The Tempest - scene indexed, online version of the play.
The Tempest - HTML version of this title.
Bermoothes in E. Cobham Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898).
Slashdoc : The Tempest - Scholarly essays on Shakespeare's The Tempest

Source

McCollum, John I. Jr., (1961). The Restoration Stage (in Houghton Mifflin Research Series, Cambridge, Mass: Riverside Press)

1611 plays | Shakespearean comedies | English Renaissance plays

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