Good morning to you all, it is a great privilege to be here with you today. I should, however, begin with a disclaimer: I am not an expert on Shakespeare’s writing, but I am very fond of his tragedies, the Roman and the history plays. Embedded in these works is Shakespeare’s profound distillation of his central themes and concerns, which he addressed throughout his career. “The Tempest” is an enigma, as is the playwright himself and what I will share with you are some principles which I presume he was mulling over, when he wrote the play, it is widely believed to be the last that he wrote. The “Epilogue” is generally regarded as his valedictory speech, in terms of stage craft. This address considers “The Tempest” as a parable.
I will discuss six aspects that pervade his writing: his fascination with truth particularly in relation with knowing oneself. This is linked to integrity, which should provide the moral compass in people’s lives and it chimes in with the political dimension of the play. Devotion to duty and justice are linked to the play’s exploration of the manner in which power is exercised or should be exercised and the issue of gender relations is significant. These principles will be explored with particular reference to Prospero, Caliban and Ariel.
Christopher Gillie, in his Longman Companion to English Literature states that:
Prospero is in the tradition of the Platonic mage, who according to one line of Renaissance thought, could achieve extraordinary power by uniting exceptional wisdom with exceptional virtue. Miranda unites the innocence of nature with the nobility of high breed; her union with Ferdinand and their restoration to a corrupt world symbolize the renewal of vital forces. Caliban, on the other hand, represents the irredeemably brutal side of nature, and also the inherently vicious propensities of the body: he can be forced to serve, but he cannot be elevated. The other characters represent degrees of redeemability: the ‘good old lord’ Gonzalo has always been virtuous though he has been made to serve evil ends; Alonso has done evil but is capable of repentance; Antonio and Sebastian do not repent and can only be intimidated; the rest are merely passive and, in Antonio’s phrase ‘take suggestion as a cat laps milk’.
This is an interesting evaluation, but I doubt whether Shakespeare ever fits into neat categories or whole heartedly endorses stereotypes.
I do not consider Prospero an epitome of “exceptional wisdom” and “exceptional virtue”. I think he is a cantankerous, overbearing old man who struggles to come to terms with his dereliction of duty, which led to him being banished in a palace coup that, ironically he himself triggered, by neglecting his responsibilities in favour of studying magic, among other things. As the Duke of Milan, he should have overseen the affairs of the citizens, rather than indulged his whims. Antonio assumed Prospero and his baby daughter would drown and save him from the stigma of killing his brother and a defenceless infant.
Gonzalo kindly packed some books on magic which survived the trip and Prospero was able to hone his skill on a Caribbean island far from home. Despite its tragic elements, I think “The Tempest” has more in common with the comedies rather than the tragedies. Some critics categorise it with the “problem plays” in which Shakespeare experiments with form and dramatic conventions.
On the island, Prospero bullies his servants, Ariel and Caliban and badgers Miranda into doing what he wants – he is hardly a model ruler or father. In the plays I have read, Shakespeare does not approve of usurpers, we only have Prospero’s statement that he was popular to go by. A case can be made that it is during his long spell in exile that he has to come to terms with his personal failure as a leader.
Prospero is presented as a harsh taskmaster:
Ariel: Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promised Which is not yet perfom’d me.
Prosp: How now? Moody? What is’t thou canst demand.
Ariel: My liberty.
Prosp: Before the time be out? No more
Ariel: I prithee, Remember I have done thee worthy service, Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv’d Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise To bate me a full year.
Prosp: Dost thou forget From what torment I freed thee?
Ariel: No.
Prosp: Thou dost, and thinks’t it much to tread the ooze Of the salt deep, To run upon the sharp wind of the north,To do me business in the veins o’ th’ earth When it is baked with frost.
Ariel: I do not, sir.
Pros: Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
Ariel: No, sir.
Prosp: Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak; tell me.
Ariel: Sir, in Algiers. (1.2.242 – 260)
He responds brutally to Ariel’s request for “liberty” and threatens to “… rend an oak / And peg thee in his knotty entrails till / Thou hast howl’d away twelve winters” (1.2. 294 – 296). Is this an appropriate way to treat a faithful servant?
Caliban whom he loathes is subjected to searing insults. Thus the first remark Caliban makes is a defensive one:
Prosp: We’ll visit Caliban, my slave, who never Yields us a kind answer.
Miran: ’Tis a villain, sir, I do not love to look on.
Prosp: But a ’tis,We cannot miss him. He does make our fire, Fetch our wood, and serves in offices That profits us. What ho, slave! Caliban! Thou earth, thou, speak!
Calib: There’s wood enough within.
Prosp: Come forth, thou tortoise, when? 1.2. 308 – 316)
Granted, there is not much love lost between the parties, given the attempted rape, which Caliban does not deny and it cannot be condoned. The principle bone of contention is the land question:
Calib: I must eat my dinner. This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother, Which thou taks’t from me. When thou cam’st first Thou strok’st me and made much of me; and I lov’d thee, And show’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle, The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile – Curs’d be I that did so! All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was my own king, and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest o’ th’ island.
Prosp: Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness, I have us’d thee – Filth as thou art – with humane care, and lodged thee In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate The honour of my child.
Cali: O ho, O ho! Woulds’t had been done! Thou dids’t prevent me – I had peopled else This isle with Calibans.
Miran: Abhorred slave, Which any print of goodness wilt not take, Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow’d thy purposes With words that made them known. But thy vile race – Though thou didst learn – had that in’t which good natures Could not abide to be with; therefore was thou Deservedly confin’d into this rock, Who had deserv’d more than a prison.
Calib:You taught me language, and my profit on ‘t Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language.
Prosp: Hag-seed, hence! Fetch us fuel, and be quick, thou’rt best,To answer other business – shrug’st thou not, malice If thou neglect’st, or dost unwillingly What I command, I’ll rack thee with old cramps, Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar, That bea[s]ts shall tremble at thy din.
Calib: No, pray thee, [Aside] I must obey. His art is of such power, It would control my dam’s god Setebos And make a vassal of him.
Prosp: So, slave, hence! (1.2. 308 -373)
Miranda’s snide remark “thy vile race” is clearly a blanket condemnation. But Caliban’s capitulation is indicative of his intelligence, which places his speech impediment in a different light.
It seems to me that Shakespeare distances himself from Miranda’s virulent condemnation by giving some of the most moving lines in the play to Caliban:
Be not afeared, the isle is full of noises Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum around my ears; and sometimes voices, That if I had wak’d 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 wak’d I cried to dream again. (3.2. 131 – 139)
The lyrical beauty of this homage to the island conveys his deep appreciation of its beauty.
Caliban knows the island intimately and fearful of the punishment meted out on him, he tries to accommodate Prospero’s imperious commands to lessen the degree of suffering he might otherwise endure. Therefore I think one should be wary of taking Prospero’s disdainful insults such as:
at face value.
It is therefore not surprising, given Caliban’s limited exposure to other people, that he tries to switch allegiance by flattering Stephano, who does not gratuitously insult him like Trinculo does:
Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here, This is the mouth o’ th’ cell. No noise, and enter. Do that good mischief which may make this island Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban, For aye thy foot-licker. (4.1. 214 – 218)
Such fawning behaviour can be read as a ploy to encourage Stephano to “Do that good mischief”, which is indicative of Caliban’s moral dress violence in a palatable way. The end justifies the means. Significantly, while Stephano and Trinculo are pickled, Caliban tries repeatedly to keep them focused on the plot to assassinate Prospero, as he perceives it as the only way to gain freedom.
Caliban is incensed that Stephano and Trinculo’s resolve is derailed by the sight of the trumpery hence his complaint to Trinculo: “Let it alone, thou fool, it is but trash.” (4.1. 222) In despair he states:
The plot flounders as they chased by Prospero’s “divers spirits in shape of dogs and hounds”. Caliban realises that the game is over when he ruefully remarks, when he sees Prospero in his official robes of office.
O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed. How fine my master is. I am afraid He will chastise me. (5.1. 294 – 296)
Gillie’s assertion that “Caliban … represents the irredeemably brutal side of nature and also the inherently vicious propensities of the body” is wrong. In fact, one can argue that Caliban is more discerning than Miranda, after his close encounters with the drunken jester and butler. She, on seeing the first humans other her father and Ferdinand:
She cannot be blamed for uttering this naïve remark, however. She falls into the stereotype of the sweet innocent bride, which is preferable to the other extreme represented by Sycorax the cruel, deformed, hag who also happens to be a witch! It is shocking how, when referring to her forthcoming marriage to Ferdinand, she is spoken of as “my gift, and thine own acquisition” (4.1 13).
One is struck, from the limited range of Shakespeare’s plays I have read, how often the binary oppositions of the good and evil women are present: in “Macbeth” there is Lady McDuff who is a loving mother, the polar opposite of the Lady Macbeth, the “fiend like queen”, who for good measure, is even worse than the bearded witches! In “Romeo and Juliet” there is the Nurse, who is dismissed as the “ancient damnation” if my memory serves me well. In “Antony and Cleopatra”, the Egyptian Queen epitomises the femme fatale, who sees nothing wrong with conducting experiments using her subjects as she explores “conclusions infinite” of easy ways to die. In “King Lear” there are the demonic sisters, Goneril and Regan and the saintly Cordelia who, Gillie states, is “often referred to as the embodiment of truth of feeling and utterance.” In “Othello”, we find the unfortunate Desdemona, murdered by her deluded husband. In “Coriolanus”, there is the mother-in-law from hell, Volumnia, whose name speaks volumes and the meek daughter-in-law, Virgilia. In “Richard III” there is the formidable Queen Margaret who is courageous enough to challenge “the poisonous hunch-backed toad”. In “Julius Caesar”, Portia, Brutus’ wife is depicted as a strong, intelligent person, unlike Calpurnia who is ignored by Julius Caesar.
Justice and colonisation
To return to “The Tempest”, the theme of justice is embedded in the issue of the colonisation of Caliban’s island by Prospero the former feels robbed by his cruel master, who usurped his position as king. Throughout the play, Caliban is portrayed as the devious and dangerous “other”. The fact that he was allegedly sired by the devil, according to Prospero and is likened to a fish by most of the other characters raises profound questions about the cruel nature of discrimination. His mother, Sycorax, is said to have been deported from Algeria. One is reminded of the dehumanising definition of slaves in America as four fifths of a man, thus excluding them of human rights in the alleged “home of the free”. I have argued that there is a counter narrative in which Caliban claims his inalienable right to ownership of the land, while his nominal ally, Stephano, would like to take him to Europe and make money from displaying him or his body at freak shows.
Given that Prospero is the focal point of the play, Caliban’s rights are repeatedly violated, but are presented as a minor issue. One is driven to consider his plight in part through the lens of the “Othello” and “Merchant of Venice” violated which highlight the precarious fate of the “other” in greater depth. In “Othello” the protagonist’s position is foregrounded by his status as a mercenary: someone essential to the commercial interests of the Venetian state, so that he is tolerated rather than accepted, with devastating consequences on his and his wife’s lives. A gifted soldier, his psychological state disintegrates on the basis of a seemingly ‘minor’ issue of a stolen handkerchief, which perhaps points out that the last straw might be ‘light’, but it nevertheless breaks the camel’s back.
In “Merchant of Venice” Shylock is tolerated by people who need his services but despise him deeply His life unravels because he feels used and abused, his attempt to assert his rights backfires spectacularly. As Gillie states:
It is a sad indictment of human beings that plays dealing with the problems of accepting diversity as a fact of life published in 1596-7 (Merchant), first acted in 1604 (Othello) and “The Tempest” (probably written in 1611) still resonate so profoundly in 2021. As the saying goes, the best stories are universal, timely and timeless.
The Tempest foregrounds the themes of forgiveness and repentance. Unlike Gillie, I believe that Caliban is capable of redemption:
… I’ll be wise hereafter, And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass Was I to take this drunkard for a god, And to worship this dull fool. (5.1. 294 – 297)
Prospero acknowledges his indebtedness to Ariel for teaching him compassion:
Even Caliban is included in the renunciation of hatred, as seen in Prospero’s cryptic comment: “… this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine.” (5.1. 275 – 276)
The Epilogue foregrounds Prospero’s moment of epiphany:
Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; And my ending is despair Unless I be reliev’d by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon’d be, Let your indulgence set me free. (5.1. 331 – 338)
It also foregrounds the centrality of Christianity in Shakespeare’s moral universe.
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