ELIT 17 Class 16

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MEREPEAT

AGENDARecitations 4Teams #3Lecture: The Late Romances; The

Tempest

Discussion: The Tempest

Recitations: 4

Anna Deh: Othello “How am I then a villain?”

Rachel Bonner: Romeo and Juliet

Celeste Dilullo: Sonnet 145

Jenn Bendana: Sonnet 9

The Late Romances

Although some scholars have speculated that Shakespeare wrote portions of The Tempest at an earlier stage in his career, most literary historians assign the entire play a composition date of 1610 or 1611. And while Shakespeare may have had a hand in The Two Noble Kinsmen (written a after The Tempest and assigned to dual authorship), The Tempest is customarily identified as the Bard's last stage piece.

Along with Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale, The Tempest belongs to the genre of Elizabethan romance plays. It combines elements of tragedy (Prospero's revenge) with those of romantic comedy (the young lovers Miranda and Ferdinand), and it poses deeper questions that are not completely resolved at the end. The romance genre is distinguished by the inclusion (and synthesis) of these tragic, comic, and problematical ingredients and further marked by a happy ending (usually concluding with a masque or dance) in which all, or most, of the characters are brought into harmony.

Masque: a form of courtly entertainment containing music, dancing, singing and acting out a story. The performance of a masque traditionally took place on festive occasions.

In writing The Tempest, Shakespeare was undoubtedly influenced by a popular, true story told in London. In May 1609, nine ships with five hundred colonists set out from England bound for Virginia. The settlers were on their way to begin new lives in the newly founded colony. Their minds were fixed on the riches reputed to be abundant in the New World. But on July 24, the flagship, Sea-Adventure, became lost in a storm and wound up at Bermuda (the “still-vexed Bermoothes” Ariel speaks of in Act I, Scene 2). England mourned for almost a year. Eventually, the crew and passengers arrived in Virginia on May 23, 1610. Many stories of the wreck, which at first was thought to be fatal, were published, and the event was seen as a sign of divine providence.

Source of The Tempest

Although no direct source has been identified for the play as a whole, there is a clear relationship to the discovery of the New World. This relationship is underscored in the figure of Caliban, a grotesque and morally monstrous inhabitant of the island, once its master, now Prospero’s slave. For many critics, Caliban represents a certain view of the native populations of newly colonized lands in the Americas. Shakespeare’s evident use of passages taken from Michel de Montaigne’s essay Des Canibales evokes idealistic images of the New world, as a new Eden. The tension at work between this ideal and any form of political reality shows, at the very least, an open question about the nature and validity of sovereignty and enslavement.

It’s probable that Shakespeare patterned the character of Prospero after John Dee (1527 –1609) who was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, and adviser to Queen Elizabeth I.

Dee immersed himself in the worlds of magic, including alchemy, divination, astrology and Hermetic philosophy.

He devoted much time and effort in the last thirty years or so of his life to attempting to commune with angels in order to learn the universal language of creation and bring about the pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind.

The Tempest has received over twenty film treatments, the first in 1905! Notable entries include the following: A silent 1908 version In 1956, Forbidden Planet took the

story of The Tempest and placed it in outer space!

A 1960 Hallmark Hall of Fame version with Richard Burton

A 1980 version for the BBC starring Michael Horndern

A stop-motion animated version for the BBC

A 2010 live stage edition starring Christopher Plummer

And most recently, in 2010 The Tempest was filmed by director Julie Taymor with actress Helen Mirren taking the role of Prospera!

Your First Group!

Change Teams. Get into groups of four or five. (1-2 minutes)

If you can’t find a group, please raise your hand.

Introduce yourselves, and write your names down on a sheet of paper. This will be your point sheet.

In GroupsDiscuss your answers to the homework questions and your QHQs.

The Setting

6:11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XOACd-40d4

Tossed upon the ocean, a ship carrying the King of Naples is caught in a sudden, violent storm…

On a nearby island, a lone figure chants incantations, summoning and controlling the storm with his powerful magic…

Meanwhile, a beautiful young girl watches the ship sinking in the storm and trembles with fear...

And a monstrous figure, twisted and tortured, secretly watches the girl, and waits…

The Setting

ProsperoMirandaArielCalibanAlonsoSebastianAntonioFerdinand

Prospero, the main character. The overthrown Duke of Milan. He now lives on an island and has become a great sorcerer.

Miranda, his daughter, who has grown up on the island since the age of three.

Ariel, a mischievous spirit who does Prospero's bidding and is visible only to him.

Ferdinand, King Alonso's son. Falls in love with Miranda.

Caliban, an island native, child of the now-dead Witch Sycorax; he works as Prospero's slave but despises him.

Alonso, King of Naples

Sebastian, the King’s treacherous brother.

Antonio, Prospero's brother, who usurped his position as Duke of Milan.

Let me ask you!

1. Who is Miranda? What is her reaction to the storm scene she has just witnessed?

2. Who is Prospero? How does he know that everyone has survived the storm?

3. How did Prospero and Miranda come to be on the island?

4. Who is Ariel? Why should he be grateful to Prospero and just do what he's told?

5. Who is Caliban? What is his attitude towards Prospero's control of the island?

6. What event led Prospero to start treating Caliban as his slave?

7. Who taught Caliban to speak? How does he tend to use language? Why?

8. Why does Miranda think that Ferdinand might be a "spirit”?

9. How does Prospero treat Ferdinand? Why? How is this treatment like and unlike the treatment of Caliban?

10.From what event were the Italians returning when they were ship-wrecked? What is their attitude towards the event?

Ques

tions

Act 1, Scene 1 shows the “tempest" of the play's title. How do the different characters react to crisis?

Prospero presents himself as the civilized discoverer of a desert island, with Caliban and Ariel as its not-quite-human inhabitants. How does Caliban's history of the island differ from Prospero's? Whom do you think Shakespeare agrees with, Prospero or Caliban? Whom do you agree with, Prospero or Caliban? Give textual evidence in working out your answers.

CALIBAN I must eat my dinner.This island’s mine by Sycorax, my mother,Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,Thou strok’st me and made much of me, wouldstgive meWater with berries in ’t, and teach me howTo name the bigger light and how the less,That burn by day and night. And then I loved thee,And showed thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place andfertile.Cursed be I that did so! All the charmsOf Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you,For I am all the subjects that you have,Which first was mine own king; and here you sty meIn this hard rock, whiles you do keep from meThe rest o’ th’ island. (1.2.395-411)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd6NGXbN2-4

2:39 1.2.385-451

Ques

tions

Who was Sycorax? How does Prospero feel about her? Are there any parallels between Sycorax's story and Prospero's?

1.2.310-348

PROSPERO This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with childAnd here was left by th’ sailors. Thou, my slave,As thou report’st thyself, was then her servant,And for thou wast a spirit too delicateTo act her earthy and abhorred commands,Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,By help of her more potent ministersAnd in her most unmitigable rage,Into a cloven pine, within which riftImprisoned thou didst painfully remainA dozen years; within which space she diedAnd left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groansAs fast as mill wheels strike. Then was this island(Save for the son that she did litter here,A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honored withA human shape. (1.2.321-338)

Ques

tions What kind of society

would Gonzalo like to have found on the desert island (2.1.146-70)? What is the reaction of his companions?

GONZALO And were the king on ’t, what would I do?SEBASTIAN Scape being drunk, for want of wine.GONZALO I’ th’ commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things, for no kind of trafficWould I admit; no name of magistrate;Letters should not be known; 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— (2.1.160-71)

Questions

What do Antonio and Sebastian want to do to Alonso and Gonzalo? Why? What does Antonio mean when he says, "What's past is prologue" (2.1.289)?

ANTONIOHere lies your brother,No better than the earth he lies upon.If he were that which now he’s like—that’s dead—Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it,Can lay to bed forever; whiles you, doing thus,To the perpetual wink for aye might putThis ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, whoShould not upbraid our course. For all the rest,They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk.They’ll tell the clock to any business thatWe say befits the hour.SEBASTIAN Thy case, dear friend,Shall be my precedent: as thou got’st Milan,I’ll come by Naples. Draw thy sword. One strokeShall free thee from the tribute which thou payest,And I the King shall love thee.ANTONIO Draw together,And when I rear my hand, do you the likeTo fall it on Gonzalo.They draw their swordsSEBASTIAN O, but one word. (2.1.321-340)

QHQs

Q: What do the respective relationships/connections between Prospero, Miranda,

Ariel and Ferdinand tell us about their characters? What do the characters gain from others?

QHQs

What is the relationship between Prospero and Caliban? Is Caliban a character created for sympathy? Or is he a hideous monster meant to disgust the reader?

Read: The Tempest Acts 3, 4, and 5Post #16

1. Read with special care the scenes with Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano (2.2 and 3.2). What does Caliban think Trinculo is? What does Trinculo think Caliban is? What does Stephano think Trinculo and Caliban together are? What is their plan, and what happens to it? To what extent would you call this plan revolutionary?

2. What role does Ariel play in 3.2?3. How does Trinculo and Stephano's discovery of Caliban resemble aspects of Prospero and

Miranda's first encounters with him? What do these scenes of discovery reveal about the political, religious, or social attitudes of each character?

4. What are the goals of the conspiracy staged by Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban (2.2 and 3.2)? What does each party want to get out of it? Do you ever feel that they are likely to succeed? How (if at all) does the playwright let us know whose side he's on?

5. What is the overall impact of the Masque-like? How is it supposed to affect the two young lovers? What is its message about the sanctity of the marriage bond?

6. Why does Prospero decide to show mercy to his enemies? Why is Ariel the first to speak of mercy? Do you think Prospero had planned to forgive them from the beginning?

7. Why does Prospero decide to give up magic? What does his choice show about what he thinks happened in the past? How does he plan to live in the future? What has Prospero learned? Has he changed in any fundamental way or had the change already occurred before the beginning of the action