ELIT 17 Class 18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxQ9GG6hUDM

AGENDA• Recitations• Discussion: The Tempest • Discussion Questions• QHQs

Recitations

Summarize Acts 3, 4, and 5?

Let me ask you!

King Alonso of Naples and his entourage sail home for Italy. They encounter a violent storm, or “tempest.”

Everyone jumps overboard and are washed ashore onto a strange island inhabited by the magician Prospero who has deliberately conjured up the storm.

Prospero has brought the ship’s crew here in order to extract revenge against his brother and the king for his and his daughter’s banishment.

Caliban deeply resents Prospero as he believes that he is the rightful ruler of the island. He plots with some of King Alonso's company to murder Prospero, and take Miranda for his wife.

But Miranda and the King’s son, Ferdinand fall deeply in love. Seeing this, Prospero delays his revenge, and decides to test their love to see if it’s real and lasting.

Plots to kill Prospero and King Alonso are developed by Caliban, Sebastian, and Antonio, and but they fail thanks to Prospero’s magic.

The play ends with all offenders repenting, even Caliban. Prospero regains his dukedom, Ariel is freed from her service, and everyone, except Caliban, leaves the island.

In Groups

• Discuss your answers to the homework questions and your QHQs.

2.2.45-160

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?

4:38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH6nUuu5A4s

Responses?

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?

2.2.45-1604:38

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?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXRX6va-sLk 3.2 3:32

Directed by Julie Taymor, 2010

Scene 3.2

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?

3.2 3:32

What do you think?

Questions

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?

Questions

What role does Ariel play in 3.2?

The Masque: 4.1.63-155Wolfbane Productions The Tempest, Sept 2011.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAnsb3sBVHwBegin 2:58-7:50

What do you think?

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

Christopher Plummer as ProsperoAct 5 Scene 1 Lines 1-40

• 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?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38N1QcUarTE

Do you know?

• 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?

The Tempest - Prospero's incantationHelen Mirren

You elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,And you that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly himWhen he comes back; you demi-puppets thatBy moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastimeIs to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,Weak masters though you be, I have bedimmedThe noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vaultSet roaring war; to the dread rattling thunderHave I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak

With his own bolt; the strong-based promontoryHave I made shake, and by the spurs plucked upThe pine and cedar; graves at my commandHave waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forthBy my so potent art. But this rough magicI here abjure, and when I have requiredSome heavenly music, which even now I do,Prospero gestures with his staff.To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet soundI’ll drown my book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKrX3MzdFUI (5.1.41-66)

(5.1.41-66)

• 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?

Source of The Tempest

In addition to the speech derived from Montaigne's essay Of the Canibales, much of Prospero's incantation (5.1.41-66) is taken from Ovid's poem Metamorphoses. 

Golding's Ovid - Medea's incantation:

Ye Ayres and windes: ye Elves of Hilles, of Brookes, of Woods alone,Of standing Lakes, and of the Night approche ye everychone.Through helpe of whom (the crooked bankes much wondring at the thing)I have compelled streames to run clean e backward to their spring.By charmes I make the calme Seas rough, and make y rough Seas plaineAnd cover all the Skie with Cloudes, and chase them thence againe. By charmes I rayse and lay the windes, and burst the Vipers jaw,And from the bowels of the Earth both stones and trees doe drawe.Whole woods and Forestes I remove : I make the Mountaines shake,And even the Earth it selfe to grone and fearfully to quake.I call up dead men from their graves : and thee O lightsome MooneI darken oft, though beaten brasse abate thy perill soone.Our Sorcerie dimmes the Morning faire, and darkes y Sun at Noone.

See (5.1.41-66)

The Epilogue: The Tempest with Michael Hordern as Prospero 1980: BBC Film

• This is the final scene of Shakespeare’s final play. Some people suggest this is Shakespeare’s goodbye to his audience. What do you say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7FGNagKR50&t=2s

The Epilogue

• This is the final scene of Shakespeare’s final play. Some people suggest this is Shakespeare’s goodbye to his audience. What do you say?

Read: Of Cannibals by Montaigne (both under links and “Course Readings” on the website. Post #18 1. Gonzalo, as Act 5 shows, has never approved of what was done to Prospero. In his speech in 2.1

(on the ideal commonwealth, echoing Montaigne’s essay Of Cannibals), he expresses distaste for the more cynical and divisive features of government and society—exploitation of labor, expropriation of land and extremes of luxury, poverty, drunkenness, gluttony. Discuss Gonzalo’s speech in the context of Montaigne’s essay.

2. The play can be read as Shakespeare’s commentary on European exploration of new lands. Prospero lands on an island with a native inhabitant, Caliban, a being he considers savage and uncivilized. He teaches this “native” his language and customs, but this nurturing does not affect the creature’s nature, at least from Prospero’s point of view. But Prospero does not drive Caliban away, rather he enslaves him, forcing him to do work he considers beneath himself and his noble daughter. As modern readers, sensitive to the legacy of colonialism, we need to ask if Shakespeare sees this as the right order; what are his views of imperialism and colonialism? What are our twentieth century reactions to the depiction of the relationship between the master and slave, shown in this play? How does Montaigne’s essay complicate our view of colonialism?

3. The theme of Utopianism is linked to the explorations of new lands. Europeans were intrigued with the possibilities presented for new beginnings in these “new” lands. Was it possible to create an ideal state when given a chance to begin anew? Could humans hope to recreate a “golden age,” in places not yet subject to the ills of European social order? Could there be different forms of government? Consider both Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Montaigne’s Of Cannibals in your response.