Shakespeare's The Tempest
I finished reading Shakespeare's The Tempest last night. It's the third or fourth time that I've read it, going back to college, and it remains pretty opaque to me. I think I really need to see it performed to get a better sense of the dramatics. What is the dramatic core of this story? Is it the restoration of the rightful political order? What is the climax? The betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda? Prospero's confrontation with his brother and the King?
One of the problematic aspects of the play is that Prospero is an ambiguous character. He has clearly been wronged in the past when he was deposed as Duke of Milan and sent into exile, but he is so powerful and manipulative in the course of the play that it's hard to feel very sympathetic with him. It's also a hard to understand why he gives up his magical power in the end. I suppose this is a case of asking Shakespeare to write a different story, but I'm left wondering where that power came from and why someone else wouldn't take it up and take over the world. Perhaps the mysterious island where the action takes place is a fissure into another, more magical world, and the power only exists in that locale.
The relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda is also problematic. Why do they fall in love? Okay, she's never seen any other young man, so it's a first fancy. Meanwhile, he is smitten with her beauty and innocence. Still, it seems fairly flimsy, doesn't it? This is especially true when we realize (as I only did for the first time on this reading) that the events of the play occur within the space of three hours. It's love at first sight, I guess, but it's hard not to feel that Prospero has manipulated them into falling in love. Perhaps A Midsummer Night's Dream isn't the only place where Shakespeare comments on the artificiality and superficiality of love.
What's more clear is the way the various plot threads comment on political power, humorously in the case of Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban drunkenly plotting their inane parody of a coup against Prospero, more threatening in the plotting of Antonio and Sebastian against Alonso, the king, which echoes the historical plot of Antonio against his own brother, Prospero. Yet I still don't follow all this very clearly, so I don't fully understand the sense of restoration at the end. Part of my confusion, I guess, is that all the malefactors are pardoned for their crimes. Nobody dies of their vaulting ambition.
Caliban is the most compelling character in many ways. Despite all his threats and plotting, he comes off as more of a buffoon than an actual monster. Prospero seems crueler than Caliban in actual actions taken. Caliban resents his enslavement, and he seems more human in that than the subservient Ariel, although Ariel is also fascinating for his very inhuman aura. Maybe too it is that we see Caliban remembering his mother.
One of the problematic aspects of the play is that Prospero is an ambiguous character. He has clearly been wronged in the past when he was deposed as Duke of Milan and sent into exile, but he is so powerful and manipulative in the course of the play that it's hard to feel very sympathetic with him. It's also a hard to understand why he gives up his magical power in the end. I suppose this is a case of asking Shakespeare to write a different story, but I'm left wondering where that power came from and why someone else wouldn't take it up and take over the world. Perhaps the mysterious island where the action takes place is a fissure into another, more magical world, and the power only exists in that locale.
The relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda is also problematic. Why do they fall in love? Okay, she's never seen any other young man, so it's a first fancy. Meanwhile, he is smitten with her beauty and innocence. Still, it seems fairly flimsy, doesn't it? This is especially true when we realize (as I only did for the first time on this reading) that the events of the play occur within the space of three hours. It's love at first sight, I guess, but it's hard not to feel that Prospero has manipulated them into falling in love. Perhaps A Midsummer Night's Dream isn't the only place where Shakespeare comments on the artificiality and superficiality of love.
What's more clear is the way the various plot threads comment on political power, humorously in the case of Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban drunkenly plotting their inane parody of a coup against Prospero, more threatening in the plotting of Antonio and Sebastian against Alonso, the king, which echoes the historical plot of Antonio against his own brother, Prospero. Yet I still don't follow all this very clearly, so I don't fully understand the sense of restoration at the end. Part of my confusion, I guess, is that all the malefactors are pardoned for their crimes. Nobody dies of their vaulting ambition.
Caliban is the most compelling character in many ways. Despite all his threats and plotting, he comes off as more of a buffoon than an actual monster. Prospero seems crueler than Caliban in actual actions taken. Caliban resents his enslavement, and he seems more human in that than the subservient Ariel, although Ariel is also fascinating for his very inhuman aura. Maybe too it is that we see Caliban remembering his mother.