The Tempest

The Tempest
HSC SYMPOSIUM
SPORT FOR JOVE THEATRE
by Damien Ryan
William Shakespeare’s
THE TEMPEST
Textual conversations…
 RUBRIC SUMMARY
• SUMMARY OF RUBRIC:
• Resonances and dissonances
• Reimagining and reframing —mirror, align or collide with the
details of another text
• Common or disparate issues, values, assumptions and
perspective
• How composers are influenced by other texts, contexts and
values —how does this shape meaning?
• Various language concepts — how do these shape meaning?
• Forging a considered personal perspective
Hag-seed set free? Or trapped by The Tempest?
 The Tempest: Basic Facts
• The Tempest was first performed in 1611 and most likely
written in 1610 – Jacobean Era

• Thought of as the last play Shakespeare wrote on his own – this

may or may not be true – he certainly authored more works

• ‘Tragicomedy’ – people come close to brutal deaths but events

solve themselves peacefully through transformative actions

• Often called a ‘Romance’ and is also a ‘Pastoral’ play – we will

define this clearly

• First performed at Blackfriars Theatre – indoors

Understanding the PASTORAL GENRE…it is about TIME

Exile is the engine of this play…

 Exile – a chance for transformation
• Almost all of the characters in this story come from elsewhere, they are in exile from their
homelands, ‘imprisoned’ in a foreign place – setting the stage for a continuous and
revelatory process of transformation – as they are pushed beyond the established limits of
their experience and identity until they learn lessons in humanity
• They come from Milan, Naples, Tunisia, Algeria, England, the Americas, the Caribbean.
Through their journeys we watch political intrigue, murder, economic argument, warfare,
materialism, succession, industry etc. In other words, what could we learn about living if
we had the chance to start again? Exile fuels such thinking.
• Shakespeare looks at the entire world and its methods of living and governing through
the prism of a tiny, almost empty, imagined island.
• The island itself is a disputed territory, offering an indigenous native, indigenous spirits and
visiting members of one of the world’s imperialist nations, Italy.
– “This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother, which thou takest from me”, says Caliban
– in other words, it is his by the very same criteria used by western imperialists -
dynasty and inheritance.
• But theft is a long established imperial technique – it is our national Australian history after
all…
 PASTORAL storytelling –
an integral part
• PASTORAL of the Renaissance
storytelling – Shakespearedebate
usesbetween
the ‘new world’
the virtues of
experiment as the active,
a way political
to further the life
essential Renaissance debate
versus :
between
• the
the virtueslife
‘removed’ of the active,
of stasis andpolitical life
contemplation
versus
• the ‘removed’ life of stasis and contemplation
It is often expressed as the opposition between :
• It is often expressed as the opposition between :
• otium – the free life of ease or idleness and its natural poverty,
• otium – the free life of ease or idleness and its natural poverty,
subsistence and
subsistence and adversity
adversity ––ie.
ie.having
havingonly
onlywhat
what we we need
needto
to survive
•survive
negotium - pursuit of business, civic, political life – ie. collecting
• negotium
and hoarding- pursuit
wealth, of business,
power, civic, political life – ie.
status;
collecting and hoarding wealth, power, status;
• Stories set in ‘OTIUM’ feature passionate conversation/debate
Storiesthe
about set values
in ‘OTIUM’ feature
of love, the passionate
meaning ofconversation/debate
life and human
understanding
about the values– of
things
love, we
theneed to bring
meaning of lifeback
and to ‘NEGOTIUM’
human
understanding – things we need to bring back to ‘NEGOTIUM’
And his play’s structure is also essential to its meaning –
Tempest is structured upon ANTITHESES…
 A play of antitheses…

• REVENGE & FORGIVENESS

• FREEDOM & IMPRISONMENT

• POWER & POWERLESSNESS/WEAKNESS

• MASTERY & SERVITUDE / SLAVERY

• BOOK LEARNING & NATURAL EXPERIENCE

• UTOPIAN SOCIETY & CORRUPT POLITICS

• TRANSFORMATION / ‘SEA-CHANGE’ / RE-BIRTH

Performance of the shipwreck.
• HOW DOES SHAKESPEARE CREATE A
SCENE AND A WORLD
ON AN EMPTY STAGE…?
Shipwreck Summary:

• The characters are imprisoned by the storm/the forces of nature

• The social order is out of joint — the Boatswain, in a crisis situation

usurps the power of the both the King (in our case the Queen) and
the Master

• We are introduced to the motif of master-servant relationships — of

mastery and rule.

• Emblematic of usurpation — overturning of the natural order.

The Tempest - by Will Shakespeare
ACT 1.1
On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.
Enter a Master and a Boatswain

Master Boatswain!
Boatswain Here, master. What cheer?
Master Good: speak to the mariners. Fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves
aground! Bestir, bestir!

Enter Mariners

Boatswain Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! Take in the topsail.

Yare, yare!

Yarely = quick; agile; lively (of a ship) quick to the helm; easily handled
Cheerly = cry of encouragement among sailors
Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others

ALONSO Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master? Play the men.
Boatswain I pray now, keep below.
ANTONIO Where is the master, boatswain?
Boatswain Do you not hear her? You mar our labour. Keep your cabins! You do assist the storm.
GONZALO Nay, good, be patient.
Boatswain When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of King? To cabin! Silence! Trouble us
not.
GONZALO Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
Boatswain None that I more love than myself. You are a counselor: if you can command these elements to
silence, we will not hand a rope more: use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so
long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap. Out of our way,
I say.

Exeunt [Boatswain with mariners, followed by ALONSO, SEBASTIA, ANTONIO and FERDINAND]

GONZALO I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is
perfect gallows. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable.
Boatswain Down with the topmast! Yare! Lower, lower!
A cry within
A plague upon this howling! They are louder than the weather or our office.
Re-enter SEBASTIA, ANTONIO, and GONZALO
Yet again? What do you here? Have you a mind to sink?
SEBASTIAN A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!
Boatswain Work you then.
ANTONIO Hang, cur! We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.
GONZALO I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as
an unstanched wench.
Boatswain Lay her ahold, ahold! Set her two courses off to sea again; lay her off.

A confused noise within: 'Mercy on us!'-- 'We split, we split!'--'Farewell, my wife and children!'-- 'Farewell, brother!'--
'We split, we split, we split!’

Master All lost! All lost! All lost!

Boatswain What, must our mouths be cold?
ANTONIO Let's all sink with the King.
SEBASTIAN Let's take leave of him.

Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN

GONZALO The wills above be done! But I would fain die a dry death.

cur = dog
warrant him = give him a guarantee against drowning, ie. he will hang instead
unstanched (or unstarched in some texts) = not controlled or water-tight / possibly menstruation pun
lay her ahold = to bring a ship as near to the windward as it can to get out to sea
“What cares these roarers
for the name of King?”
Act 1.1 – The Tempest
 USURPATION:

the act of taking control of something without

having the right to,

especially of a position of power.

 “The sea misuses nothing,
because it values nothing”
—W. S Auden
Shakespeare point is that the internal forces we suffer are as
uncontrollable as those external forces of nature…these
emotional themes drive the play from within the hearts and
minds of characters:

Love
Vengeance
Hate
Lust
Power
Death
Shakespeare’s songs always crystallise his themes…
Play is full of dark enclosures where rebirth occurs:
• Shipwreck drowns sailors who return to life
• Ariel entombed in a tree before she is reborn a slave
• Caliban held in “this hard rock”
• Miranda still-born in “ignorance of who thou art” for 12 years
• Prospero in the womb of a rotten boat carcass, then his “cell” on
the island – awaiting his time – “now I arise!”
• Prospero traps his enemies in “a charmed circle” — his own
magical womb before contriving their re-birth
• Stephano and Trinculo immersed in a filthy pool of water
• The Mariners “still born” in their ship bunks before they are re-
born to awareness and a miraculous recovery
• Miranda’s womb is the AXIS upon which the whole play turns

Water is one of many

‘ wombs’ in this play

A tenuous, vulnerable place
where life and nourishing sit
alongside fragility and death
 Hag-‘Seed’
The play centres on the seeding, breeding and parenting of children

Hag = witch
Seed = offspring

Each of the play’s subplots is governed by the notion of status through the seed or legacy of
creating children - so even the title of Atwood’s novel is of interest:

– Caliban: “I would have peopled this isle with Calibans”

– Prospero: “I have done nothing but in care of thee my dear one, thee my daughter”
– Miranda: “Good wombs have borne bad sons”
– Alonso: “O thou mine heir of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish hath made his meal
on thee”
– Prospero: “Heavens rain grace on that which breeds between ‘em”
– Caliban: “She will become thy bed I warrant, and bring forth brave brood”
– Ceres: “Honour, riches, marriage blessing, long continuance and increasing hourly joy”

Labour and childbirth are a central motif in the Tempest – from the opening scene onwards…
 “A Brave Vessel”
The word “brave” which appears so many
times in the text had a contemporary usage as

‘pregnant’, ‘brave bellied’,

in other words,

a fruitful womb / like a brave sail – the

spinnaker on a ship / a courageous woman
 The Shipwreck – Birthing Imagery
Birth as a motif in language – the story of the play is of spiritual rebirth, and as
with any rebirth, the terrible threat of death is ever-present.
– “blow til thou burst thy wind” (the blowing breath of labour)
– “you mar our labour” (symbolic choice of words throughout the
shipwreck)
– “make the rope of his destiny our cable”, “if he be not born to be
hanged, our case is miserable” (umbilical reference)
– “as leaky as an unstanched wench” (not water tight, the breaking of
waters, leaking)
– “what care these roarers for the name of king” (the naming of a child as
the beginning of the application of status)
– “lay her a-hold, a-hold” (a midwifery term, not a maritime one, the
‘laying of hands’, restraining, assisting the turbulent vessel at the
moment of truth)
– “we split, we split” (the moment of birth)
– The play offers a rebirth to every character – some perhaps refuse it
 The island is Miranda –
circles within circles –
a circular theatre (the great globe itself),
inside that is the circle of an island,
inside that is Prospero’s “charmed circle”
and at its centre is Miranda’s ‘circle’ (her ‘O’ / her ‘no thing’)

it is her isolation, security and innocence which is breached on all sides - a

range of enemies and threats make their way inwards towards her, with a
particular focus on her sexuality/virginity/womb.

…the dangerous libido of Caliban;

the charismatic Ferdinand opportunistically wooing her;
the drunken men plotting to rape her;
the father obsessed with controlling her sexual awakening.

All of these men, using different methods and tactics, are attempting to
‘colonise’ her womb.
 The island is Miranda –
circles within circles –
a circular theatre (the great globe itself),
inside that is the circle of an island,
inside that is Prospero’s “charmed circle”
and at its centre is Miranda’s ‘circle’ (her ‘O’ / her ‘no thing’)

it is her isolation, security and innocence which is breached on all sides - a

range of enemies and threats make their way inwards towards her, with a
particular focus on her sexuality/virginity/womb.

…the dangerous libido of Caliban;

the charismatic Ferdinand opportunistically wooing her;
the drunken men plotting to rape her;
the father obsessed with controlling her sexual awakening.

All of these men, using different methods and tactics, are attempting to
‘colonise’ her womb.
 The island is Miranda –
circles within circles –
a circular theatre (the great globe itself),
inside that is the circle of an island,
inside that is Prospero’s “charmed circle”
and at its centre is Miranda’s ‘circle’ (her ‘O’ / her ‘no thing’)

it is her isolation, security and innocence which is breached on all sides - a

range of enemies and threats make their way inwards towards her, with a
particular focus on her sexuality/virginity/womb.

…the dangerous libido of Caliban;

the charismatic Ferdinand opportunistically wooing her;
the drunken men plotting to rape her;
the father obsessed with controlling her sexual awakening.

All of these men, using different methods and tactics, are attempting to
‘colonise’ her womb.
 The island is Miranda –
circles within circles –
a circular theatre (the great globe itself),
inside that is the circle of an island,
inside that is Prospero’s “charmed circle”
and at its centre is Miranda’s ‘circle’ (her ‘O’ / her ‘no thing’)

it is her isolation, security and innocence which is breached on all sides - a

range of enemies and threats make their way inwards towards her, with a
particular focus on her sexuality/virginity/womb.

…the dangerous libido of Caliban;

the charismatic Ferdinand opportunistically wooing her;
the drunken men plotting to rape her;
PROSPERO’S SUPER-OBJECTIVE - controlling her sexual awakening
in order to win two realms.

All of these men, using different methods and tactics,

are attempting to ‘colonise’ her womb.
“Would’t had been done. I would have peopled else
this isle with Calibans” (Caliban)

“Is she so brave a lass?” /

“She will become thy bed I warrant and bring forth
brave brood”
(Stephano and Caliban)

“For several virtues have I liked several women” /

“If you be a virgin and your honour not gone forth,
I’ll make thee Queen of Naples”
(Ferdinand)
 Let’s meet the characters
and listen to their story…

• Act 1.2 – Prospero and Miranda

• How do we interpret character? What clues do
we find to who they are?
The play is called The Tempest not because
of a noisy first scene but because peace and
calm, inner and outer, only come at the
very end when Prospero has managed to
overcome his anger, his wish for revenge
and his need for power.

Peter Brook
 The Emotional Incarceration of Prospero

Oxford English Dictionary: Revenge:

Revindicare —from vindicare

— to rescue justify, liberate, emancipate, as in liberating a slave

One of the driving forces in The Tempest is Prospero’s

obsession with retribution. When we become obsessed with
revenge our capacity for forgiveness is curtailed. The result is
resentment – and this can become a sort of emotional prison.
 “Resentment is like drinking poison
and waiting for the other guy to die.”
— Malachy McCourt
 A “romantic” view on character.
Qualities shared by Prospero and Shakespeare
according to Edward Dowden (1880s) :

• Grave harmony
• Self mastery
• Calm validity of will
• Sensitivity to wrong
• Unfaltering justice
• Remoteness from the common joys of the world.
 Black text presents the facts/story –
Red text is Prospero’s unnecessary / emotional / tortured syntax, his unsettled,
explosive mind :

PROSPERO PROSPERO
My brother and thy uncle, called Antonio - I pray thee, mark me:
I pray thee, mark me - that a brother should I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
Be so perfidious - he whom next thyself To closeness and the bettering of my mind
Of all the world I loved, and to him put In my false brother
The manage of my state, Awaked an evil nature, which had indeed no limit,
The government I cast upon my brother Hence his ambition growing -
And to my state grew stranger, being transported Dost thou hear?
And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle - MIRANDA Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
Dost thou attend me? PROSPERO To have no screen between this part
MIRANDA he played
Sir, most heedfully. And him he played it for, he needs will be
PROSPERO Absolute Milan. Me - poor man - my library
Being once perfected how to grant suits, Was dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties
How to deny them, who t’advance and who He thinks me now incapable. Confederates -
To trash for over-topping, So dry he was for sway - wi' th’King of Naples
…Thy false uncle set all hearts i'th’state To give her annual tribute, do her homage,
To what tune pleased his ear. - Thou attend'st not. Subject his coronet to her crown, and bend
My dukedom yet unbowed - alas, poor Milan! -
MIRANDA To most ignoble stooping.
O good sir, I do.
Hag-Seed: Basic Facts
• Author: Margaret Atwood – Canadian

• Literary World: Postmodern

• Published: 2016 Hogarth Press — Hogarth Shakespeare

Project — Shakespeare’s plays appropriated and retold by
eight distinguished contemporary authors.
Atwood formats as a script / screenplay
“It’s kind of inevitable that you would be writing about
prisons because there are so many in the play…writing
about the play involves writing about imprisonment
[and] coercion of various kinds, and everyone in that
play is imprisoned, constrained, [and] unfree in some
way for some part of the play.”

—Margaret Atwood, 2016

‘Chapter 20. Second
Assignment: Prisons
and Jailers’

In his ‘theatre class’ at

the Fletcher
Correctional Facility,
the inmates consolidate
a list of prisons in
Shakespeare’s play.
 In ‘Chapter 21. Prospero’s Goblins’, Felix commends the inmates for
their work on this table and goes on to say:
“You’ve done well…you’ve spotted eight…Eight unique incarceration
events…There’s a ninth prison however…Now lets look at the jailers. Three
characters are imprisoned by someone who isn’t Prospero: Sycorax, on the island,
by the officials of Algiers; Ariel, in a pine, by Sycorax, and Prospero himself, by
Antonio, with an assist from Alonso…Four characters if you count Miranda…but
she was only three years old when she landed so she grows up on the island
without feeling imprisoned by it. Then, seven individuals are imprisoned in events
in which the jailer is Prospero. He would seem to be the top jailer of this play.”

“Okay, but what about the ninth prison?” Says 8Handz. "It’s in the Epilogue," says
Felix. "Prospero says to the audience, in effect, Unless you help me sail away, I’ll
have to stay on the island — that is, he’ll be under an enchantment. He’ll be
forced to re-enact his feelings of revenge, over and over. It would be like hell.”

"The last three words in the play are ‘set me free,’" says Felix. "You don’t say ‘set
me free’ unless you’re not free. Prospero is a prisoner inside the play he himself
has composed. There you have it: the ninth prison is the play itself.”
 MIRANDA
“You’re talking as if Miranda is just a rag doll. As if she’s just lying
around with her legs open, draping herself over the furniture like wet
spaghetti with a sign on her saying, Rape Me. But it wouldn’t be like that.
First off, she’s a strong girl. She hasn’t been tied up in corsets and stuffed
into glass slippers and such at court…she’s been clambering all over that
island since she was three…But’s there’s more. Prospero already said that
he educated Miranda beyond what other girls like her would learn. What
do you think the girl was up to while Prospero’s was having his afternoon
snooze? Prospero’s books!”

– Anne Marie, ‘43. Team Miranda’

Miranda 1888
Miranda 1916
MIRANDA
(from Latin – miror – wonder, amazement)

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!
-Act V
Performance of the island’s
‘indigenous’ stories :

Ariel’s recount of the tempest

+
Caliban’s demand for freedom
 S L A V E R Y vs. FREEDOM

The words “master” “cell” “slave” Slave: A person who is entirely

“free” freedom” “servant” serve” dependent upon or controlled by
“confined” “prison” “liberty” and something or someone.
“escape” litter the play — keep an
eye out for these words in class and Latin — ‘slavonic’ (captive)
when listening to the scene work
today.
 The Slavery of Ariel
Performance: “Ariel thy charge exactly is performed.”

1. Sycorax usurps Ariel

2. Prospero usurps Sycorax

3. Prospero frees then usurps Ariel

– she becomes his source of power

Ariel’s power revealed – Act 1.2
PROSPERO Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.
Approach, my Ariel, come.
Enter ARIEL
Hast thou, spirit,
Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?
ARIEL
To every article.
I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometime I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring,--then like reeds, not hair,--
Was the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.'
PROSPERO
But are they, Ariel, safe?
ARIEL
Not a hair perish'd;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,
In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle.
The king's son have I landed by himself;
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
In an odd angle of the isle and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.
 THE LETTER OF WILLIAM STRACHEY –
the Wreck of the Sea Venture on it’s journey to Jamestown,
Virginia:

…vpon Thursday night Sir George Summers being vpon the watch, had an
apparition of a little round light, like a faint Starre, trembling, and streaming
along with a sparke-ling blaze, halfe the height vpon the Maine Mast, and
shooting sometimes from Shroud to Shroud, tempting to settle as it were vpon any
of the four Shrouds: and for three or four houres together, or rather more, halfe
the night it kept with vs; running sometimes along the Maine-yard to the very end,
and then returning. Towards the morning watch, they lost the sight of it, and knew
not what way it made. The superstitious Sea-men make many constructions of this
Sea-fire - they tooke it for an evill signe of great tempest.

Today we know this burning light, which is entirely real, as St

Elmo’s Fire
Ariel demands freedom / Prospero’s brutal response :

PROSPERO What is't thou canst demand? And left thee there. Then was this island -
ARIEL My liberty. Save for the son that she did litter here,
PROSPERO Before the time be out? No more! A freckled whelp, hag-born - not honoured with
ARIEL I prithee, A human shape.
Remember I have done thee worthy service, ARIEL Yes: Caliban her son.
Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served PROSPERO Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban
Without or grudge or grumblings: thou did promise Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
To bate me a full year. What torment I did find thee in. It was mine art,
PROSPERO Dost thou forget When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
From what a torment I did free thee? The pine and let thee out.
ARIEL No. ARIEL I thank thee, master.
PROSPERO Thou dost. PROSPERO If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak
ARIEL I do not, sir. And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
PROSPERO Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot Thou hast howled away twelve winters.
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy ARIEL Pardon, master:
Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her? I will be correspondent to command
ARIEL No, sir. And do my spiriting gently.
PROSPERO Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak: tell me. PROSPERO Do so: and after two days
ARIEL Sir, in Algiers. I will discharge thee.
PROSPERO O, was she so? I must ARIEL That's my noble master!
Once in a month recount what thou hast been, What shall I do? Say what? What shall I do?
Which thou forget'st. This damned witch Sycorax,
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child,
And here was left by th’sailors. She did confine thee,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain
A dozen years: within which space she died,
 A (feminist/post-colonial) perspective on Sycorax

This damned witch Sycorax,

For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,
Thou know’st, was banished. For one thing she did
They would not take her life.
- Prospero, Act I

Prospero ‘enslaves’ disempowers Sycorax even after she has died – in telling
her story he gives her no action and no voice. The audience only perceives
who she is through the mouthpiece of Prospero. By casting her as a demonic
witch he distances himself from her and weakens her position.

Consider the possibility of ‘silencing’ as a form of usurpation and enslavement.

“His arms in this sad knot”
– Ariel

– What defines Ariel’s journey in the play?

Ariel’s journey influenced modern cinema

Prospero learns mercy and humanity from a non-human…

 CALIBAN
“This island’s mine"
Ariel and Caliban are both colonised subjects of
Prospero — their power and their knowledge has been
usurped — they are both unjustly used and
subjugated. It’s Prospero’s ‘art’ - magic - which controls
both of them, binding them to his authority as their
master.
Approaches to Caliban…
Caliban’s powerlessness or dormant
power – Act 1.2:

CALIBAN
This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first, Caliban demands freedom / Miranda’s brutal
Thou strok’st me and made much of me, wouldst give me response:
Water with berries in't, and teach me how MIRANDA
To name the bigger light, and how the less, Abhorred slave,
That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
And showed thee all the qualities o'th’isle, Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile. Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each
Cursed be I that did so! All the charms hour
Of Sycorax - toads, beetles, bats - light on you! One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,
For I am all the subjects that you have, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me With words that made them known. But thy vile
The rest o'th’island. race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which
good natures
Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou
Deservedly confined into this rock,
Who hadst deserved more than a prison.
CALIBAN
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!
PROSPERO
Hag-seed, hence!
 The Lovers—Ferdinand and Miranda –
Slavery and other mirror images

“I would no more endure this wooden slavery”

“The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service, there
resides to make me slave to it”

“To be your fellow you may deny me but I’ll be your servant”

“With a heart as willing as bondage e’er of freedom”

Both men are manacled and enslaved

Both men are seeking the virginity of Miranda and hope to make a family
Both men spend their time gathering sticks and logs for Prospero
Both men achieve their liberty at the last
 Age of Discovery
• The Tempest is set in the Age of Discovery – a
period of exponential colonization
• ‘Brave new world’ - Virginia and the shipwreck

“The sun never sets on the

British empire”
 Context – inextricably related to a ‘colonial’ reading of the play
• Shakespeare wrote the play in 1610 or 11 when the English imperialist
machine was in full flight – Naval exploration was THE national
obsession at the time
• Post-colonial reading often condemned as if it is purely a retrospective
reading –
– it is not, this is a ‘COLONIAL’ play drawn directly from colonial documents
– Strachey’s ‘Sea-Venture’ letter; Virginia documents of insurrection;
Montaigne’s pro-indigenous critique of imperialism
• But perhaps more importantly for what Shakespeare would do with the tone
of his play, these colonial experiments were failing and embarrassing
England by 1610
– starvation, warfare with local tribes, shipwrecks, poor crops, corruption
– this is not a story that celebrates imperialism or colonialism, it in fact
satirizes and exposes its failure and even its cruelties, crimes and
inhumanities.
• As usual, Shakespeare offers multiple conflicting points of view
So, we employed a ‘colonial reading’…but…
What ideas define the Royals’ language…?
The Queen and company explore the island – Act 2.1:

ACT 2 SCENE I. Another part of the island.

GONZALO Had I plantation of this isle, my lord -

And were the king on't, what would I do?
SEBASTIAN 'Scape being drunk for want of wine.
GONZALO I' the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit: no name of magistrate:
Letters should not be known: riches, poverty,
And use of service, none: contract, succession,
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil:
No occupation, all men idle, all:
And women too, but innocent and pure:
No sovereignty.
SEBASTIAN Yet he would be king on't.
ANTONIO The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.
GONZALO All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have: but nature should bring forth,
Of its own kind, all plenty, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.
SEBASTIAN No marrying 'mong his subjects?
ANTONIO None, lady, all idle: whores and knaves.
GONZALO I would with such perfection govern, sir,
To excel the golden age.
SEBASTIAN God save his majesty!
ANTONIO Long live Gonzalo!
 Perspectives of the Island: Every person that comes across this place has a
different perspective on what they’ve just discovered

Ferdinand: “this place is paradise”

Gonzalo: Utopia— an opportunity to “excel the golden age”

Sebastian/Antonio: “wasteland”

Prospero: A kingdom in exile — a prison

Miranda: a sheltered world

Trinculo: a chance for financial exploitation

Stephano: an imperial inheritance

Alonso: a place where everything has been lost

Montaigne, Of the Caniballes Gonzalo, The Tempest

It is a nation that hath no kind of I' the commonwealth I would by contraries

traffike, no knowledge of letters, no Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
intelligence of numbers, no name of Would I admit: no name of magistrate:
magistrate, nor of politike superioritie, Letters should not be known: riches, poverty,
no use of services, of riches, or of And use of service, none: contract, succession,
poverty; no contracts, no successions, No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil:
no dividences, no occupation but No occupation, all men idle, all:
idle… no use of wine, corne, or And women too, but innocent and pure:
No sovereignty.
mettle. The very words that import
lying, falsehood, treason were never
heard of amongst them.
 Magical Mirrors
• Prospero is a magician/wizard who rules the island.

• Sycorax was a magician/witch who ruled the island.

• Ariel is the magical spirit with the truest power on the island.

• Caliban was once “mine own King” and believes himself a magician - he
attempts several times to cast spells - “As wicked dew as e’re my mother brushed
with raven’s feather from unwholesome dam, drop on your both” / “A southwest
blister ye all over” / “All the infections that the sun sucks up…on Prosper fall”

• Stephano will come to believe he has magical powers and will have his “music
for nothing”

• Antonio is the 6th magician if you consider the mirrored game Shakespeare is
playing – again using music to work magic – the music of speech and rhetoric to
create black magic – “he set all hearts in the state to what tune pleased his ear”
“A map of the world that does not include Utopia
is not worth even glancing at.”
– Oscar Wilde

The ‘new world’ – America - was quite literally considered to

be such an opportunity in this moment of Shakespeare’s and
England’s life.

The result, as with all utopias, is fairly obvious – pollution is

inevitable – we get the leaders we deserve sometimes…
 The butler, the jester and the ‘monster’
• A mirror to the main plot - These fools commence their own dynastic + imperialist
struggle, the taking of native place and ownership of culture, a “terra nullius”
approach to colonialism (nobody’s land). They are, purely through chance,
unquestionably exploring imperialist tropes – seeking financial gain through
exploitation of the indigenous population.

• What is Caliban? Strange fish, tortoise, monster, puppy-headed, 4 legged creature,

islander struck by a thunderbolt?

• But the layers of meaning increase as it is only when Trinculo gets under the cloak
that a monster is created, a monster built of the imperialist spirit, the white man
co-opting the shelter of a indigenous man, an entanglement of cultures beneath a
blanket
Amidst the comedy of the ‘clowns’,
something very serious is unfolding
Caliban and Trinculo take shelter – Act 2.2: Caliban re-enslaves himself to a new master/god:

TRINCULO Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off CALIBAN I'll swear upon that bottle to be thy true
any weather at all, and another storm brewing: subject,for the liquor is not earthly. Hast thou not
I hear it sing i'th’wind: yond same black dropped from heaven?
cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul STEPHANO Out o'th’moon, I do assure thee: I was the
bombard that would shed his liquor. man i'th’moon when time was.
What have we here? A man or a fish? CALIBAN I have seen thee in her and I do adore thee.
Dead or alive? A fish, he smells like a fish: STEPHANO Come, swear to that. Kiss the book. I will
a very ancient and fishlike smell: furnish it anon with new contents. Swear!
A strange fish! Were I in England now - TRINCULO By this good light, this is a very shallow
as once I was - and had but this fish painted, monster! I afeard of him? A very weak monster!
not a holiday fool there but would give a piece CALIBAN I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island:
of silver. Legged like a man and his fins like and I will kiss thy foot: I prithee, be my god. I'll show
arms! Warm o'my troth! I do now let loose thee the best springs: I'll pluck thee berries: I'll fish for
my opinion, hold it no longer: this is no fish, thee and get thee wood enough.
but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a (sings)
thunderbolt. 'Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban
Alas, the storm is come again! My best way is to Has a new master: get a new man.
creep under his gaberdine: misery acquaints a man Freedom, high-day! High-day, freedom! Freedom,
with high-day, freedom!
strange bed-fellows. STEPHANO O brave monster, lead the way!
Exeunt
Analysing Caliban’s language
Caliban’s isle – Act 3.2
The finding of a boy’s true self – in solitude / a stolen
homeland – an indigenous ‘dreaming’ / ‘music/songs’ .

…look at the language in the play’s most beautiful speech

CALIBAN
Be not afeard; 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, and sometime voices,
That if I then had waked 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 waked
I cried to dream again.
Caliban’s shifting language form
The plot to kill Prospero – Act 3.2:

CALIBAN As I told thee, 'tis a custom with him,

I' th' afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him,
Having first seized his books: or with a log
Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
Or cut his windpipe with thy knife. Remember
First to possess his books; for without them
He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not
One spirit to command. Burn but his books.
And that most deeply to consider is
The beauty of his daughter: he himself
Calls her a nonpareil.
STEPHANO Is it so brave a lass?
CALIBAN Ay, lord: she will become thy bed, I warrant.
And bring thee forth brave brood. ////
STEPHANO Monster, I will kill this man: his daughter and I will be king and queen. Dost
thou like the plot, Trinculo?
TRINCULO Excellent.
CALIBAN Within this half hour will he be asleep:
Wilt thou destroy him then?
STEPHANO Ay, on mine honour.
ARIEL This will I tell my master.
Miranda’s womb defines the
meaning of the play.

legacy / family / continuance

Prospero’s super-objective =
Miranda’s womb will reunite Milan and
Naples and complete Prospero’s revenge /
renewal / dynasty
BUT…what is LEGACY in a world where everything
dissolves:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air,
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Prospero Act 4:1

Prospero - “we are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is
rounded with a sleep”

Miranda – “the strangeness of your story put heaviness in me”

Miranda – “tis far off and rather like a dream than an assurance”

Prospero – “To the King’s ship, there shalt thy find the mariners asleep”

Sebastian – “what a strange drowsiness possesses them”

Ferdinand – “My spirits as in a dream, are all bound up”

 Prospero’s Anognorisis
Anognorisis: Anagnorisis is a moment in a play or other work when a
character makes a critical discovery.

“Say spirit, how fares the queen and her followers?...”

Prospero spends the play creating moments of revelation and sea-change for
others but it is his own revelation that provides the play’s great turning point and
fundamental lesson – that “the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance”. He
will spend the play surprising others, only to be “surprised withal” himself.
 ACT 5.1 - examine the heavy punctuation of
Prospero – thinking out loud /
realising something
PROSPERO Say, my spirit,
How fares the queen and her followers?
ARIEL Confined together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge,
Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,
Him that you termed, sir, 'The good old lord Gonzalo:
His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
PROSPERO Dost thou think so, spirit?
ARIEL Mine would, sir, were I human.
PROSPERO And mine shall.
Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply
Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’quick,
Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance. Go, release them Ariel…
 Forgiveness
• An unusual perspective - Shakespeare’s audience in 1611 made one supremely
surprising discovery when they sat or stood at this play…

– It has all the hallmarks of a ‘revenge tragedy’, a genre they were extremely
familiar with and adored
– But they don’t get what they paid for – they get a comedy of reconciliation
because…
– The central character comes to a revelation that he was not expecting, even
though he was in full, omnipotent control of the story he was telling. He
surprises himself and the entire genre shifts to new territory

• The revelation for Prospero of Ariel’s human empathy for the suffering of the
“prisoners”, even though Ariel is not human, coupled with his own discovery of the
ephemeral nature of life, of “the great globe itself”, leads Prospero toward his
greatest understanding…
• THAT HE CAN LET GO…THAT HE CAN FORGIVE…
 Ariel & Forgiveness
8Handz & Forgiveness
“Mine would sir, were I human”

— Ariel, Act 5

“‘I know they’re arseholes and they’re trying to stuff our players, but this
is too sick even for me,’ says 8Handz. ‘It’s beyond a bad trip, they’re
scared shitless.’ ‘It’s part of the plan, anyway they had it coming,’ says
Felix. 'Don’t you feel sorry for them?’ says 8Handz.’”

—Hag-Seed, Chapter 38, ‘Not a Frown Further’

What kind of forgiveness is it??

Prospero Act 5:

I do forgive thee,

I do forgive
Thy rankest fault - all of them

Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardoned [Antonio] dwell
In this bare island by your spell,
Prospero Act 5:

I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art.

I do forgive
Thy rankest fault - all of them

Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardoned [Antonio] dwell
In this bare island by your spell,
Prospero Act 5:

I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art.

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother

Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
Thy rankest fault - all of them

Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardoned [Antonio] dwell
In this bare island by your spell,
Prospero Act 5:

I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art.

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother

Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
Thy rankest fault - all of them

Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardoned the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell,
 ‘Forgiveness’ in Hag-Seed
Before his fall from grace, Felix had considered himself a demigod, as “the Felix
Phillips” (Atwood:196). It is not until he “no longer rates a the” — developing
humility —and begins giving back by teaching the programme, that Felix regains
his humanity. His new unpretentious attitude helps him grow in generosity and
take responsibility. By losing everything valuable to him (he is able to experience a
‘sea-change’), Felix’s sense of morality grows.

“the Felix Phillips”

“He wants to say the Felix Phillips, but perhaps he no longer rates a the.”

STILL THE QUESTION OF ‘FORGIVENESS’

“Under these conditions I pardon all of you, and we’ll let bygones be bygones”

“Anyway I succeeded,” he tells himself. “Or at least I didn’t fail.” Why does it feel
like a letdown?
 In The Tempest all of the characters desperately
want their freedom.

He discovers that he must relinquish control

of them in order to free himself. They represent what he is holding
onto so desperately – his need for control and relevance

He is dying…“every third thought will be my grave”

If he fails, his daughter is left alone with the “beast”

In the end, Prospero begs for freedom from his ‘prison’ – “this bare
island.” And the author begs us for ‘his’ freedom too, from his
prison – the stage.
 Similarly in Hag-Seed…

Felix adopts the role of ‘the avenger’ in the

performance of The Tempest at Fletcher
Correctional → the prison = his island

“My island domain. My place of exile. My

penance. My theatre.”
— Felix, Chapter 12
EPILOGUE - SPOKEN BY PROSPERO

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved 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.
So, we employed a ‘colonial reading’…but…
As you from crimes pardoned be,

Let your indulgence set me free.

- EPILOGUE
Hagseed set free? Or trapped by Tempest?
Yet how do people and nation’s reach true
RECONCILIATION…?
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation
Commission

Through the Amnesty Committee, the Commission

offers criminal and civil amnesty to individuals in
exchange for full confessions.
Australia’s Apology to the Stolen Generations

I feel great. I'm on top of the world, I'm floating on air. It's a big
weight off my shoulders… It's the closure I need.
Archie Roach, Singer and songwriter
and member of the Stolen Generations

In my heart I feel there is a real need for [the apology]... For my

family, it allows some kind of healing and forgiveness to take
place where there is less anger and bitterness in the hearts of
people.
Kathy Freeman, Athlete
Blackfellas will get the words, the whitefellas
will keep the money.

Noel Pearson, Aboriginal elder

Spain’s Pact of Oblivion (el pacto del olvido)

The Spanish political decision to try to deal with the

legacy of Fascism by forgetting it. The pact
underpinned the transition to democracy of the 1970s
and ensured that difficult questions about the recent
past were suppressed for fear of endangering
'national reconciliation'
 The FARC Guerilla Amnesty -
Columbia - 2016

• A decades-long conflict that has killed over

260,000 people and displaced millions
• Thousands of fighters pardoned under the
law for full confessions of their actions and
drug trafficking
“I don’t believe Prospero makes any vital self-
healing leap of real forgiveness. Nor is there any
great event to end the play; just a lonely (old, in
my case) man asking for applause.”

Phillip Voss, Actor

Shakespeare’s theme is the drama of the renunciation of power
and domination, which are symbolised by magic, a borrowed
power which must be rendered up. Man must learn to accept
himself as he is and accept others as they are, even if they
happen to be called Caliban.

Octave Mannoni,
Prospero and Caliban: the psychology of colonisation
METATHEATRE/FICTION
 Meta-theatre:
Theatre which draws attention to its unreality; Self-reflexive drama or
performance that reveals its artistic status to the audience; a play that draws
attention to its nature as drama or theatre, or to the circumstances of its
performance; expression of an awareness of the presence of the audience; an
acknowledgement of the fact that the people performing are actors.

“[T]he play has come to be seen as a metaphor of the theatre, with Prospero
a stage manager who dominates the proceedings." —Eckart Voigts

Northrop Fyre calls Prospero an “actor-manager”

Island is a stage (and, remember, quite literally, it is), manipulated by

Shakespeare just as Prospero manipulates his fellow characters – playing with
their moods, emotions, behaviors, outcomes, creating false griefs, even a false
tempest, and ending with an epilogue that breaks the entire artifice down.
 Miranda sums up the theatrical act perfectly:

If by your art, my dearest father, you have put the wild

waters in this roar, allay them.
O, I have suffered with those that I saw suffer…

These words define the career of the man who wrote them
and define the whole purpose of theatre. Theatre is meant to
hurt us, to move us, to teach us.

But Prospero, like Shakespeare is a playwright, an actor / a

false magician – it is a borrowed power and he must
eventually render it up.
“The Tempest is a text that looks different in different contexts, and it has
been used to support radically differing claims about Shakespeare’s
allegiances. In recent years we have seen Prospero as a noble ruler and
mage, a tyrant and a megalomaniac, a necromancer, a Neoplatonic
scientist, a colonial imperialist, a civilizer. [...] The question of correctness
is not the issue of these readings; the play will provide at least some
evidence for all of them, and its critical history is a good index to the
ambivalences and ambiguities of the text.”

- Stephen Orgel, 1987

 A Definition of Tragicomedy - 1609

A tragie-comedie is not so called in respect of mirth

and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is
inough to make it no tragedie, yet brings some neere
it, which is inough to make it no comedie.

John Fletcher 1609

Theatrical context
 The meta-theatrical conventions
• Time - Tempest = Shakespeare’s only ‘unity of time’ – 3 hours. Theatre = life
• performing and role-playing are rife in the play
– Ariel as St Elmo’s fire, a “flaming” light / “nymph of the sea” / “Harpy” / “bird”
– Boatswain as the usurper of Kings
– Prospero as Miranda’s “no greater father” for 12 years / once “Duke of Milan”
– Prospero as torturer of Ferdinand and parental obstacle to his child
– Antonio and Sebastian as loyal friends and comrades to Alonso
– Trinculo and Caliban as a 4-legged monster
– Stephano as ‘King o’ the isle’
– Prospero as revenger then forgiving benevolent ruler
– Then as actor asking an audience for its applause to release him from the stage
• a play within a play – the ‘Masque’
• the playwright within a playwright
• the ephemera of acting – dreaming – as a metaphor for life
• the ‘wooden O’ – “the great globe itself” is referenced in the play directly
• Metafictionality: Metafiction is a form of literature that
emphasises its own 'constructedness’ in a way that
continually reminds the reader to be aware that they are
reading or viewing a fictional work.

• Intertextuality: the shaping of a text's meaning by another

text. It is the interconnection between similar or related
works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's
interpretation of the text. A postmodern quality.
 The play is about making peace with everything
passing away. The central image associated with
this is the ocean.

• Harold Bloom – ‘values nothing and swallows

all’.

• Ariel – a mysterious ocean that transforms

everything: a ‘sea change into something rich and
strange’.

• Boatswain – “What, must our mouths be cold?”

Language Mirrors

– Caliban is called a slave - “What ho, slave! Caliban!”, and

– Ferdinand calls himself a slave - “my heart did fly to your service,
there resides to make me slave to it”

– Alonso says, “What strange fish hath made his meal on thee?”
– Trinculo calls Caliban “A strange fish”

– Alonsa - “I’ll seek him deeper than e’er plummet sounded”, and
– Prospero borrows the phrase: “and deeper than did ever plummet
sound, I’ll drown my book”
‘Readings’ of the play:
‘Colonial Reading’ of the play — the costume and setting reflects that — Age
of Discovery — a time when England was beginning the great colony that would
be called the British Empire — “the sun never set on the British empire” —more
on this — we look at it from a post-colonial perspective (what does this mean?)
— show costume.

Meta-Theatrical Reading — look at the play — Prospero as Shakespeare — it

is fundamentally meta-theatrical, theatre that knows it is theatre.
— at the end of the play we deconstruct the magical reality by coming out in our
civvies — get Chris to perform the epilogue and ask students to consider it as an
actor/director speaking the lines.

Divine Parable — that Prospero is God — he is writing the play from within the
play — he is here to punish the sins of the human race, bringing the back to
Eden, leading them to discover forgiveness.

Psychological Reading — a post-Freudian reading of the play

 Module A: Textual Conversations - RUBRIC
In this module, students explore the ways in which the comparative study of texts
can reveal resonances and dissonances between and within texts. Students
consider the ways that a reimagining or reframing of an aspect of a text might
mirror, align or collide with the details of another text. In their textual studies,
they also explore common or disparate issues, values, assumptions or
perspectives and how these are depicted. By comparing two texts students
understand how composers (authors, poets, playwrights, directors, designers and
so on) are influenced by other texts, contexts and values, and how this shapes
meaning.

Students identify, interpret, analyse and evaluate the textual features,

conventions, contexts, values and purpose of two prescribed texts. As students
engage with the texts they consider how their understanding, appreciation and
enjoyment of both texts has been enhanced through the comparative study and
how the personal, social, cultural and historical contextual knowledge that
they bring to the texts influences their perspectives and shapes their own
compositions.
By responding imaginatively, interpretively and critically students explore
and evaluate individual and common textual features, concepts and values.
They further develop skills in analysing the ways that various language
concepts, for example motif, allusion and intertextuality, connect and
distinguish texts and how innovating with language concepts, form
and style can shape new meaning. They develop appropriate analytical
and evaluative language required to compose informed, cohesive
responses using appropriate terminology, grammar, syntax and structure.
By composing critical and creative texts in a range of modes and media,
students develop the confidence, skills and appreciation to express a
considered personal perspective.