Shakespeare's "The Tempest" Part 1: The Story

This is Shakespeare's attempt to write a Broadway musical and a science fiction film in one. Some music is the medium of prosperous magic on this deserted island that's full of strange noises. The play takes place in a strange world. It's part Old World Mediterranean, part New World America. It's a place where characters are suspended in a state that sometimes characterise a sleepy and hypnotic and sometimes seems part-ground, so it's a wonderfully indeterminate space. He puts everything into this play. You've got this initial threat, you've got separation, you've got voyages, you've got salvation, reconciliation, renewal, romance. It sounds like a lot of other Shakespeare comedies and particularly like a lot of the other so-called late plays. And then it suddenly turns in a different direction. He's pushing boundaries here and he's deliberately pushing boundaries in order to make us think about genre, to make us think about character, to make us think about what we want from a play. It's someone who is hugely experienced in his art form and now wants just to see how far he can take it to breaking point without it breaking. Hello, I'm Laurie Maguire, I'm professor of Shakespeare at Oxford University in England. Welcome to Shakespeare Football. In this episode we're speaking with Professor Maguire about the Tempest, which was written around 1611 and is one of the last plays Shakespeare ever wrote. This play takes place over a single day on a mysterious island ruled by a magician named Prospero. Prospero was once Duke of Milan, but his brother usurped his power and cast him out to see with his daughter Miranda. They washed ashore on this island and bound the other inhabitants, Caliban and the spirit aerial into servitude. One day, Prospero's brother and his fellow conspirators sail near the island and Prospero conjures up a Tempest that wrecks their ship. Prospero, the failed Duke, the powerful magician, the protective father, the vengeful victim, he now has his enemies within his power. But what will he do next? What should he do? What it does is tease us with ambiguities, it proposes profound ethical challenges for today about responsibility, authority, relationships, political and personal. It's a shape-shifting play where the ground shifts beneath our feet. It's a revenge play, it's a pastoral, it's a comedy, it's full of illusions. And constantly inviting us to question not just what we perceive, that how we perceive it, how we evaluate it. The play opens with a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning. A ship at sea is racked by a storm. On a nearby island, the young Miranda watches the storm in distress. Poor souls, they perished, she laments. But in fact, her father, Prospero, used his magic both to summon the tempest and to keep everyone aboard the ship safe. He did all this, he tells her, in care of thee. To explain his plans for her future, he now tells her the story of her past. 12 years ago, Prospero says, he was Duke of Milan, a city-state in Italy. But he let his brother, Antonio, manage all the work of government, while he himself was wrapped in secret studies. For Shakespeare's audience, this term could have invoked both the study of magical or supernatural arts, as well as astronomy, mathematics, experiments that we might call science, and esoteric theological knowledge. While Prospero was absorbed in his books, Antonio grew ambitious. He conspired with Alonso, the king of Naples, to overthrow Prospero and seize Milan for himself. Prospero and Miranda were cast out to sea, surviving only because a kind lord named Gonzalo gave them supplies. Now, bountiful fortune has brought Prospero's old enemies into his power. On board the tempest-toss ship were Antonio and Alonso. Ariel now enters. He, or in some performances she, is described as a spirit with magical powers. He conjured the tempest at Prospero's bidding. After bringing the Naples safely to shore, he tells Prospero he left the sailors asleep on the ship in a harbour, where once thou calls me up at midnight to fetch dew from the still-vexed Bermuders. This fleeting mention of the Bermuders, a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, is significant. It connects the play to global explorations that were occurring when Shakespeare was writing, particularly one famous 1609 voyage to Jamestown, Virginia, that echoes the tempest's plot. The ship went missing. There was ship ranked by Bermuda, and the Voyagers on the ship finally made it to Virginia a year later. So obviously, this was in the news, in London at that time, and that's major. The notion that you're lost and then you're found. So there is the real life equivalent of our opening scene of the tempest. So you can see why it's very attractive and very relevant to be thinking about the new world in relation to that. In the 16th century, when the Spanish first began colonizing what they called the new world, i.e. Latin America, they often forced the native populations to serve them as labourers. Aerial and Caliban, the natives of this island, have likewise been forced to serve Prospero. Prospero has promised a free aerial at some point, but when Aerial asks for his freedom, Prospero counters with another narrative about the past. Before Prospero arrived with Miranda, there was another exile on the island with a child. This was Cycorax, who was expelled from the North African city of Algiers for practicing sorcery. This damned witch, as Prospero calls her, imprisoned Aerial in a tree until Prospero freed him, but now Aerial must serve him. Aerial complains about, oh gosh, there's still more work to be done. And Prospero turns right round and says, if you don't do what I say, I'm going to pin you in a tree. Now given that he had just liberated Aerial from a cloven pine and he now threatens to lock him up in an oak, it puts Prospero in the unpleasant tyrannical use of magic that Cycorax was. We then meet Cycorax's child, Caliban. In performance, Caliban has been represented in many different ways, as a fish, a dog, an ape, a tortoise, as a devilish creature in red body paint. These representations reflect the Europeans' words in reaction to Caliban and recreate the difference that they are determined to see between themselves and this island inhabitant. But Caliban has also been portrayed as a human who looks no different from the other human characters in the play. Now Miranda and Prospero's words often deny Caliban any humanity. Miranda calls him a savage and refers to his royal race. Prospero calls him a beast, a thing of darkness, and a born devil. Shakespeare's English culture often represented devils as black and sometimes demonized dark skin foreigners. But these terms don't necessarily mean that Caliban isn't human. Prospero and Miranda might represent him, as a European might have represented the indigenous peoples of the Americas as being less than human as monstrous. Later, one of the shipwrecked sailors calls Caliban a monster, but he also calls him an islander and considers exhibiting him in England where he says people pay money to see "a dead Indian". In the late 16th century, Europeans did bring back people from the Americas and display them for a fee. This sailor also says that Caliban is "legged" like a man. Prospero himself says that before they arrived, the island had no human shape except for Caliban. And when Miranda first sees one of the sailors, she says he is the third man that air I saw. The first two are, presumably, her father and Caliban. Caliban's name and history also link him to the Americas. The word "Caliban" seems to rearrange the letters of Cannibal, a term sometimes used to describe native peoples in South America. Caliban speaks of a god named Cetabus, the name of a South American deity. The fact that Caliban's mother, Cicarax, comes from Algiers, links Caliban and the play to Africa. And when Prospero calls Caliban a poisonous slave, this term might have called to mind contemporary European practice. cases of capturing and enslaving Africans. Caliban seems to regard Prospero as a colonizer. He says, "This island is mined by cigarettes, my mother, which thou takes from me." But there was once a gentle parental relationship between Prospero and Caliban, which Caliban describes in moving terms. When thou camest first, thou strobes me and made much of me, what's given me water with berries in it, and teach me how to name the bigger light and how the less. Prospero insists he preted Caliban kindly until Caliban tried to rape Miranda. I have used thee with humane care till thou did seeks to violate the honour of my child. Caliban responds, "Would it have been done? If thou didst prevent me, I had people else this Isle with Caliban's." This event appears to be a painful memory for Miranda, who responds, "A poor enslaved, which any print of goodness will not take." Once she pitted him and taught him as her student, now there is only animosity between them. As Caliban says, "You taught me language and my profit on it is I know how to curse." Nearby, Alonso's son Ferdinand has been washed ashore. He hears Ariel sing a haunting song. Full fathom fives thy father-lives of his bones are choral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes, nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange. The music leads Ferdinand inland where he sees Miranda. Prospero notes that they fall in love at the first sight, just as he'd hoped. Alonso has also been washed ashore with his brother Sebastian, Prospero's brother Antonio, and Gonzalo, Prospero's friend. Alonso is despondent at the loss of both his children. The tempest struck as they were sailing back from North Africa, where Alonso's daughter Claribel married the King of Tunis. Alonso fears he will never see his faraway daughter again. All the sun he presumes drowned. Gonzalo attempts to distract the King by speculating about what he would do if he were King of this deserted island. His description closely echoes an essay by Shakespeare's Contemporary, Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne, the French philosopher, wrote a very famous essay on the cannibals, and Shakespeare was certainly rereading Montaigne at the time he was writing the tempest. And Montaigne is describing the cannibals, the savages of Brazil, and says, "Savages and a clear-cut thing, they seem pretty civilized in terms that we would understand." Montaigne's essay considers how self-styled civilized Europeans can actually be more savage than native Brazilians. Sebastian and Antonio bear out his point. When Ariel lulls everyone else asleep, Antonio suggests that if Alonso were dead, Sebastian would become King of Naples. Just as Antonio deposed his brother Prospero, he'll help Sebastian depose his brother Alonso. But when they draw their swords to kill Alonso, Ariel wakes Gonzalo and thwarts their plot. Meanwhile, Caliban meets Stefano and Trinculo, Alonso's butler and clownish servant. Caliban thinks Stefano is a god of some sort, especially after Stefano gives him liquor to drink. Stefano and Trinculo gloat that they will be kings of the island. Caliban curses Prospero and promises to serve Stefano. "I will kiss thy foot, I pretty be my god." They exit with Caliban chanting, "Freedom, high day, high day, freedom." Just as Caliban is throwing off Prospero's service, Ferdinand is entering it. Ferdinand tests his devotion to Miranda by making him do heavy labour hauling logs. But sweet thoughts of Miranda, says Ferdinand, make his labour's pleasures. While Prospero looks on unseen, Ferdinand pledges to Miranda, "I do love, prize, honor you!" and she promises to be his wife. Echoing the violent plots of Antonio and Sebastian, a drunken Caliban and Stefano plot to kill Prospero. But in the same scene, Ariel's music prompts Caliban to deliver one of the play's most lyrical speeches about the sounds and sweet airs of the island. The Tempest is distinctive among Shakespeare's plays for its many songs and visual spectacles, suggesting it was written for the indoor theatre Black Friars where artificial lighting would help create the play's magic. In 1611, the play was also performed before King James at the Royal Palace of Whitehall the structure of the play is very much conditioned by the potential for indoor theatre performers. When this was played at indoor theatres, there would have been the five or ten minute breaks change the candles after each act. And each act ends with a kind of show-stopping moment of magic. Act 3 ends with some terrifying magic, Prospero's spirits lure Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian with a magical banquet. When they approach, Ariel descends as a harpy, a mythical monster with the head of a woman and the wings and claws of a bird, often sent by the gods to punish transgressors. Ariel declares they will be punished with lingering perdition for what they did to Prospero. You are three men of sin, most unfit to live, I have made you mad. The apparition sends them into distracted, guilty fits. Prospero congratulates Ariel, everything is going according to his plan. My high charms work and these mine enemies now are in my power. Prospero releases Ferdinand from servitude, he has proved his love for Miranda is sincere and Prospero agrees to their marriage. Ariel enters. Like Ferdinand he has been hoping for release from service. He also seems to wonder what his service has won him. Prospero can warns him to summon spirits to perform a mask, a formal pageant involving music, dance and great visual spectacles, often performed at court. Ariel asks with strange poignancy, "Do you love me master?" No, dearly my delicate Ariel says Prospero and the mask of the spirits begins. Court masks were very elaborate, they had massive budgets and they used descending machinery flying characters in and out and disappearing them. And it's important to remember that slight of hand was also used not in upper-class court spectacles but in the fair ground illusionists. So we've got this lovely interpenetration of high culture and low culture in this play. Spirits appear as mythological gods to bless the couple's marriage. Not only Prospero remembers what Ariel told him earlier, but Caliban and his new masters are preparing to kill him. He calls the mask to an abrupt halt and delivers a poetic but troubling speech that ends. We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep. Prospero sends Ariel to torment the conspirators and declares, "At this hour lies at my mercy all mine enemies. He doesn't actually seem to intend any mercy." But then Ariel describes how Alonso and his men are nearly mad with confusion and grief. Prospero's charm afflicts them so greatly that Ariel says, "If you now beheld them, your affections would become tender." Dothal thinks so, spirit, Prospero asks. Ariel replies, "Mine words, sir, were I human?" And Prospero, perhaps to the audience's surprise, perhaps to his own, replies, "And mine shall." You feel at that moment when he decides to go for forgiveness. That is an ad-hulk decision, isn't it? You feel that there has to be a long pause between Ariel saying, "Mine words, sir, were I human?" And Prospero's response, when he just recalibrates everything. I always feel when I see it that that moment takes him by surprise or that that decision has made at that moment. Prospero declares, "The rareer action is in virtue than in vengeance. No release them Ariel, my charms are break their senses I'll restore." These are not the only charms he'll break. He calls the spirits who have served him and given him power, including the power to call the dead out of their graves. and says, "This rough magic I hear of Jew. He will give up his powers." Prospero now reveals himself to Gonzalo, Alonso, Sebastian and Antonio. Prospero tells his brother Antonio, "I do forgive thy rank his fault, but Antonio doesn't reply. He never actually asks for forgiveness or offers apology." Alonso does ask for pardon and restores Prospero's duke to him. Prospero, in turn, restores Alonso's son. He reveals Ferdinand and Miranda, and Miranda exclaims, "Oh, wonder how many goodly creatures are there here! How beautyous mankind is! Oh, brave new world that has such people in it!" Seeing his father is not drowned, Ferdinand rejoices. Though the seas threaten, they are merciful. Alonso, too, is joyful. Ariel brings in Caliban Stefano and Trinculo, after revealing their murderous plot, Prospero hands Stefano and Trinculo over to Alonso, but of Caliban, he says, "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine." He hints that he will pardon Caliban, and Caliban says, "I'll be wise hereafter and seek for grace." Prospero then keeps his promise to Ariel, "Be free and fare thou well." Ariel will escape to the elements, and Prospero will return to Milan, where he says, "Every third thought shall be my grave." Finally, Prospero delivers the epilogue to the audience. We've got this very unusual epilogue. He's saying, "He is now the confined one. Someone who has done all the confining throughout the play, Prospero talks about how trapped he is, and the power we have to release him." By praying, your hands can release me. Prospero ends the play by pardoning others, but in the epilogue he seems to ask the audience to pardon him. "Release me from my bans with the help of your good hands, and my ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer, which pieces so that it assaults mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon me, let your indulgence set me free." In the next episodes, we'll explore where Prospero might need pardon, and why he gave up his magic.