In observance of the birthday of William Shakespeare who was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford on the river Avon in England, we revisit one of his great plays, The Tempest. This is a fitting and hopefully helpful exercise since the play is being studied for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exam.
It is of interest that the National Drama Company (NDC), the professional performing arm of Guyana’s National School of Drama, annually performed one of the plays on the CSEC syllabus for the enlightenment of secondary school students and the general public. Among those they performed was The Tempest directed by Esther Hamer and Bruce. COVID-19 pandemic conditions have taken a great toll on this annual practice since stage performances are under temporary prohibition, but the NDC seems to be still planning a presentation via video.
In the meantime, who was Shakespeare? His biography never ceases to be interesting because there might be as many myths about his private life as there are known facts. It was established by factual evidence, however, that his parents enjoyed some privilege in social background, since his mother Mary Arden, as literary historian Harold Jenkins phrased it, “came of an old Warwickshire family possessed of some landed property,” and his father John Shakespeare of Stratford, was “of some eminence in the affairs of the town”. He rose “to the highest civic office of Bailiff in 1568”, and although he had a decline in financial fortunes in 1578, his “gentility succeeded in obtaining for his family the dignity of a coat of arms in 1596”.
This level of social stature allowed William to get the best secondary education available at the most prestigious and “reputable grammar school” in Avon. He made the best of it as reflected in his wide reading and sound education. He married Anne Hathaway when he was 18, and later went to London where he joined the theatre. One of his great attributes is that he started this career as an actor and therefore learnt drama from practice, unlike many of his contemporaries, and rose as a playwright and poet through a very thorough knowledge of the stage. He outstripped them all, becoming the best and most successful director, producer and part owner of a theatre company and a playhouse called The Globe. His fame and success were acknowledged by his contemporaries, even those who despised him, like Robert Greene, and who were clearly no friends of his like Ben Jonson.
The Elizabethan era was the greatest for the development of theatre and poetry in the Renaissance and it was the rise of the playwrights and poets that helped to make it great. While most of those contemporaries excelled in one, sometimes two types of plays, comedies or tragedies, Shakespeare was outstanding in both as well as others in which he was clearly innovative. Drama at the time was largely derived from the Classics and there was a great deal of conventionality and borrowing among writers. Shakespeare was original to the point of developing what came to be called Shakespearean Tragedy, Shakespearean Comedy, Shakespearean Sonnet as well as other types of plays – Roman, Histories, and Romance. Ben Jonson, who controversially described him as having “small Latin and less Greek”, made that statement in a poem in praise of his rival, and elsewhere wrote that Shakespeare’s plays demonstrated a reflection of contemporary taste and fashion. But, he said, it went further than that because it was “not only of an age, but for all time”. Indeed, the truth of that can be seen in the strength of his work up to the present time.
The Tempest
The Tempest was among Shakespeare’ last, and is even regarded as one in which he was saying farewell to the stage. It was first performed on November 1, 1611. Prominent in this drama is the use and presence of magic, and Prospero the magician is regarded as Shakespeare himself whose great skill at art is seen as magical. The great superhuman arts of Prospero are metaphors for the playwright’s theatrical achievements, the wonders he created on the stage and the mesmerising power and beauty of his poetry. It has been widely repeated that Prospero’s speech at the end of The Tempest when he explains to the bewildered company (or audience) that all the fantastic things that they saw were all created by him with the help of Ariel was Shakespeare himself speaking. He used his magic and said:
“the strong based promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar. Graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped and let ‘em forth
By my so potent art.”
This could well have been Shakespeare talking about all he had done on stage, the magic of his theatre and his poetry. He then said that having achieved his purpose, which was to get back his dukedom, he could put the magical practice to rest.
The quote, “But this rough magic / I here abjure/ . . . I’ll break my staff /. . . I’ll drown my book” could be Shakespeare metaphorically referring to his dramatic and literary work. He was retiring from the theatre. Indeed, throughout the play he made many references to theatre and the theatrical. He put on a show for Prince Ferdinand who was dismayed, and at the end he explained:
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air”
The lines, “Now my charms are all o’erthrown”; “Now I want / Spirits to enforce, art to enchant” are references both to the magic of Prospero in the play, and to himself as playwright, and performer.
He continued this reference to the theatre in the epilogue, spoken by Prospero, who asks the audience to release him. “But release me from my bands / With the help of your good hands”.
He ends by saying, “As you from crimes would pardoned be / Let your indulgence set me free.” This is an appeal to the audience, asking for their applause and their appreciation of the performance.
The Tempest has a main theme of usurpation. Prospero, Duke of Milan, is kidnapped and cast away at sea with his daughter Miranda by his brother Antonio who steals the dukedom. Prospero is exiled on a little island on which he finds Caliban and the spirit Ariel, both of whom he makes his servants. Many years later, when King Alonso of Naples and Antonio are passing in a ship he uses his powerful magic to create a tempest which lands them on the island, believing that they are shipwrecked. Prospero contrives to have the Prince Ferdinand marry Miranda and seize his dukedom back.
In crafting this theme, Shakespeare made Prospero the hero of the play and a victim of unlawful seizure of power, which, by right, he contrives to regain and triumph over the villain, his brother Antonio. But he employs irony, as well as the use of sub-plots. It is ironic that while Prospero seeks justice and triumph over evil, he himself is guilty of usurpation. When he arrives on the island, he conquers it, enslaving Caliban who is the rightful owner. The play is famous as a statement on colonization and enslavement, conquest and unlawful seizure of power. There is a response to colonization by the two servants. Ariel is cooperative and willing in service to his master because Prospero had in fact, freed him from the prison into which he was locked by Sycorax, mother of Caliban. On the other hand, Caliban rebels and resists both enslavement and the seizure of power by Prospero.
Shakespeare was a master at the use of sub-plots. These are secondary stories which run alongside the main plot and are usually reflections of it or critical comments on it. In this case there are two sub-plots. One is the attempt by King Alonso’s brother Sebastian in league with Antonio to kill the king and usurp the crown of Naples. Ferdinand is heir to the throne, but they believe he was drowned in the shipwreck and safely out of the way. The second sub-plot is the attempt by Caliban to enlist the help of the drunken servants Trinculo and Stephano to overthrow Prospero, free himself from slavery and install Trinculo as ruler of the island.
What comes out most sharply in the scheme to overthrow the king is villainy, greed and treachery. The attempt is defeated by the power of Prospero’s magic and the king escapes assassination. At the same time Caliban’s attempt evokes humour. It is clumsy and amateurish and his serious and perhaps justified wish to claim his right, end conquest and colonisation is frustrated by his drunken and incompetent conspirators and they are eventually thwarted by Ariel.
Such a sub-plot is a commentary on the main plot because of the ironies. The farce and the awkward blunders of the plotters reflect the corruption, the lack of morality and greed of the main characters in the play who are expected to be of a higher calibre than the menials. Yet we find them – Sebastian and Antonio – to be lower than Caliban because of their villainy and their lack of the nobility that they are expected to exhibit.
This will bring us to the theme of nurture vs nature that is played out. The overriding, superficial view of Caliban is of a monster – an ill-formed being capable of no softer or noble human feelings or character – a creature who is so base by nature that no amount of nurturing, teaching and good treatment can reform. He is incapable of learning and of civilized behaviour. The play, however, shows us how that is false.
In spite of his outburst when he says, “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”, Shakespeare gave Caliban some of the most beautiful lines in the play. This also comes over when he describes how Miranda was kind and taught him “how to name the bigger light nd how the less”. Even more musical is his speech about “The isle is full of noises”.
Although The Tempest is counted as a comedy, it is one of those reflecting Shakespeare’s innovation and originality. It is also classified a romance. Like most of the comedies, it has a main plot in the romance between Ferdinand and Miranda, which makes it a romantic comedy. But it is more, because it belongs to the later plays in which Shakespeare developed preoccupations that created more complex and controversial plays than the comedies. Most of these plays have a darker side, and some are also called Problem Plays.
