ACT 4 Flashcards
ILLUSION/GENDER AND POWER: The Masque, Juno
“Honour, riches, marriage - blessing”
- IAMBIC TETRAMETER: music as a symbol of HARMONY
DIVINE INVOCATION
“Increase (…) plenty (…) clust’ring (…) growing”
- POLITICAL ALLEGORY - union brings a lot, stability in a time of instability (like audience who have lived in reign of Elizabeth (instability) to James (stability))
- Fertility of Miranda’s body
- Pastoral imagery of growth
- PLANT SEEDS OF POLITICAL STABILITY FOR THE FUTURE
ILLUSION AND MAGIC/TRASIENCE/ POWER- Prospero’s insubstantiality speech
ACT 4.1
“Cloud-capped towers (…) dissolve (…) insubstantial (…) sleep”
No matter how far we strive, we are temporary, power and magic is temporary
Transience of human hope
GENDER AND POWER: What does Prospero say about Miranda’s virginity?
4.1
“If thou dost break her virgin-knot before (…) No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall / To make this contract grow; but barren hate”
Exposes inherent fiction of masque, where gentleness and civility elide the darker forces of sexual desire and patriarchal control
Prospero language of commonality: MARRIAGE/UNITY
“My gift (…) worthily purchased, take my daughter (…) to make this contract grow”
Legally binding, DYNASTIC marriage, quantifies Miranda, language of commodity
Importance of innocence
“If thou dost break her virgin-knot before all sanctimonious ceremonies (…) hate (…) discord (…) loathly”
Miranda is EXCRIBED
The masque
Allegorical climax of the play
Allegory for RIGHT RULE, or GOOD GOVERNMENT AND STABLE STATE
SEXUALITY and MARRIAGE
“Mars’s hot minion is returned again”
- its about venus
- venus and Cupid are personifications of erotic love and passion, and can corrupt them
PEJORATIVE CONNOTATION, Moral laxity, critiques relation
Sensuality and passion have the potential for chaos
Language of increase and growth
“Honour, riches marriage-blessing”
“Increase (…) plenty (…) vines (…) clustering (…) growing (…) bowing (…) spring”
Caliban in charge
“Be patient (…) be quiet (…) no noise (…) do that (…) let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.”
Takes charge, gives them advice
At drunkenness begins to see they’re fools
Speaks in verse
Revenge and punishment
“Fury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there! Hark, hark!
Prospero says this
“Go charge my goblins that they grand their joints with dry convulsions (…) with aged cramps”
Rhotic sounds
Punishment, not bad in exchange for murder plot
Murder DISSOLVED into SLAPSTICK COMEDY
