Tempest Critics Flashcards
THe other and language
“The whole sense of Caliban being taught language is cultural.”
“Caliban is ‘the other’ and Prospero has power over him through language’.
-Cicily Berry
John Dryden who adapted the Tempest for a Comedy
calls Caliban
“a convenient proportion of the deadly sins; gluttony, sloth and lust are manifest; the dejectedness of a slave is likewise given him”
“his language is as hobgoblin as his person”
Prospero is not a colonial ruler
“Prospero has the marks of a colonial ruler, but he has not settled on his island voluntarily, and he leaves it at the first opportunity.” -Anthony Miller
CAliban is not a colonial subject
Caliban…classed as a nonhuman monster, to whom the concept of colonialization
would not apply.” -Anthony Miller
disagree
Difference between PRospero’s and Caliban’s curses
‘Prospero’s “magic,” the play’s code for technology, means that his threats will succeed, whereas Caliban’s curses are empty.’
Caliban is a product of an encounter of two different cultured
“Caliban’s conduct is the result of a cultural encounter in which he is disadvantaged.” -Anthony Miller
(slave, rapist, drunkard, outcome of encountering a more powerful culture with different customs)
In what way are Shakespeare’s last fou plays comedies
all are comedies in the formal sense in that they end not in death but in the happiness of reunions and/or promised marriages.
In what ways is the Tempest a romance
“The dissonances are resolved into harmony;”
“they tell of the blessedness of the forgiveness of injuries; they show how the broken bonds between heart and heart may be repaired and reunited; each play closes with a victory of love.”
-Edward Dowden:
The actual tempest and romance
Storm and shipwreck are the trigger of romance, but here they are simply illusion, a vanity of Prospero’s art. -Michael O’Connell
When Ariel tells Prospero to yield to forgiveness
essentially, the ethos of romance – in spite of the fact that not all
the characters are certain to respond to his proffered forgiveness.
-Michael O’Connell
What does the Calribel story do to Prospero
“It undermines Prospero’s authority and stage-management.” -Richard JAcobs
‘by accident most strange, bountiful Fortune… hath mine enemies/Brought to this shore’. But it’s not an accident at all: it’s Alonso’s decision to impose the King of Tunis on his daughter that has brought Prospero’s enemies to this shore. Moreover, Prospero, who apparently knows everything, shows no awareness or knowledge of the Claribel story. The effect of this is to cast another ironic note, one that makes Prospero, in this matter at least, less often ‘all-powerful authority’ and more ‘victim of circumstance’.
In what way is Prospero the “victim of circumstance”
“he’s the victim of one crucial circumstance above all: the fact that his daughter has grown up and he has to lose/loose her to another man. And he can’t do anything about it. “His ignorance of the Claribel story is an emblem of that inability.” -Richard Jacobs
(we can hear a father trying to tell his daughter that she must now at last know him properly, now before it’s too late.
‘Tis time/I should inform thee farther’ and, ten lines later, ‘Sit down. For thou must now know farther’.)
In what way are Ferdinand and Miranda healers of the Alonso Prospero situation.
Both have virtuous children who will redeem them and dissolve enmity between them with marriage. Shakespeare, in his last plays, seems to inscribe hope for the world in the younger generation’
-Matt Simpson,
theme of generational conflict and its resolution
This emphasis on the resolution of generational conflict is clearly a running theme of the romances, as Shakespeare dramatises the handover of power and responsibility from one generation to the next.
-Philip Allan
Prospero’s magic is evil
“as damnable as the blackest witchcraft, and his only hope of salvation lies in their renunciation and a return to a life of prayer and faith in the forgiveness and mercy of God.” -Anthony Harris
