• Tempest--1611

• "ripeness is all" end of Lear....suggestion of process; applicable to old age...all and nothing...moving toward death and conclusion; end of performance; atmosphere of Tempest: performance and aftermath; last hurrah; folding up the wagon; the finale; end in sight; project gathering to a head (p. 108)

• coming to the end of quarter--last complete play

• first in folio; occasional piece in honor of wedding; like MND,

• genre of Romance--three other last plays--the notion of loss and finding--fairy tale; happy ending; comedy; recognition and reversal

× Pericles, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale

× entertainment; commedia dell arte; masque; spectacle; fairy tale; voyages, monsters, exotic times and places

× incredible plots; thinner characterizations; symbolic richness; density of language; very rich symbols: storm, rainbow, sea, bottle

× tragicomedy: Shakespeare's ripeness--second childhood; fantasy; naivete--wonder

× post-tragic perspective and tone--Prosperoremeptive hope: -the ending of Lear we hope for; a better world; all our trials were redeemed and for a purpose; from Erikson's despair to wisdom; acceptance; patience; Providence brought us ashore (I,i); themes of deliverance:

× Lear's central place is tempest; here tempest moves to calm seas; Tempest I,i--all characters at point of death; kissing it off; passes on to "not a hair lost" (39) "no harm done" (41) "seas threaten" (p. 115)

× themes of loss and being found--Perdita

× miracles and magic; "most high miracles" (115)witches and wizards and gods and magic pageants and strange creatures; world of imagination; island world; second world

× redemptive happy endings--Prospero...hope; Edgar's sense of promise in affliction; father finding son; son finding father, all finding themselves--Gonzalo in V(116)--vs. Alonso's hopelessness and Antonio's hope and Caliban's--cf. Edmund and Edgar

× story of the Sea Venture in the Bermudas--magical deliverance; paradaisal world--from Greenblatt--different responses; they wanted to stay; Utopia

× atmosphere of wonder-- strangeness of island

× Miranda=wonder, Ferdinand; Gonzalo, Alonso;

× are people gods or spirits or monsters--(76) Caliban and Trinculo (p. 56-7 Miranda/Ferd)

× non-comparison

× dreams, sleep, awakening; visions; pageants; revels; the great globe (92-5)--theatrical spectacle

× second world...discovery voyages--p.93-4--anthropophagi; Of Cannibals; The Island--lush and lusty (Gonzalo) Golden age, fresh garments; Caliban's island; Antonio's island; Ferdinand's music island -p.91; wonder as fear, delight, awe, curiousity; encounter with the other

× the sea; transformation; sea-change; ebbing and flowing--mental and physical (56)

• Relation to all the world's a stage--ages of man-- schema as a key?

× summation of previous plays

× RJ: love vs. society; generational strife

× MND: Appearance and Reality; dream and imagination; awakening and sleeping

× IHIV: usurpation and freedom; politics and class: authority and transformation and succession; prince and king; plots and deceptions; rebellion and honor--e.g. I'll lick your foot; Stephano as king; antonio's peers become slaves when you're king; following a drummer--III,ii

× TN: Revelations; Carnivalesque; Love as wonder and madness; music

× MM: Justice and Mercy; restraint and licence; temptation and self discovery "who I am"; forgiveness; Prospero's vulnerability and removal of cloak; rarer action in virtue than in vegeance--V

× KL: retirment; love and power; relinquishing and passage toward death; despair vs. wisdom; ripeness; the gods and providence; regeneration; psychology of age; clothing and removal: contrast Lear and Prospero--same actor; both cantankerous; both in love with daughter; both facing retirement and death; unburdening; Prospero does of his own volition what Lear goes mad doing.

× Beyond Ripeness:

× what's after old age? Prospero's not old, but what's he doing that's beyond Lear? Telling story of my life; completing picture. Crawling unburdened toward death; ripeness; letting go; relinquishing power and hold; how would it be accomplished comically--handing over world properly to properly prepared next generation: for better and worse. 115. handing over kingdoms; tis new to thee; old bowing to young and yet guiding young; the good parent; second life; second father; marriage sanctified; a new life; most high miracle; brave new world; tis new to thee

× Lear and Cordelia in the cage: pastoral paradise of father--here realized and relinquished; first father who willingly lets go; liberation; problem is to leave behind the best thing that you can--to those who'll experience a Brave New World

× loss of Children--Alonso loses two (114)

• Where's it start and where's it going; diagram of plot?

× cf. Frye's idea: education, redemption, change--growth and release

slavery and liberation

× an ordeal, a search, a rite of passage, a release; rescue

× project gathering to a head; Prospero's grand plan; control of all plots; interweaving and interconnection of plots--wonderful moment of revelation, reversal and recognition; intimation of immortality

× The four plots

× The Lords

× background 44-5

× meeting and conspiracy --test 72-3

× feast ordeal vision 96

× awakening 112

× Low Life

× Caliban background 53

× meeting; test 81

× conspiracy 86--vision

× attack and reversal-ordeal 105-6

× judgement and redemption 118-120

× The lovers

× first meeting 57

× ordeal and test 85

× the pageant--vision 98-102

× judgment and reward--playing chess 115

× Prospero and Ariel--save for last day

× background: neglect and exile 43-7; the duke, magician and schoolmaster

× my slave, my foot --anxiety 53, 59

× wistful--85

× in my power 95

× my promise--the pageant 99-103; broken off; amiable to Ariel

× conversion and release; forgiveness 108-9

× abjuring magic 109; release Ariel

× undoing clothing 111

× forgiving and confession 112

× loss 114

× forgive Caliban 119

× story of life and death; draw near 121

× further stripping; actor and human; in epilogue

• What's it about? --mystery and magic; magic for the renaissance; Dr. Faustus and Pico della Mirandola; Giordano Bruno; liberal arts; the book and the staff; library as dukedom

× authority and rebellion; authority and legitimacy; order to disorder to restoration of order.

× Who is Prospero; how do we respond to him--multiple interpretations--positive or negative?

× re: Ariel

× the artist as magician--power; the imagination--MND

× illusion and reality--magic power; spiritual power of imagination, pageantry, morality. Harnessed; resided in the island originally--air and spirit vs. fish and water of Caliban

× failures of humanism--vita-activa and contemplativa

× the teaching feast and sermon in act III, the pageant in act IV, the play of forgiveness and return in V

× re: Caliban--colonizer

× politics and psychology: the state and soul hierarchy

× nature and nurture--the Sepulveda view of Caliban

× Montaignian critique of European imperialism--quote in Signet

× use of religion in colonization: Be my god--to the bottle; man in moon; I'll kiss thy foot

× slavery and freedom--willing and unwilling

× the colonial enterprise: humanism and its limitations; departure from the new world and leaving the natives alone; a fantasy of decolonization and leaving them alone; mastery of Caliban abandoned in favor of self-mastery; the real intractability is in Antonio and Sebastian

× re: the Italians

× politics (IHIV, etc)--rightful king and restoration of usurped order; "realism"--Antonio's world of perception: there is no conscience; man =dirt (II,i); death =sleep

× re: Miranda

× family and gender--fathers and daughters and husbands

• Central concept/word-pair: Freedom and Slavery; Liberty and Imprisonment

• Central metaphor: The Island--no man is island; all characters have different ideas of the island and who inhabits it and how they can rule it; cf. Sancho's Island--he wants to be ruler of it--Gilligan's Island

× Prospero's Island--his library and his relationship with Miranda, Caliban and Ariel

• Question of class and control

• Scene/Act Outline [add plot elements from IV and V]

• I,i--confusion, tempest--in nature; in society--royals and sailors have confused hierarchical relation; "what cares these roarers for the name of king"--"Use your authority" (39) "All lost"--Lear on the heath

× transition: the tempest is illusory; to the level of producer and spectator

• I,ii --Prospero gains control over all offspring and minions in revolt

× Miranda's pity and revolt against father; desire for power

P. lays down robe; her response is time for revelation; things begin to converge in his plan; no perdition; loss redeemed; time is now; ripeness of moment of revelation of who she is

× Prospero tells story, trying to keep her attentive; she falls asleep

× Ariel reports in; complains about more work; Prospero reminds him of his past and reestablishes his control with legitimating narrative and threats; issue is imprisonment and liberty; Ariel imprisoned in tree; Ariel concedes

× M. wakes; P. forces her to visit Caliban. A necessary slave for fetching wood and profits. C's recalcitrance; P's torture; C's claim of being trapped and enslaved; Prospero's story of good will and teaching and C's betrayal with attempt on M.'s honor; M. repulsed. Confined in rock, C. accedes to P's command and hauls more wood.

× Prospero taught him language: I endowed thy purposes with words that made them known (55) C: You taught me language, and my profit on't/ is I know how to curse

× P. getting control of Ferdinand, who assumes that he is king

× Ariel's music; F's wonder; M's wonder--thinking each other divine

× [Prospero delighted with A's work]; P. sees them fall in love; "This swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning/Make the prize light. (59); falsely accuses and threatens F. , immobilizes him with magic

× Miranda tries to defend F. , who finds liberty in this prison (60)

• III,i: The Lords--aborted conspiracy and rebellion

× Alonso: searching for son griefstricken

× Gonzalo and Adrian: the virtuous optimist and loyal counsellor (he was in on plot)--wonder at landing in pastoral paradise, utopia; innocence and wonder; makes impossible easy ( l. 92); seeks to assuage the king's grief

× his utopian scheme--golden age; innocence, idleness, liberty, no sovereignty NB; nature vs. art and civilization--pastoral (67)

× Sebastian and Antonio: opposite--cynical commentary; wits; staleness of language and perception; interrupt, sidetrack, and mock discourse; rubs pain and guilt into the king; sees Utopians as whores and knaves

× what is the issue about Carthage and Tunis and widow Dido?

× This world of "nothing" evoked by island--Outopia-- described by G. to distract the king, who wont be consoled

× Gonzalo, then Alonso fall asleep to Ariel's music; Ant. Seb. stay awake and plot--their imagination sees crown as opposed to Gonzalo's; an alternate Utopia or "nothing"; for them--in witrty exchange--dreaming is plotting (70).

× terms of persuasion: there is no conscience; sleeping man is like dead man is like earth (false analogy; lacking imagination; weak perception); whole series of rhetorical fallacies persuading Sebastian to usurp and kill: (71-3); cynical about possible survival of Prince

× Ariel rescues G. and A. by awakening G. just in time

• II, ii--The Clowns-- plan conspiracy and rebellion

× Caliban suffering; Trinculo seeking shelter from storm; both, like Miranda and Ferd. mistake each other--Cal for fishman; trinc. for spirit--strong social satire; his suffering and his humiliation--do not torment me, prithee; Ill bring my wood home faster (73)

× Stephano with bottle, drunk, singing dirty sailor song; both he and Trinculo want to make profit on the monster; their recognition and feeding C. liquor "kiss the book"; getting drunk by the moon; men and monsters; base behavior

× Caliban asks Steph and Trinc. to be his gods; will kiss their foot [the Cortes story] and show them the delights of the land--Steph and Trinc. want to be king and inherit--Cal. sings of freedom (195)

× concepts of power: sovereignty and divinity--everybody wants to be king--freedom; sovereignty

• III,i: TOTAL CONTRAST AND SIMILARITY

× Low characters seeking to move upward and find freedom in rebellion; High characters seeking to move downward and find freedom in servitude. Both, however, are drunk, and both are prostrating themselves to "gods"; and both are carrying out Prospero's design

× Love scene: Ferd and Mir. Prospero secretly looking on and delighting; he engineers their obstacle; love is their own; mutual servitude and humility vowed to one another; courtly service, servant, serviteur; she wants to carry for him and vice versa. cf. Lear and Cordelia kneeling to each other. Miranda proposes; both find freedom in this bondage; royalty in this baseness l. 65,88

• III,ii: Caliban's conspiracy

× acting drunk; earthy fun; Caliban is mocked as a savage, but plays the clever Antonio. First he says nothing but sets up Stephano as lord and gets him and Trinculo jealous, using courtly flattery--no savage; and then plans conspiracy against Prospero. Ariel also tricking Caliban; rebellion within rebellion--cf. HIV

× Books are C's source of power--get them

× get him in sleep--nail in head

× C's desire for revenge--when Prospero is destroyed; his utopia

× singing and dancing: "thought is free"

× free music and dreams (91)--they follow Ariel's tabor, enjoying the sound

× just as Ferdinand follows the sound of Ariel in I,ii

× All characters hear music of their dreams; all have fantasies of fulfillment: "Isle is full of noises that hurt not and give delight"

• III, iii:

× Gonzalo fatigued; Alonso without hope

× Ant. and Seb. have hope for conspiracy tonight

× Banquet set out by strange creatures; Lords bewondered and bewildered; all will now believe all superstitions; start to eat; and then harpy-Ariel spoils feast and preaches, invoking "the powers, delaying, not forgetting."

× this is Prospero's speech; attempt to make them recognize sin-- after being made to wonder, desire and be frustrated--and to repent--"You men of sin." P. has them "in his power" now; pleased with Ariel's work; leaves them now, frozen [play within play as play]; Prospero using spectacle and power to get revenge and repentance; perhpas repentance through revenge/punishment (p. 95)

× Gonzalo interprets all this as the working of conscience and great guilt

• analysis of II,ii

• bottle as central prop--alcohol as lingua franca; a god; source of all order and meaning

× cloud like bombard

× rescued by butt

× confers language

× heals ague

× provides allegiance

• progress of creation of human society from "nothing"

× building up of family from solitude--Caliban as child; Trinculo being born; Caliban venting him; familial tensions

× building state: class structure; bootlicking; Stephano as king, Trinculo as bearer/ distributor; Caliban as producer

× building religion--man in moon

• issues of allegiance: attitude toward Prospero--cf. Duke in MM

• his virtues, vices and progress

× uses of temptation and deception and control; how like God?

• defense of Caliban and the other members of the underclass; read Montaigne and the support material

× attack on anti-feminism

• plays within plays; the theme of theatre and magic

• the concept of slavery and freedom:

• contrast Caliban's movement from slavery to false freedom in II,ii, to freedom in slavery in II, iii

• issue of freedom and slavery as central chapter in European history of 16th and 17th c. ; demonstrated in questions about men and monsters

• Prospero's freedom

• freedom from demands of successful career

• freedom from demands of his roles; incredible constraint of theatre and of rule.

• Shakespeare's freedom of mind--to see everything from every point of view and to be constrained by no single vision

• human freedom a la Pico della Mirandola--to create the human; self-fashioning, role-playing; existence preceding essence