The Tempest

1
The Tempest

• Day One
• ENGL 305
• Dr. Fike

2
Research Paper Drafts

• Portfolios are due on the final day of class.
• Next time I will talk about the abstract
  assignment.
• Do not just run off a clean copy and resubmit the
  draft.
• Make sure that you have sent your paper to
  turnitin.com.
• Really think hard about your papers
  organization.
• Every paper must have a review of previous
  criticism.
• Lower-order stuff see the previous PowerPoint
  (King Lear day 3). But here are the top two
  problems
• Overuse of the word this.
• Passive constructions.

3
Outline

• Day One
• Romance
• Definition
• Bad stuff
• Unities
• Aristotles Poetics
• The Tempest
• Other plays
• The island
• Old world and new world elements
• The storm
• Dualities

4
Outline, continued

• Day Two http//faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses
  /ENGL20305/30520Tempest20handout.htm
• Day Three Theres a handout on the course
  calendar you might use it to prepare for our
  Montaigne activity. (Montaigne is pronounced
  mon-TEN.)

5
Not the Best Definition for Our Purposes

• In common usage, romance refers to works with
  extravagant characters, remote and exotic places,
  highly exciting and heroic events, passionate
  love, or mysterious or supernatural experiences.
  In another and more sophisticated sense, romance
  refers to works relatively free of the more
  restrictive aspects of realistic verisimilitude
  (Harmon and Holman, A Handbook to Literature).

6
A Better Definition of Romance

• Bedford 95 The cardinal feature of the form,
  the key to its emotional power, is the gap
  between the desperate middle and the joyful
  ending.
• POINT A romance has greater tragic potentiala
  greater gapthan a comedy. A comic ending
  asserts itself, but the opposing forces of
  tragedy are stronger. Thus romance is more
  generically complicated than comedy.

7
Grouping

• The Tempest is grouped with Pericles, Cymbeline,
  and The Winters Tale.
• These plays are comedies, but they are different
  from Shakespeares earlier comedies, though they
  were all together AS comedies in the first folio
  (1623).
• Take, for example, A Midsummer Nights Dream, a
  festive comedy (C. L. Barbers term) despite
  the mention of the jaws of darkness (1.1.148),
  its tragic undertones are muted there is very
  little suggestion that any of the characters will
  come to lasting harm.
• In terms of tragic potential, a problem comedy
  is closer to romance than a festive comedy is.

8
Its like a continuum.

• Festive comedy ? problem comedy ? romance
• Festive comedy (least potential for tragedy)
• Problem comedy (greater potential for tragedy)
• Romance (greatest potential for tragedy).
• POINT In romance, the difficulties that
  characters encounter are more challenging.

9
Focused Listing

• What kind of bad stuff is there in The Tempest?
• Write your answers in your notebooks.

10
Possible Answers

• Antonio has overthrown and exiled Prospero.
• Caliban has tried to rape Miranda.
• There are various plots to murder people.
• The closest thing in the comedies we read would
  be Shylocks determination to kill Antonio.

11
POINT

• Harm COULD erupt in this play.

12
Transition

• Although The Tempest is a late play (in fact, the
  last one Shakespeare wrote on his own), it has
  something interesting in common with his first
  play, The Comedy of Errors namely, classical
  unities.

13
The Two/Three Unities from Aristotles Poetics

• ACTION A tragedy is an imitation of an action
  (Bedford Companion 101), and that single action
  has a beginning, middle, and end.
• TIME That action takes place in one 24-hour
  period (a single revolution of the sun). So
  the staging of a play and the time the play
  depicts are roughly equivalent.
• Can you think of a contemporary example?

14
Contemporary Example

• 24 The time it takes to watch the show
  corresponds to the time that the show depicts,
  right?

15
A Third Unity?

• PLACE It follows from limited action and time
  that there must also be unity of place.
• Aristotle does not say anything about place, but
  Italian literary theorists derived it from his
  statements about the unities of action and time.

16
Question

• Do we have the unities in The Tempest?
• Action 1 action with beginning, middle, and
  end?
• Time a single revolution of the sun?
• Place unified setting?

17
Do we have the unities in The Tempest?

• Action YES The multiple plots all fall under
  the rubric of the renewal that Prospero
  engineers. We have a beginning (the
  shipwreck), the long middle (the courtship, the
  plots), and an ending (the comic resolution, the
  reunion).
• Time YES 5.1.135, 188, and 225 (all of these
  refer to three hours)
• ab ovo?
• http//dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archi
  ve/2004/06/25.html
• Retrospective narration (as in the Odyssey).
• Place YES Everything takes place on the
  island. We get references to far-flung places,
  but we do not actually travel there.

18
What about the unities in our other plays?

• Action Time Place
• MSND
• MV
• AYLI
• R2
• 1H4
• Hamlet
• Lear

19
Do you agree?

• Action Time Place
• MSND No Yes No
• MV No No No
• AYLI No No No
• R2 Yes No No
• 1H4 No No No
• Hamlet Yes No Yes
• Lear No No No

20
Other Concepts from Aristotles Poetics

• Fear and pity fear that the same thing will
  befall us, pity for the hero
• Catharsis purgation, cleansing
• Peripety An abrupt or unexpected change in a
  course of events or situation, esp. in a literary
  work it is from the Greek word meaning to
  change suddenly (American Heritage Dictionary).
• Anagnorisis (an-ag-nawr-uh-sis) Discovery or
  recognition that leads to the peripity/reversal.
• Hamartia (hah-mahr-tee-uh ) error (105) or
  mistake it is often mistranslated as tragic
  flaw.
• (The pronunciations comes from dictionary.com.)

21
The Island

• It is located in the Mediterranean Sea note the
  references to Naples (1.2 236, 438), Milan
  (1.2.109), Algiers (1.2.162), Tunis (2.1.73), and
  Carthage (2.1.84).
• But other geographical references relate to the
  new world
• The Bermudas (1.2.230)
• Calibans god, Setebos (SEH-tih-bahs), is a
  Patagonian deity (1.2.376).
• Patagonian reference (2.2.170)
• New world societies (2.1.150ff.the Montaigne
  stuff next slide)

22
More on Montaigne

• Gonzalos speech at 2.1.150ff. regarding an ideal
  commonwealth echoes Montaignes Of Cannibals
  (see Bedford 157).
• Montaigne says that new world societies are
  living in a relatively unfallen state. Gonzalo
  describes just such a state.
• How Shakespeare appropriates Montaignes
  statement is one of our topics for Day Three.

23
The Bermudas

• The play (1611) responds to an event that had
  occurred two years earlier. In 1609, a ship, the
  Sea Venture, went aground on Bermuda. The
  sailors spend the winter there, build another
  ship, and finished their voyage to Virginia.
• In our play, a ship supposedly runs aground, and
  passengers come ashore.
• See 1.2.199 I flamed amazement.

24
Bedford 180-82

• Only upon the Thursday night Sir George
  Summers, being upon the watch, had an apparition
  of a little round light, like a faint star,
  trembling, and streaming along with a sparkling
  blaze, half the height upon the mainmast, and
  shooting sometimes from shroud to shroud,
  tempting to settle as it were upon any of the
  four shrouds and for three or four hours
  together, or rather more, half the night it kept
  with us, running sometimes along the main-yard to
  the very end, and then returning. . . . The
  superstitious sea-men make many constructions of
  this sea-fire, which nevertheless is usual in
  storms. . . . The Italians, and such who lie open
  to the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Sea, call it (a
  sacred Body) Corpo sancto the Spaniards call it
  Saint Elmo, and have an authentic and miraculous
  legend for it.

25
Saint Elmos Fire

• Luminous discharge of electricity extending into
  the atmosphere from some projecting or elevated
  object. It is usually observed (often during a
  snowstorm or a dust storm) as brushlike fiery
  jets extending from the tips of a ship's mast or
  spar, a wing, propeller, or other part of an
  aircraft, a steeple, a mountain top, or even from
  blades of grass or horns of cattle. Sometimes it
  plays about the head of a person, causing a
  tingling sensation. The phenomenon occurs when
  the atmosphere becomes charged and an electrical
  potential strong enough to cause a discharge is
  created between an object and the air around it.
  The amount of electricity involved is not great
  enough to be dangerous. The appearance of St.
  Elmo's fire is regarded as a portent of bad
  weather. The phenomenon, also known as corposant,
  was long regarded with superstitious awe.
• Sourcehttp//www.encyclopedia.com/html/S/StE1lm
  osf.asp

26
St. Elmo Erasmus Patron Saint of Sailors

• Elmo, through Ermo, is an Italian alteration
  of Erasmus, the name of a 4th-century Syrian
  bishop who came to be regarded as the patron
  saint of seamen, and St Elmo's fire was
  attributed to him.
• (This Erasmus is not the Renaissance Humanist
  with the same name.)
• Source http//0-www.xreferplus.com.library.winth
  rop.edu/entry/brewerphrase/elmo_s_fire_st

27
One Explanation of Erasmus as Patron Saint of
Sailors

• A small electrical discharge, with a luminous
  appearance, that is associated with stormy
  weather and seen around the extremities of tall
  objects, such as the tops of trees and mastheads.
  It is caused by ionization of the air in the
  electric field created around sharp projections.
  It is named after St Elmo (otherwise known as St
  Erasmus) who was, according to legend, martyred
  by having his intestines wound out of his body on
  a windlass or capstan. This vaguely nautical
  connection served to make him the patron saint of
  sailors St Elmo's fire was taken as a sign that
  Elmo would protect any vessel that exhibited it.
  
• Source Credo Reference http//0-www.xreferplus
  .com.library.winthrop.edu/entry.do?id3310114hh1
  secid.

28
Another Explanation of Erasmus as Patron Saint of
Sailors

• Erasmus may have become the patron of sailors
  because he is said to have continued preaching
  even after a thunderbolt struck the ground beside
  him. This prompted sailors, who were in danger
  from sudden storms and lightning to claim his
  prayers. The electrical discharges at the
  mastheads of ships were read as a sign of his
  protection and came to be called Saint Elmos
  Fire.
• Source of this slide and the next
  http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_of_Formiae

29
(No Transcript)
30
Question

• Where have you encountered St. Elmos fire
  elsewhere in literature?

31
Moby Dick, Chapter 119 The Candles

• Look aloft! cried Starbuck. The St. Elmos
  Lights (corpus sancti) corposants holy body!
  The corposants!
• All the yard-arms were tipped with pallid fire
  and touched at each tri-pointed lightning-rod-end
  with three tapering white flames, each of the
  three tall masts was silently burning in that
  sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers
  before an altar.
• Blast the boat! Let it go! cried Stubb at
  this instantand immediately shifting his tone,
  he criedThe corposants have mercy on us all!

32
Example of St. Elmos Fire

• http//youtube.com/watch?v6rAX0YR0wvs
• https//www.google.com/search?qst.elmo'sfirerl
  z1T4MXGB_enUS593US594sourcelnmstbmischsaXe
  i1rNwVOWiBcjgsASWxoCgBQved0CAkQ_AUoAgbiw1920
  bih846facrc_imgdii_imgrccIffxaAey7PF7M253A
  3BA9YIhtuDrMl9GM3Bhttp253A252F252Fi.ytimg.com
  252Fvi252FzyWX3VRsk38252Fmaxresdefault.jpg3Bht
  tp253A252F252Fwww.youtube.com252Fwatch253Fv2
  53DzyWX3VRsk383B12803B720

33
The Movie

• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0090060/?ref_ttexst_e
  xst_tt
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo27s_Fire_28
  film29
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo27s_Fire_28
  film29mediaviewer/FileSt_elmo27s_fire.jpg

34
The Point

• Shakespeares borrows from Sir William Stracheys
  A True Reportory of the Wreck and Redemption of
  Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, upon and from the
  Islands of the Bermudas, His coming to Virginia,
  and the Estate of That Colony.
• Shakespeare lived during the age of exploration
  and expansion The Tempest reflects this quite
  nicely.
• Also, this borrowing clearly illustrates the
  historicity of texts that we discussed last time.

35
Still More New World References

• POINT It is possible to read Caliban as a native
  American.
• 2.2.33 dead Indian
• Stephano and Trinculo introduce Caliban to
  whiskey, much as the Europeans introduced the
  Native Americans to it.
• (Anyone working on Caliban-as-Native-American
  should feel free to chime in.)
• Caliban as an African slave?

36
Part of Sally Shaders Introduction

• When drunken buffoons Stephano and Trinculo give
  Caliban his first taste of liquor in The Tempest,
  it is symbolic of the first time a European
  colonist gives alcohol to a Native American in
  the New World. Linking Caliban to native
  Americans is nothing new, but the role of alcohol
  in this connection has yet to be sufficiently
  explored. While Calibans drunken actions are
  somewhat exaggerated portrayals of what really
  happened in the Americas, this only highlights
  the negative role that alcohol has played in the
  Native American community. The interpretation of
  Caliban as a Native American thus reflects issues
  that these oppressed peoples, past and present,
  have experienced with alcohol.
• The liquor is not earthly The Tempest and the
  Downfall of Native Americans, The Oswald Review
  11 (2009) 23-36.

37
Harold Bloom, Shakespeare The Invention of the
Human 663

• Interpretations of Caliban a snail on all
  fours, a gorilla, the Missing Link or ape man,
  and at last . . . a Neanderthal . . . Java Mana
  South American Indian field hand . . . Caliban
  and Ariel, both black slaves.
• Fashions tire the early twenty-first century
  may still have mock scholars moaning about
  neocolonialism, but I assume that by then Caliban
  and Ariel will be extra-terrestrialsperhaps they
  already are.

38
Digression

• Colonial literature celebrates the colonizers
  domination of a foreign people. Postcolonial
  literature is the colonized peoples reply to
  colonial oppression and their attempt to rebuilt
  or resurrect their own culture.
• POINT Prospero is to colonialism as Caliban is
  to postcolonialism. In other words, Caliban
  replies to colonialism (Prosperos colonizing
  emphasis) Shakespeare provides a postcolonial
  voice within a narrative that has a colonial
  emphasis.
• 1.2.334-35 This islands mine, by Sycorax my
  mother, / Which thou takst from me. (But what
  is the qualification here? See 1.2.265ff.)
• 1.2.366-67 You taught me language, and my
  profit on t / Is I know how to curse.
• 1.2.299 Ariel says, I will be correspondent to
  command.

39
Summary

• Shakespeare preserves the unities.
• The play is laced with old and new world
  references.
• Therefore, it is a place of the imagination like
  the forests in MSND and AYLI or the Bohemian sea
  coast in The Winters Tale.

40
The Storm

• Watch video clip.
• What points arise from this scene?

41
Possible Points about the Storm

• The storm enables Shakespeare to present an image
  of men in society and the disorder that attends
  their interactionchaos, struggle, quarrel,
  prayer, terror, helplessness.
• The storm brings all men down to the same level,
  the level of survival What cares these roarers
  for the name of king? (1.1.16-17). Cf. Lear on
  the heath.
• Point The ship of state is an appropriate
  emblem of the state from which Prospero has been
  exiled. This is the image of humanity on which
  his magic will work.
• The ship may also be an image of Prosperos
  psyche. Anger? Revenge?
• Karma?
• Analogies?
• Antonios plot to kill Gonzalo and Alonso.
• Calibans plot to kill Prospero with the help of
  Stephano and Trinculo.

42
Point Dualities

• Storm yields to calm.
• Storm and calm are one of the plays dualities.
• What others do you find? Make a list for next
  time.
• END