Michael:

I suspect Sh. has Ben Jonson in mind in that opening scene. He usually, it seems to me, begins a play with a conversation, maybe with just a couple of characters, that develops the situation that immediately follows. By contrast, Ben often starts with something big and noisy, characters arguing about something, shouting. Of course Sh. certainly is joking about or with Ben and the unities several times in “The Tempest” as Prospero, and maybe Ariel, ask what time it is, calling attention to the fact that things are taking place within an allowed single time period. And of course the action all follows the unity of place, everything within walking distance on the island.

Clearly “A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard” and the shouting of the bosun and master and mariners are a loud, boisterous opening, even before the gentles come in and start shouting at the bosun and he at them. Of course the basic point of the argument is human value in the present moment; the gentles are useless, in the way, and only the sailors are of use in the crisis. Perhaps the bosun wants to heave-to (“bring her to try”) with the main sail (“course” is the basic sail on the main- and fore-masts, the largest sail) to stop the ship’s progress. Lowering the topmast might give the ship more stability, a lower center of gravity, but it seems a futile maneuver at this point. Then the bosun orders the main and foresail set to try to sail off the lee shore. Obviously Sh. knows something about sea-going terminology, even if the maneuvers aren’t effective. And it all ends in the cries of shipwreck, Antonio cursing the sailors as drunkards. Of course the competence of the sailors will soon prove moot when we learn the actual cause of the shipwreck.

The most effective staging I’ve seen had everyone swaying in unison against the assumed movement of the ship/stage, until the audience almost felt seasick. The playing time I think would be much longer than it takes in reading, giving a sense of presumed danger and tragedy to contrast with the scene immediately following. Miranda reacts as if she has seen the tragic scene we saw, and Prospero’s calm becomes strange until he enters the lengthy exposition. I wonder if Prospero’s seemingly impatient reminders to Miranda (“Dost thou attend me?”, “Thou attend’st not”, “Dost thou hear?”) are given to characterize him as a somewhat fussy and schoolmasterly father, or whether they’re meant, perhaps amusingly, for the audience, who also have to take in a good deal of exposition. Of course her lesson isn’t the end of the exposition, and successively we have back stories that involve Ariel and Caliban.

It’s an extraordinarily long scene, though broken up into Miranda, Ariel, Caliban, then Ferdinand sections. And all of it develops sides of Prospero.

Dusty:

You bring a mariner’s knowledge to the details of the opening scene. The maneuvers don’t save the ship, but maybe the mariners could not: the ship was doomed by magic. I like your point about the contrasting ways in which Shakespeare and Jonson like to begin a play. (It has set me trying to think of a Shakespeare play that begins with action. What about “Macbeth”?) Yes, Antonio curses the sailors, but by the end of the scene do we not sense a difference between him and Sebastian (who will emerge as more villainous)? Antonio says loyally “Let’s all sink wi’ the King” and Sebastian says, in effect, the hell with the king: “Let’s take leave of him.” Because garrulous Gonzalo gets the last words, I think we get a hint that the play will not be about a shipwreck and will not end with his death.

1.2 runs to more than 500 lines, but as you say is broken up into sub-scenes. In the first of them Shakespeare presents exposition under cover of Prospero’s explanation to Miranda of how they got to the island. We quickly learn that the storm was raised by magic, and that all the men on the ship are safe — another indication about where the play is going. He calls himself Miranda’s schoolmaster, and he does treat her roughly. I think he’s not just “seemingly impatient.” Is he not still fuming about the injustice done him, self-absorbed, determined at last to present his complaint to someone who will hear him out? Miranda is paying close attention, as her quick replies indicate, and does not deserve the reproofs. I think he’s irascible, not a kindly old father and magician. As for what happened in Milan, he makes clear who the bad guys are, but was Prospero not a negligent duke? (By the end of the play we learn that he does not want to regain his office.) By the end of this subscene we hear that Gonzalo is noble and that Antonio is false and evil, but don’t have a fix on Sebastian and Alonso yet. Although Prospero takes off his magic garment at the beginning of the scene, he still wields his magic, casting a charm on Miranda to make her sleep. One dimension of Prospero’s plan is now laid out: the bad guys are within  his grasp, though it is still unclear what he will do with them.

In the second subscene we again hear that all the drowned men are in fact safe. Prospero is just as impatient with Ariel as he is with Miranda. Again Shakespeare provides exposition under cover of something else, here Prospero’s insistent reminder to Ariel of what Ariel knows but Prospero thinks is in danger of forgetting. A metaphorical and literal clock is set ticking, and we are invited to expect that the action will be over by six pm, i.e., in four hours. So from Ariel’s point of view the rest of the play will be about gaining freedom soon.

In the third subscene Prospero proposes to Miranda that they go to “visit” Caliban. This seems lame: there’s no “plot” reason for this. I think Shakespeare just needs to introduce Caliban and to set up a contrast with Ferdinand in the next subscene. I think the meeting with Caliban has drawn the attention of postcolonialists since Greenblatt’s “Learning to Curse.” He enters cursing and thuggish, a sneering would-be rapist who deserves to be a slave, but he does seem to have a case: “the island’s mine,” left to me by my mother. I used to be king, and you have now enslaved me under cover of civilizing me. Hard now not to think of Europeans and the native creatures they encounter in the New World. Prospero again behaves angrily, threatening Caliban just as he threatened Ariel. He imprisons Caliban in “this stone” just as Sycorax had imprisoned Ariel in a tree. So what’s the difference between the sorceress Sycorax and the magician Prospero? They both were in effect dumped on the island and abandoned. They each have one child. Interesting that it’s made clear Sycorax was pregnant before she arrived on the island, so we can dismiss right away the idea that Prospero is Caliban’s father, regardless of the fact that he will later say he “acknowledges” him “mine” — which is what fathers of bastards say when they admit to being fathers.

In the fourth subscene, with Ferdinand, things begin to change, introduced by Ariel’s song. And the second song is about “sea change.” The dead, we already know, have been changed into “something rich and strange,” but now Ferdinand hears it, and knows that this is “no mortal business.” Once again Prospero acts impatient and threatens, but now we see that his speaking “ungently” is a stratagem. And we see that Prospero’s real plan is to marry off his daughter. . . but not yet. We are in the realm of romantic comedy, where young lovers want to marry, but confront obstacles (often parents), and finally overcome them. In this play Prospero is the one who brings boy and girl together, then separates them, and will later rejoin them.

Michael:

I’ve thought in the last few years that “The Tempest” represents experimental theater for Sh. It has no narrative source (like “MND”), just that Bermuda pamphlet about an undiscovered island and a shipwreck. And it has lots of strange elements, magic, a monster, a spirit servant, a masque, a magic circle — other things?

I’ve long wondered if Prospero actually has a plan for what he wants to do with his enemies. He does seem to have a plan for Ferdinand. But what of the enemies? It is of course a wonderful fantasy to have everyone who has ever harmed you in your control, and he does seem to relish this. But what to do with them? Does he know? Thus his irascible nature must give us some apprehension about where it’s all going.

With Miranda he seems to me school-masterish and strict, only indulgent in his obvious care for her and his memory of how her toddler presence was a comfort. He does admit to having been too bookish and having neglected rule of the dukedom for his books. And he raises apprehension by admitting that this moment is the crucial one for his fortunes — but not what he will do.

But beginning with Ariel, he seems harsh, initially pleased with Ariel’s management of the crew and the gentles, but impatient when Ariel reminds him of his promise of liberation. Prospero’s quarrel with Ariel brings out more exposition (in a Ben Jonson-like quarrel?), but certainly suggests a guy who is not likely to allow anything not to his liking. Even when Ariel gives Caliban’s name, Prospero snaps at him, “Dull thing, I say so.” After Ariel’s lively account of the storm and his role in it, including turning into St. Elmo’s fire, and separating the gentles and the mariners, Ariel seems anything but dull. But Prospero isn’t mollified and ends up threatening Ariel, who is nonetheless entirely compliant.

When he wakes Miranda and they go to find Caliban, he starts by abusing him, and Caliban responds with a seemingly appropriate curse. Yes, plotwise it does seem lame, but we’ve got to get through the population of the island. Now we’re in Greenblatt and postcolonialist territory. I tended to resist this, wanting to make it more part of the nature/nurture war of renaissance ideas. But I think it’s a legitimate perspective, especially since the Bermuda pamphlet allows an Atlantic perspective. And their history can seem allusive to the relationship of Europeans to the indigenous, initial fascination and love followed by dispossession and bitterness. Caliban’s attempted rape of Miranda motivates Prospero’s anger and the severing of their mutual fascination, but can we say it wasn’t his own misjudgement, allowing Miranda’s indulgence in teaching C.? Caliban’s response, “You taught me language, and my profit on’t Is,/ I know how to curse,” does seem somehow emblematic of the Old and New World clash. Of course in 1611 it’s still too early for Sh. to know the full tragedy of that story, but it does seem encapsulated in the Prospero-Caliban relation. Finally, who does, or should, own the island, Propero or Sycorax?

The ending of the scene seems to create an artificial situation for comedy. Ferdinand is led in by Ariel’s songs. The stage direction says Ariel is invisible, but this must mean invisible to Ferdinand, not to the audience, and Ferdinand hears and is drawn by the song. The song we always remember, “Full fathom five thy father lies” promises something unexpected. “Sea change” is fascinating, apparently Sh’s coinage, which of course becomes proverbial. The meeting between Miranda and Ferdinand promises a comedic ending, and Propero’s here seemingly-enacted heavy role fits with it perfectly. Miranda doesn’t believe the role, and Prospero seems to confirm his role-playing. His control over Ferdinand puts the latter in a Caliban-like position, but his remarks to Ariel at the end of the scene give it all away. Interestingly, Ferdinand’s initial response to Miranda seems Virgilian, which get reprised in the later joking about “widow Dido” and the question about where Carthage was.

Michael:

The next scene, 2.1, divides the gentles according to their moral character. Gonzalo is the ancient optimist, and Sebastian and Antonio the young cynics. I don’t think we’re yet to identify the old loquacious optimist with the benevolent courtier that Prospero had mentioned to Miranda, the one who gave him his books. But whom do the audience trust, identify with, and what exactly are we to think of the island? Gonzalo points to the bare stage and sees it as the island that is “of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance.” And after some mockery of this language by Antonio and Sebastian, he exclaims “How lush and lusty the grass looks! How green!” Antonio says, “The ground indeed is tawny.” This is another of those contested stage directions: which is the audience to see? One imagines the stage of the Globe is literally tawny, but are we to accept Gonzalo’s poetic scene painting? Then the same with their garments, presumably neither wet or dry literally, but part of the dramatic contestation. Then Gonzalo’s Montaignesque imagination of the Golden Age, which similarly draws mockery from the cynical pair, but may correspond to a more benevolent understanding of the isle. Or maybe not. Of course Gonzalo’s imagined mastery of the isle contradicts his portrayal of the Golden Age. But his purpose in part is to cheer the grieving Alonso. Finally Ariel puts all but A. and S. to sleep with his solemn music, and the two are left to guard the sleeping Alonso. And what follows is a dialogue between the two that becomes Macbeth-like and leads to their drawing of swords to assassinate Alonso.  Ariel’s awakening of Gonzalo of course interrupts the possible tragic course of things and seems to resolve something of how this will go. So is the island green or tawny?

Dusty:

So is the play going to be about the tempering of Prospero? Or about the substitution of one wood bearer for another?

On 2.1:

Don’t we know that the Gonzalo we meet in 2.1 is the same as the one we hear about at 1.2.161?

I assume you’re right that the stage at the Globe, or wherever “The Tempest” was played, was bare. But should we be any less ready to accept the verbal scene-painting here than we are in other Shakespeare plays? Yes, Gonzalo the comforter has a motive for declaring the island to be a green world, but then Antonio the cynic has a motive too: he derives some pleasure from contradicting Gonzalo and from emphasizing the negative.

The dialogue from about 2.1.10 to line 63 is virtually stichomythia, though it’s in prose. Shakespeare showing off?

Gonzalo on the commonwealth presents another character who imagines he can be “king” of the island, and reminds us that Sycorax used to be the “queen.” Later we will hear that Sebastian, rather than Claribel, might become ruler (of Naples) by killing Alonso, and that Stephano imagines that he and Trinculo can “inherit” the island, and be kings, now that the king is apparently dead.

Why does Ariel put Alonso, Gonzalo, and the others to sleep at 194 only to wake them at 320 (especially since Ariel says that Prospero foresaw the danger)? It makes me think of Milton’s God, who provides opportunity (via free will) for man to sin or not sin, and foresees that he will sin.

Antonio’s temptation of Sebastian (who seems a little slow on the uptake) does perhaps remind us of Lady Macbeth, but do we also think of Hamlet coming upon the praying Claudius — “Now could I do it pat” — but losing the opportunity?

I don’t understand the exchange about “widow Dido” (though it would sound funny on the tongue). I suppose it suggests that Gonzalo’s mind is on the ancient world (Dido) while Sebastian/Antonio’s is on the modern/present (Claribel).

On 2.2:

Caliban is not wholly repulsive. Why is he continually tormented by Prospero’s spirits? Are we invited to think that he is being unfairly punished?

2.2 is a storm scene, and I found myself thinking of Lear on the heath, coming upon Poor Tom and he (Lear) thinking of a poor, bare, forked animal. And then the animal complains about being tormented by spirits, as Poor Tom complains of the foul fiend. Could Shakespeare be recycling tragedy, with a twist?

Caliban thinks Stephano a “wondrous man” and a “brave god” just as Miranda thinks Ferdinand a “brave form . . . a spirit . . . a thing divine.” And Ferdinand thinks Miranda a “goddess” and a “wonder.” (“Brave” gets thrown around a lot: Stephano’s exit line in 2.2. is “O brave monster.”)

Caliban’s delight in the island’s riches might be compared to Gonzalo’s, Caliban’s concrete and specific (“crabs. . . pignuts. . . clus’rings filberts”), Gonzalo’s general and generic (“How green”) and abstract (“Nature should bring forth/ . . . all foison, all abundance”). Caliban offers to show them to Stephano, just as he once showed them to Prospero.

1.2 ends with Prospero telling Ariel to await further orders, and telling Ferdinand to “Come, follow.” 2.1 ends with Alonso telling Gonzalo to “lead away.” 2.2 ends with Stephano telling Caliban to “lead the way.”

By the end of the scene we have been introduced to all the people on the island. Each of the three groups has in it a plotter/planner: Prospero; Antonio and Sebastian; and Stephano and Trinculo. But Prospero is clearly in charge: he has more resources: he has Ariel. We have every reason to think the three groups will all bump into each other soon — it’s apparently not a big island.

Michael:

Or maybe the testing of Prospero? What he’s going to do seems the only thing still undetermined. Ferdinand and Miranda are headed in a clear direction. And Ariel’s protection of Alonso is preventing tragedy. And Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban are too incompetent, and drunk, for any successful outcome.

We don’t know, on stage, the name yet of the celebrant of the Golden Age. We learned Gonzalo’s name in Prospero’s earlier account, but the garrulous old courtier isn’t named until 2.1 174, when he is ironically proclaimed governor of the Golden Age isle by Antonio.

In regard to scene painting and what we’re to believe about the isle, I suspect the two contrasting versions we’re given are meant to confuse or cause us to think we may have to choose — between Gonzalo’s benevolent, and naive, Golden Age, and Antonio and Sebastian’s cynical, and literally (in terms of the stage) true, version. And the latter is what shortly leads to potential assassination and tragedy. And of course the Caliban and company group also prevent any Golden Age possibility, but in an entirely different direction. I think it’s this vacillation about how we’re to understand the isle that makes me think of experimental theater. And maybe the artificiality of the entrances and exits as well.

Ariel seems to be enacting a trial of Antonio and Sebastian — is it at Prospero’s prompt? but I don’t think we ever hear that — and so the scene from when Alonso is made to sleep becomes a reveal of their continued evil nature. Ariel lets them proceed up to the moment when they’d kill Alonso, then allows Gonzalo to awaken as the savior of the king, as he had once saved Prospero? Now Prospero can see — is he hanging out on the upper stage? — that A. and S. continue in their depravity.

I’m thinking the “widow Dido” may be a schoolmasterly joke left over from Sh’s stint of teaching back in Stratford (or maybe it was with that family in the North), the point being that Dido really is a widow, even though we think of her only as a tragic, and romantic, heroine. And of course Aeneas is a widower too, since he lost Creusa leaving Troy. And where the hell is Carthage anyway? Yes, “widow Dido” does sound comic on the tongue. But only old — and schoolmasterly — Gonzalo would come up with this. Did Sh. play Gonzalo? I don’t think it’s known, but I’d bet on it.

I hadn’t thought of Caliban as a version of Poor Tom, but his list of tortures does make me, and perhaps an audience, feel some pity for him. The recycling of Poor Tom as Caliban does stand things on their head and turn tragedy to a strange comedy. This scene of Trinculo hiding under Caliban’s cloak and being discovered by Stephano is always pretty funny on stage.

I think there is a kind of connection of Caliban to the natural world that seems oddly attractive, like his lines promising to find food and drink for Stephano and Trinculo (as you note), and later his response to the music of the isle. Is Sh. thinking of him as a sort of indigenous and autochthonous being? He had also been this to Prospero before the attempted assault on Miranda. So his possible connection to Gonzalo’s Golden Age might seem real. Is he a version of Montaigne’s cannibals? Clearly Prospero’s harshness hasn’t done any good in bringing up Caliban.

Michael:

And as Act 3 begins we see Ferdinand doing Caliban’s work. His upbeat sense of things, “some kinds of baseness / Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters / Point to rich ends,” puts him on the right side of things. The love scene between F. and M. seems meant to be sweet and charming, and their vows would again seem to constitute marriage vows, if only there were a witness. Which there is in Prospero’s overhearing.

Act 3 scene 2 gives more Stephano/Triculo/Caliban comedy, and we get the details of C’s plot against Prospero and also the ragged singing that Ariel ends up accompanying with his tabor and pipe. Caliban gives a memorable account of the music of the isle, which furthers our sense of him. In 3.3 we hear that Antonio and Stephano haven’t given up on the plot against Prospero. Ariel’s on-and-off banquet must have given an opportunity for special effects in its disappearance (“quaint device”). Ariel’s speech seems pure Prospero and seems to continue apprehension about what’s going to be done with the malefactors. But it does seem to evoke repentance in Alonso, so perhaps he’ll be spared.

4.1 seems to complete the love plot, at least if the lovers can contain their desire. Prospero warns about this in the clearest and even unattractive way. But Ferdinand satisfies him in his response, and the Prospero does seem satisfied, at least for now. Ariel churns out some super-rhyme in response to P’s order to bring in the rabble. But then Prospero reiterates his warning to the lovers, which again features his sharp and uncompromising nature. Had Ferdinand touched Miranda’s hand or stolen a kiss? Would Prospero’s sharpness be even more in evidence if nothing had occurred between the lovers?

But I’ll stop here and leave the rhyming masque for you. The verse reminds me of the poetry of “Comus.”

Dusty:

The more I think about it, the stranger this play seems. Strange in its mixture of elements not found in earlier plays (Ariel, invisibility, Caliban, the disappearing banquet, the Jonsonian Masque of Juno et al), the unmotivated entrances and exits, our uncertainty about Prospero’s plans. The high drama — or melodrama?  (plotting to kill sleeping companions) — seems almost cartoonish, as does the cheek-by-jowl very low physical comedy (drunken butler et al). It makes me think about “The Magic Flute” as opposed to, say, “The Marriage of Figaro.”

Maybe what’s new and important in 3.2 is that Caliban says Prospero cheated him out of the island. Is that really a “lie”? It’s a bit odd that after resenting the loss of “his” island, Caliban recommits himself to serve Stephano as master. If we focus on Caliban, we also note that he is responsive to the island’s music, and his account of the island tends to corroborate that of Gonzalo — though as I noted before Caliban seems more in touch with the concrete reality of the island than does Gonzalo.

What’s Prospero’s purpose in staging  the banquet in 3.3? Is it just to taunt his enemies? Antonio and Sebastian continue to be almost caricatures in their villainy. Ariel’s speech does, as you suggest, prompt Alonso to acknowledge his guilt. So we have some predictive division of the bad guys into very-bad and not-so-bad. Prospero’s lines at 83-92 suggest that he too is enjoying the show that he is presenting, and knows that all his enemies are “in my pow’r.” But do we yet know what he plans to do with them? Does he know?

Dusty:

4.1 suggests that Prospero has been conducting “trials” — a trial of Ferdinand’s love, maybe a “trial” to determine if his enemies will repent. But he’s still cranky and harsh, almost comic in his father-of-the-bride’s suspicions of Ferdinand’s “blood.” And yet he is about to stage a beautiful masque which celebrates marriage. Again it seems unmotivated. He says he must present it because he has “promised” it and Ferdinand and Miranda “expect” it. I’m not sure I believe that. It’s a “vanity of mine art” — perhaps not just an illusion but something he is proud to show off.

And in the midst of the masque Prospero breaks it off, and the spirits disappear. I suppose this is meant to serve as parallel to the disappearing banquet. But it seems a bit clunky: “I had almost forgot” (reminding us perhaps of “Great thing of us forgot” near the end of “Lear”). Ironically, Prospero, who had everything and everyone under control, is suddenly discombobulated. At 34 he had instructed Ariel to perform a “trick” on the Stephano group, but then perhaps gets caught up in the beauty of the masque and forgets his plan. Now at 139 he remembers the “foul conspiracy” of Cal et al. Ferdinand and Miranda notice that he is upset: “in some strange passion . . .distempered.”

And then unexpectedly comes Prospero’s famous “Our revels now are ended.” It’s not the epilogue to the play, though I think that’s how it is often produced and interpreted: Shakespeare’s “farewell to his art.” In context, it’s Prospero saying to Ferdinand and Miranda that the masque he had conjured is now over. At the same time, it is difficult not to think of this as a meta-theatrical moment when the aging Shakespeare-as-Prospero reflects on the worlds he has conjured in “the great globe [i.e., Globe Theatre].”

I’m not sure it’s always noticed that the speech shifts gears at l. 156. It’s not just that the insubstantial play is over. Our lives too are as insubstantial as dreams and are gently rounded off with sleep. [At this point we should remember Caliban, who in 3.3. had heard “sweet airs” and voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep

Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked,

I cried to dream again.

I’m not sure I understand just what Caliban is saying here, but he is surely blurring the boundary between waking and dreaming. Prospero’s revels are over, but Caliban wants them to continue.]

Prospero’s meditation on “revels”/ “our little life” ends not with sweet resignation but with some distress: he is “vexed . . . troubled . . . by infirmity,” a continuation of the distempered anger Miranda saw before the speech. How does an actor move from distempered anger at 145 to “be cheerful, sir” at 147 to “we are such stuff/ As dreams are made on” at 156 to “Sir, I am vexed” at 158? As he says, it’s not his heart than is “beating” but his mind.

And then another jump cut to low comedy, as Prospero and Ariel respond to the murder plot with another showy “trick.” The villains still seem bumblers, hardly a serious threat. Despite what we have been seeing about Caliban — cheated of his island, responsive to music — Prospero now dismisses  him as  “born devil” whose low “nature” cannot be improved with Prospero’s “nurture.” Are we supposed to accept Prospero’s view here? We haven’t seen any nurturing. And then Cal et al are driven off by dogs, as if they too are just animals. The purpose of the “trick” has apparently been to punish his enemies physically.

Now all Prospero’s enemies “Lie at my mercy.” Does this hint that he is going to be merciful in the end? Interesting that he here says “Shortly shall all my labors end” — not “revels” but “labors.” And the scene ends, as have many earlier scenes, with a servant bid to “follow” a master.

Michael:

It’s the strangeness that led me to call it experimental theater, all the magical, unrealistic elements, symbolic or exaggerated characters and scenes. And at the same time, the seeming insistence on the unities, which seems something of a joke. Who really owns the island? And where is the island after all? And who’s in charge? Even Prospero seems to lose the thread of things for a moment, but Ariel takes up the slack.

Everything seems finally to come down to a focus on Prospero, who seems to be the one who wants to create something. But what exactly? All of his magic seems in service to his long meditated desire: to take vengeance on his enemies? To try out various experimental scenes, like the disappearing banquet, the masque of Juno and Ceres, the meeting of Miranda and Ferdinand, and the testing of Ferdinand, the playing with Stephano and Trinculo and Caliban, the exploration of the evil of Antonio and Sebastian. His creative powers seem extensive, but he has failed thoroughly with Caliban. And he thinks he has failed dangerously in the plot against his own life, until Ariel unexpectedly steps in.

It seems striking that the seeming culmination of Prospero’s creative art, the masque, runs straight into his apparent forgetting of the danger of Caliban and the possibility of his being killed by him. The dance of “certain Nymphs” with the “certain reapers, properly habited” seems a kind of self-conscious high renaissance moment, with music, rhymed poetry, costumes, as if we’re looking at an animated Raphael painting. I take it the dance almost reaches its conclusion before Prospero suddenly jumps up “and speaks” — maybe shouts –and “a strange, hollow, and confused noise” causes them to “heavily vanish.” In a performance I saw long ago, the dancers suddenly stopped, looked confused, the music raggedly ended, and for a moment everyone on stage looked at one another as if something dreadful had happened in the theater: was someone sick, had a fire broken out backstage? Prospero, or maybe the actor playing Prospero, had to take charge. For a moment — I don’t recall how long — it seemed the play had broken down. Prospero, or the actor, seemed to recover and explain his upset. The dancers  and the goddesses were still there, not dancing but puzzled and now just looking at each other and at Prospero. It became a rather powerful metatheatrical moment.

Prospero now shoos them away, with “Well done! Avoid!” But Prospero, now the character again, is terribly upset. And Miranda and Ferdinand are also troubled and puzzled. His lines are not meant, I think, to express the wonder of theater, and while “the great globe itself” may allude to the theater we’re in, I think it also means the world, and the “cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,/ The solemn temples” are the city and the world beyond the theater. More metatheatricality. Prospero has looked at death, his death, and is shaken. There must be a pause before he can summon Ariel and we learn that Ariel has managed it all. But he’s still angry and in despair over Caliban.

The ending of the scene and the beginning of the next seem quite strangely awkward. Prospero and Ariel exit and immediately return, with Prospero now in his magic robes. As Ariel describes the court party, it fulfills what Prospero had just seemed to relish: “At this hour,/ Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.” What follows seems to me the crisis and turning point of the play. Ariel confesses to pity for the confined court party: “Your charm so strongly works ’em, / That if you beheld them, your affections/ Would become tender.” Is there a moment of pause while P. takes this in, and asks, maybe incredulously, “Dost thou think so, spirit?” And is there a longer pause after Ariel says, “Mine would, sir, were I human”? And maybe another pause  as P. seems to accept this –but maybe reluctantly? — and to express the strain that acknowledging pity and forgiveness requires. And given Prospero’s irascible nature it must be something of a relief, maybe surprise, to the audience. But what will happen once he restores them and allows them to be themselves?

The metatheatricality is such that I find it difficult not to associate what Prospero describes in “Ye elves of hills . . .” both with the play we’re watching and the career of its creator. And what will it mean to abjure the “rough magic” of art, breaking staff and drowning book? What’s striking in the rest of the scene is the almost complete silence of Antonio; he’s given a throwaway line and a half, but no indication of penitence. Even Caliban gives more reason for hope; Prospero seems to accept some responsibility for “this thing of darkness.” How should Antonio silently be played in the scene? I feel a lot would depend on that.

Miranda’s “O brave new world /That has such people in’t” is met with Prospero’s “Tis new to thee,” which summons up some irony about the characters as we’ve come to know them and counters Gonzalo’s neat summary.

The epilogue “spoken by Prospero” seems to exist in some halfway point between the fiction of the play and its performance. It is, of course, a plea for applause, but put in a way that seems to turn the art and the agency over to the audience in a way seems characteristic of Shakespeare — and counter to Ben Jonson’s usual way of relating to his audiences. The audience’s indulgence will supply the want of the rough magic, the staff and book. Does it seem a strikingly appealing piece of poetic meditation on theater?

Dusty:

Prospero invites his enemies (and Shakespeare seems to invite us) to regard the events as “strange” — the word appears repeatedly in Act 5 — on 117, 228, 241, 247, and 290. And you’re right about the tight time scheme: does it all take place in three hours or six hours? (Alonso is rather surprised that his son is now engaged to a woman he has known for less than three hours.)

I suppose Prospero can be said to have “creative power” but all he really does is create illusions, an “insubstantial pageant,” as he himself says. (Of course that is what Shakespeare does.) And is he simply displaying his powers, or are they purposefully deployed in order to gain revenge on his enemies, or to induce them to repent? As we’ve noted, it’s not clear what his game plan is. Even at the end he appears to be uncertain about what to do.

I continue to think that the breaking off of the masque is, as Ferdinand says, very “strange.” Prospero says he had “forgot” that Caliban et al were conspiring to kill him. He apparently forgets other things too. Just a few lines later he asks Ariel where he left Caliban et al, and Ariel says, “I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking.” A director could have Ariel emphasize those words — “I told you” — with some mild exasperation. Later Prospero asks where the court group is, and Ariel says they are “Just as you left them.” Would it make a difference if we thought of Prospero as beginning to lose his grip? Ariel seems to think so. He says he was going to remind Prospero of the conspiracy at the beginning of the masque, “but I feared/ Lest I might anger thee” (4.1.168). And Prospero has to keep asking what time it is. Maybe when Prospero refers to his “weakness” and his “infirmity” (4.1.159-60) he signals that he is aware of his declining mental powers.

The conspirators prove to be bumblers and are quickly and comically treated by Ariel more like the Three Stooges than three murderers. Prospero quickly gets over his distress, but he is still troubled by Caliban. I wouldn’t call it “despair.” More like bitterness and disappointment.  But is Caliban as bad as a “devil”? (We’ve seen evidence of something more.) As soon as the Caliban group are driven out, Prospero at the end of Act 4 seems to gloat that all his enemies are at his mercy.

Has it been his “project” all along to show mercy, or does it take a nudge from Ariel to show some tender affections? When he invokes  his “nobler reason” against his “fury” it would seem that he has already planned, and decided, to choose “virtue” rather than “vengeance.” And that’s because , so he says, his enemies are “penitent.” Well, Alonso and Gonzalo yes. But Shakespeare provides no evidence that Sebastian and Antonio have repented — their brief lines suggest just the opposite. Do we believe Prospero is correct when he tells Antonio and Sebastian that they have suffered from “inward pinches” [of conscience, as opposed to the outward pinches that Caliban suffers] and that therefore he forgives them?

I was surprised at the length of Prospero’s farewell to his “rough magic” (“Ye elves of hills”). He enumerates his several spirits and his powers over them in great detail. Is he bidding farewell with regret and reluctance?

Prospero’s reintroduction of himself to the court party is strange. He tells them who he is at 106 and again at 159. Is that because his audience does not at first believe him? (Alonso seems ready to believe him at 118.)

What does Prospero mean when he “acknowledges” that Caliban is “mine”? Normally that language would signal that a father is acknowledging a natural son. But I think it’s already clear that he is not Caliban’s father. Is he acknowledging that he has made Caliban who he is, had in effect deformed him, and if so what new evidence has appeared since the previous act when Prospero dismissed him as a devil? Or, in context, is Prospero just saying to the court group that Stephano and Trinculo are yours — “you/Must know and own” them — while the third culprit is “mine” — i.e., my servant?

Finally, what’s in Prospero’s future? Maybe, as you suggested, Prospero has been thinking about his death ever since the “our revels now are ended speech.” When I went back to look at it I noted that it’s not just about the power of art to create “visions.” It falls into several parts: 1) what you have witnessed was just an illusion that has melted into air (148-50); 2) just like this insubstantial vision, everything apparently solid (towers, palaces, temples, the globe) will also fade (151-56); 3) our very lives are no more substantial than “dreams,” and will be rounded off with sleep. It would take a skilled actor to deliver that speech in such a way as to suggest the several elements.

He is going to resume his dukedom, but also says that every third thought will be of his grave. It doesn’t sound like he is going to take up the reins of government. Who is going to be his successor? Does he care for Milan any more than he did earlier, when he gave it all up for his “books”?

The play seems to leave several other crucial matters unresolved. Are Antonio and Sebastian really repentant? What will happen to Caliban? Does he inherit the island, or does he get carried off to Naples and Milan and given a servant’s livery to wear?

How do you stage the ending? Does Ariel get his own exit, with Prospero focusing for a dramatic moment on the freeing of his favorite spirit? Or does Ariel simply exit with omnes?

Is the epilogue meant to be spoken by “Prospero” (as the text indicates) still in character, or by the actor playing Prospero? It seems to be the former: he has abjured his magic and now needs the help of the audience to get back to Naples. (The problem with that is that he has just instructed Ariel to deliver calm seas and auspicious gales.)  But it’s also the latter:  Prospero had a “project” (5.1.1), and it has been completed.  The actor or playwright have a different “project” –“to please.” The closing couplet appealing for forgiveness seems to invoke the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as [i.e., insofar as, or to the extent that] we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Michael:

Nobody is going to persuade us that it’s a genial, pleasant play about forgiveness and happy creativity. We’re likely to worry about that voyage back to Naples. The silence of Antonio is ominous. And Prospero? Will every third thought allow him to govern Milan after what he should have learned from Ariel?