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OCR A level English Lit A* student The Tempest critics bank (AO5)
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Includes detailed dates, book and essay references and titles etc. Helped me achieve an A* (almost full marks!) in my A level.
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Shakespeare's "The Tempest" Plot Summary, Themes & Characters
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English Home Language, The Tempest, Notes, Quotes and Essays
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The Tempest [Study Note]
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AO5- First ever recorded performance of The Tempest was on the 1st of November 1611, by The King’s Men. Performed for James I
and the royal court at the Banqueting House in Whitehall Palace. This was a royal theatre with a large stage that had a
proscenium arch. Performances included lavish sets and costumes. Charmed Jacobean audiences
- Prospero performed by Richard Burbage (b. 1567 - d. 1619), who was 44 (Shakespeare was 47). This reinforces our
impression of Prospero as between 40-45, but no older
- During the winter of 1612-13, the play had a second royal performance as part of the festivities celebrating Princess
Elizabeth’s betrothal to the Elector Palatine
- [__ like the other 13 plays selected for the wedding ceremonies, The Tempest was almost undoubtedly written originally for
performance at one of the King’s Company’s playhouses - probably the Blackfriars, though it could easily have been mounted
at the open-air Globe. At the Blackfriars, an organ could have added the island’s eerie music.
- Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ - one of Shakespeare’s most often used sources, usually the 1567 Arthur Golding translation (from
which Prospero’s renunciation of magic is borrowed)
[__ link metamorphosis to the transfiguration of the characters and potential for human redemption
- The Tempest has rich interpretative potential - has captivated audiences, readers and critics more through its vibrant but
ambiguous central characters, representing antithetical extremes and their many intermediate positions, than its tumultuous
events
- Clearly not all of the various interpretations of the play can be correct - possibly none are - but they all reflect an underlying
quality of the play: The Tempest is about the inner nature of human beings revealed in circumstances of crisis and change
Art form and date Interpretation
1864 Robert - Poetic monologue in which, while Prospero and Miranda sleep, Caliban, instead of slaving for them, reflects on the nature of
Browning’s Setebos, his God
‘Caliban Upon
Setebos’
1944 W.H. Auden’s - A series of poetic monologues spoken by characters in The Tempest after the end of the play
‘The Sea and the - These monologues are rendered in a variety of verse forms - the forms corresponding to the nature of the characters eg. Ferdinand
Mirror’ addresses Miranda in a sonnet
- By far the longest poem of the work is Part II, ‘Caliban to the Audience’
, 1) The first section is a meditation on the dramatic arts, in various personifications eg. Caliban as the Real World and Ariel as
the Poetic World
2) The second section is an address to Shakespeare on behalf of his characters, which focuses on the desire for either personal
artistic freedom and the disastrous consequences if either is attained
3) The third section is a meditation on the paradox of life and art, with mutually exclusive goals, where the closer to Art you
come, the farther from Life you go (and vice versa)
- Caliban says he "[feels] something of the serio-comic embarrassment of the dedicated dramatist, who, in
representing to you your condition of estrangement from the truth, is doomed to fail the more he succeeds, for the
more truthfully he paints the condition, the less clearly can he indicate the truth from which it is estranged."
1956 film - Prospero the magician becomes the archetypal mad scientist Dr Morbius, stranded on the planet with only his daughter Altaira
‘Forbidden Planet’ until the arrival of an expedition team from Earth.
- The film dwells on the controlling nature of Morbius, especially in relation to his daughter, and in his commanding of a robot
helper, Robby
- Obsessed with his research, Morbius unleashes terrifying forces he finds difficult to control in the form of the Monster of Id. In
this way the film adds Freudian theories of psychoanalysis to The Tempest’s exploration of human nature
- This interpretation is interesting, but it focuses a lot more on power dynamics and the exploration of space than on the act of
revenge/possibility of reconciliation
1957 RSC dir. - Brook changed the way the role of Prospero was played
Peter Brook - Prospero played by John Gielgid, who dressed humbly, looked like a hermit, and most importantly, was angry. Described by critic
David Lindley as tormented and problematic
- The Times reviewer remarked: “We are almost invited to wonder if forgiveness will after all triumph over lower feelings. For
through the performance the actor throws out a persistent suggestion that though Prospero intends of his own accord to surrender
the omnipotence which he has only valued as the instrument of impersonal ends, he nevertheless has an inner battle of his own to
fight”
1975 Marc - Chagall was an early modernist
Chagall’s - Chagall's biographer Jackie Wullschlager praises him as a “pioneer of modern art and one of its greatest figurative painters…
illustrations [who] invented a visual language that recorded the thrill and terror of the twentieth century.”
- Chagall saw Shakespeare’s Tempest as symbolic of the tempest that engulfed his own life and the traumatic experiences of
European Jews in the first half of the 20th century
- Chagall was personally swept up in the horrors of European history between 1914 and 1945: world wars, revolution, ethnic
, persecution, the murder and exile of millions. In an age when many major artists fled reality for abstraction, he distilled his
experiences of suffering and tragedy into images at once immediate, simple, and symbolic to which everyone could respond.
- Many argue that Chagall saw elements of his own life and experiences as a refugee and émigré in Shakespeare’s play
1982 RSC dir. Ron - Attempted to depict Ariel and Caliban as opposing aspects of Prospero’s psyche (however not regarded as wholly successful)
Daniels
1988 Cheek By - Donnellan reflected contemporary politics in this production by replacing the King of Naples with Queen Alonsa, who bore an
Jowl production unmistakable resemblance to the Prime Minister at the time: Margaret Thatcher
dir. Declan - At the beginning of the play, Antonio pushed the Boatswain out of the way and grabbed the imaginary wheel of the ship, only to be
Donnellan thrown to the ground by the force of the storm: he was forced to acknowledge that he was unable to control the power he had
usurped
- Based closely on the interpretation of Prospero as ‘director’ - he was seen putting other characters in costume and directing their
movements on stage
1988 Old Vic dir. - Miller matched his black Caliban with a black Ariel (cast West Indian actors for both). When left on the island at the end of the
Jonathan Miller play his Ariel took up Prospero's broken staff and put it together again in his own hands, smiling meanly at Caliban while he did so
- Caliban. A reviewer of this production denied the ‘ontological mobility of Caliban’ but instead views the hierarchy as ‘oppressive’.
1993 RSC dir. Sam - 3.2 - Trinculo made the audience laugh uproariously by the way he slowly and sarcastically stretched out his reply “Excellent” -
Mendes any irony is lost on Stephano
- 4.1 - Masque → the dance of the reapers and water nymphs had an ominous twist -- dancers lifted off their wide brimmed hats
(which had been hiding their faces) and the audience gasped at the revelation that the dancers were Trinculo, Stephano and Caliban
- When Simon Russel Beale played Ariel in 1993, his final gesture was to spit in Prospero's face, as if freedom were a right rather
than a gift.
- Reviewer wrote that “Ariel was the dominant force in Sam Mendes’ interpretation of the play”
2010 film dir. Julie - Prospero as a woman - ‘Prospera’. It is interesting that even though she is not far off the traditional view of him (white hair, older
Taymor etc), the character now has maternal characteristics, it could be argued that a Jacobean audience would feel more disdain towards
this Prospero because she is neglecting the primary role of caregiver in favour of power.
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