Week 12: The Tempest (No Fear Shakespeare Book)




The Tempest book cover & BBC animated production link

 

Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be watched, not read, and I found it hard to try to imagine the magic and illusions that were happening. The main theme that I picked up on was the great power that comes with great wisdom. Prospero’s power comes from his wisdom, which has come from his books. This is a great portrayal of the education revolution, and the connection it had to the obedience of citizens, that was happening before, during and after Shakespeare’s time.

“Prospero's Island is inherently theatrical,” says Moore (2002), “unfolding in a series of spectacles that involve exotic, supra-human, and sometimes invisible characters that the audience can see but other characters cannot.”

·       Prospero’s grand scheme is a pedagogical process for all those that land on the island, and throughout the play he manipulates, trains and schools them to be made ready to reinstate him to his position of Duke of Milan. He separates them from the others, disorientates them from past knowledge, and prepares them for new knowledge.

·       He was Miranda's teacher on the island: ‘Here have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit than other princes can that have more time for vainer hours, and tutors not so careful’. Where education is beneficial for Miranda, its effects on Caliban's low nature were extremely harmful.

·       Prospero and Miranda were the beastly Caliban’s teachers, however his new found knowledge of words did not empower him, rather it has served as self knowledge of how he is different from them. Miranda: “When thou didst not, savage, know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like a thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes with words that made them known”. Education changed him into an expert curser: “You taught me language, and my profit on’t is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you for learning me your language!” He may have been born to serve agrees Moore (2002), but learning had made him hate serving.

Discussion Question: David Smith argues that Caliban employs a range of qualities that Prospero denies in himself: rage, passion, vindictiveness, sexuality. Do you agree? How is this coded within the play?

I think Shakespeare created a great contrast between civilized, educated morals and uncivilized, savage desires. In the sexual desire for Miranda, Ferdinand and Caliban are the same however in their restraint they are different; Caliban’s desire leads to an attempted rape of Miranda while Ferdinand professes love and agrees to marriage. Prospero gives more lessons, teaching Miranda and Ferdinand about the peril of uncontrolled desire and the substance of sexual purity. This is indicative that education is the difference between us and them, between civilized and savage.