Now that I've finished reading The Tempest, I thought I'd look back at the play and think of it in terms of Shakespeare relating to Prospero. I felt like Prospero represented this wise steward over all of the other characters, not only because he had power over them all, but because he exhibited traits belying a loving and forgiving master. I wonder if maybe to an extent, Shakespeare felt the same way toward his works as Prospero does towards Ariel and his other subjects.
Ariel: ...Your charm so strongly works 'em, / That if you now beheld them, your affections / Would become tender.
Prospero: Dost thou think so spirit?
Ariel: Mine would, sir, were I human.
Prospero: And mine shall. / Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling / Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, / One of their kind, that relish all as sharply / Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
(Act V)
Prospero has a certain human passion toward the people under his power, even if they have wronged him in the past. And just as Shakespeare said goodbye to his works after this play, so Prospero says goodbye to his power and his spirits at the end of this play:
Prospero: ...Then to the elements / Be free, and fare thou well! Please you, draw near.
(Act V)
Because I saw this connection, I thought the epilogue was especially moving:
"Now my charms are all o'erthrown / and what strength I have's mine own..."
It includes the audience by telling them that they are keeping him captive in "this bare island by your spell," which may be the island on which the play is set, or it may well be London, where Shakespeare is kept unless we give him the "gentle breath of yours my sails / Must fill, or else my project fails, / Which was to please."
The weight of Christian mercy implored shows us a Prospero, or a Shakespeare, that is not only a master, but a vulnerable being behind his powers.
I agree. When we finally see the humanity in a character so powerful, it makes him seem much more real and we can relate to him as a character much better.
ReplyDeleteShakespeare has a lot of illusions to his writings in his work. Sonnet 18 he says, "When in eternal lines to time thou growest" which I interpret as Shakespeare saying that the lover will grow and live on like the poem itself. In sonnet 116 he flat out mentions his writings too "If this be error and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved." I feel like there are more examples, but these two came to my mind first.
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