![]() ![]() This complex narrative, with its immense span of chronological time, its routes stretching over most of the Mediterranean, its violent separations and losses and its culmination in royal betrothals and restorations, is the kind of story told in the massive novels, popular in Shakespeare’s time, called Greek Romances. The “story” that The Tempest tells is a story of voyages-Sycorax’s journey from Algiers, Prospero and Miranda’s journey from Milan to the island in the rotten carcass of a butt, Alonso’s voyage from Naples to Tunis across the Mediterranean Sea and thence to the island-and, on the island, a set of journeys (Ferdinand’s journey across yellow sands Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo’s through briers and filthy-mantled pools, and Alonso and his men’s through strange mazes) that lead, finally, back to the sea and the ship and to yet another sea journey. 1 Through this particular doubling, Shakespeare creates in The Tempest a form that allows him to bring familiar voyage material to the stage in a (literally) spectacular new way. The “play” that The Tempest actually presents is, in contrast, constricted within a plot-time of a single afternoon and confined to the space imagined for an island. Paul, and of actual contemporary voyages to the new world of Virginia. They reflect, first of all, major differences in the temporal and spatial dimensions of the drama’s “story” and its “play.” The Tempest’s “story” stretches over more than twenty-four years and several sea journeys it embeds elements of the mythological voyages of Aeneas and of Jason and the Argonauts, of the biblical voyages of St. The double signals here-to the powerful moment within the story and to the deliberate theatricality with which the moment is staged-reflect larger doublenesses in this drama. At the same time, audience response to the scene is inevitably colored by curiosity about the “quaint device” that makes the banquet vanish and by awareness of Prospero looking down on his trapped enemies from “the top,” commenting on them in asides, and obtrusively turning the Harpy/king encounter into make-believe, first by telling us that the Harpy was only Ariel reciting a speech and, second, by reminding us, just before Alonso’s desperate exit to join Ferdinand in the ocean’s ooze, that Ferdinand is, at this moment, courting Miranda. The unexpected appearance of these island “spirits,” combined with the power of the Harpy’s speech, gives the Harpy confrontation a solidity within the story world that seems designed to rivet audience attention. The presentation of dancing islanders, a disappearing banquet, and a descending monster is the first big spectacle since the play’s opening tempest. ![]() King Alonso’s confrontation with the Harpy ( 3.3.23–133) brings together powerfully The Tempest’s intricate set of travel stories and its technique of presenting key dramatic moments as theatrical fantasy. ![]() For Alonso, the Harpy’s recounting of his long-ago crimes against Prospero is “monstrous” maddened, he rushes off to leap (he thinks) into the sea, to join (he thinks) his drowned son Ferdinand. ![]() Into this moment of fatigue-and, for Alonso, despair-at the center of what Gonzalo calls their “maze,” enters the maze’s monster: a Harpy who threatens them with lingering torment worse than any death. Shipwrecked, they have searched for the lost Prince Ferdinand now, exhausted, they give up the search. Somewhat past the midpoint of The Tempest, King Alonso and his courtiers reach a temporary still point in their journey on Prospero’s island. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |