The Tempest is also referred to as Shakespeare’s American play in part inspired by notions of groups of colonists coming over on ships coming over to populate colonies set up by England and the ships wrecked and one of the coasts ended up off the coast of Bermuda… The colonists were reported to have found this magic, lush place and stayed there for 9 months or so (found it to be paradise-like) and then found their way back to England and re-told the tale. One of the biggest questions we must ask in question of the legitimacy of these sort of tales of utopia and of utopias in general, if these individuals were in such a paradise; then why did they bother to come back?!
This is argued to Shakespeare’s most political play, thinking of absolutist authority and ideas of oppression and cultural sensitivity… notions of establishing utopias and finding ourselves in dystopias…
Act 2.1 → Moment when Antonio, Gonzalo and all the rest of them are all sitting around chatting… we see here the repetition of all the brother characters here, they want to basically kill each other off as they fight for some kind of supremacy… we remember one the reason we are on this island is because Prospero like James I, got very much caught up in his magic…. In some ways what we see is Prospero is on the island b/c he was practicing all this magic, when he gets there on the island; he just does all of absolutist stuff on the island and practice his study on how to carry out acts of revenge… the world that we are in however, as much we see it as a utopia, we cannot hide from the dystopic undercurrents… the other part of this in terms of Shakespeare nodding to some kind of global tradition, now we have the king here married his daughter to some black African guy sending him across the world and now they’re done... this is certainly a notion that has been and may be addressed further by critics in terms of what Shakespeare meant to say by including this detail...
Gonzalo decides that this island could be a place they could live for a long time… UTOPIA means NO PLACE… we have characters that go off to utopia and then they come back and tell the stores of how wonderful their time was, then the problem always seems to be… THEN WHY DID YOU LEAVE?
Why does he give up his magic? He has all he wanted, IT WAS ALL FOR POWER! He wants to go back and rule, that is his whole prerogative… NO CHARACTERS EVER CONTROL SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS… the plays belong to no characters… a big DISILLUSIONMENT for Shakespeare is that even for him is… IT IS NOT HIS PLAY…
Act 2.1 (Line 150) – “In the commonwealth…” → Gonzalo is describing all of his views of utopia… then Sebastian adds in… “yet he would be king on it…” We get the sense that somebody has to in charge of the utopian vision, it doesn’t just happen! The governing word here is no ('ut'), which is ultimately a no place… we get a utopia not by putting in content but taking out content, we wont ‘t have this or that., etc… We see this in the Declaration of Independence, many notions of taking things away; a declaration of no dependence… we will emerge as a utopian fantasy nation of no dependence… On the other side of this we see how heavily policed the idea of a utopia is…! FINE LINE BETWEEEN UTOPIAN CULTURE AND A OPRESSIVE ONE…
Part of the lines of this quote are taken almost word for word from a French essayist in the west named MICHEL MOTAIGNE in an essay of his called “OF THE CANNIBALS.” His essays were translated into English by JOHN FLORIO in 1603…
In this essay of the Cannibals… Montaigne writes that there is nothing about the American Indians that is barbarous or savage, we have no other aim of truth or reason that the culture/customs from the culture in which we live in… What he is arguing is the following: In the sense that when we have trees that naturally produce fruit that are unaltered, then we have fruit and food produced artificially, we are altering nature… the things that occur naturally in nature are perfect for him… the bigger point he is making is that when we go to the Americas, what we do is we see cultures that don’t have our customs: we see those and we call those cultures barbaric, where in fact, we are the barbarians because we have gone and don’t recognize ourselves therefore, we call them uncivilized… Every culture in itself is netural zone, it is not good or bad within himself…
When Gonzalo speaks and offers his utopian vision is from a essay calling into question of having these utopian desires, there is something that becomes chilling for others for Shakespeare about telling others how they should live, this is barbarism….
THE CONTRAST for this comes from Caliban… when he is talking to Stefano and Trinculo, this is when they hear the music on the island (Act 3.2)… then Caliban says in some of the most beautiful language we find in Shakesepeare, one of the most profound notions in Shakespeare; what is the nature of savegry?! What is that really underscores the savagery of Caliban, it is ultimately a savagery that not only Caliban lays claim to, but also Shakespeare HIMSELF…
“Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime 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. ” (III,ii,130)
To translate this for us: What Caliban says here in contrast to Gonzalo’s speech which called for policing and increasing regulation is no… in fact, what you do is stop talking and start to listen… it isn’t ultimately about manipulating and regulating… this brings Shakespeare to the end of his career, he realizes he has been regulating and manipulating… he sees we need not impose our will on the universe, but listen to it…
Dis 1D
Amanda Waldo
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