Sacerdotal Vestiges in The Tempest

Abstract

In Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, Geoffrey Bullough observes that The Tempest's didactic nature, as well as Prospero's masterful aloofness and of have encouraged some critics to treat play as an allegory. The whole piece, ... permeated with Christian feeling, ... has been interpreted as Mystery play in which Prospero, if not Deity, is the hierophant or initiating priest in rite of purification which Court party must willynilly undergo.... Caliban ... becomes Monster to be overcome, and Miranda Wisdom, Celestial Bride. Though wary of such allegorizing, Bullough has doubt that in The Tempest, more than in other 'romances,' Shakespeare was thinking of human life in cosmic way, eliciting a moral perfection in which reason and affections would be united with grace. (1) Grace Tiffany notes that in romances grace appears more often and with deepening meaning as Shakespeare moves away from dramaturgy emphasizing tragic choice to one focusing on rescue. (2) Divine activity is, however, complexly portrayed in The Tempest. Certainly Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale show central characters rescued from tyrants or their own tyranny, and innocents resurrected from death, by an intervening deity (Diana, Jupiter, Apollo) as well as by wise counsel or medical-magical ministry (Helicanus and Cerimon in Pericles; Belarius, Pisanio, and Cornelius in Cymbeline; Camillo and Paulina in The Winter's Tale) and by talismanic power of chaste maid (Marina, Innogen, Perdita). In The Tempest, however, divine rescue occurs with difference. Unlike previous protagonists (Pericles, Posthumus, Leontes) who steadily decline in moral agency, Prospero is benevolent magus who uses supernatural power (or theatrical simulacrum thereof) to redeem an entire ship of state. Though he too has engaged in neglectful quest, received aid from wise counselor, and been inspired by an angelic daughter, he now shows virtuoso control of spirits who can alter both settings and to some degree souls by means of magical/theatrical productions. The opening tempest, with Prospero's choric follow-up, displays magus's power via tour-de-force acting and nonillusionist staging at Blackfriars and Globe. (3) An explicit theatricality will make presentation of divinity (as well as final resurrection/reunion) quite different from previous romances--indeed, polar opposite to miraculous ending of The Winter's Tale. Like Jupiter in Cymbeline (5.4), Juno in The Tempest (4.1) mechanically descends, and her masque extensively displays beneficent role of divinity (and implicitly, of royalty) in human life; but since Juno, Ceres, and Iris are emphatically enacted by Prospero's spirits, they are far less shrouded in mystery than Diana, Jupiter, and Apollo in previous plays. (4) Spirits, which by mine Art I have from their confines called to enact My present fancies.... Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service Did worthily perform; and I must use you In such another trick. (5) As with tempest and vanishing banquet, Prospero explicitly creates and controls each spectacle. Implicitly, these ornately clad Spirits execute monarch's power as viceroy of God, yet in this play their masque-function fails. Instead of banishing vulgarity and evil, these artificial deities are themselves dispelled by encroaching baseness of Caliban's conspiracy. These events acutely show gods as artful projections of magus's mind and spirits. Accompanied by strange, hollow, and confused noise, they heavily vanish at Prospero's command: Avoid; no more! (4.1.139 s.d., 142). This dispersal of pagan deities (and of masque elements) in The Tempest makes us question nature of its supernatural dimension. …