The Tempest

After reading The Tempest, viewing at least one production, and listening to the audio lecture, you are now ready to discuss elements of the play here in discussion board virtual space. Choose just 2 of the questions below to write a 100 word minimum response to each question, quoting at least once from the play, citing the Act, Scene, and Lines. Use standard formatting for this--for example: (2.3.44-47) means Act Two, Scene Three, Lines 45 to 47.
Once you have posted two responses, then respond with a substantive answer to two of your classmates (not a compliment or a criticism per se, but a response to the content of the play as viewed by a classmate).

1. Caliban is one of Shakespeare’s most interesting characters. What all does he represent? In what context would Shakespeare’s audience have understood him?
2. Prospero is a Magnus—a cross between a magician and a scientist. He is careful to distinguish himself from a Necromancer (cf Caesar and Hamlet). Why is it important to the play that Prospero be a Magnas?
3. The Tempest observes Aristotelian unities—the action all takes place in a single day and in a single place. Can you think of some Shakespeare plays that do not observe the unities?
4. What do the theatre and magic have in common?
5. As a story about loss and recovery, and a story full of the air of wonder, The Tempest is linked to Romances (like Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline), but it also resonates with Shakespearean motifs found in Othello and King Lear—the need for a father to let go of his daughter; as well as passage from court society to the wilderness (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It). In pouring so much of his knowledge into one play, he manages to write across categories that we now accept as common place, such as romance, horror (or the supernatural), comedy, even science fiction. Explain, tying parts of the play to each of these genres.
6. Propero’s final speech seems like Shakespeare himself speaking. Explain.
7. How do we know that Ariel is moral? See I.2.275.
8. What does the play say about the qualities that make a good leader? Would Prospero have been a good leader in Milan had his brother not usurped him?
9. See 2.1.147-54, Gonzalo’s utopian speculations. How should we understand these sentiments in connection to what Shakespeare thought of government?
10. Consider all of the master-slave and master servant relationships—Sycorax and Ariel, Prospero and Caliban, The nobles v Trinculo and Stefano. Given the implications of the final actions at the end of the play, what do you think Shakespeare himself thought of slavery?
11. There is no “source material” for The Tempest, but there are echoes of a popular essay by Montaigne, “Of the Cannibals.” For Montaigne, and possibly Shakespeare, the real barbarians are the nobles, the European adventurers and colonists, confident in their cultural superiority, and natives lived in accordance with nature. Do you agree? Why…
12. Prospero can call on natural and supernatural forces to bend events, but there are limits to his abilities. He cannot seem to change Antonio’s evil nature or his conscience. Is this consistent with what effect theatre may have on an audience?