The Thumbnail Book Reviews

by John Q McDonald --- 29 March 2009

The Tempest

by William Shakespeare

We lose ourselves in entertainment because we want to escape from the everyday lives we lead. (Nowadays, people are even creating, God help us, "second lives", but that's perhaps another matter.) There is realism, too, and those take us not away, but ever deeper into our world. The Tempest doesn't fall into that category, and the farther we get from Shakespeare's day, the farther we get from ourselves when we see his plays. But he is always successful in evoking some powerful chord of truth. He touches some emotional core in his audience. This might not be one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, but it is among the most well-known. It does take us away to some other place. It does touch us, somehow. Our hero is Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan. His brother, Antonio, has taken advantage of Prospero's intellectual distraction to usurp his power. Prospero and his young daughter Miranda were placed adrift aboard a little boat. But Prospero has come ashore on a remote island, and there has been able to exploit his mystical researches to call up and control the various spirits that live in this wild place. Years later, Antonio and the king of Naples are passing by on a ship returning from a wedding. Prospero calls up the Tempest, and these sailors are cast ashore on his island. The castaways are scattered about, and various confusions are called down upon them by their as yet unknown captor. Ferdinand, son of the king of Naples, discovers Miranda and, of course, falls in love. Prospero is skeptical. Meanwhile, various plots are hatched among the castaways. Caliban, deformed son of a witch and Prospero's servant, meets up with a pair of sailors and plots to kill Prospero and take over rule of the island. The brother of the king, also, plots to kill him and take over the throne of Naples. Prospero, through his magic, knows all and sends Ariel to befuddle the various plots. Never, perhaps, have such nefarious plots been so easily dispatched. But, this is a comedy, a somewhat fluffy fantasy that is shot through with Shakespeare's beautiful language, playfulness and poetry. Despite its simplicity and too-tidy ending, there is something magical about this play, something that draws us to this fantastical island and the mysteries that dwell there.

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Also by Shakespeare: [The Winter's Tale] [Richard III]