The Tempest
The Tempest (the Storm) was first performed in 1611 and is it probably one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote. Many people consider it to be his farewell to the theatre. They compare him to Prospero, the main character, who also stops performing his “magic” and throws his books away.
What is remarkable about The Tempest is that it is one of the two plays, where Shakespeare complies with the unities of place and time. The actions all take place on one location, an island, and the action takes up one day.
The Tempest raises a lot of interesting questions. The play has been used to support colonialism as well as to criticise colonialism. It challenges us to think about what we mean by terms such as ‘civilised’, ‘savage’, ‘freedom’ and ‘slavery’? As with all of Shakespeare’s plays, The Tempest has been interpreted by many different people at many different moments in history in many different ways. We often expect a play to give us a clear and straightforward answer to our questions on the issues we find in the play. But, as one of my university teachers taught me: when studying Shakespeare, the answer to a question is always ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Shakespeare’s plays don’t provide us with straightforward and crystal clear answers. Instead, the plays raise these issues and then leave them unresolved. It is up to you, as a reader or audience, to start thinking about them.
Magic
An interesting issue in The Tempest is magic. Prospero, the main character, tells his daughter Miranda in the beginning of the play, that he has raised the sea storm by his art, his magic. During the course of the play, we get to know more and more about Prospero’s magical powers. Very often, Prospero’s magic is considered to be white magic, that is, good or tolerated magic. But there are also passages in which it is difficult to clearly see the difference between Prospero and the “foul witch” Sycorax, who, as a witch, was supposed to have practised black magic, that is evil and forbidden magic. For example, when Prospero describes the things he has accomplished with his magic he says:
graves at my command have waked their sleepers,
oped, and let ‘em forth by my so potent art. (5.1.48-50)
Here, Prospero admits that he has raised the dead, or had contact with the spirits of the dead. This was, in Shakespeare’s time, definitely something that belonged to black magic. So, this shows that the play is not so crystal clear about the difference between white and black magic.