Name:- Kailas Gohil
Roll No:- 14
E-mail ID:- kailasgohil1998@gmail.com
Paper No:- 11 ( The postcolonial Literature)
Submitted by:-Department of English,Dilip Barad sir
• Topic:- The Tempest……
• Introduction:-
The Tempest by William Shakespeare: William Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest,, was first performed in 1611, although it was the opening play of his collected works of 1623. The play has long dazzled readers and audiences with its intricate blend of magic, music, humour, intrigue and tenderness.
Prospero - The play’s protagonist, and father of Miranda. Twelve years before the events of the play, Prospero was the duke of Milan. His brother, Antonio, in concert with Alonso, king of Naples, usurped him, forcing him to flee in a boat with his daughter. The honest lord Gonzalo aided Prospero in his escape. Prospero has spent his twelve years on the island refining the magic that gives him the power he needs to punish and forgive his enemies
Miranda - The daughter of Prospero, Miranda was brought to the island at an early age and has never seen any men other than her father and Caliban, though she dimly remembers being cared for by female servants as an infant. Because she has been sealed off from the world for so long, Miranda’s perceptions of other people tend to be naïve and non-judgmental. She is compassionate, generous, and loyal to her father.
• Comedy and Tragicomedy:-
The Tempest is actually classified in Shakespeare's first folio as a comedy, which would be fine enough, except this play has certain elements that are peculiar to a new genre. When The Tempest came out, the "tragicomedy" had recently been brought into the English theater scene (by John Fletcher, who would eventually replace Shakespeare as principal writer for the King's Men).
Its principle elements were pastoral settings (shepherds, shepherdesses, fuzzy lambs, etc.), misunderstandings or mix-ups about love, and potentially tragic consequences that are happily avoided by some magical intervention. Shakespeare, because he's just like that, added to the form.
• Romance:-
The Tempest is also part of a group of four plays (including Cymbeline, and Pericles) that literary critics refer to as dance (Not the kind of romances that feature a scantily clad woman and guy with bulging muscles on the book cover.) These plays were written at the end of Shakespeare's career and share a few things in common. Let's take a quick peek at our handy-dandy checklist of elements that are common in Shakespeare's "romance" plays to see how The Tempest fits into the genre:
Elements of magic and the fantastic: Prospero is a magician who whips up a storm and sends his airy sprite on crazy missions all over the island. Check.
Elaborate scenery, music, and costumes were essential elements of earlier masques, but during the Jacobean period, the masque became more ornate and much more expensive to stage. Eventually the cost became so great — and the tax burden on the poor so significant — that the masques became an important contributing cause for the English Revolution, and ultimately, the execution of Charles I.
• Structure of The Tempest
There is really very little plot in The Tempest. There is the love story, and then there is the story of two younger brothers who covet their older brothers' titles and possessions. And finally, there is the story of Caliban's plot to murder Prospero. But none of these plots are given much Although The Tempest ends with the promise of a wedding, it could just as easily have ended with tragedy. In this play, there are two murder plots and a betrayal to resolve. In a tragedy, these might have ended with the stage awash in blood, as in Hamlet, but in The Tempest, Prospero's careful manipulation of all the characters and their plans also controls the direction of the action. Prospero's avoidance of tragedy reveals his character's decency and contradicts some critics' arguments that he is an amoral demigod exploiting the natural inhabitants of this island.
• Literary Devices in The Tempest
Students of Shakespeare's plays quickly come to appreciate the literary devices that the playwright employs in constructing his plays. For example, most Shakespearean plays contain soliloquies, which offer a way for the playwright to divulge a character's inner thoughts. The soliloquy requires that the character must think that he is alone on stage, as he reveals to the audience what he is really thinking. In The Tempest, the soliloquy is not used as often as it would be in a tragedy, because the dramatic moments are not as intense. However, Prospero still uses this device, most notably in Act V, when he tells the audience what he has accomplished with the help of magic and that soon he will no longer have need for such devices.
A soliloquy is different from a monologue, in which a character speaks aloud his thoughts, but with other characters present. Shakespeare also frequently employs the aside, in which the character addresses the audience, but other characters do not hear these words. There is a suggestion of conspiracy in the aside, which allows the audience to learn details that most of the characters on stage do not know. For example, Miranda uses an aside in Act I, Scene 2, when she confides to the audience her concern for her father. The aside is usually assumed to be truthful.
• Shakespeare's Language
Shakespeare's Elizabethan language can sometimes intimidate his audience. Shakespeare wrote most of The Tempest in verse, using iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is a literary term that defines the play's meter and the stresses placed on each syllable. In iambic pentameter, each complete line contains ten syllables, with each pair of syllables containing both an accented syllable and an unaccented syllable. Many Renaissance poets used iambic pentameter because the alternating stresses create a rhythm that contributes to the beauty of the play's language.
Elaborate scenery, music, and costumes were essential elements of earlier masques, but during the Jacobean period, the masque became more ornate and much more expensive to stage. Eventually the cost became so great — and the tax burden on the poor so significant — that the masques became an important contributing cause for the English Revolution, and ultimately, the execution of Charles I.
• Structure of The Tempest
There is really very little plot in The Tempest. There is the love story, and then there is the story of two younger brothers who covet their older brothers' titles and possessions. And finally, there is the story of Caliban's plot to murder Prospero. But none of these plots are given much attention or substance; instead, the play is about the complexities of human nature and about reminding the audience that the division between happiness and tragedy is always fragile and must be carefully maintained.
• Conclusion:-
Shakespeare's Elizabethan language can be difficult to understand at first. Use of a Shakespearean glossary and the Oxford English Dictionary are two sources that can help in understanding the language, but the biggest assist comes with practice. Reading and listening to Shakespeare's words becomes easier with practice. Reading aloud also helps in becoming familiar with early modern English. With time, the unfamiliar language and the rhetorical devices that Shakespeare employed in writing his texts cease to be strange, and the language assumes the beauty that is hidden within it.
Roll No:- 14
E-mail ID:- kailasgohil1998@gmail.com
Paper No:- 11 ( The postcolonial Literature)
Submitted by:-Department of English,Dilip Barad sir
• Topic:- The Tempest……
• Introduction:-
The Tempest by William Shakespeare: William Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest,, was first performed in 1611, although it was the opening play of his collected works of 1623. The play has long dazzled readers and audiences with its intricate blend of magic, music, humour, intrigue and tenderness.
Prospero - The play’s protagonist, and father of Miranda. Twelve years before the events of the play, Prospero was the duke of Milan. His brother, Antonio, in concert with Alonso, king of Naples, usurped him, forcing him to flee in a boat with his daughter. The honest lord Gonzalo aided Prospero in his escape. Prospero has spent his twelve years on the island refining the magic that gives him the power he needs to punish and forgive his enemies
Miranda - The daughter of Prospero, Miranda was brought to the island at an early age and has never seen any men other than her father and Caliban, though she dimly remembers being cared for by female servants as an infant. Because she has been sealed off from the world for so long, Miranda’s perceptions of other people tend to be naïve and non-judgmental. She is compassionate, generous, and loyal to her father.
• Comedy and Tragicomedy:-
The Tempest is actually classified in Shakespeare's first folio as a comedy, which would be fine enough, except this play has certain elements that are peculiar to a new genre. When The Tempest came out, the "tragicomedy" had recently been brought into the English theater scene (by John Fletcher, who would eventually replace Shakespeare as principal writer for the King's Men).
Its principle elements were pastoral settings (shepherds, shepherdesses, fuzzy lambs, etc.), misunderstandings or mix-ups about love, and potentially tragic consequences that are happily avoided by some magical intervention. Shakespeare, because he's just like that, added to the form.
• Romance:-
The Tempest is also part of a group of four plays (including Cymbeline, and Pericles) that literary critics refer to as dance (Not the kind of romances that feature a scantily clad woman and guy with bulging muscles on the book cover.) These plays were written at the end of Shakespeare's career and share a few things in common. Let's take a quick peek at our handy-dandy checklist of elements that are common in Shakespeare's "romance" plays to see how The Tempest fits into the genre:
Elements of magic and the fantastic: Prospero is a magician who whips up a storm and sends his airy sprite on crazy missions all over the island. Check.
Elaborate scenery, music, and costumes were essential elements of earlier masques, but during the Jacobean period, the masque became more ornate and much more expensive to stage. Eventually the cost became so great — and the tax burden on the poor so significant — that the masques became an important contributing cause for the English Revolution, and ultimately, the execution of Charles I.
• Structure of The Tempest
There is really very little plot in The Tempest. There is the love story, and then there is the story of two younger brothers who covet their older brothers' titles and possessions. And finally, there is the story of Caliban's plot to murder Prospero. But none of these plots are given much Although The Tempest ends with the promise of a wedding, it could just as easily have ended with tragedy. In this play, there are two murder plots and a betrayal to resolve. In a tragedy, these might have ended with the stage awash in blood, as in Hamlet, but in The Tempest, Prospero's careful manipulation of all the characters and their plans also controls the direction of the action. Prospero's avoidance of tragedy reveals his character's decency and contradicts some critics' arguments that he is an amoral demigod exploiting the natural inhabitants of this island.
• Literary Devices in The Tempest
Students of Shakespeare's plays quickly come to appreciate the literary devices that the playwright employs in constructing his plays. For example, most Shakespearean plays contain soliloquies, which offer a way for the playwright to divulge a character's inner thoughts. The soliloquy requires that the character must think that he is alone on stage, as he reveals to the audience what he is really thinking. In The Tempest, the soliloquy is not used as often as it would be in a tragedy, because the dramatic moments are not as intense. However, Prospero still uses this device, most notably in Act V, when he tells the audience what he has accomplished with the help of magic and that soon he will no longer have need for such devices.
A soliloquy is different from a monologue, in which a character speaks aloud his thoughts, but with other characters present. Shakespeare also frequently employs the aside, in which the character addresses the audience, but other characters do not hear these words. There is a suggestion of conspiracy in the aside, which allows the audience to learn details that most of the characters on stage do not know. For example, Miranda uses an aside in Act I, Scene 2, when she confides to the audience her concern for her father. The aside is usually assumed to be truthful.
• Shakespeare's Language
Shakespeare's Elizabethan language can sometimes intimidate his audience. Shakespeare wrote most of The Tempest in verse, using iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is a literary term that defines the play's meter and the stresses placed on each syllable. In iambic pentameter, each complete line contains ten syllables, with each pair of syllables containing both an accented syllable and an unaccented syllable. Many Renaissance poets used iambic pentameter because the alternating stresses create a rhythm that contributes to the beauty of the play's language.
Elaborate scenery, music, and costumes were essential elements of earlier masques, but during the Jacobean period, the masque became more ornate and much more expensive to stage. Eventually the cost became so great — and the tax burden on the poor so significant — that the masques became an important contributing cause for the English Revolution, and ultimately, the execution of Charles I.
• Structure of The Tempest
There is really very little plot in The Tempest. There is the love story, and then there is the story of two younger brothers who covet their older brothers' titles and possessions. And finally, there is the story of Caliban's plot to murder Prospero. But none of these plots are given much attention or substance; instead, the play is about the complexities of human nature and about reminding the audience that the division between happiness and tragedy is always fragile and must be carefully maintained.
• Conclusion:-
Shakespeare's Elizabethan language can be difficult to understand at first. Use of a Shakespearean glossary and the Oxford English Dictionary are two sources that can help in understanding the language, but the biggest assist comes with practice. Reading and listening to Shakespeare's words becomes easier with practice. Reading aloud also helps in becoming familiar with early modern English. With time, the unfamiliar language and the rhetorical devices that Shakespeare employed in writing his texts cease to be strange, and the language assumes the beauty that is hidden within it.
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