Analyse The Tempest as a romantic comedy with subtle differences from conventional expectations of the genre.

Analyse The Tempest as a romantic comedy with subtle differences from conventional expectations of the genre.

Shakespeare’s The Tempest is an amazing play about a man who has been banished by his own brother to a far away island. This play is very unique, in comparison to Shakespeare’s other plays, for many reasons. As Professor McMillen talked about in her lecture, this is one of Shakespeare’s latest plays and was written shortly before Shakespeare “retired” and left London to go back to Stratford Upon Avon. This play is truly unique because it is a play about forgiveness and acceptance. However, another difference about this play is that it fits into a genre on its own almost entirely. Scholars have argued over what genre this play falls into. Comedy? Romance?

The important marker of comedy is that there is confusion. When the ship carrying Prospero’s brother, Sebastian, crashes on the island. The survivors of the shipwreck are confused because they are unsure of where they are and if they will ever get back to their homeland. This chaotic period is in fact being controlled by Prospero, the protagonist of the play. He knows who is on the boat and even saved his enemies. In Act I, scene ii we know that he is aware of who is on the boat when he tells his daughter Miranda, “‘Tis time/I should inform thee farther.” He then tells Miranda about why they had to go into exile. It is then the audience learns that Prospero was betrayed by his own brother and that he is here on the island. Another marker of comedy is a period of courtship. In Act I, scene ii Prospero points out another human for Miranda to look at Ferdinand. Not surprisingly, she falls in love with him immediately. “I might call him/A thing divine, for nothing natural/I ever saw so noble.” When Prospero finds out that he is the Prince of Naples, he pretends that Ferdinand is lying as to keep the two lovers from falling in love with each other too soon. He says in Act I, scene ii to express his excitement for this arrangement, “And his more braver daughter could control thee,/If now ’twere fit to do’t. At the first sight/They have changed eyes.” Destabilizing normal structures of class and society also occurs in The Tempest. Ferdinand is a Prince but becomes the “prisoner” of Prospero. The King is at the mercy of Prospero as well because he is trapped on an island.

A Romance play is a late medieval tradition of stories that were not limited to one location, world, or time for the action of the place. The Tempest takes place in a few different worlds. One world that Shakespeare writes a lot about is the past. Although the audience is never actually taken there in the play, we hear a detailed description of the past when Prospero talks to Miranda about the life they used to live. He goes at length about “The King of Naples, being an enemy/To me inveterate, hearkens my brother’s suit” and the trials he faced taking a young child across the seas into a life they did not know about. Another world is the world between Prospero and Ariel. Ariel is Prospero’s servant spirit that no one else sees besides the audience and Prospero. The two work together to bring the different parties together by enchanting them. Ariel runs around most of the play singing in people’s ears to get them to do what Prospero demands. In Act II, scene i Ariel goes to Sebastian to lull him away from danger. “My master through his art foresees the danger/That you, his friend, are in.” Ariel’s spirit world is crucial to the resolution of the play, and without it, the characters’s interactions might not have been as smooth or successful. I think I could go on and on about the different worlds that exist in The Tempest. There are so many that we could point out......................

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Milan Tomic

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