Question of the Week
In a recent review of Shakespeare and Modern Culture by Marjorie Garber, the Shakespeare Geek mentions that Garber completely dismisses the idea that The Tempest was Shakespeare’s “farewell” play. I thought I’d take a closer look at her argument, and perhaps offer a different perspective, with the greatest of respect.
She cites the passage that is most commonly used to make the claim:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
She then goes on to praise the high quality of the speech, before turning to the matter at hand:
But what this passage certainly is not is “Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage.” The imagined social pathos of his departure from London – which would not come for more than a year after The Tempest, and after he had written at least one more play, Henry VIII, or All Is True, and possibly parts of some others – is something some readers and commentators have wanted to elicit from these words, for a variety of reasons. So far from being “Shakespeare’s farewell,” it is not even, in the play, “Prospero’s farewell,” since it takes place in the fourth act of a five act play. (14)
So she uses the same argument as Alan that this wasn’t his last play, plus she adds in that the speech comes in Act 4. The rest of her argument basically boils down to ascribing psychological motivations to those who don’t share her certainty.
I can’t say for certain that this play was his farewell to the theatre, but I’m not convinced by this argument that it wasn’t. First of all, it’s not entirely certain whether Shakespeare did write Henry VIII, or under what circumstances. It may have been a collaboration. So what we actually see following The Tempest may very well be an end to Shakespeare’s solo writing career and the beginning of a year-long period of mentoring John Fletcher who would replace him as playwright for the King’s Men. If so, the Shakespeare who wrote The Tempest would have been pretty well geared up for retirement. The fact that it took him an extra year to leave London is just life happening while you’re busy making other plans. And that brings me to my next point. Even if this wasn’t Shakespeare’s last play, he would have no way of knowing so while writing it.
As for the point that the speech is given in Act 4, I don’t see why it should make a difference. Even if the speech isn’t Prospero’s farewell in the play, Shakespeare might be expressing his own sentiments about leaving the theatre in this speech. But if this is still a problem for you, let’s take a look at a speech from Prospero in the final scene of the play:
I have bedimm’d
The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And ’twixt the green sea and the azur’d vault
Set roaring war: to the dread-rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-bas’d promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck’d up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have wak’d their sleepers, op’d, and let them forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have requir’d
Some heavenly music,—which even now I do,—
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I’ll drown my book.
An early quarto continues this speech:
Upon three score and ten I can expect
To end my labors, for I may collect
My years of 401(k) contributions
Through required minimum distributions.
Okay, I made that last part up. And I’m not saying definitively that this play is his farewell to the theatre. I just take exception to Garber saying that it “certainly is not.” That’s always a tough sell when talking about Shakespeare. But I’m interested to hear what you think.
Is The Tempest Shakespeare’s farewell to the theatre?
May 5th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Personally, I believe it is his farewell to the theatrical world. His character of Prospero is a man of magic who can create, destroy, change, or reinvent almost anything that happens on his island. In the end, Prospero decides to return to the world of reality and bid farewell to his magical island. Similarly, I think the Bard has found himself confined to the island of the theatre where he has dramatic powers not unlike Prospero’s. Shakespeare may have wanted to return to his own reality and back out of the “magical island” he created – namely, the Globe and the theatrical world of London. Perhaps in this self-paralleled character did Shakespeare reflect himself, and maybe he made Prospero’s final decision his own as well. But as with all great literature, this is – of course – only speculation and interpretation.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
I love Prospero’s speech. But the popular notion that it represents Shakespeare’s farewell reflects what we *wish* were so more than any factual basis.
These lines from Two Noble Kinsman (written later) could equally well be considered his final thoughts. They are the closing lines of the play proper–before an epilogue.
O you heavenly Charmers,
What things you make of us! For what we lacke
We laugh, for what we have, are sorry: still
Are children in some kind. Let us be thankefull
For that which is, and with you leave dispute
That are above our question.
Zeke
May 7th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Welcome, Tim! I especially appreciated your comment, since I never put a context on the second quote from the play I cited above, making the early quarto joke instead. But your comments are exactly how I read that speech.
Welcome, Zeke! You’re in good company with your first point, as Garber reflects the same sentiments elsewhere in her book. I respectfully disagree.
I also disagree that the closing lines of TNK (also a collaboration with Fletcher) could equally be considered his final thoughts. Nor do I read a farewell from Shakespeare in the epilogue to The Tempest, spoken by Prospero. If it were just a matter of wishing it were there and projecting it so, those of us who see the farewell would see it there.
The two speeches cited above are a little different from Shakespeare’s other farewell speeches. They don’t apologize for a poor play or beg for applause. They paint vibrant images of the potency of art, and then just as powerfully make it clear that it is all over now. I can’t say for sure what Shakespeare meant by it, and neither can anyone else, but these speeches are demonstrably different, and it’s not just a Freudian projection.
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