Aims
This course aims to:
• equip you to read Shakespeare’s play with greater understanding and appreciation
• provide relevant background to help you understand the play’s political and religious themes
• enable you to see how the play uses the resources of drama in sophisticated ways to engage its audience and to get them thinking about wider issues
Content
In the Renaissance, politics, theatre and religion were closely intertwined. Rulers regularly justified their authority in religious terms, and displayed it in a theatrical manner. Meanwhile in England the theatre per se was not only connected with royal power (Shakespeare’s company were royal servants, ‘the King’s Men’, who regularly performed at court), but was regarded as potentially powerful in its own right, capable of influencing the political loyalties and moral characters of its audience either for good or for ill – powers traditionally reserved for religion. Finally, religion was both highly politicised and full of high theatre, whether in the elaborate rituals of the church or in the spectacular executions prescribed for heretics. Common to all three, and tying them together, was the dazzling nexus of power and wonder, a nexus that Shakespeare explores throughout his dramatic career, nowhere more intensively than in The Tempest.
In this class we look in depth at Shakespeare's last great drama, in which the playwright returns with extraordinary sharp-sightedness to the closely intertwined themes of politics, theatre, and the supernatural. Where do power and wonder come from, how and in whose interests are they used and abused, and why do we seem to need them so?
In order to address questions like these, we will need to look more broadly at how the themes of power and wonder are explored in the play. Shakespeare’s drama, including in his late plays, is often highly experimental; but The Tempest seems to stand apart as an experiment conducted in almost laboratory conditions. Throw together a few characters on a bare island or a bare stage, it seems to say, and watch as they spontaneously assume roles and establish a political hierarchy, complete with a method of allocating labour and resources, a system of reward and punishment, and a religion. What does such an experiment say about human nature, about our natural and supernatural needs, and about our moral potential? And what does it say about those who assume the authority to govern us… or who try to set us free?
Presentation of the course
The course will be taught as a seminar, using a flexible mix of class discussion, lecture-style presentation, and tutor-led collaborative reading of key scenes and passages from the play.
The course will involve extensive close reading of the set text, so you must bring a copy with you to every class, and should also become as familiar as possible with the play in advance.
Course sessions
1. The Tempest, Act One
2. The Tempest, Act Two
3. The Tempest, Act Three
4. The Tempest, Act Four
5. The Tempest, Act Five
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are:
• to assess the themes of power and wonder in The Tempest, and to consider in this light what moral and/or social vision the play presents
• to understand some important elements of the relevant political and religious background, and to see how these are scrutinised in the play
• to appreciate how the play explores and manipulates specific theatrical conventions for enacting power and producing wonder
Required reading
*Shakespeare, William, The Tempest, Edited by Lindley, David, Updated edition (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Students should read the play in full before the course begins, and bring a copy to each class, including the first. The use of other scholarly editions is acceptable, but be aware that there will be variations in text and line numbering.
