Blooms Literary Themes - THE TRICKSTER.pdf - ymerleksi - home

198
William Shakespeare
by Prospero’s magic, and was lying in a bay at the other end of the
island. When Prospero, in this manner, has attained all that he desired,
and has commissioned Ariel to arrange a favourable journey back his
magic, too, has fi nished its work; therefore, after giving his obedient
servant—who has carried out all his wishes so well—his promised
freedom, he casts his magic books and staff into the depths of the sea.
All is dissolved in peace and happiness; the tempest has worn itself out,
calmness and cheerfulness have returned, and with these the ordinary,
regular state of reality, the old sweet, habitual course of existence, such
as all desire.
[ . . . ]
It is obvious, at a fi rst glance, that in ‘Th e Tempest’ heterogeneous
elements are intentionally brought together and placed in contrast.
Happiness and unhappiness, virtue and vice, crime and good deeds,
sudden wickedness and an equally sudden contrition, the summit of
human greatness and dignity together with deep degradation, the
highest purity and innocence by the side of almost brutal coarseness
and sensuality, tragic seriousness and exuberant laughter, the
sovereignty of princes and the state of common servitude, magic and
marvels in the midst of every-day reality—in short, the two extremes
of humanity seem here bound up together into one knot. We are,
accordingly, for a moment in a state of dilemma, and look around for
outward help. And, as [ . . . the] titles of Shakspeare’s comedies, (such as
‘Th e Winter’s Tale,’ ‘As You Like It,’ ‘Twelfth Night,’) in spite of their
strangeness, have nevertheless not been chosen without some intention
and signifi cance, our eye involuntary turns to the heading of this piece;
we presume that, in this case also, the title of ‘Th e Tempest’ must stand
in some kind of internal connection with the ideal substance of the
play. We are confi rmed in our supposition when we see that—as already
intimated—the drama throughout exhibits a peculiar hurry and fl urry,
a rising and falling between the utmost extremes, not only as regards
events, fortunes and situations, but also as regards the characters and
their arrangement; and this internal restlessness aff ects the reader or
spectator as well as the personages of the play. Elements so heterogeneous
and so absolutely contradictory as we have them here, must,
when encountering one another, inevitably produce a violent state of
agitation. At the very commencement, therefore, we have life and death
engaged in confl ict with each other; the crew of the stranded ship,
apparently on the point of meeting an unavoidable death, are indeed