Post-Tragedy in the Tempest

Perhaps a better working title for this blog may be The Tempest: Tragedy Transcended.


I've spent a long time with The Tempest. I mainly spend my time studying the tempest through a looking glass of illusion. I feel this is the accurate way to deal with the play, but lately i've been interested in adding a little depth to my perception.

What i've come to lately, is that  The Tempest is an act of transcendence beyond Shakespeare, beyond the form of tragedy. It is the Post-Tragic.

Reading an essay by Paul Cantor entitled Tragicomedy and the Philosophical Hero, has really been my illuminatory light in these views. In Canto's view, the central tragic plot of the Tempest is only viewed in retrospect,  he states that we, "do not see Prosepero actually undergoing what would normally be a  tragic experience; instead we see him reflecting back upon it."  This idea of Canto's really got me thinking in a new and refreshing way.

We as readers can see that no true tragedy ever materializes during the play. All the various subplots, (caliban and the fools  planned murder, Antiono and Sebations re-attempt) have all been muted, reduced, and eventually thwarted. Prosperos recount of his own usurpation is the closest we can agree on as a full-fruited tragedy, and this is already overcome, past and done. "What sets thou else..." now transcends aestheticism , becoming substance and wholly foundational to this play.

Prospero transcends the form of tragedy, through his illusions. Though he is entirely central to the play, his is removed from nearly every action, his power is wielded vicariously. Like the conductor with his baton, he simultaneously controls and creates all noise  while outside of the orchestra pit.

In this fashion, he is beyond conspirators like Iago who despite clever manipulation still succumb to tragic ends because he is still physically and actively participatory. What makes The Tempest such a master-work of the theater is this removal or transcendence outside the frame of the play.  Canto states, "A dramatist has no trouble portraying the active life on the stage; indeed action is the heart of drama. But Portraying the contemplative life is difficult, because it must of necessity appear passive, static, and dull if not simply ridiculous, when brought on stage." Yet despite Prosperos self removal, he at no point appears static, his is simultaneously central, omniscient, and entirely absent.

Shakespeare very keenly plays with this notion of the failed  in the physical world with his subplot of Caliban Stephano and Alonso. As Canto claims in his essay, "The usurpers are concerned with acquiring the mere trappings of the kingship, not with becoming true kings themselves." This is the attraction to the crown, and not that heaviness of the crown. It applies not only to the failed kingship of Antonio, but more comically and poignantly to the foolishness of Caliban, Stephano and Alonso whose base minds get lost in material distraction, found frolicking in kingly clothing.