The Magic Of Prospero`s Masque

To what extent does Prospero s masque express, reflect and amplify the magic of the play?

Part of what makes The Tempest such a remarkable and remembered play is its sustained deployment of spectacle, and this spectacle is heightened in Prospero s masque. Masques were a commonplace part of Renaissance theatre and most members of the audience would have readily understood their symbolic significance. Yet their nature has been viewed with strongly differing opinions: Ben Jonson in 1631 argued that all representations, especially those of this nature in court, public spectacles, either have been or ought to be the mirrors of man s life [1], suggesting that Prospero s masque reflects and amplifies the themes and ideas illustrated in the rest of the play. Inigo Jones, on the other hand, remarked in 1632 that these shows are nothing else but pictures with Light and Motion [2]. In regards to this comment, the importance of the masque and its relation to the play has been somewhat disregarded by many& some even go as far as refusing to believe that Shakespeare himself ever wrote the scene. But however one views the importance of the masque, it has clear links to the magic portrayed elsewhere in the play, and is interpreted by many producers as being one of the most splendid moments in The Tempest .

The mysterious nature of the masque and its incongruence with the dialogue around it has led many to question its origins, notably Irwin Smith. Prospero wishes to bestow upon his daughter and Ferdinand Some vanity of mine art , the word vanity acknowledging the worthlessness and hence the somewhat bragging nature of the spectacle. He is in charge, wishing to show off his magic to his daughter and future son-in-law. However, when he instructs Ariel to Go bring the rabble...with a twink , the rabble suggesting the appearance of a crowd, only one goddess enters 12 lines later. Prospero summons Ariel: Now come, my Ariel bring a corollary , and his use of imperatives establishes his sense of order and control, but neither Ariel nor a corollary enter. Instead, Iris enters, and it is she who summons Ceres. All this suggests that the masque is neither what Prospero, nor even Shakespeare, originally intended. The play was first performed at Court on Hallowmas Night of 1611, and King James I commanded a second performance fifteen months later to celebrate the marriage of his daughter Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine. Smith argues that in the original text, Prospero entertained his daughter s and Ferdinand s wedding with a dance by the rabble , but that the royal marriage called for something more dignified.[3] Thus the King s men decided to replace Shakespeare s dance scene with a masque, but kept in Prospero s commands and Ariel s acknowledgements. If it is accepted that Ariel played the part of Ceres in the masque he tells Prospero later When I presented Ceres his need to change costumes before and after the masque may explain the unnecessary and out-of-place dialogue in these scenes, when Prospero commands Ferdinand, Do not give dalliance/Too much the rein despite having accepted Ferdinand s earlier reassurance that he would not his honour turn into lust : Sit then, and talk with her, she is thine own . It would also explain the nature of Prospero s speech after he remembers Caliban s plot to kill him, which hardly portrays the words of a man with anger so distempered as Miranda remarks. Smith claims that this speech may well have been lifted from the original epilogue, explaining also why the cloud-capped towers and solemn temples are clearly not features of Prospero s masque.[4] Thus, if one is convinced by Smith s argument, the masque only expresses the magic of the play in that it adds to the sense of wonder and spectacle, and, not belonging to Prospero or even Shakespeare himself, was written purely as a compliment to Princess Elizabeth as part of her royal marriage.

However, it is widely accepted that Shakespeare did in fact write the masque and that the scene is an integral part to the play and a revelation of the ecstatic fertility of all creatures motivated by love. In George C. Wolfe s production, he transformed the masque into a blissful celebration of the rites of marriage...presented as a jubilant Brazilian carnival [5]. As in the play within a play in Hamlet , which points towards the inner feelings of the King and his occulted guilt , the masque, although described as a trick is woven with threads of truth. Ultimately, the characters in the masque give their blessing to Miranda s and Ferdinand s contract of true love , and the word contract emphasises the sense of betrothal. The goddess Ceres, as would have been understood by a contemporary audience, is symbolic of the fertile conditions needed for a bounteous harvest, analogous to the ripeness in one s progeny. But it is the entrance of the goddess Juno that would have been the height of the spectacle. Shakespeare writes that [JUNO descends] from above, presumably using the flying machine Ariel uses earlier in the disappearing banquet scene when he [claps his wings upon the table] . When Prospero later remarks that not a rack remained from the original pageant, this may be referring to such a contraption. Iris s line Her peacocks fly amain may have been fulfilled, creating a visually remarkable spectacle that emphasises not only honour and riches but also the marriage-blessing with Hourly joys . It is important remember that this speech was sung, and the harmony of music would have been a reminder to the audience that Juno stands for orderly concord and the power of love. When both Juno and Ceres, who represent air and earth, bestow their blessings on the couple with Ceres blessing is upon you , this would have had the appearance of natural magic, representative of the overall goodness of Prospero s magic which Kermode sees as the antithesis of the black magic of Sycorax [6]. Ceres thus is not only associated with grain but with the psychological, physical and sociological factors which sustain life, and stands for the resolving of conflict, an idea which is crucial to the end of the play, when Prospero allows his nobler reason, gainst [his] fury...[To] take part , following the Renaissance belief that the rational faculty ought to rule and control the passions, and forgiving his enemies. The masque, therefore, reflects not only the true love between Miranda and Ferdinand, bestowing upon them a fruitful, happy and long-lasting marriage, but amplifies the idea of resolving conflict, exemplifying, with the use of elaborate stage directions, the magic of the happy ending.

Yet the magic of the masque goes further than its visual effect. That the goddesses call the celebration a contract of true love reminds the audience that there are certain terms and limits Ferdinand must stick to, namely that no bed-right shall be paid/Till Hymen s torch be lighted , the personification of marriage as the goddess Hymen expressing the respect it must be paid. Ceres herself, who dusky Dis [her] daughter got , the alliterative d sound conveying her bitterness at the loss of her daughter Proserpine to the god of the underworld, asks Iris if Venus and her blind boy Cupid is present, as it was they who were responsible for Pluto s capturing of Proserpine. Iris reassures her that Mar s hot minion and her waspish-headed son have gone, reinforcing the notion of chastity in this union. Chastity was a great Renaissance ideal, and as Davidson argues, Prospero arranged the masque to teach both Ferdinand and the audience by image, talisman and incantation the true way of chastity, love, generation and peace .[7] As for the country footing ordered by Iris of temperate nymphs and sun-burned sicklemen , enacting the fusion of male heat and female coldness in the ideal temperate marriage, turns out to be a most graceful dance . It echoes the movement of heavenly bodies participating in a cosmic dance, thereby creating a sense of timelessness in which lust, death and sin are absent. It is perhaps this which makes Ferdinand exclaim suddenly: Let me live here ever! calling this place paradise . If part of the magic of the play is the powerful yet chaste love between Miranda and Ferdinand, and the couple s obedience to Prospero, then the masque amplifies this magic by showing through spectacular image and incantations the value of purity and chastity.

This paradisiacal period of timelessness, however, is short-lived. Prospero remembers the foul conspiracy of Caliban, and the masque vanishes To a strange, hollow and confused noise . Ferdinand s earlier exclamation proves to be a naive and infatuated audience response to the masque as the spirits heavily vanish , representing that such a timeless paradise, although found for a brief period, can never exist permanently in the external world. Gilman attributes this moment to Prospero s momentary loss of total command , as winter, death and lust are not controlled but merely their presence forgotten, and having remembered them, the beauty of the masque is melted [8]. He notes that Prospero s masque is a reverse one: in the typical Jonsonian structure of masques, the antagonists antimasque must be vanquished before the revels can proceed to enhance the serene triumph in the virtues made visible at the end. In The Tempest however, the masque precedes the antimasque, and it is the latter which interrupts the former. &This idea of a paradisiacal vision being ruined because the envisioner is reminded of his origins can be seen throughout the play. Gonzalo s utopian vision is destroyed by Sebastian s remark that although there would be No sovereignty on his envisioned land, Gonzalo would be king on t , and as Antonio points out, The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning . The same idea plays an important part in The Aeneid, on which The Tempest is known to be to some extent based: Aeneas leaves Carthage and Dido when he remembers his mission to establish a new city in Italy. The fact that Prospero undermines the reality of the entire play by saying We are such stuff/As dreams are made on& and our little life/Is rounded with a sleep may be imposing this idea on the audience themselves. They, like Ferdinand, have become so encapsulated in the spectacle, that Prospero is reminding them of the illusion of the play, and of their own real origins, and the foul conspiracies that may await them when they leave the theatre.

Thus, whether the masque was written by Shakespeare or by others for the purposes of a royal marriage, its spectacular visual effects and sense of awe contribute to and amplify the magic of the play. The ideals of chastity and true love which it promotes encapsulate characters and audience alike, and impress upon them the vanity of [Prospero s] art . Yet if the true magic of the play is that it draws the audience into a supernatural and foreign world and convinces them that such a place could exist, it is the sudden vanishing of the masque that reflects upon and expresses this magic the most. As the external world of lust and death imposes itself on Prospero and causes the masque to vanish, the timeless paradise breaks likewise for the audience who are reminded of their own external world, allowing them to appreciate the effect that the magic of the play has had on them.

[1] Ben Jonson, quoted by Stephen Orgel in The Poetics of Spectacle, New Literary History, Vol. 2, No. 3, Performances in Drama, the Arts, and Society (Spring, 1971), p. 368

[2] Inigo Jones, quoted by Orgel, p.368

[3] Irwin Smith, Ariel and the Masque in The Tempest, used in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 3 (George Washington University, 1970), p. 217

[4] Smith, p.220

[5] David Lindley, The Tempest: New Cambridge Edition, (Cambridge University Press, 2002), p.17

[6] Kermode, quoted by Lindley, p.45

[7] Clifford Davidson, The Masque within The Tempest , used in Notre Dame English Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1/2, (The University of Notre Dame, 1976), p.16

[8] Ernest B. Gilman, All Eyes : Prospero s Inverted Masque, used in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2 (The University of Chicago Press, 1980), p.220