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THE SYMBOLISM OF 'THE TEMPEST'

Did Shakespeare typify himself as Prospero? Prospero (says Montégut) alludes to his own age, and intimates that the time has come for retirement to private life. What indications can you find that Prospero images Shakespeare? If he is so interpreted, what parts may Ariel and Caliban be supposed to play? Is the history of the Enchanted Island and the transformation wrought a parallel with the history of the Stage and the transformation Shakespeare wrought? According to Montégut, Caliban stands for Marlowe, Ariel for the English Genius which Shakespeare frees from its barbaric prison. Dowden ('Mind and Art of Shakespeare') fancies Prospero as the great artist lacking at first in practical faculty, cast out therefore from practical worldly success; but bearing with him Art in her infancy, the child Miranda, finds at last an enchanted country where his arts can work their magic, subduing the grosser appetites and passions (Caliban), and commanding the offices of the imaginative genius of poetry (Ariel). He supposes Ferdinand to be Shakespeare's heir as a playwright (Fletcher). Lowell ('Among my Books') considers that the characters do not illustrate a class of persons, but belong to universal nature,--Imagination embodied in Prospero; Fancy in Ariel; brute understanding in Caliban, who, with his wits liquor-warmed, plots against his natural lord, the higher reason; Miranda, abstract Womanhood; Ferdinand, Youth, compelled to drudge till sacrifice of will and self win him the ideal in Miranda. Browning makes an incidentally interesting contribution to this subject by symbolizing in Caliban rudimentary theologizing man, in his poem 'Caliban.' (See Poet Lore, Vol. V, p. 562, November, 1893.)

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