The Tempest as Romance and Anti-Romance

RICHARD HILLMAN The Tempest as Romance and Anti-Romance By 1611, when The Tempest was probably written, Shakespeare's audiences had reason to count on certain basic returns from romantic comedy or tragicomedy. Above all, Sidney and Jonson notwithstanding, they could expect to travel widely - in place, in time, in the realm of imagination generally. The ultimate liberation offered was not from the spiritual oppression of tragedy, not even from the 'real' world, but from the tyranny of logic itself, the narrow bounds of possibility recognized by the rational mind. So much is at least implicit in most recent criticism of Shakespearean romantic drama. What I wish to propose here is that The Tempest takes these principles farther than its predecessors in order to subvert them. The fantastic elements that proclaim its genre prove, in the end, as insubstantial as Prospero's spirit-actors and, like them, vanish into thin air to leave disturbing resonances. It is, in its basic terms, a play of confinements, contortions, problems.' With a surprising allegiance to the neoclassical unities, Shakespeare creates a single setting which, however exotic and fancifully populated, is claustrophobic for audience, inhabitants, and 'visitors' alike. Far from being allowed to 'use [its] wings' (The Winter's Tale, Iv.i.4)' or even to '[travel] in divers paces with divers persons' (As You Like It, III.ii.308- 9), time marches strictly to Prospero's tune. As for the play's logic, which similarly is Prospero's, it is rigorous and inexorable. Even in harnessing the standard romance ornaments- song, dance, and spectacle - so tightly to the dramatic framework, The Tempest shows its tendency to squeeze its most vital elements, its life-signs, first out of shape, then out of existence, instead of, as the ending professes, setting them free. Coups de theiitre were hardly Shakespeare's stock in trade, especially not the sort that perceptually dislocate rather than merely surprise. Apart from the opening of The Tempest, perhaps the most notable examples are Falstaff's delayed bounce from Shrewsbury field in 1 Henry IV (surely he should not mug his fall) and the awakening of Hermione's statue in The Winter's Tale. The latter comes closer to The Tempest in obvious ways, but also instructive is the similar structural impact of these widely disparate revivals: both open up, or renew, a dimension of their respective plays. The resilience of Falstaff points towards his continuing presence in the sequel, as source of entertainment and as problem. The resurrection of UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 55, NUMBER 2, WINTER 1985/6 142 RICHARD HILLMAN Hermione not only redeems the past by bestowing a future ('Hastily lead away' [v.ill.1551 are Leontes' final words),' but introduces a new magical quality into human existence itself. The death-threatening storm in The Tempest, followed as it is by the revelation of Prospero's control, might seem similarly expansionary; certainly it adds a new layer of dramatic complication. But the common view that, as Anthony B. Dawson puts it, we are thereby introduced to 'the classic pattern of romance, where apparent disaster is metamorphosed into serenity and reunion" assumes that we are just as dependent as Miranda upon Prospero's assurance that 'There's no harm done' (1.ii.15).5 We might as well be equally susceptible to his sleeping-spell. Dawson does point out that we are conscious of the storm 'as an illusion, and Miranda is not. ,6 This perception may usefully be extended. We are also conscious of the nature of that illusion: this is not just any sea or any storm; both are recognizably part of romance convention, and even the much-praised 'realism' - which here seems to mean the presence of more 'authentic' details than would be needed merely to set the scene does not put Prospero's tempest in a different category from the one described in The Winter's Tale (III.ill.BBff), or the one portrayed in Pericles (IIIj), or, for that matter, the analogue in the Dibgy Mary Magdalene.7Such recognition automatically brings with it a sense of potential magic, of romance's limitless possibilities. To open the play this way is to announce its...