We’ll likely spend most of our time tomorrow night on 20c responses to The Tempest, esp Cesaire’s and some of the other modern critics. (Lamming seems to have aroused some interest already.) But I wanted to put a word in early for the little snippets of source text that precede those essays, inc Pico’s “Oration,” from which the title of this post comes.
These snippets are hard to read (esp the shorter ones), and sometimes hard to follow (esp when excerpted), but they repay the effort. Pico’s phrase might help us think about the philosophical basis for Prospero’s treatment of Caliban (whom he calls “thou earth” in 1.2), and more broadly about intellectual aspiration and what it does in this play.
For any who are wanting to work on post-colonial readings, too, I strongly suggest looking closely at Samuel Purchas (93-5), who gives a succinct summary of the reasons Englishmen felt justified in colonizing the New World.
This question of philosophical basis kind of dovetails some of the ideas we have been discussing in Teaching World Literature. Part of The British Empire’s imperial mission was to “civilize the native savages” of the territories they colonized. I say this relates to WL because of the idea in early anthologies that there was a progression from savagery to civility in human nature through reason and culture, but in comparing Western literature to non-Western, this civility was more apparent or developed more quickly. I think Prospero’s basis was that he was trying to make Caliban into a more perfect human through education. Caliban is in a state of savagery, less natural and human than the refined and civilized Western aristocrat.
There is also this idea in the Pico reading that through knowledge and enlightenment humanity can be more in union with the divine, and this knowledge and enlightenment can be achieved through a natural order, “Then, over a soul which has been set in order and purified, let us pour the light of natural philosophy, that lastly we may perfect it with the knowledge of divine things” (87). Here too, I think we see the seeds of Romantic philosophy, that humans through nature, but a more advanced human nature through philosophy, are capable of knowing the divine and achieving some pinnacle of being.
The Purchas extract is interesting on the question of the purported “civilizing mission” of British imperialism, as is the latter part of Peter Hulme’s essay, in which he reminds us that, at least in the early years of British settlements in the New World, one thing the more “advanced” Europeans could not manage was feeding themselves. I do think that it’s worth being very skeptical of Prospero’s educational claims — he enslaves Caliban, after all — while recognizing that some of his methods are those of a teacher.
“Let a certain holy ambition invade the mind, so that we may not be content with mean things but may aspire to the highest things and strive with all our forces to attain them; for if we will to, we can. Let us spurn earthly things; let is struggle toward the heavenly” (87).
I am going to go off of Dave’s comments about Pico’s project – whereas mankind can grow “upward from thy soul’s reason into the higher nature which are divine” (87) and the segment you point to in 1:2 – Caliban as “thou earth.” In the first part, Pico explains the two different forms of magic – good and bad. Prospero believes he is using magic toward inevitable justice – restoring world order. Yet, because of his treatment of Caliban and his attachment to worldly/material things (titles, books, power, etc), he is unable to become the philosopher that Pico describes:
The “first form of magic (bad) makes man slave or pawn of evil powers, so the second form makes him their ruler or lord” (88).
Because Prospero used his magic for self-serving purposes and abused his power – he cannot reach “the most profound contemplation of the deepest secret of things…”the knowledge of the whole of nature.” Instead, he puts his books away, and is reduced to his corporeality. All that has changed or advanced is material. There is no spiritual renewal in any sense.
Are books really “earthly things”? I tend to agree with this reading of Prospero (and obviously Cesaire does as well), but I wonder how well books & intellectual/humanist culture of the sort that Pico champions fit into your list. Intellectual idealism is no excuse for colonialist practice — I’m thinking of Conrad’s ironic speculations about the “idea only” of colonialism in *Heart of Darkness* — but are books the same as earth?
If I’m reading you correctly…
It was this idea only of colonialism that compelled Conrad’s protagonist to pen intellectual idealism at work. Earthly to me constitutes the natural world. I feel that Prospero’s books are no more tied to nature than he is. Perhaps we need to define what constitutes “earthly things” and “material things” – very slippery. Do his books remove him from his earthly bind?
I interpret that Shakespeare has Prospero represent a higher power above the earth and Caliban the earth.
As you had mentioned, Prospero really values intellectualism and works to transcend the natural earth. His magic is a paradigm of this perspective. He works to play God against the true God by taking the behavior of nature and circumstances into his own hands, particularly in the storm that he creates. As Dr. Mentz and Regina had stated, his books do not stand for nature, representing an intellectual power above earth, possibly about magic, his passion.
Prospero seems to spurn Caliban, “thou earth,” the savage, and natural inhabitant of the island. He seems agitated when Caliban fails to become civilized. However, it can be interpreted that Shakespeare has Caliban represent purity–nature and natural behavior–while Prospero represents impurity, hence civilization and colonization. Caliban also has his own kind of magic, which is highlighted in A Tempest–yet, a pure one of nature, one that stands in sharp contrast to Prospero’s, which is based on science and in line with European ideals which are more political and hegemonic than natural.
To answer your question, Regina, the books of Prospero that are about magic are the key to removing him from the earthly bind. In A Tempest, Cesaire highlights this key in Caliban’s declaration to Prospero, “All your science you keep for yourself alone, shut up in those big books.” Prospero seems to view his books of the science of magic as his solution to rising as the one above the world.
Also, it is interesting how you noted, Regina, that because Prospero used his magic for self-serving purposes, he could not reach the intellectualism that he strives for. I believe that Caliban’s quote from A Tempest touches upon that perfectly.
He might like his book to release him, perhaps even along the lines of Pico’s fantasy. But the Prospero-Caliban relationship, as we see in the end of Cesaire’s version, is about being tied together.
@Padmini — Some interesting points that we should get to later, but you do need to support your claims — for Caliban’s natural magic, for example — with evidence from the text. Caliban has lots of knowledge — where to find fresh water, crab apples, “scamels from the rock” — but I’m not sure it’s magic, at least not the same sort of spirit-controlling magic that Prospero commands.
According to Pico, the best way of “aspiring to the highest things” and perfecting yourself is the epistemological way: gaining new knowledge, studying and learning, with an employment of all means (philosophy, theology, mysticism, or magic). It is apparent that Pico considered natural philosophy as the core of the epistemological process, because it “confines the onslaughts of the affections”, “shaking off the mist of reason” and “purges the soul”.
Prospero, as he tells us himself, had been studying nature and science for many years (“I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated / To closeness and the bettering of my mind / With that which, but by being so retired, / O’er-prized all popular rate…”) and mastered many mysteries, which became his power. According to Pico, it makes him a philosopher and his knowledge is “the knowledge of the whole of nature”.