Many students face the challenge of reading and interpreting literature with ease when a classroom and a professor provide a safety net. Reading and interpreting literature on one’s own is a more difficult task. While there is no right way to interpret literature, understanding some external factors surrounding the period that the work was written in, the audience it was written for, the events that inspired it, the biography of the author, and many other external factors are helpful for students to develop their own interpretations of literature. Frank Kermode is a traditionalist critic who helps explain William Shakespeare’s The Tempest the context of the larger picture. His analysis illuminates the characters, symbolism, and overall meaning of the play itself by looking to Shakespeare’s other works and inspiration to write the play, the characteristics of the period, and the controversy surrounding the natural world versus the civilized world.
Kermode’s research informs readers that this was probably the last play written by Shakespeare. This fact, according t
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According to Kermode Prospero’s experiment in art is also the design of the play (179). Knowing the inspiration of a work can shed light on facets of that work. I find the background information on the author, the time period, and the inspiration of a work to be essential tools in forming my own analysis. From here Kermode is able to connect the Romantic to the court masque elements of the play. Reading other interpretations can help a person decide his own view on the work.
The Tempest was written during the Romantic Period.
The design of the play will vary from reader to reader. Kermode refers to the Sea Adventure and History of Travaile as works that inspired The Tempest (175). Caliban, the son of the evil former ruler of the island, has become Prospero’s slave. This external factor can help students shed light on the theme of the tempest. Several Romance themes are apparent in the play as well, “… guilt and repentance, the finding of the lost, forgiveness, the renewal of the world, the benevolence of unseen powers” (177). Prospero, on the other hand, represents the civilized, and the nobility of art. He does not go through the play line by line, but he touches on many of the important events giving specific lines from the text to back up his interpretation. Kermode explains that that Caliban started off, “… amiably, like the native Indians, but turns to treachery …” (179).
Approximate Word count =
737
Approximate Pages =
3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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