Renaissance Travel: From Utopia to the New World in Shakespeare's The Tempest

Abstract

The writing of travel narratives during Renaissance, most of which are products of imagination, probably demonstrates the writers' eagerness to portray life on the new found land. Many of these narratives, most notably More's Utopia, projected the model of an ideal society governed on the principles of equality and uniformity underlying a commonwealth settled far removed from the world.

In this article, I discuss Shakespeare's The Tempest as a play modelled after travel narratives, in which ideas about remote places, how they are projected and how they are in reality are contrasted in what I see as a paradigmatic shift from utopia to new land.

Headnote

Abstract: The writing of travel narratives during Renaissance, most of which are products of imagination, probably demonstrates the writers' eagerness to portray life on the new found land. Many of these narratives, most notably More's Utopia, projected the model of an ideal society governed on the principles of equality and uniformity underlying a commonwealth settled far removed from the world.

In this article, I discuss Shakespeare's The Tempest as a play modelled after travel narratives, in which ideas about remote places, how they are projected and how they are in reality are contrasted in what I see as a paradigmatic shift from utopia to new land.

Keywords: commonwealth, Shakespeare, travel writing, utopia

1. Introduction: travel narratives and the rise of utopia

For an island country like Britain, whose life was organized around seafaring and voyages, travel has been very important and has indeed inspired writers very early. John Mandeville 's Travels (Carter and McRae 2001: 25), published in 1356-67 in Anglo-Norman French, despite its being a fantasy, is one of the earliest books that provided readers with insights about the Orient. When Columbus discovered America in 1492, he could not have imagined that his discovery would mark not only the beginning of expansionism, but it would, most importantly, kindle man's ambition and fantasy about the other world out there. From the political perspective, the period following Columbus's discovery witnessed the growth of Britain as a sea power. During the Elizabethan period, many expeditions were organized to search for new lands, to meet the people who inhabited them and to exploit their riches. The sea became an important milieu for commercial, military, exploratory and technological successes and advances. The British navy would become the pride of the nation, especially after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, which was due not only to the military strength of the British navy, but also to the fact that the British ships were technologically more advanced. This resulted in the leading role of Britain worldwide and accounted for its growing power.

Nevertheless, not all stories were reports of glories. Where there was success, there was also loss, defeat and shipwreck. These would become the subject matter for literature too, reaffirming in this way the fact that Britain was a maritime nation, but also shaping new genres of literature, travel writing among the most relevant ones. Travel books, either written in the form of fantasy writing or of real reports of travels to faraway places, abounded during this period, in a desire to explain in real or fictional terms how the new world was constructed:

As the New World did not provide its own cultural script for Europe to read, no encyclopaedias, histories, plays or books, this space was filled by scripts written by Europe: empirical accounts and fictions. (Brennan 2006: 263)

As a result, travel accounts grew very popular, not only because they informed readers about places and cultures unknown to them, cherished the desire for wealth and power, but also provided a space for understanding, questioning, assessing and reassessing these cultures and their own culture too. It is with regard to one's own culture that travel and travel accounts in particular acquired greater importance, because most often these accounts mirrored the desire for change and for reforming England's political, religious and social systems.

From a wider political perspective, travel writing came to be "increasingly identified with power, specifically with European interests to influence or even control the non-European world" (Mitsi 2005: 2). From a literary perspective:

Travel writing in the sixteenth century is an amalgam of many literary genres, such as autobiography, fiction, journal, memoir, as well as disciplines (cosmography, geography, ethnography, archaeology), unified by the writers' relation to their material. In the Renaissance, it was travel that gave rise to the development of most of those disciplines, as travelers not only presented readers with geographical descriptions and maps but also attempted to understand, and therefore define and control newly discovered, or different, lands and peoples. (Mitsi 2005: 9)

Utopian writing spread around this time as a result of the surge of these accounts. Although the rise of utopian writing is primarily connected with the geographical discoveries and explorations by Columbus and others who later followed him, it should not be seen as their by-product only. The projection and construction of utopias was based on the idea of building ideal cities and societies, rooted in the humanistic impulse of the ancient classics, whose revival inspired and shaped many Renaissance ideas.

In considering utopianism and utopian writing, I take as a departure point Thomas More's book Utopia, which has not only given the name to the genre and defined the features of most utopian writing in the sixteenth century, but has also provided the model for the construction of these ideal societies. More's Utopia is quite often conceived as a parody of most travel narratives that were written during this period, which tried to imagine a projection of the new world.

In this article, I discuss Shakespeare's The Tempest as a play modelled after travel narratives, in which ideas about remote places and how they are projected and how they are in reality are contrasted in what I see as a paradigmatic shift, which I read as a shift from the idea of commonwealth, as propagated by the kind-hearted Gonzalo, to the idea of wealth, as defended by Prospero, whose name means just that (Italian for "prosperous", "affluent"), or to demonstrate that "'nowhere' is a place", as Mitsi (2005: 4) puts it.

In the following part of the article, I will discuss utopianism in the play, that is, I will try to identify all those elements that often classify the play as falling under utopian writing, although I have already argued elsewhere (Panajoti 2016) that the play mixes together a variety of genres, and continue arguing how the play rather projects the idea of the new world.

2. Utopia in The Tempest

As I emphasized earlier, for the discussion of utopianism in the play, I will draw on More's Utopia. To summarize briefly, More fashioned Utopia in a dialogic form after Plato's Republic, but his work became somewhat more important than Plato's, because it not only gave us the word "utopia", but also the new concept of utopia from the play on the Greek words ou-topos ("no place") and eu-topos ("a good place"), a place that is to be found nowhere, but that is good. Because they are rooted in the idea of travel to a place that is out of the way, utopias are unattainable idealistic representations in spatial and social terms. The architectural structure and social order of these places are intended to stand for harmony, equality and peace. As political projects, utopias are founded on the idea of the commonwealth, which presupposes an ideal state, whose governing pattern is modelled on commonality of values, moral norms and respect for what is considered lawful and decent.

As discourse or text, utopias, at least sixteenth and seventeenth-century utopias, are characterized by dialogue. The dialogue allows the author/character and the returned traveller, as it happens in More's Utopia, to introduce, contrast and question ideas. Houston (2014) discusses utopias as dialogues extensively in her book:

This abiding relationship between utopia and dialogue is clearly founded in the fact that the most influential utopia of the period, More's, was written as a dialogue in the open mode: questioning, discursive and self-critical. (Houston 2014: 4)

I will not focus on this issue, but would like to suggest that, given that dialogue is at the core of drama, the idea of utopia as dialogue could have proven useful to Shakespeare for discussing and defining utopia in his plays, more particularly in The Tempest. More precisely, I want to suggest that what is contrasted in the play is the old world with the new world and Shakespeare wants to make the reader question the status of the new world, whether it is a utopia or it resembles the old world. To discuss this, I will focus on three of the characters of the play, Gonzalo, Prospero and Miranda. In this trio, I see Gonzalo as a defender of the utopian project, Prospero as a representative of the old world and Miranda as detached from either of the two and capable of providing a final judgement in the play.

The tempest, brought about by Prospero through Ariel the spirit occurring only at the beginning of the play, casts everybody on board a ship on Prospero's enchanted island; thus any social barriers and statuses become erased and everybody is given the possibility to dream about reinventing themselves in a new capacity - that of king of the island. One can note this in the boatswain's exclamation: "What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not." at the beginning of the play (I.1, 16-17). I will not discuss how each of these characters behaves when facing the possibility of losing their lives, but will focus, as already stated, only on Gonzalo, Prospero and Miranda.

Finding himself marooned on Prospero's enchanted island, after the latter caused a shipwreck as part of his plan for revenge on the people who had wronged him twelve years before, Gonzalo appears marveled by the things he sees and soon starts to build a utopian vision in his mind. He thinks it lucky to have survived and to find himself on the island:

GONZALO

Here is everything advantageous to life. (II. 1.47)

...

How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green! (II.1. 51)

Here, Gonzalo's utopian dream is contrasted with Sebastian's and Antonio's cynicism and also Prospero's desire for revenge. Finding themselves on this "out of the world" island, Sebastian and Antonio plot over the opportunity of killing the king of Naples and thus paving the way for Antonio to become king and then blame the kind-hearted Gonzalo for that. Prospero seeks his chance for avenging his brother's treachery and usurpation of his former position as Duke of Milan, whereas Gonzalo, in all of this, seeks the opportunity to build a utopia, an idea which Sebastian and Antonio mock:

SEBASTIAN

I think he will carry this island home in his pocket

and give it his son for an apple. (II.1. 85-86)

Although almost everybody in the play cherishes ideas of authority and power, Gonzalo's wish to reign on the island is meant to inspire a new political project:

...

GONZALO

Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, -

...

And were the king on't, what would I do?

...

I' the commonwealth I would by contraries

Execute all things; for no kind of traffic

Would I admit; no name of magistrate;

Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,

And use of service, none; contract, succession,

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;

No occupation; all men idle, all;

And women too, but innocent and pure;

No sovereignty; - (II.1. 143-152)

For him, the island opens up all opportunities for a commonwealth project, which excludes all the negative things belonging to the old world. Gonzalo hopes that in a world of "contraries," he will be able to let enthusiasm overtake him:

GONZALO

All things in common nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,

Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,

To feed my innocent people.

...

I would with such perfection govern, sir,

To excel the golden age. (II.1. 155-162)

Antonio's and Sebastian's mockery of Gonzalo's words throughout Act II, especially when he proposes the idea of a commonwealth suggests their pessimism about the realization of his project. If Gonzalo cherishes ideas of an Edenic place to live in, they plot power games and plan his murder too:

It proposes an idealised society partly based on a New World model, but appears to call into question its credibility by undermining confidence in its proponent. However, the main sources of this undermining are two corrupt members of European society, ripe for reform, and to whom the 'very words that import lying, falshood, treason, dissimulations, covetousnes, envie, detraction' are eminently applicable. (Montainne qtd. in Brennan 2006: 327)

3. The new world vs. the old world in The Tempest

When the tempest stops, the class order is restored on the island. Gonzalo remarks:

That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in

the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and glosses,

being rather new-dyed than stained with salt water. (II. 2. 59-61)

The restoration of clothes is a reassertion of class, of rank. Clothes come to be associated with power. Shakespeare often makes remarks about Prospero's clothes:

In contrast to Antonio's robes of office, Prospero wears a robe which confers magical, not earthly, power. Clothing, then, carries particular signification in the play, as it did in wider society: dress indicated rank. That the system of power relations and governance is to be, in the end, unchanged for these maroons is perhaps indicated to them, and to the audience, by the magical freshness and dryness of their clothes. (Brennan 2006: 329)

Before being inhabited by those shipwrecked from the world Prospero had left behind, the island featured three inhabitants, Prospero, Caliban and Miranda. Prospero uses his knowledge (his books), which had once caused him to lose his former position as Duke of Milan, as his mind was all the time taken up by reading, to rule the island through magical tricks and the exercise of power. The very name "Prospero" means "wealth." Prospero is cast in the role of the ruler and usurper of the island. He overthrows Sycorax, Caliban's mother, imprisons Caliban after his attempted rape of Miranda and denies freedom to Ariel, the spirit, once Sycorax's servant. That is, the island already displays a social order that is no different from the old one, before the shipwrecked arrive. That this is the case is demonstrated by the fact that Prospero has taught Caliban his language at which Stephano and Trinculo marvel. They themselves try to teach him to drink. From a postcolonial perspective, this clearly features a binary relation of the kind colonizer - the colonized. Prospero's appropriation of the island and authority over its inhabitants allude to this.

Prospero's obsession with Miranda's virginity is not only a symbol of preservation of naturalness, but also of preservation of class. He enslaves Caliban as a punishment for his attempted rape, but when Miranda falls in love with Ferdinand, son of Alonso, the king of Naples, Prospero appears secretly satisfied and happy. Their union is an indication of the restoration of class order.

Miranda's perspective of the world is the most innocent. She marvels at seeing other human beings inhabiting the island and identifying them with herself. To her, they seem beautiful creatures. When all the characters are brought together at last, she exclaims:

MIRANDA

O, wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in't!

PROSPERO

'Tis new to thee. (V.1. 182-186)

Miranda's innocent exclamation pins down the new world, makes it locatable - "nowhere is a place" - and identifiable as "brave," which, although it might be taken to connote several things, seems to stand particularly for the appearance of clothes as "showy"' or "dazzling." The new world "that has such people in't" does not seem any different from the old one. The use of "goodly" and "beauteous" to refer to the new inhabitants of the island reinforces the idea. Moreover, A Dictionary of English Etymology connects the word "brave" with "brag", associating it primarily with ostentatious and dazzling clothing, and explains the sense of courage as a derivation of bragging (cf. "brave" in Wedgwood 1872: 92).

There seems to be an overlapping of visualizations in this context though. For Prospero, the old world is the world he has left behind when he acted as Duke of Milan, whereas for Miranda it is the island inhabited by herself, her father, Caliban and Ariel. In her view, the population of the island, with the new creatures she can identify herself with, does indeed sound astonishing and flaunting. By juxtaposing "brave" with "new," with the former making reference to appearance and the latter to the island, Miranda actually restores the order of things to its default position and unknowingly equates the old world with the new one. Prospero's reply to Miranda's innocent remark not only recognizes the similarity the old world bears to the new world, but also reaffirms the restoration of the order of things. Gonzalo himself recognizes this in his exclamation:

In one voyage

Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,

And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife

Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom

In a poor isle and all of us ourselves

When no man was his own. (V.1. 208-213)

Here Gonzalo speaks of losing people and identifies the island as the milieu where the redeeming act of finding takes place. The characters are rewarded not only with finding a wife or a husband, but above all, with finding themselves. Although Prospero is the orchestrator of this journey designed to end up in a shipwreck, it affects him too. In the end, he gets to self-recognition. He realizes that the books which he successfully used on the island to dominate its inhabitants and to trick his enemies of the old world, had once actually distanced him from his duties.

However, such a view sounds too idealistic. Is it that all characters found themselves in the end? What can we make of the evil designs of Antonio and Sebastian?

4. Conclusion

I have tried to demonstrate how, in The Tempest, the journey is used as an event or device, if you wish, to feature the new world, herein standing for a newly discovered remote place. Although there are many utopic elements, identifiable particularly in Gonzalo's discourse, which seem to project a new utopia, the island is rather a projection of the new world, which is after all not that different from the old world. Leaving his old world behind, Prospero makes use of his books and casts himself in the role of a usurper, becoming the ruler of the island. On the island, he recognizes other forms of evil, which are less refined and sophisticated than those he could identify in the old world, as is for instance Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda.

Overall, it appears that Shakespeare highlights the importance of losing as a relieving act that leads to the redeeming act of finding. Without losing, there could be no finding. If Prospero had not lost his dukedom because he was so much taken with his books, he would have never reached the island, which would eventually make him and his enemies embark on a journey in search of things lost. In this search, Shakespeare raises the expectations of the characters and the readers alike.

Many elements in the play, primarily, but not exclusively, connected with travel, such as the island's remoteness and unculturedness, Gonzalo's wish to build a commonwealth on it, the play's concern with learning and books, allude to the prospect of finding a utopia. However, in the end, the island is affirmed as a representation of a new world rather than a utopia. Despite the fact that Gonzalo cherishes an idealistic view of the new world, whereas Prospero a rather sceptical one, Miranda's innocent exclamation affirms the similarity the two worlds bear to each other.

If so, what point does the play make? In the end, Prospero realizes that his absorption in books had distanced him from human interaction and behaviour. By the idea of finding our selves on the island, Gonzalo actually refers not only to the restoration of the former class order, but, above all, to the restoration of the self. What are the chances that the restoration will project a better world? Miranda's marvel at the new world "[t]has such people in't" (V.1.138) somehow reaffirms the fact that the world is beautiful because it hosts such a variety of creatures, from the noble, innocent and kind-hearted to the dishonest, mischievous and treacherous. What the play emphasizes is forgiveness and living in peace with oneself and the others. Prospero's act of forgiving his enemies has not probably made them any better, but it did help Prospero look ahead and build his future freed from the ghosts of the past.

Sidebar

Armela Panajoti is an Associate Professor and head of the Department of Foreign Languages, University of Vlora, Albania. She holds a PhD on Conrad from the University of Tirana, Albania. She is currently the Chair of the Albanian Society for the Study of English (ASSE), general editor of its journal, in esse: English Studies in Albania, a member of the Board of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) and a Corresponding Fellow of the English Association. Dr Panajoti has published papers in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and has spoken at, and organised, many international conferences. Her research interests are mainly concentrated on literary and cultural studies. She has particularly dealt with matters which explore the relation between language and literature, language and culture, intercultural competence and communication.

E-mail address: [email protected]

References

References

Brennan, Rosamund Elaine. 2006. European Representations of the New World in Travel Narratives and Literature, Late-Fifteenth to Mid-Seventeenth Centuries. PhD thesis. Cardiff University.

Carter, Ronald and John McRae. 2001. The Routledge History of Literature in English. 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.

Houston, Chloě. 2014. The Renaissance Utopia: Dialogue, Travel and the Ideal Society. Surrey: Ashgate.

Mitsi, Evi. 2005. "'Nowhere is a Place': Travel Writing in Sixteenth-Century England" in Literature Compass, 2, pp. 1-13.

More, Thomas. 2012. Utopia. Ed. and trans. Dominic Baker-Smith. London: Penguin Classics.

Panajoti, Armela. 2016. "Shipwreck in Shakespeare's Plays" in Penda, Petar (ed.). The Whirlwind of Passion: New Critical Perspectives on William Shakespeare. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 217-229.

Shakespeare, William. 2006. The Tempest. Fully annotated with an introduction by Burton Raffel and with an essay by Harold Bloom. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Wedgwood, Hensleigh. 1872. A Dictionary of English Etymology. 2nd edition. London: Trübner & Co.