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George Washington University The Tempest and New Comedy Author(s): Lester E. Barber Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Summer, 1970), pp. 207-211 Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2868697 . Accessed: 11/01/2014 12:23 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Folger Shakespeare Library and George Washington University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Shakespeare Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 137.140.1.131 on Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:23:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Tempest and New Comedy LESTER E. BARBER N an article published in I955,1 Professor Bernard Knox sug- gests that the design of The Tempest is founded on certain of the stock patterns of Greek and Latin New Comedy. He says: "Below the strange and brilliant surface composed of medieval magic and Renaissance travel-tales, the initial situ- ation, the nature and relationships of most of the characters, the development of the action, and its final solution are all conjugations of the basic paradigms of classical comedy." Mr. Knox argues forcefully, but one or two of his assumptions about the tradition of classical comedy are open to question, and he tends, I believe, to oversimplify the situations of Shakespeare's play. Mr. Knox's suggestion seems essentially sound. His insights certainly estab- lish a relationship between The Tempest and New Comedy. He aptly points out, for example, that a phrase which R. A. Brower uses in The Fields of Light to describe one component of The Tempest, the "slavery-freedomcontinuity", applies to New Comedy as well as to Shakespeare. Brower's point is that in The Tempest nearly every nominally free character is in some sense enslaved for a time whereas the real slave, Caliban, fancies himself free. In New Comedy one also finds slaves acting as if they were free and free men temporarily enslaved. And, as The Tempest ends with a restoration of all men to their proper natures (on a complex level), so are the slaves and masters of an ancient comedy returned finally to their right spheres. Mr. Knox points out that the relationship of Prospero and Ariel is reminiscent of that of master and intriguing slave in Plautus and Terence. Ariel's first speech to Prospero is "comparable to many a hyperbolic declaration of availability made by Roman comic slaves." And it is also true, as Mr. Knox makes clear, that Caliban and Gripus, a slave in Plautus' play, the Rudens, share several characteristics,chiefly sullenness and dissatisfaction. Mr. Knox does not mention some other elements which the Rudens and The Tempest have in common. For example, each play contains a figure with supernatural powers. With an eye to restoring the proper order of things, the magician Prospero (by means of Ariel) and the god Arcturus each raises a storm at sea, providentially sending certain shipwrecked victims to their punishment or release from bondage. There is also a parallel between the settings of the two plays. A rural scene is definitely unusual in New Comedy (one exception is the Dyskolos of Menander), and an enchanted island is a new arena for Shakespeare's action. It is true that in The Winter's Tale Shakespeare uses a remote setting, the seacoast of Bohemia, on which to pre- 1 "The Tempest and the Ancient Comic Tradition", Virginia Quarterly Review, 3I (Winter, 1955), 73-89. Reprinted in English Stage Comedy, ed. W. K. Wimsatt, Jr., English Institute Essays (New York, 1955), pp. 52-73. This content downloaded from 137.140.1.131 on Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:23:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 208 SHAKESPEAREQUARTERLY sent the abandoning of Perdita and the destruction of Antigonus and his ship. These events are marvelous in a way, but Bohemia is not uncharted like the island in The Tempest, nor a place far from the courts of ordinary men. It is fair to say, I think, that Plautus in the Rudens and Shakespearein The Tempest were trying something new, aiming at unusual effects, and the settings them- selves suggest this. It is my belief that none of these parallels between the Rudens and The Tempest are more than superficial. There are too many differences in tone, in character relationships, and in action for the connection between the two plays to be any more basic. It is true that Mr. Knox never says that New Comedy is a direct source of The Tempest, but several times he implies that this is so: ". in other ways it [The Tempest] is the most rigidly traditional of all Shakespeare's comedies-with one exception. The exception is The Comedy of Errors, which is, however, apprentice-work, a typical Renaissance remanie- ment of a Plautine original." "After the long expository scene between Prospero and Miranda (itself a typical Plautine delayed prologue)... "All that remains is to free the clever slave . and the play, except for a version of the conventional Plautine request for applause, is over, the tradi- tional paradigm complete." These passages suggest that Shakespeare made deliberate use of elements of Latin comedy, but there is not, I think, sufficient justification for such a view. In fact, all the similarities between The Tempest and New Comedy which Mr. Knox outlines seem to me to be only echoes. There are enough of them and they are sufficiently pronounced to warrant the use of the word "analogue".They do not warrant more. In some of his arguments Mr. Knox accepts certain long-standing as- sumptions about the nature of New Comedy. I believe that two of these assumptions, the postulation of two particular slave types, and the emphasis on freedom as a goal of the comic slave, are not so well based as they might be and that a reexamination of these assumptions may help clarify the relation- ship of The Tempest to New Comedy. Mr. Knox says that Ariel and Caliban are, respectively, the clever and the disgruntled slaves of Roman comedy ("Prospero is master . and Ariel and Caliban are slaves"; "He (Caliban) is the surly, cursing slave of the old tradition"), and he goes on to differentiate the two varieties of slave in the old tradition. A typical paradigm is the plot in which a clever slave, by intelligent initiative and intrigue (often directed against his less intelligent fellow- slaves) solves his master'sproblem (which may range from finding a wife to marrying off a child) and, as a reward, gains his private objective,his liberty. This is a slave who has the intelligence,and eventuallyattains the status, of a free man; but there is another type of slave who is a convenientve- hicle for the traditionalservile humor, who provides the sullen bad tem- per, the cursing, the drunkenness,the indecency,thievishness, and coward- ice which are the traditionalcharacteristics of the comic slave. He may have the same ambition as his cleverer fellow, but not the same capacity;he forms grand designs, but through stupidity (often through the direct in- tervention of the clever slave) he fails miserably,and is humiliated and punishedwith blows or a stint at the mill. This content downloaded from 137.140.1.131 on Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:23:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE TEMPEST AND NEW COMEDY 209 I do not believe that this distinction can be so easily made. It is true that the intriguing slave, usually the most fascinating character of the play in which he appears, is distinct from a group of lesser bondsmen. In the best test cases (that is, plays containing both "types"), such as the Mostellaria and the Miles Gloriosus, it must be admitted that Tranio is not the same kind of dramatic vehicle that Phaniscus and Pinacium are; they have different stage roles to fulfill. (When Mr. Knox compares Ariel and Caliban to these two kinds of slave, he assumes not only a difference in dramatic role between the kinds, but a difference in nature.) Nor does Palaestrio have the same sort of part to play as Sceledrus or Lurcio. I agree that these less important slaves and others, like Palinurus of the Curculio, are "a convenient vehicle for the traditional servile humor". In this sense there are indeed two slave types in New Comedy, but the distinction does not really extend so far as Mr. Knox says it does. There are slaves, for example, ostensibly belonging to one type, whose characteristics overlap with those of the other group. There are relatively minor slaves, displaying a good deal of intelligence and wit, who, it seems to me, cannot be separated from the intriguers on the basis of intelligence. It happens only that their role in a particular drama is not the largest one. This is true of Palinurus in the Curculio, of Paegnium in the Persa, of Simia in Pseudolus and of Pinacium in the Stichus. Conversely, the intriguing slaves almost never lack the characteristicswhich Mr. Knox assigns to the second type. Many are impudent, some indecent. Pseudolus is a master intriguer, but also a drunkard.
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