But in the _Tempest_ the
scene is laid nowhere, or certainly in no country laid down on any map.
Nowhere, then? At once nowhere and anywhere,--for it is in the soul of
man, that still vexed island hung between the upper and the nether world,
and liable to incursions from both. There is scarce a play of
Shakespeare's in which there is such variety of character, none in which
character has so little to do in the carrying on and development of the
story. But consider for a moment if ever the Imagination has been so
embodied as in Prospero, the Fancy as in Ariel, the brute Understanding
as in Caliban, who, the moment his poor wits are warmed with the glorious
liquor of Stephano, plots rebellion against his natural lord, the higher
Reason. Miranda is mere abstract Womanhood, as truly so before she sees
Ferdinand as Eve before she was wakened to consciousness by the echo of
her own nature coming back to her, the same, and yet not the same, from
that of Adam. Ferdinand, again, is nothing more than Youth, compelled to
drudge at something he despises, till the sacrifice of will and
abnegation of self win him his ideal in Miranda. The subordinate
personages are simply types; Sebastian and Antonio, of weak character and
evil ambition; Gonzalo, of average sense and honesty; Adrian and
Francisco, of the walking gentlemen who serve to fill up a world.
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