Prospero's Powers: A Short View of Shakespeare's Last Phase
By John O’Meara
()
About this ebook
The play is seen as expressing in its structure the whole of Shakespeare's tragic development up to that time. Great powers of self-knowledge and of inner knowledge of the cosmos are shown to have emerged from this development, which Prospero now embodies. Structural links are pursued that further connect Prospero's powers with the mysterious process of self-growth that is dramatized in The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz.
Behind both works, and the Renaissance alchemical tradition they mediate, lies the mystery of the sacrificial death of the Sophia into human consciousness that was taking place at the time Shakespeare was writing. From the event of this death come the great possibilities of self-development and inner power over the world that Shakespeare was boldly prophesizing in the play that brings his artistic career to consummation.
"an excellent and profound study"-Richard Ramsbotham, Who Wrote Bacon?: William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and James I
John O’Meara
Born in Montreal, Canada, John O’Meara received his Ph.D in 1986 from the University of East Anglia. He taught for over 20 years in the English departments of the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa.
Related to Prospero's Powers
Related ebooks
Shakespeare's Muse: An Introductory Overview Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe New School of the Imagination: Rudolf Steinerýs Mystery Plays in Literary Tradition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Redemption: Christ's Resurrection and the Future of Humanity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gospel of Elohim Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeparture of the Perfected One: The Story of the Buddha's Transition from Earth to Nirvana – The Mahāparinibbānasutta Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Three Meetings: Christ, Michael and Anthroposophia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJerusalem: The Role of the Hebrew People in the Spiritual Biography of Humanity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFour Modern Mystery Dramas: The Doorway of Initiation – The Trial of the Soul – The Guardian of the Threshold – The Souls Awaken Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMystery of the Christ: Aspects of Christology in the Work of Rudolf Steiner Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChild of the Cosmos: Strengthening Our Intrinsic Being Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBiography: Freedom and Destiny: Enlightening the Path of Human Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Quest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Night: as a Wellspring of Strength. Sleep, Spiritual Encounters and the Starry Firmament Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChrist and the Human Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEternal and Transient Elements in Human Life: The Cosmic Past of Humanity and the Mystery of Evil Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPersonal Religion in Egypt Before Christianity (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Michael Prophecy and the Years 2012-2033: Rudolf Steiner and the Culmination of Anthroposophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWaves and Grains: Reflections on Light and Learning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Happiness: Fortune, Success and the Human Spirit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnthroposophy and the Inner Life: An Esoteric Introduction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mission of the New Spirit Revelation: The Pivotal Nature of the Christ Event in Earth Evolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEsoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKalevala, The Land of the Heroes, Volume Two Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Coronavirus Pandemic II: Further Anthroposophical Perspectives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDying Earth and Living Cosmos: The Living Gifts of Anthroposophy - The Need for New Forms of Consciousness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Threefold Commonwealth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Behold a Pale Horse: by William Cooper | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Breath Becomes Air: A Novel by Paul Kalanithi | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Prospero's Powers
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Prospero's Powers - John O’Meara
PROSPERO’S POWERS
A Short View of Shakespeare’s Last Phase
John O’Meara
iUniverse, Inc.
New York Lincoln Shanghai
Prospero’s Powers
A Short View of Shakespeare’s Last Phase
Copyright © 2006 by John O’Meara
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:
iUniverse
2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100
Lincoln, NE 68512
www.iuniverse.com
1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)
Detail illustration from Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb.
Insert text from The Tempest, IV.i.265.
All quotations are taken from The Tempest, ed., Stephen Orgel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
ISBN-13: 978-0-595-41000-2 (pbk)
ISBN-13: 978-0-595-85354-0 (ebk)
ISBN-10: 0-595-41000-6 (pbk)
ISBN-10: 0-595-85354-4 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgments
I
The Relation to Pericles and The Winter’s Tale
II
Study of the Liberal Arts
III
The Freeing of Ariel
IV
‘Rapt in Secret Studies’
V
The Alchemical Extension and the New Life
A Further Note on the Higher Ego in Shakespeare
Works Cited
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments, first, to the students at the University of Toronto who, in seminar, lent their enthusiastic support to the view of Shakespeare’s late plays expounded on in these pages.
To Alexandra Barbara Gunther for opening up greater perspectives on the mysterious figure of Christian Rosenkreutz.
To Richard Ramsbotham and Emerson College, England, where I had the chance to develop my ideas further, in lectures and workshops I had the privilege to give there.
And to A.F.—my one true thing
—who inspirited the whole presentation that follows.
In memory of my mother.
Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. (I.ii.170)
I
The Relation to Pericles and The Winter’s Tale
Prospero’s mysterious ‘studies’ continue to baffle readers, I want to suggest because of a failure of structural curiosity on our part that seems to be growing more widespread in our post-modern civilization. This civilization has become so external in its concerns, we assume that Prospero’s powers will have something to do with his ‘books’, of which we should need to know more; in the meantime, we are content to think that some hermetic tradition or other, which one supposes irrecoverible, will, in the end, account for the possibility of such powers, if only these ‘books’ could be known. Yet Prospero’s ‘studies’ are not just another, independent part of the story that ranges from his wife’s death through his later abduction. These ‘studies’ constitute an altogether intrinsic part of the same story. And it is to this story that we must look to discover the sources and operations of Prospero’s powers.
Beginning with Miranda who, when the abduction takes place, is ‘not/Out three years old’ (I.ii.40-41), we are reminded of the mother who in this period has died. We then hear of Prospero’s reputation in the liberal arts, which now become ‘all [his] study’, to the point of a temporary renunciation of state. From here Prospero grows all the ‘stranger’ to his state, as he finds himself further ‘transported/And rapt in secret studies’ (I.ii.73-77). It is all too easy to overlook, in this fast-concatenating story, the role that Prospero’s intensifying ‘studies’ have played as a response to the mother’s death.
It is the very effort from which Prospero is dissociated when Antonio casts him out to ‘sea’ where Prospero must again live out the great sorrow of loss and dispossession that, over a great many years, had continued to engage Shakespeare himself, up to this point:
There they hoist us To cry to the sea