Reflections After Shakespeare's The Tempest Poem by Daniel Brick
Reflections After Shakespeare's The Tempest
Royal Shakespeare Company, March,2017
Everything you have heard is true:
the story has a lovely princess
too innocent even for a fairy world.
It has a revenge fantasy, side by side
with a utopian commonwealth; it has
drunkenness and sobriety. Like all fairy
stories, it has a monster at its center:
but which character plays the monster?
Should we fear that place, that magic island,
because one man controls its storms and calms?
Should we fear that man, old in scholarship,
because he is a necromancer, or because
he is a grievously wounded man? Should we
fear a mere man with the power he claims
to raise the dead back to life? Or is that
just a poet's fancy, fading into thin air?
Should we not rejoice instead because
this place is so real? It has weight
and presence, visible and invisible
creatures bustle to and fro, amid music
and fair weather. And witness the changing
light of the stars above, intelligent stars
that know our fates, and are not without kindness.
If there are risks - No, that is not
how I want to put this. Say instead:
There is a desirable island you can only reach
by a storm at sea; there must be a history
of grief you carry within; there must be
a willingness in you to make friends for life.
But the hardest thing you must do alone:
to read deeply in Prospero's book,
and then throw it in a high arc into the sea,
and watch it sink past touch, past vision,
past any hope of retrieval. You must be able
to summon Prospero's courage or be damned.
It is the heart of all things that speaks.
There is an island which could be paradise,
where sweet music inhabits the air, like a living
presence, and makes hearts swell with forgiveness.
Are we not ready? Will you settle there with me?
Who can understand Shakespeare better than you...i'm awed by your knowledge n understanding of Shakespeare. This poem is so rich in meaning that it takes many readings to extract from it the maximum. There is an island which could be paradise....good literature must give us this hope, this fantasy that something exists that is too good to be true. Let it exist in our mind only if not in real, for that would make living easier. A good writer has the power to make the reader believe in magical things n places. A profound piece of writing deserving top marks.
You are so right that we need a niche in our minds where wonders are commonplace and the imagination produces miracles. If nothing else, we can laugh in delight that the human mind can create such wild poetry. I love what you say about magic and literature in the second half of your message. How far apart so we live? 20,000 miles? But when it comes to poetry, we share the love of poets and poems. We are just next door neighbors in our high regard for it!
There is a desirable island you can only reach by a storm at sea; there must be a history of grief you carry within; there must be a willingness in you to make friends for life. But the hardest thing you must do alone: to read deeply in Prospero's book, - - - - - - - - - - Reading good literature gives us insight into life.This stanza sums up your view of the the great Shakespearean play.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/26/2024 7:28:32 PM # 1.0.0.1119
You share the harvest of many communings with the Bard, allowing us to glean it in the space of one reading. Your poem reads like one of the whispers in the air over that ISLE OF NOISES, or a chart guiding readers to the treasure within a charmed tale.