kness and loyalty came out in Act III, and
how his uprightness is rewarded in Act V. Do you think it significant
that he closes the play? Francisco considered as the least important
personage in the play: should his speech describing Ferdinand's
swimming be given to Gonzalo? The sailors considered as examples of
Shakespeare's skill in outline portraits. Are Stephano and Trinculo
more highly developed types than Caliban? Would the play be better if
they were left out?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is Gonzalo more like Polonius in 'Hamlet' or Rent in 'Lear'?

VII

A STUDY OF ARTISTIC DESIGN

THE SYMBOLISM OF 'THE TEMPEST'

Did Shakespeare typify himself as Prospero? Prospero (says Montegut)
alludes to his own age, and intimates that the time has come for
retirement to private life. What indications can you find that
Prospero images Shakespeare? If he is so interpreted, what parts may
Ariel and Caliban be supposed to play? Is the history of the Enchanted
Island and the transformation wrought a parallel with the history of
the Stage and the transformation Shakespeare wrought? According to
Montegut, Caliban stands for Marlowe, Ariel for the English Genius
which Shakespeare frees from its barbaric prison. Dowden ('Mind and
Art of Shakespeare') fancies Prospero as the great artist lacking at
first in practical faculty, cast out therefore from practical worldly
success; but bearing with him Art in her infancy, the child Miranda,
finds at last an enchanted country where his arts can work their
magic, subduing the grosser appetites and passions (Caliban), and
commanding the offices of the imaginative genius of poetry (Ariel). He
supposes Ferdinand to be Shakespeare's heir as a playwright
(Fletcher). Lowell ('Among my Books') considers that the characters do
not illustrate a class of persons, but belong to universal
nature,--Imagination embodied in Prospero; Fancy in Ariel; brute
understanding in Caliban, who, with his wits liquor-warmed, plots
against his natural lord, the higher reason; Miranda, abstract
Womanhood; Ferdinand, Youth, compelled to drudge till sacrifice of
will and self win him the ideal in Miranda. Browning makes an
incidentally interesting contribution to this subject by symbolizing
in Caliban rudimentary theologizing man, in his poem 'Caliban.' (See
_Poet Lore_, Vol. V, p. 562, November, 1893.)

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is 'The Tempest' an allegory? Is it in any sense an autobiographical
play? Does its s