The Space Between The Man and The Mask
At first when entertaining the metaphorical space between the man and the mask I found it difficult to understand the complexities involved. Shakespeare, on the other hand, understood this space as an area of “airy nothing” for which the human experience and the world we inhabit can be examined. Shakespeare’s adoration of poetics, language, art, and the human experience caused him to fill this space to promote conversation and meditation of all and nothing between the mask and man. The mask I am defining is not the literal mask found in ritual, festival, and ceremony, but rather, the practice of Shakespeare the poet and playwright creating a space within the “boundary between all and nothing”(Turner 67) of which the “soul itself were not so much an entity, a being, as a reflexive process at the boundary of being” (Turner 67). He enacts this through the highs and lows of his use of language within his work bringing forth “ two points of view” (Hughes 28) “ the objective” and “subjective”(Hughes 28) giving way to “consider subjectivity and objectivity as intersecting states struggling one against the other”(Yeats 71) creating these boundaries which in turn conceives space, so his characters may depict the depth of what it means to be human. Throughout Shakespeare’s The Tempest, this space between the man and the mask is the site of dialog about art, love, ethics, individual identity, and ultimately the nothing that matters.
With the emerging cultural movement of the Age of Enlightenment, thought and ideas concerning spirituality, politics, and science had become a focus of not only the intellects, but also of the commoner. In order to engage an audience and draw the masses to the theatre, Shakespeare needed to create something new that would stretch across the boundaries of class “ at every level—at the level of theme, of action, and of word”(Hughes 17) by creating “ a language of the common bond” (Hughes 17). Hughes explains Shakespeare’s language as “ a common language of the highest and the lowest”(18), which “in the end, the common language of a profoundly articulated, esoteric, spiritual vision and of a domestic, popular tragic melodrama”(18). The effect of the high and low nature of his language gives forth the to an interior/exterior, subjective/objective area of a “self contained circuit” (34) allowing boundaries to form and space to develop, invoking a middle of sorts. Within The Tempest, the storm rages in the background while Miranda states,
If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch
But that the sea, mounting to th’ welkin’s cheek, (Act 1, Scene 2)
designing the boundaries of the earthy land and its “waters” to the upward expansion of the “sky.” Reiterating the language in a reversed manner in the last line, Miranda phrases it “ the sea” to the “welkin’s cheek.” Both phrasing portrays a space to the audience where the physical dialog will take place and where the subjective/objective dialog will transfer to characters of the play, the subjective becomes stated as, “by your art” and the objective as, “my dearest father.” Art, much like Shakespeare’s writing and Prospero’s magic being described as “art,” speaks to power and control man has at his will, for better or for worse. The choice of how one uses their art is set between “ the dearest father” and the powerful magus. The high and the low are literally depicted by the sky and the earth, the magician and the father. The setting and actor/man become the macro boundary, creating an inner space, forcing the play away from the mask and closer to the man. Prospero immediately confronts the implications of the macro boundaries as Miranda announces in her debut dialog by retorting highly,
No harm
I have done nothing but in care of thee—
Art ignorant of what thou art, naught knowing
Of whence I am, nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father. (Act 1 Scene 2)
Prospero’s language expresses his inflated self as his states, “ I have done nothing but in care of thee” to Miranda by placing himself above her, his “art,” and magician- self above the father- self. Lowly he fixes the space as the mortal man, “master of a full poor cell” in conjunction with “ no greater father.” Shakespeare gives a multidimensional view of the man Prospero, designing the man with a space for growth or enclosure of Shakespeare’s “ search for an imaginative synthesis of archaic religious emotion and new, moralizing, idealistic, suppressive reason, of the painfully colliding old world and the new”(Hughes 32). While Shakespeare confronts the inflated self-importance of man, along with the ideas of mysticism colliding with religion, he creates a space of meditation for his audience to reflect upon religion and power intersecting. The man Prospero has been introduced to the audience as a combination of roles being father, magus, man, and god, inciting complexities of humanity by mirroring “ the idea of the world as language”(Turner 64). Language becomes a theme and a centerpiece of discussion as Caliban remarks to Prospero,
You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!
(Act 1 Scene 2)
Shakespeare combines “ language” and “profit” within the same line to establish an inner dialog of how power and economics go hand in hand, but stated from Caliban, “a savage and deformed slave,” he further implicates not only Prospero the character, but Shakespeare, the man, and the entire nation of England and its imperialistic practices far and near. All the questions, sights, and sounds of morality, ethics, love, and nuances of humans is nothing but what Shakespeare needed to utilize the space between the mask and the man.
Circumference of the globe, space between all and nothing, “the glance from heaven to earth”(Turner 67), constructs a confine that Shakespeare as the poet and playwright uses as exploration of his characters within their space between body and mask. Once again this abstract metaphor can be examined in Shakespeare’s last and most succinct plays, The Tempest. The island within The Tempest is a self-contained space allowing the actors/characters to be focused within their confines unable to leave until all negotiate the morality of existence and the larger existence of mankind. Much like the “empty space inside the theatre,”(Turner 60) the bulk of the play’s moral and ethical conflicts are discussed within the confines of space. Ariel in Act 3 Scene 3 delivers a powerful speech concerning the nature of man,
You are three ment of sin, whom destiny—
That hathe to instrument this lower world
And what is in’t—the never-surfeited sea
Hath caused to belch up you, and on this island,
Where man doth not inhabit, you ‘mongst men
Being most unfit to love. I have made you mad;
And even with suchlike valor men hang and drown
Their proper selves.
evoking an internal dialog, what is their sin? Clearly unable to use language that is transparent in meaning, Shakespeare sets “ men” “ that hath to instrument this lower world and what is in’t” against “ the never-surfeited sea” to establish space where he can implicate the dominating nature of man to the point of being toxic and as a necessity the are “belched up” by the sea. Further examining the nature of man, Shakespeare depicts the ego of man and it’s foolishness by connecting the notion of “ valor men” and “hang and drown/ their proper selves” to illustrate bravery can be an illusion of the true state of mortality. Turner expresses the idea, “if life is a game, then is it not noble to play it as well as, or better than, something more “serious”?” (52) to relate Shakespeare as god-like creator to his own god-like character Prospero. Although Prospero is not a creator of beings, he is the creator of the play acted out within The Tempest, depicting he is able to control the fate of those amongst his players, which acts as a reflection upon himself and his own fate. Prospero in rumination of his power and what is left to be designed, announces,
Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
Performed, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring.
Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
In what thou hadst to say. So, with good life
And observation strange, my meaner ministers
Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,
And these, mine enemies, are all knit up
In their distractions. They now are in my power;
And in these fits I leave them, while I visit
Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drowned,
And his and mine loved darling. (Act3 Scene3)
and depicts the loyal Ariel in elevation by “ grace” and the lowly demeaning act of his loyalty through “ devouring.” Now that Prospero’s “ high charms work” and his “ enemies, are all knit up” in his “power” he is free to solidify the love between Ferdinand and his “ loved darling” while gaining a step closer to lessening the gap between the mask and the man and closer to a singular self. The nothing of this spacious area holds Prospero the magus “weightless thoughts”(Turner 67) which can “ effectively control the massive universe itself,”( 67) the universe of Shakespeare’s Globe and the world itself. After the ceremonial unification of Miranda and Ferdinand, Prospero announces his “airy nothings”, the space made by subjectivity and objectivity, the space between gods and men, and the space between the man and the mask, though his great valediction to the play,
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the vase less fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are make on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed.
Bear with my weakness: my old brain is troubled.
Be not disturbed with my infirmity.
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose, A turn or two I’ll walk
To still my beating mind.
Shakespeare through Prospero had created love, enslavement, and freedom though the “actors” in the play, giving the weight and height of importance relative to “ cloud-capped towers” and “gorgeous palaces”, “solemn temples” and “the great globe itself.” Although his examples of importance have great physical and weight and height, he returns to the weightless, “insubstantial” “dreams” and the “ empty space inside the theatre” (Turner 60) “ as the active seizing of control over the world”(Turner 60). Prospero is completing his “ rounded “ reality to become one with his thoughts and the actors upon his stage.
Shakespeare, in the final epilogue of The Tempest, brings Prospero to a close and within the act fuses the mask to the man needing the space no more. As his “charms are all o’erthrown” the audience has “confined” as a singular man in need of being freed from “ his bands” in order to end his “despair” to become with the world and the “airy nothings.” The mask and the man become one and the lessons of morality, love, ethics, and all worldly matters come to a close. The audience is now free to leave and carry on the thoughts and dreams of what matters.
Shakespeare’s metaphorical space between the man and the mask has been a powerful influence on language, science, ethics, morality, poetics, and theater. Through the use of language and the philosophy of nothing, Shakespeare’s plays create boundaries and in turn space, with the space being dissolved when the contemplations have been resolved. Within The Tempest, Prospero is able to create this resolve though the art of contemplation and action and the understanding that the nothing Shakespeare embraces is the “poets eye”(Turner 67) glancing “from earth to heaven and back, this is from the known or existent to the unknown or nonexistent and back”(Turner 67).
Work Cited
Hughes, Ted. Shakespeare Essentials. New York, New York. Harper Collins, 1991.
Turner, Fredrick. “The School Of Night” Corona Vol. 4. 1986: 48-69.
Yeats, W.B. A Vision. USA. The Macmillan Company. 1938.
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