Ariel is a spirit who appears in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Ariel is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from the tree in which he was imprisoned by Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island. Prospero greets disobedience with a reminder that he saved Ariel from Sycorax's spells, and with promises to grant Ariel his freedom. Ariel is Prospero's eyes and ears throughout the play, using his magical abilities to cause the tempest in Act One which gives the play its name, and to foil other characters' plots to bring down their master.
Ariel means "Lion of God" in the Hebrew language. Ariel may also be a simple play on the word "aerial". Scholars have compared Ariel to spirits depicted in other Elizabethan plays, and have managed to find several similarities between them, but one thing which makes Ariel unique is the human edge and personality given to Ariel by Shakespeare.
Because the stage directions in The Tempest are so precise, critics and historians are better able than with other Shakespeare plays to see how this play may originally have been performed. Several of the scenes involving magic have clear instructions on how to create the illusion required, causing critics to make connections and guesses as to exactly what sort of technology would have been used in Shakespeare's troupe to stage Ariel's role in the play. Also, a line by Ariel in Act IV allows scholars to ask whether, due to a shortage of boy actors, the original actor playing Ariel also played the part of Ceres.
Ariel is widely viewed as a male character, although this view has wavered over the years, especially in the Restoration when, for the most part, women played the role.
Role in the play
Ariel first appears in the second scene of the play to report to Prospero on his success in carrying out his command to shipwreck the King of Naples and his crew in a violent tempest. Ariel adds that, as commanded, he saw that none of the group was harmed, but that all landed safely on the island, scattered and separated along the coast. After being praised by Prospero, Ariel pleads for his freedom from the magician's service in return. Prospero declines, reminding him of the state he was in before Prospero rescued him: Ariel had been trapped by the witch Sycorax in a "cloven pine" as a punishment for resisting her commands. After 12 years of pain (and the death of Sycorax), Ariel was released from his prison by Prospero, who pressed the spirit into his service. The magician denies Ariel's request for freedom at this time, but promises that on the condition he follows the rest of his commands, he will grant his wish in two days. For the rest of the play, Ariel is Prospero's eyes and ears—spying on the shipwrecked sailors in invisible form, but only Prospero can see Ariel.
In the second act Ariel briefly appears to stop a conspiracy to kill Alonso, King of Naples, whose brother (and heir to the dukedom), Sebastian, plots to kill him in his sleep. Ariel sings in the ear of Gonzalo, a counsellor to Alonso, to wake him and foil the plot. Ariel also appears in Act Three to foil Caliban's plot to turn the sailors against Prospero and murder him. Later in the same act, he appears with a clap of thunder and rebukes those who were involved in the plot to banish Prospero to the island, displaying his fearful power to the men. He is later called on to gather the spirits of the island before Miranda and Ferdinand and to bring Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban before Prospero for judgement.
In the final act, Ariel releases the prisoners of Prospero and awakens what is left of the crew of the ship from a deep slumber. Thanks to Ariel's work, Ferdinand and Miranda have fallen in love. Prospero is so impressed by Ariel's matchmaking that he says that he would set Ariel free for that one act. Thus, having fulfilled all of Prospero's tasks, and Prospero himself now being free to leave the island, Ariel is set free.
Sources
The source from which Shakespeare got the idea for Ariel is not known, though there have been many candidates proposed by scholars. Sprites or demons such as Ariel were viewed during the Renaissance from either religious or scientific points of view: religion seeing them as either agents of the devil or agents of God, and science viewing them as neutral subjects which could be brought under the control of the wise. Some scholars compare Ariel to demons of the air described in Renaissance demonology, while others claim that he is an archetype of a more neutral category of sprites.[1] Several of these proposals are outlined below:
"[Aerial spirits] can descend to lower regions quicker than thought, and, having taken on bodies from the denser air, appear visibly at times.... These spirits often disturb the air, stir up tempests and thunders. They do not retain one form, but take on various forms...."
– Randall Hutchins, on the nature of sprites in Shakespeare's day.[1]
The '-el' ending of Shakespeare's name translates in Hebrew as 'God', placing Ariel inline with more benevolent spirits, many of which were listed in sorcery books published in Shakespeare's day with similar suffixes. Jewish demonology, for example, had a figure by the name of Ariel who was described as the spirit of the waters. Another spirit, Uriel, is also comparable. In Isaiah 29, Ariel is mentioned as another name for Jerusalem. In the Geneva Bible, which Shakespeare and others of the time would have known, the entry carries an interesting footnote describing this Ariel as the "Lyon of God." Further descriptions of this Ariel as having the power to confuse and weaken his enemies with sounds and tempests increase the parallel.[1]
The name Ariel might also be a simple derivation of aerial, though the character's abilities stretch beyond those of a typical air demon, encompassing fire and water demon abilities as well. Other scholars propose that the ca. 1589 play John a Kent and John a Cumber contains a character which may have been Shakespeare's inspiration. The character, named Shrimp, is also an air demon controlled by a magician. A few scenes of the play feature this demon performing tasks nearly identical to those Shakespeare's Ariel performed. Since it is very likely Shakespeare was familiar with the play, it is possible that Ariel is based on Shrimp, but evidence remains inconclusive.[2]
Though the actual source Shakespeare used has not yet been determined, it seems clear that Shakespeare's Ariel and his relationship with Prospero reflects more closely the Renaissance idea of a neutral spirit under the control of a magician than the religious idea of a sprite. Shakespeare, however, refuses to make Ariel a will-less character, infusing him with desires and near-human feelings uncharacteristic of most sprites of this type.[1]
The text of The Tempest contains more stage directions than most of Shakespeare's plays, giving scholars an opportunity to see into the portrayal of characters such as Ariel in Shakespeare's time. In Act III, Scene III, for example, when Ariel, as a harpy, is directed to clap his wings on a banquet table, he causes the food to disappear by a "quainte device". Scholars have tried to discover just what sort of "quainte device" would have been used by the King's Men in portraying this scene. Ariel's actor would have been unable to hide the food himself, having harpy wings over his arms which cumbered movement. The actor would not even have been able to sweep the food into a receptacle behind the table, since the theatre had seating on three sides. What was needed was some sort of device to act on the signal of Ariel slapping his wings on the table. This device was probably a false table top which could be tripped by a boy underneath while the harpy's wings covered the food. When the wings lifted, the food would be gone, apparently by magic. Later in act three, when Ariel appears and disappears with thunder, another trick was probably used, involving some sort of basket on wires, covered in cloud designs, which the Globe theatre then had. Ariel may have descended from the air in this device as a harpy, spoken his lines, and ascended in the same device. Ariel may have descended on the back of an eagle, rather than clouds, or with no device at all—wires being attached to his harpy wings.[3]
Later Act IV, Scene 1, Ariel says: "when I presented Ceres / I thought to have told thee of it / but I feared lest I might anger thee." Earlier in the same scene, Ceres, along with Iris and Juno, had appeared at Prospero's command in a Masque. Scholars have wondered whether Shakespeare originally intended the actor for Ariel to cover Ceres' role, and give it away in this line. The need for a dual role may have been caused by a shortage of boys capable of playing female parts (boys usually played all female roles in Shakespeare's day). This changing of parts requires a change in costume, which explains a lot of Ariel's delay in scene four in carrying out Prospero's orders. Time is allowed for the character to change from Ariel to Ceres and back. On the other side, Ceres may have been associated, by Shakespeare, to the Kairos figure, related to rhetorics, personating the opportune moment to present the convincing argument in a speech.[4] Early critics were sceptical of the idea, saying that "presented Ceres" could merely mean that Ariel introduced Ceres to the gathering. More recent studies, however, have revealed that, given the small number of boys travelling with the King's Men and the large number of parts for them to fill, there would have been little choice in the matter. The entire scene comes together in a way that leads scholars to believe that the Masque scene with the three goddesses was added as an afterthought to work around costuming and role-playing issues.[5]
In all textual versions, Ariel is referred to with the male pronoun 'his' twice in the entire play. One example is in the stage directions at III.iii.around 52: "Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table; and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes." The other gender pronoun used in the dialogue at I.ii.190-93, when Ariel responds to Prospero saying:
All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds; to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his quality.
Originally, the role would have been assumed by a boy-player, but beginning in Restoration adaptations, it would have been played by a woman.[6] Since the male actor Leslie French played the part in 1930, the role has been played by both men and women.[6] In the 2010 Julie Taymor film version of the play, Ariel is played by Ben Whishaw, but in that same year's Stratford Shakespeare Festival version of the play, also filmed and available on DVD, Ariel is played by Julyana Soelistyo.
In the Summer of 2013, Colin Morgan played Ariel in the Globe Theatre in London.
Ariel appears in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as part of the first incarnation of the group, Prospero's Men, alongside her master and Caliban.
In Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World, the character John Savage remarks that "Ariel could put a girdle 'round the Earth in forty minutes" when shown the elaborate equipment in the World State in chapter 11. However, this line is in fact said by Puck from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, making the quote inaccurate.
In the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet, an adaptation of The Tempest, an analogue to Ariel can be found in Robby the Robot, a mechanical servant bound to Morbius, the film's analogue to Prospero.
A monster in the 2007 video game Silent Hill: Origins is named after and inspired by Ariel.
The novel series Théâtre Illuminata, by Lisa Mantchev, stars Ariel as one of the main characters, and he persists as so throughout the trilogy.
Sylvia Plath's most famous book of poetry is the 1965 posthumously published Ariel. It is named so because she considered the poem to be the best in the book. Many readers know that the title of the poem was changed to "The Horse" for the less discerning newspaper readers and think the poem Ariel is simply about her riding a wild horse. Others, however, such as Nick Mount on YouTube, consider Plath's earlier childhood fascination with The Tempest's character Ariel and view the poem as talking about creativity and the dangerous direction her creativity was taking her.
Ariel Durant, wife of historian Will Durant and joint winner of the 1968 Pulitzer prize and the 1978 Presidential Medal of Freedom, took her name from Ariel in The Tempest.
One of the castaways in Lemony Snicket's 2006 novel The End is named Ariel; the book contains other allusions to The Tempest.
Ariel appears in the 2015 second season of The Librarians. She is presented as an actual fairy, having been sucked into The Tempest by Prospero when Shakespeare wrote her into the play. For most of the season, she appears as a small blue sprite imprisoned within Prospero's pocket watch. However, in the episode "And the Happily Ever Afters", she disguises herself as a human (Hayley McLaughlin), with the watch on her necklace. She helps free the Librarians from Prospero's illusions, and is subsequently freed when the watch is destroyed in the real world.
In episode 1 of the video game Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, the drama students of Blackwell Academy are seen rehearsing for their upcoming play, The Tempest. The main character, Chloe Price, subs for another student as Ariel in episode 2.
Aerial is the name of a Gundam-type mobile suit owned by Prospera Mercury in the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam: the Witch From Mercury; the series contains other allusions to The Tempest.
The novels Ilium/Olympos by Dan Simmons feature Ariel as well as several other characters from The Tempest.
Related Research Articles
Prospero is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him to sea on a "rotten carcass" of a boat to die, twelve years before the play begins. Prospero and Miranda had survived and found exile on a small island. He has learned sorcery from books, and uses it while on the island to protect Miranda and control the other characters.
Caliban, son of the witch Sycorax, is an important character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
Miranda is one of the principal characters of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. She is the only female character to appear on stage.
Prospero's Books is a 1991 British avant-garde film adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, written and directed by Peter Greenaway. Sir John Gielgud plays Prospero, the protagonist who provides the off-screen narration and the voices to the other story characters. As noted by Peter Conrad in The New York Times on 17 November 1991, Greenaway intended the film “as an homage to the actor and to his 'mastery of illusion.' In the film, Prospero is Shakespeare, and having rehearsed the action inside his head, speaking the lines of all the other characters, he concludes the film by sitting down to write The Tempest.”
The Tempest is an opera by English composer Thomas Adès with a libretto in English by Meredith Oakes based on the play The Tempest by William Shakespeare.
The Tempest is a 1979 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Directed by Derek Jarman, produced by Don Boyd, with Heathcote Williams as Prospero, it also stars Toyah Willcox, Jack Birkett, Karl Johnson and Helen Wellington-Lloyd from Jarman's previous feature, Jubilee (1977).
Scene from Shakespeare's The Tempest, also known as Ferdinand courting Miranda is an oil painting by the English painter William Hogarth. It has been displayed at Nostell Priory since 1766, and was acquired by the National Trust in 2002. The National Trust claims that it is "the first known painting of a scene from Shakespeare".
Sycorax is an unseen character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest (1611). She is a vicious and powerful witch and the mother of Caliban, one of the few native inhabitants of the island on which Prospero, the hero of the play, is stranded.
Ilium/Olympos is a series of two science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. The events are set in motion by beings who appear to be ancient Greek gods. Like Simmons' earlier series, the Hyperion Cantos, it is a form of "literary science fiction"; it relies heavily on intertextuality, in this case with Homer and Shakespeare as well as references to Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu and Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle.
Gonzalo is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Stephano is a boisterous and often drunk butler of King Alonso in William Shakespeare's play, The Tempest. He, Trinculo and Caliban plot against Prospero, the ruler of the island on which the play is set and the former Duke of Milan in Shakespeare's fictional universe. In the play, he wants to take over the island and marry Prospero's daughter, Miranda. Caliban believes Stephano to be a god because he gave him wine to drink which Caliban believes healed him.
Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs is a 1991 opera by Michael Nyman that began as an opera-ballet titled La Princesse de Milan choreographed by Karine Saporta. The libretto is William Shakespeare's The Tempest, as abridged by the composer. The title is derived from Caliban's line, "This isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, which give delight and hurt not." It premiered in June 1991 in Hérouville-Saint-Clair, Calvados, France, with the L'Ensemble de Basse-Normandie conducted by Dominique Debart. Three members of Saporta's dance company provided the singing.
The Tempest (Stormen), Op. 109, is incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest, by Jean Sibelius. He composed it mainly in the late summer 1925, his last major work before his tone poem Tapiola. Sibelius derived two suites from the score.
The Tempest is a 2010 American fantasy comedy-drama film based on the 1611 play of the same name by William Shakespeare. In this version, the gender of the main character, Prospero, is changed from male to female; the role was played by Helen Mirren. The film was written and directed by Julie Taymor and premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 11, 2010.
Voyage to Melonia is a 1989 Swedish-Norwegian animated adventure fantasy film directed by Per Åhlin, loosely based on William Shakespeare's The Tempest, with further inspiration from Jules Verne's Propeller Island and Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. It was Åhlin's first fully animated feature film, as his earlier films Out of an Old Man's Head and Dunderklumpen! had both used a mix of animation and live action.
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.
Une Tempête is a 1969 play by Aimé Césaire. It is an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest from a postcolonial perspective, set on an island in the Caribbean. The play was first performed at the Festival d'Hammamet in Tunisia under the direction of Jean-Marie Serreau. It later played in Avignon and Paris. Césaire uses all of the characters from Shakespeare's version, with some additions and new renderings of the original cast.
Caliban by the Yellow Sands is a play by Percy MacKaye, published in 1916.
The Tempest is a 1908 British-made silent film directed by film pioneer Percy Stow who specialised in trick photography.
Shakespeare's Shitstorm is a 2020 American musical comedy horror film written and directed by Lloyd Kaufman. Produced by Troma Entertainment, it is a contemporary parody of William Shakespeare's The Tempest.
References
1 2 3 4 Johnson, W. Stacy. "The Genesis of Ariel." Shakespeare Quarterly. (July 1951) 2.3 pgs. 205–210
↑ Reed, Robert R. Jr. "The Probable Origin of Ariel." Shakespeare Quarterly. (Jan 1960) 11.1 pgs. 61–65
↑ Adams, John C. "The Staging of The Tempest, III. iii." The Review of English Studies. (Oct 1938) 14.56 pgs. 404–419
↑ Smith, Irwin. "Ariel and the Masque in The Tempest." Shakespeare Quarterly. (July 1970) 21.3 pgs. 213–222
1 2 Button, Anne. "Ariel." The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 3 July 2007 Oxford Reference Online
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