Jonsonian Structure in The Tempest
1970; Oxford University Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2868394
ISSN1538-3555
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoN The Tempest, Shakespeare's conscious observance of the three unities of time, place and action' is not the only neoclassical discipline that he imposes on his imagination. Equally significant is the inner four-part structure that cuts across the formal outer division into five acts.2 Frank Kermode, in calling attention to this aspect of the play's design,3 has mistaken its purpose, which is not academic but dramaturgic. For the great advantage of the quadripartite structure is that it opposes to the separation into acts a flexible arrangement of episodes that assures an unimpeded flow of dramatic movement. This was, as far as effective example goes, the invention of Terence in Andria. Niccol6 Machiavelli, in his translation of this work and in his original comedies Clizia and La Mandragola, rediscovered it and adapted it to the Renaissance stage. Ben Jonson, rejecting the authority of Terence,5 studied Machiavelli and introduced it to the Elizabethan theater in Every Man in His Humour. He then experimented with it in the later comedies6 to achieve refinements in the management of episodes. Finally, he commented on this experimentation in the critical remarks scattered through his works and adopted the terminology of continental humanists to expound it. Both precept and practice on the part of his great rival, therefore, impressed Shakespeare in the writing of The Tempest. In his Commentary on Terence Aelius Donatus, the grammarian of the fourth century A. D. whose work was regularly printed with the playwright's in the Renaissance, puts a constant emphasis on the four parts of a comedy. These he terms prologue, protasis, epitasis, and castastrophe. The prologue is
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