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Caliban: This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother
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Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,
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Thou strok’st me, and made much of me; wouldst give me
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Water with berries in’t; and teach me how
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To name the bigger light, and how the less,
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That burn by day and night; and then I lov’d thee,
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And show’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,
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The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile:
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Curs ‘d be that I did so! . . .
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Miranda: I . . . took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
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One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,
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Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
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A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes
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With words that made them known . . .
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The Tempest
Act I, Scene II
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(L. 332341; 355359)
1
Shakespeare encapsulizes in a few lines the essence of the seemingly endless and controversial debate regarding secondlanguage acquisition. On a positive note, the playwright captures the give and take of cultural exchange, the delight in sharing totally new experiences, in renaming and redefining objects and ideas. But Shakespeare’s genius comes in showing us the dark side, the often patronizing tone, the loss of self which results when the new language is considered by the instructor and/or the population at large to be superior to the native one.
As an E.S.O.L. (English to Speakers of Other Languages) teacher to Hispanic students on the middle school level (6th, 7th, and 8th grades) and Fellow in the Yale New Haven Teachers Institute seminar on the chronicles of the New World, I find the connections between
The Tempest
, our readings on the Conquest, and language teaching intriguing. Our seminar has explored the major texts which announce, describe, and interpret the discovery and conquest of the New World including works by Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, Bernal D’az del Castillo, Cabeza de Vaca, Bartolomé de las Casas, Michel de Montaigne, Garcilaso de la Vega el Inca, Roberto Fernández Retamar, and the anonymous native writers included in the volume
Broken Spears
(a brief description of these works is included in the annotated bibliography at the end of this curriculum unit).
The attempts by totally different peoples to communicate is, I feel, one of the major themes of
The Tempest
, making its connection to second language acquisition relevant. While reading the various accounts of the Conquest, I have written endless notes in the margins regarding communication between conqueror and conquered including references to interpreters, translation, signs and other nonverbal expressions, native languages and dialects, and definitions of terms. These elements in the chronicles coupled with themes in
The Tempest
to which Caribbeanborn Hispanic students can relate—island life, storms, shipwrecks, magic—are the structure upon which this unit is based. References to the historical works will be included when they parallel the particular scenes extracted from
The Tempest
in order to illustrate the similarities between the chronicles and Shakespeare’s work. Since the historical documents are easily available in Spanish, teachers might consider having Spanishspeaking students read these in the original to facilitate comprehension. Obviously some of the references are not within students grasp; they are included however if the teacher wishes to paraphrase what I consider relevant background material for critical analysis.
The following questions, from the perspective of the language instructor, can be formulated while reading
The Tempest
and used to promote critical thinking in the classroom. What happened between Caliban and his teachers Miranda and Prospero when the newcomers instructed him, according to them, for the first time, to communicate?
Hadn’t Caliban and his mother Sycorax expressed themselves verbally to each other during the twelve years they lived together before she was banished and the Europeans arrived? Does Miranda shun Caliban’s utterances as mere “gabble” simply because she doesn’t understand them?
These universal queries posed by Shakespeare over 350 years ago are still relevant today at the point of contact between two cultures. What happens in the E.S.O.L. classroom when students and teacher, each speaking a different language, come face to face initially? What are the subtle and notsosubtle results of such interactions? In the transitional bilingual classroom there is a delicate balance—when teaching the language necessary for survival in new surroundings—between imparting communication skills in the new language and encouraging students to continue to express pride in their native tongue through speaking, reading, and writing. This curriculum unit will analyze selected sections of
The Tempest
as a vehicle through which to teach intermediateadvanced English to nonnative speakers while at the same time considering Shakespeare’s work as a document which addresses the attitudes of both teacher and learner.
Suggestions for lesson plans, class discussions, and homework assignments are included within this analysis in order to provide the instructor with an opportunity to test comprehension, critical thinking, and problem solving skills throughout. Included in this approach will be an emphasis on isolating the technical dramatic elements found in the text. This concentration on costumes, sound, lighting, and scenery encourages the class to focus on the play from the point of view of the stage technician, at the same time introducing students to career opportunities in these fields. The unusually lavish stage directions in
The
Te
mpest
suggest that Shakespeare composed the play, his last (1609), in retirement at Stratford and was therefore obliged to writein various instructions which would have been unnecessary had he been at the playhouse itself.
In order to assist the teacher with organizing the unit, the following key will be used and the appropriate letter will appear in the lefthand margin of the text:
(figure available in print form)
It is obvious that reading
The Tempest
in its entirety is a very sophisticated task for even the average native Englishspeaking student and for this reason only relatively simple passages will be cited. An appreciation for Shakespeare often requires years of careful cultivation and begins by elemental familiarization with the sounds of the words, even if the meanings are obscured. I believe there is an advantage with beginning English speakers in that students are not yet aware of the unfamiliar words and awkward sentence construction with which native speakers are uncomfortable almost immediately.
Since the level of English skills is relatively low for transitional E.S.O.L. students, I would suggest introducing
The Tempest
by recounting the play first in narrative form, using a guide such as the Barnes and Noble
Focus
series containing plot outlines of Shakespeare’s works, or Charles Lamb’s
Tales From Shakespeare
, specifically tailored and illustrated for children. This synopsis could be followed by viewing the British Broadcasting Corporation’s film, The
Tempest
, at the Yale Film Archives (
Forbidden
Planet
, a 1950’s science fiction version of
The Tempest
with Walter Pidgeon and Ann Francis, is also available at the Archives and would be an interesting and enjoyable comparison for students). However, before familiarizing themselves with the BBC film, the book illustrations, or even the book cover to the Arden edition, I feel it is important for students to formulate their own concepts, particularly with regard to the depiction of Caliban. Teachers can introduce this character as someone who looks and speaks differently from society as a whole and then ask the class to speculate on his appearance and personality. Since these particular students have had personal experiences dealing with an unfamiliar culture they will probably be able to relate to the problem posed by Shakespeare. Students might then begin to understand Caliban’s monsterlike depiction in the eyes of the Europeans as a possible exaggeration of the truth since he does not fit into their particular mold, and to analyze negative judgments placed upon people in contemporary society under similar circumstances.
After students have listened to a narrative version of
The Tempest
and/or viewed the B.B.C. film, they could then be introduced to the possible historical basis of the story. It would be helpful at this point to make maps available to compare the world at the time of the Conquest to the present. The December 1977
National Geographic
contains an excellent pullout map entitled “Colonization and Trade in the New World.” Milan, Naples, and Bermuda could be clearly labeled to familiarize the class with locations mentioned in the play. In May, 1609, a fleet of nine ships with 500 colonists under Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Summers went out to strengthen John Smith’s Virginia colony, but on July 25 the “Sea Adventure” with Gates and Summers on board, was separated from the rest of the fleet by a storm and the crew was forced ashore a nearby island. All the other ships arrived safely in Virginia soon after, Gates and Summers finally arriving in May, 1610. News of the storm, however, had reached England in 1609 and people felt the “Sea Adventure” had foundered. This made a big impression in England and many narratives of the wreck were published. That Shakespeare knew these narratives is now generally agreed and he was known to be acquainted with members of the Virginia Company.
A brief analysis of the title of the play might follow (a more detailed treatment follows in Act I, Scene I). Certainly teachers who have come into contact with Hispanic children newly arrived from the Caribbean area are familiar with their detailed accounts of personal experiences with hurricanes. Students could be encouraged to relate these impressions, either orally or in written form, thus appreciating the relevance of the play to their own lives.
While becoming familiar with the list of characters, students can make another obvious connection between themselves and Shakespeare’s choice of Latinbased names. Prospero labels the island’s inhabitant “Caliban,” regarded as a development of some form of the word “Carib” meaning a savage inhabitant of the New World; “cannibal” derives from this and Caliban is possibly a simple anagram of that word. Students can be asked at this point to consider what this character’s real name might have been and how they themselves feel when labeled with an uncomplimentary nickname. The origin of the name Caliban could be illustrated by reading the following account by Christopher Columbus in his journal. On Sunday, November 4, 1492, less than a month after he arrived in the New World, the following entry appears:
He learned also that far from the place there were men with one eye and others with dogs’ muzzles who ate human beings.
2
And on November 23, this account:
. . . On it [Haiti] lived people who had only one eye and others called cannibals, of whom they seemed to be very afraid.
3
A contemporary response to Columbus’ account comes in an essay by Roberto Fernández Retamar in which he states:
It is a question of the typically degraded vision offered by the colonizer of the man he is colonizing. The colonizer’s version explains to us that owing to his irremediable bestiality, there was no alternative to the extermination of the Carib . . . and in Shakespeare, Caliban is a savage and deformed slave who cannot be degraded enough . . . As for the concrete man, present him in the guise of an animal, rob him of his land, enslave him so as to live from his toil, and at the right moment, exterminate him; this latter, of course, only as long as there was someone who could be depended on to perform the arduous tasks in his stead.
4
Another reference to the barbaric connotation associated with the name Caliban comes in Montaigne’s essay “On Cannibals” which appeared in 1580 and was one of the most widely disseminated European Utopian works. Giovanni Floro’s English translation of the essays was published in 1603. Not only was Floro a personal friend of Shakespeare, but the copy of the translation that Shakespeare owned and annotated is still preserved and is considered one of the inspirations behind
The Tempest
. Montaigne states:
. . . there is nothing barbaric or savage in these nations . . . what happens is that everyone calls what is foreign to his own customs ‘barbarian’.
5
Students can respond to the above quotes by supplying their own impressions to unfamiliar people or experiences. Or, if they are comfortable enough with the teacher and fellow classmates, they might relate personal feelings associated with conflicting cultural values when they are considered “foreign” by the society at large in their new environment.
