"Man hungry": reconsidering threats to colonial and patriarchal order in Dryden and Davenant's The Tempest.(John Dryden and William Davenant)(Critical essay)

Why, in 1667, did John Dryden and William Davenant choose to revise Shakespeare's The Tempest, and what do their revisions signify for literary and cultural history? (1) Their play is usually described as an attempt to neutralize various threats to contemporary patriarchal orders--an attempt often seen as unsuccessful by modern readers. I will argue instead that Dryden and Davenant aim to problematize the too easy attribution of qualities of savagery and ungovernability to the play's gallery of "others" who are the nominal threats to Prospero's control and to direct audiences to reconsider where the real threats lie and what orders are worth preserving. This argument requires an overview of the play's cultural context, a summary of the ways in which the play has been seen to assuage various contemporary anxieties, and, finally, a demonstration of how Dryden and Davenant prompt reevaluation of political, domestic, and religious assumptions underlying these anxieties. Shakespeare's play is too well known to require a summary here, but any analysis of Dryden and Davenant's must begin with a summary of their extraordinarily convoluted and innovative tragicomic plot.

I. The Plot in its Ideological Context

The changes to Shakespeare's play begin immediately with the cast of characters: Prospero is, in Dryden-Davenant, the Duke of Mantua, whose kingdom was usurped by his brother Antonio with the help of Alonzo, Duke of Savoy, and who was set adrift to arrive on a supposedly deserted island. On the island, Prospero has raised two daughters, Miranda and her younger sister Dorinda, neither of whom has seen any man but their father. Also on the island are the monstrous orphaned offspring of the witch Sycorax, who was, like Prospero, marooned on the island. These are Caliban and his sister, also called Sycorax, both now enslaved by Prospero. Prospero has also raised Hippolito, proper Duke of Mantua, who was set adrift with him, and whose kingdom was usurped by Alonzo. Prospero's astrological forecasts had indicated that the sight of a woman would for "some time" (2.4.7) be fatal to Hippolito, so he has been raised in a cave, ignorant of the female sex. With the shipwreck on the island of Alonzo and Antonio (both of whom are already penitent and have been on a crusade in expiation), along with Alonzo's son Ferdinand, his counselor Gonzalo, and his sailors, Prospero plans to avenge himself. When Ferdinand meets Miranda and Hippolito meets Dorinda, both couples fall in love. But once Hippolito learns from Ferdinand that there are other women besides Dorinda, he plans to possess all women--including Miranda. Ferdinand, reluctantly, "kills" Hippolito in a duel, and is summarily condemned to death by Prospero. But Ariel, acting without Prospero's knowledge or orders, revives Hippolito, who decides that monogamy is, in fact, desirable. Antonio and Alonzo renounce their usurped titles and all sail home happily. So much for the "high" plot.

In the "low" plot, Stephano, the ship's master, believing the dukes drowned, declares himself master of the island and his sailors Mustacho and Ventoso viceroys. Boatswain Trincalo, meanwhile, gains the allegiance of Caliban and proposes to declare himself master of the island by marrying the younger Sycorax, thus aligning himself with the island's hereditary monarchy. After their alcohol, the main instigator of the power struggles, runs out, all the comic characters renounce their "claims" to sovereignty and join in the general reconciliation.

The changes Dryden and Davenant made in adapting The Tempest for the Restoration stage amount to some striking additions and subtractions from Shakespeare's original. Among the subtractions are, first, the reduction of Prospero's powers and of the threats to it (in the ready repentance of the usurpers and the omission of the low characters' plot against his life); second, Gonzalo's speech on the virtues of a "natural" or "anarchic" state; and finally, Prospero's renunciation of his magic and his resolution to "think on death." Among the additions are the island's population explosion--a peculiarly female one, in that it includes Dorinda, Sycorax, and, problematically, Hippolito, since this male character is designated to be played by a woman. Also added are Prospero's plan to execute Ferdinand and Ariel's averting this potential tragedy.