The Tempest | Music and the Masque
Many critics have commented that music and spectacle inform The Tempest to an extent unequalled in any of Shakespeare's earlier plays. Related to the magical atmosphere in the play, music foregrounds the work, setting its mood and reiterating many of its themes. The following excerpt by Theresa Coletti explores this theme.
Theresa Coletti
[In the following essay, Coletti analyzes music as "the medium through which order emerges from chaos" in The Tempest. Perhaps more pervasive in this work than in any other of Shakespeare's plays, music is, according to Coletti, a structural principle that suggests the thematic struggle between harmony and disorder and the difficulty of achieving the former over the latter. By comparing Shakespeare's use of music in The Tempest with that in an earlier work, As You Like It, Coletti explains how music sets both tone and theme, and maintains that...
[The entire page is 4880 words long]
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- - For teachers, the The Tempest Lesson Plan.
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