The Power of Spectacle: Shakespeare's Tempest in the Restoration

Abstract

This thesis examines the complex relationship between drama and royalist politics during the English Restoration, and how power is translated through language and space. I focus primarily on Dryden and Davenant's adaptation of Shakespeare's Tempest, re-titled The Enchanted Island (1667), but also draw connections to Thomas Shadwell's operatic version of 1674 and Thomas Duffet's Mock Tempest of 1675. I argue that the new adaptations reinforced the superiority of a monarchical rule over an English commonwealth and republic and subverted radical political movements that had arisen during the English Civil War. I do so by applying Guy Debord’s theory of spectacle to the Restoration stage. He defines spectacle is a "diplomatic representation of hierarchic society to itself, where all other forms of expression are banned" (Debord 23). Ultimately, conservative powers co-opted and appropriated subversive ideas and used the stage as direct access to public discourse. By separately examining the low and high plot I will show how spectacle functions through language and images and works to reinforce Prospero as the ultimate vision of a 'father-king'. By drawing from Debord, I will attempt to draw connections between modern day power structures, such as mass-media, and the Restoration stage. I argue that the means by which power is translated through mass media is analogous to how playwrights of the Restoration captured the attention of their audiences.