Final thoughts on Merlin

During class, we started discussing Merlin, and how he has changed throughout the stories we have read as well as his portrayal in the BBC television series. One of the conclusions we came to was that Merlin has lost power and magic throughout time. Perhaps I am alone in thinking this, but I don’t think that he has become any less powerful. I see it more as he is becoming a more rounded character.

Instead of seeing all these stories as separate pieces, try thinking of them as parts of a whole. What we would get is a version of Merlin who is a wide-eyed youth (Merlin, BBC), who becomes a kind elderly chap who takes care of lost kids (sword in the stone), and who is deeply troubled by the loss of his dear friends (Monmouth). When you combine all these stories of Merlin together, you get a more personable character rather than an extreme attribute of a personality. I remember a book I read for fun in high school called…..Magic Inc. Merlin was a background character but he was portrayed as a CEO of the magic industry and looked sharp in a pinstriped suit.

            Unfortunately my need combine things I read or see have now permanently given me the image of Merlin as the ultimate magical being with a pointy hat who can see the future and the past, adorkable in his youth, and can run a company pretty well.

             It is possible that this is a stretch but Merlin is supposed to be immortal, right? And, he is awaiting the return of King Arthur when the world needs him most? Couldn't that be said that even if Merlin is a fictional character, by having him appear in stories and TV shows today, you are keeping Merlin alive?  I know that in a lot of lore from around the world to speak, a name is to give it power, and in some cases it gives it life. Perhaps Merlin’s immortality is dependent on how long people remember him. And if nothing else at least he looks good in a suit. 

Blog 2 of 5

Prospero the Magician?

Prospero probably wouldn’t be winning any father-of-the-year awards or any sorcerer or duke awards for that matter either. In the first act, we see that Prospero seems to be obsessed with magic and fascinated with learning about it. He’s also so obsessed with his books that they took him away from his duties as Duke of Milan. And thanks to Gonzalo, a friend of Prospero’s, provided Prospero with books when he was exiled by Antonio. Prospero tells Miranda, “Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me/From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom” (The Tempest 1.2.198-200). His love of books is further shown when he talks about his younger brother practically running the dukedom while for “Me, poor man, my library/Was dukedom large enough” (1.2.130-31). Love makes some people blind and we can see that Prospero’s love for books probably limited his awareness to what was going on around him until he was exiled to an island. And on this island there was probably nothing better to do than practice magic, especially with the help of the magical Ariel.

            Ariel seems to be the vehicle through which Prospero can perform his magic. He is constantly sending Ariel off to do his bidding with magic. Whether Prospero is capable of performing magic or not, evidence seems to point to the latter. In the first act, Prospero tells Ariel to “Lend thy hand/And pluck my magic garment from me” (1.2.28-9). This implies that it is the cloak that is also providing magic to Prospero. However, it could also simply be a way to signal to the audience that Prospero is in his “magical mode.”

            Prospero also seems to have this commanding quality that actually belittles the people is bossing around. He calls Miranda “wench” (1.2.167) and I don’t know if it’s just me, but it doesn’t seem right for a father to call his daughter a wench. He also does a little of this with Ariel, whom he considers to be his servant that only lives to answer his magical beck and call. He also holds the matter of Ariel’s freedom over him – he promises that if Ariel completes a specific task, he will free him. The problem? He does this several times to Ariel. And another victim that I feel especially sympathetic for is Caliban. Caliban looks different and everyone believes him to be a monster because he is the son of the witch Sycorax. In Acts Two and Three we see Caliban petitioning Stephano and Trinculo that he will serve them if they kill Prospero. But the thing is, Stephano and Trinculo treat him no better than Prospero. They ignore him and make fun of him.

            One time in the past year, I happened to see part of the 2010 movie adaptation of The Tempest. I was confused because it was just Helen Mirren and her daughter on the island. I then figured out that Mirren’s character was changed to be Prospera just to make a powerful female character. They speak in the Shakespearean language but some of them have strange costumes. The parts that I saw showed an interesting portrayal of this play and maybe after we finish this book, I might try to watch the movie.

 

                                                                  <en.wikipedia.org>

 

                                                          <www.anders-fischer.net> 

 

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. New York: Simon & Shuster Paperbacks. 1994. Print.

Prospero's Power

In class, we discussed whether or not Prospero has magical powers, and if those powers are strong or weak. I think, on some level, Prospero has magical powers (obviously), but I also think they are stronger than Shakespeare makes them seem.

Ariel clearly has magical powers: he creates the storm that causes everyone to come to the island, he can wake people up when Prospero puts them to sleep, and he can turn into Harpy and give a stunning speech to some fellas who stare at him dumbfounded.

Prospero clearly has magical powers: he freed Ariel from the tree, he can make people fall asleep, and he can freeze people in any position they are in.

But whose magical powers are more considerable?
I think since Ariel is so afraid of Prospero, and so unwilling to free himself from Prospero, his powers are not as strong as those of his master. If Ariel had stronger powers than Prospero, I feel like he would use them to leave Prospero. Instead, Prospero uses his power over Ariel to enslave him and makes him do pretty much all of his dirty work. Ariel is so afraid of him that he does not even attempt to free himself.
Perhaps as the play goes on, Prospero's powers will become more explicit and we can learn if he is indeed as powerful as he views himself to be.

Prospero the magician or hypnotist

         I really enjoyed reading the first act in The Tempest by Shakespeare. This book has so many broad statements that it is easy to draw different assumptions than other people. The class was torn between Prospero having magical powers. The class could not even decide if Prospero's "magical powers" were strong or weak. This is why I love reading plays from Shakespeare; every person interprets the reading differently yet we are all reading the same play. 

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         Prospero must have some type of powers, or else how could have he freed Ariel from the tree (33). Though I do not understand why he would not just use his powers to take him home. Why did Prospero not use his powers to stop his brother from exiling him? Also, it is hard to believe Prospero freed Ariel from the tree and none reproductions happened to Prospero. A witch locked Ariel in the tree, why would the witch not set a trap? I was really hoping something more would happen or we would learn more about the witch. Putting Miranda asleep could have required magic but hypnotist do not use magic to put people to sleep (25). I do not think Prospero used magic to put Miranda to sleep, I think he used the same tactics that hypnotist use to put people to sleep.

         Maybe Prospero does not have magical powers. Ariel could just be a figment of his imagination. We are not even positively sure that Miranda was asleep. Miranda could have just zoned out while Prospero lagged on about his life. 

blog post #5

Shakespeare: The Tempest

So in class we talked about what powers does Prospero really have? When reading the first two scenes of The Tempest, it doesn't seem like Prospero is as powerful as we all thought he was in class. After looking back at the play, it seems like Prospero's power mostly comes from Ariel. The storm that wrecked the boat was conjured up by Ariel it seems, and so far that is the only real power we have seen. Yes he does have a sleep spell of some sort, but that does not seem to be that powerful as Miranda woke up from it kind of quickly it seemed like. And this "power over Ariel" is not magic at all. Or at least no magic that he showed. When Ariel complains and Prospero threatens her, he simply states that she should be grateful that he rescued her from that tree, and if she is not then he would put her back in the tree. But who is to say he didn't just take an ax to the tree? Like I can say I will put you in a tree, but that doesn't mean I actually have the power to do it. Maybe he would have forced Caliban to put her in the tree, they don't really talk about if Caliban has any magic powers, but if he was the son of a witch he has to be somewhat magical right? Which leads back to Prospero's magic over Caliban. It says Prospero took Caliban in when he was young since his mother (The witch Sycorax) died. But it doesnt say he uses magic to keep Caliban as a slave, just that he is Prospero's slave. To me it just seems that Prospero is all talk and very little show. But this may change as we read further into the play, or it may not. As we should all remember this is a play and back then they didnt have special effects to show the magic, so Shakespeare very well may have just made Prospero all talk and no show to fit what a play could show.

My thoughts on Merlin

Even though I hadn’t seen the TV show Merlin before, I sort of knew a lot about it because it was everywhere on Tumblr a few years ago and it was kind of hard to escape. I never really had an interest in the show at all, but the first episode sort of drew me in. Great, now I have another show I have to watch and no time to watch it.

Anyway, my personal view of Merlin has always been the eccentric old wizard from Disney’s version of The Sword in the Stone, and when I found out we were going to read excerpts from the book, I was expecting to find out that a lot had been changed from the book to the movie. I was kind of surprised to find out that that wasn’t the case. The whole aging backwards thing really confuses me and I still don’t completely understand how that works, but maybe I would if I read the whole story.

Thinking about what was removed from the story compared to the earlier Merlin stories, it makes sense that Merlin’s origin story, being the son of a demon and getting his powers from God and the demons would be removed in modern tales of Merlin, because that is kind of a controversial detail. Also, I’m glad that creepy old Merlin hitting on a fifteen-year-old girl does not seem to be a thing anymore. That was a little bit too much for me to handle while reading the Prose Merlin. It’s kind of interesting how Merlin has been dumbed down, in a way, though. As time goes on and different adaptations are made, Merlin seems to know less and less about the world and about his own powers, so that when the TV show came out, this Merlin has no idea why he can do magic, and no longer has the knowledge of either the past or the future. It makes me wonder what a future Merlin will be like. Will he even have any magical abilities at all? I imagine he would have to have some kind of magic, or he wouldn't be Merlin anymore.

On a side note, I laughed when I realized one of Merlin’s incantations was just him asking Neptune to make Wart a fish written backwards. Are you kidding me?

Even after reading and watching these different versions of Merlin, I’m pretty sure the image in my head is still of this guy:

And it probably always will be, since he was my first exposure to the character of Merlin, and The Sword in the Stone was my favorite movie when I was a kid.

(Week 1 of 5)

Is the Paint Dry Yet?

After reading the first two acts of The Tempest, I feel as though I need to watch paint dry for a while. It was a lot to take in, and there are so many characters. So. Many. I had to keep flipping to the beginning of the play to keep them all straight.

I kind of hate everyone in this play. A lot.
People I like: Ariel (can he be considered a person? Is he a he or a she?), Gonzalo (or maybe I feel bad for him), Trinculo and Stephano, and Caliban (once again, I could just feel bad for him).
People I dislike: Prospero (jerk much?), Miranda and Ferdinand (love at first? really?), Antonio and Sebastian (what did Alonso ever do to them?).

The way Prospero treats Ariel really bothers me. I know that Ariel is a spirit and is bound to Prospero because he set him free, but does he really have to be so mean to him? He does whatever Prospero wants him to, so I feel like Prospero should probably treat him a little better. Hence, my dislike of Prospero and my keenness for Ariel. Prospero's treatment of Caliban also fuels my disdain for him. Prospero treats Caliban so poorly even though he does so much for him. I am happy he decided to join Stephano and Trinculo...even though they are both kind of insane (in a good way, maybe?).

I also really hate the way Antonio and Sebastian treat Gonzalo. I know Gonzalo is not the brightest in the play, but I'm kind of endeared by him. My favorite line of his is, "Who in this kind of merry fooling am/nothing to you. So you may continue, and laugh at/nothing still" (2.1.194-6). That reasoning sounds perfect to me; Sebastian and Antonio think nothing of Gonzalo, but he accepts that and doesn't let it bother him. I adore Gonzalo for that.

Miranda and Ferdinand are stupid. That may be a very elementary thing to say, but they are. I think since the whole "love at first sight" thing is so fairytale-ish and not very realistic, I find them to be very annoying. Ferdinand is the third male Miranda has seen, so he must be her soul mate, right? The third time is a charm.

shakespearememes.tumblr.com

 

Hopefully as the play goes on, I will no longer want to watch paint dry and I will like more of the characters. We shall see!