Of Seas and Oceans, of Storms and Wreckage, of Water Battles and Love in Shakespeare’s Plays
Résumé
Perhaps because Shakespeare’s homeland was surrounded by the ocean, water is a constant source of inspiration in his plays. In Early-modern times, sea lanes represented voyages, escapes, explorations and conquests. They were a means to protect oneself from the enemy and a source of pride (remember Elizabeth’s victory over the Invincible Armada). In the poet’s canon, the sea conveys a vast palette of images and emotions such as dilemmas, loss, love, battles, success and fate. It also provides the script with a rhythmic pattern possibly reflecting the ebb and flow of waves on the shores.
The sea can be on- and off-stage ; it is a structuring device often used for characterization ; it can also embody human qualities – like ambition and force – and, last but not least, it is the emblem of Shakespeare’s unfathomable imagination. In his final romance, The Tempest, which is central in this volume, the sea becomes a climactic symbol of regeneration : it “permeates the essence of the play […], and leaves the characters and audience convinced that ‘though the seas threaten, they are merciful,’” to quote Tony Jason Stafford in Shakespeare’s Use of the Sea, 1996 (3-4). In this play, the sea translates the author’s mature art and his elaborate vision of a world that has changed and which the theatrical space can hardly encompass. And yet, what Shakespeare’s company did and the stage-directors still try to do today was to represent this kaleidoscopic and metamorphic entity, resorting to another boundless tool : the art of performance.
Original sketch by Baptiste Arnaud