236 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



their reconciliation with Prospero; (9) he frees the common sailors and leads them to 

 the cell of learning; (10) he frees Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, and brings them to 

 the cell where they are treated as well as possible; (11) we may suppose that he 

 gives the good ship which he has restored, and all the other good ships, a fair voyage 

 to port. Such are the eleven labors of this delicate Hercules. But none of these 

 acts as social, altruistic, or primitive, is Sin act of Ariel. They are manifestations 

 of power and intelligence; their sole purpose is the love of liberty and fear of slavery. 

 What, then, is Ariel ? The creative imagination ? The mysterious inner spirit of 

 man evolved through culture ? The spirit of some great departed poet ? These 

 and the multitude of similar question, or forms of the great question, that occur, 

 must be thought at present to be idle, or irrelevant. Let us simply say with the Folio 

 of 1623, or, as one may believe, with the creator of Ariel, Ariel is "an airy spirit" 

 and know him and reckon him in the play, not by some phrase suggesting modern 

 psychology or metaphysics, but by the qualities, language, services, relations, dis- 

 coverable in the play of which he forms so important a part. He is clearly a con- 

 trast to Caliban, and as Caliban is the beast, so Ariel is the angel, though not yet 

 the god. Ariel is the spirit attendant upon Prospero's scientific truth, and his acts 

 are types of the movements of civilization that make for freedom. Dowden's idea 

 that Ariel represents art, though true in a sense, is only a small fraction of the truth. 

 Ariel stands, for all aspects of freedom, the human spirit freed by the truth. 



Caliban: Type of Sensualism 



Caliban appears in five of the nine scenes: the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and 

 ninth. The first mention of him is made by Prospero, about fifty lines before Cali- 

 ban's entrance. Reminding Ariel of the torment from which he had freed him, he 

 recalls Caliban's mother, the foul witch Sycorax. Afterwards Prospero calls CaH- 

 ban a "poisonous slave, got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam." Near the 

 end of the play all this is greatly emphasized by being repeated with precision: 

 "This mis-shapen knave, — 

 His mother was a witch; and one so strong 

 That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs, 

 And deal in her command without her power. 

 These three have robbed me; and this demi-devil — 

 For he's a bastard one — had plotted with them 

 To take my life." 

 Prospero tells Miranda that Caliban is necessary to their well-being on the 

 island.' Caliban's first words imply his dislike for profitable labor — "There's wood 

 enough within!" He enters uttering curses which are none the less vigorous for 

 being uttered in language learned of Miranda; the diction alone is polite. Caliban's 

 second speech is characterized by Prospero as elaborately false. His third speech 



• Cf. Emerson's conception of the use of the lower classes. 



