MAGIC AND THE MAGI IN THE RENAISSANCE

Many “Renaissance Men” (that is the learned people of the time, who employed their
energies in reforms, diplomacy, theology, philology, historiography etc…) took at some
stage or another an interest in the occult, the esoteric. The Renaissance Magus had a
fascination for the “sources” of wisdom which he felt he had discovered anew in the
books, and he did not hesitate to travel across Europe to meet famous Hebraists and
Cabalists.
The Magi were in fact rediscovering older esoteric texts from various cultures and in
various languages: Greek (the Greek translation of Hermetica, by the Egyptian Hermes
Trismegistus, which was the basis of “hermeticism”- probably written about the second
century AD, and which discusses how, through self-knowledge, a person can ascend to
the divine); Hebrew (the Kabbalah, which mostly came to be known in the 12th c. );
Arabic (Picatrix- a 400-page book on magic supposedly written in the 10th century).
They were also influenced by Neoplatonism, based on the idea that the soul naturally
yearns to leave the body in order to be with God. Among the most famous scholars were
Pico della Mirandola, Cornelius Agrippa and the Englishman John Dee (a likely source
for both Shakespeare’s Tempest and Ben Jonson’s Alchemist (a play first performed in
London in 1610). John Dee was most influential with Queen Elizabeth, to whom he used
to send coded messages, along the line of what Trithemius, a famous German abbot, had
theorised in a famous treatise on steganography.

Those who hoped for some practical application of their readings engaged in Alchemy,
which was concerned with the transmutation of matter (interestingly, in Alchemy, a
'tempest' is the term used to refer to the sifting out of impurities from a mixture).

Whatever their final intent, all seemed to be fascinated by old books, and there were
many writings, lectures and correspondences throughout Europe about it all. The “books
of spells” (the French “grimoires”) that circulated were in the form of manuscripts, and
not printed, both because magicians were dealing with illegal practices and because this
way the spirits were supposed to be more effectively summoned up.

Among the Magi of the early 16th c. magic was in fact seen as an act of piety. It did not
question the existence of God and the orderliness of the universe that God had created.
That order allowed for nothing arbitrary or accidental. The system was magical insofar
as the material universe, in every detail, was a revelation ultimately of divine activity,
and the relationship between the material signs and the greater spiritual realities was
knowable, but access to such knowledge was through study. All of creation was a
revelation, and access to its meaning was available only to whoever was capable of
studying enough to understand the cosmos and man’s place within it, thus transcending
human limitations. The Magus had to be familiar with celestial, inanimate forces and
was able to see how, through a complex system of 'sympathies' and 'correspondences',
these forces were reflected on earth and in the soul of man.

To the learned sages, the study of numbers, order and measure was a means to better
understand the Trinity. Trithemius wrote in a letter: “Study conceives knowledge, but
knowledge gives birth to love, love to likeness, likeness to community, community to
strength, strength to worthiness, worthiness to power, and power makes miracle. This is
the sole route to the goal of magical accomplishment, both divine and natural”. At the
highest level, the Magus had the wisdom to perceive the mind of God. To attain this
wisdom, he must not only study but also pursue a pure life, untainted by sin.

The virtuous Magus acts supposedly only in accordance with divine Providence: he
assists in God's work and is thus a force for good. For example, he might apply his
knowledge of the natural powers of plants to heal (several Magi were medical doctors);
or he might use astrological knowledge to calculate the ideal times for a harvest. John
Dee was consulted on the most auspicious date for Elizabeth I's coronation. 'Good'
magic does not interfere with God's actions, but works with them, to the greater good of
humankind.

Of course, there is the other side of the coin: while the presuppositions were pious
enough, as they acknowledged God’s power and the magnificence of his creation, the
activity of magic itself imposed on God a set of limitations. By learning all the principles
of the ordering of nature, one could reach God, dangerously bridging the gap between
man and God. Magic implied a power in the hands of human beings able to reorganise
the universe as God made it and may thus eventually be imposed on God himself. Study
led to knowledge, and, by stages, to power and miracle … and miracles defied the
natural order of the world, even though the magi thought that study was the clue which
rescued them from blasphemy. Yet, they obviously usurped the divine prerogative of
God’s omnipotence (See how this can have an echo in The Tempest and Prospero’s art).
The Magus turned out to be not merely a contemplative figure, his wisdom gave him the
power to act, and it was this power that made him controversial.

The moment the magus applied his knowledge to conjure spirits or to not only predict
the course of events but try to influence them, he in fact became indistinguishable from
his scary predecessors in the darkest Middle ages and in the popular culture.

The risk associated with the study of magic in theocratic culture was obvious. The
Church was particularly suspicious of those parts of hermetic study that seemed to
suggest humans could alter nature as God has ordered it, and conversely, those who
were involved in it feared sanctions from the Church. The Italian philosopher Giordano
Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 on charges of dealing with the Occult. Strangely,
in England, it was the reformed protestant church that was most suspicious of magic,
because it associated it with Catholic practices and teachings (such as the idea that relics
held miraculous powers, the notion of transubstantiation, etc…). Such a famous magus
as John Dee was forced to defend himself and prove that his practices were in harmony
with the divine, and though he succeeded, he died poor and disgraced in 1608, just two
years before The Tempest was written.

At the time of Shakespeare, people believed firmly that there were hierarchies of angels
and hierarchies of fallen angels, and to deny that was risking to be accused of being an
atheist. Magic became a true issue when the question was: could human beings use these
spirits to attack someone else or to find buried treasure? And if so, was it because God
was making this possible, or was it the Devil making this possible in order to trap human
beings? King James himself wrote a book entitled Daemonology, in which he
acknowledged the fact that there were human beings capable of summoning up and
controlling spirits, and he concluded that they could only do it because the Devil made
it possible for them to do so and lured them into doing it. According to King James, “It's
one thing to study the stars like an astronomer, but somebody who thinks that stars can
have an effect on us, or that we can depend on them to do things for us, that is astrology
and that is the devil.”

This led to a vigorous defence by some of the scholars of “white magic” as pure and
idealistic, as opposed to “black magic” which is contaminated by its applications. Thus,
we would have Trithemius (mentioned above) dealing in “white magic” and writing that
occult knowledge rests in the mystery of the Trinity, while denouncing the alchemists
as deceivers “pupils of the apes, enemies of nature and despisers of heavenly things….
While our philosophy is heavenly and not earthly”.

This explains why a final rejection of magic came to be expressed by those who dealt in
the occult themselves. Most of the Magi of the Renaissance had turned to magic for
enlightenment, but they were most certainly under the threat of the Church’s displeasure,
which would account for their renunciation. Magi usually stopped short when they felt
that in fact all magic was eventually bound to be black magic.
As a consequence, the great magical works of the Renaissance were replete with
warnings to the readers that the secrets of the book were not to be betrayed to the
uninitiated. Magic had to remain esoteric, not to be released for general consumption.
The downside of it was that it led to even more superstition at popular level.
Marlowe and Shakespeare similarly recognized this separation from the rest of humanity
as a fatal deficiency, and had their magicians turn their backs on the occult, this
repudiation coming to be as much part of the story of the magician as any other moment
in the magical journey.

MAGIC in SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

Magic as we see it in The Tempest is not the only example in Shakespeare’s work. Magic
is to be found in comedies such as Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, The
Winter’s Tale; but so is also its dark counterpart with the witches in Macbeth, or
Glendower and his black magic in Henry IV, part 1.

In As you like it, Rosalind, one of the heroines (the main one in fact), speaks of: “an old
religious uncle of mine [who]taught me to speak” - and further she says “Believe then,
if you please, that I can do strange things. I have since I was three years old conversed
with a magician, most profound in his art, and yet not damnable...”
Tradition has it that magic is a male art commanding supernatural powers, while
witchcraft is essentially a female practice which bends before the supernatural powers
(Just consider the words used for those who practice them in English: a magician has no
feminine counterpart in English, nor has a witch a masculine counterpart (wizard, the
supposedly masculine counterpart to the witch, has a different etymology: from wise,
while the witch is old English wicca, the word for sorcerer). Admittedly, there are
sorcerers and sorceresses, enchanters and enchanteresses….

The Tempest begins with Prospero's magic (the tempest), and ends with it too, as he
orders Ariel to send the ship safely back to Italy. All along the play, Prospero has control
over everything and everyone—he always seems to know what will happen next, or
even to control what will happen next. Even life appears as an illusion, as he suggests
in act 4, sc. 1: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded
with a sleep.” To his magic, he opposes Sycorax’s, the “hag-seed,” as he refers to her
when he addresses Caliban (Act I sc 2). Yet, the line may be finer than one may think
at first between white magic and black magic…

Weighing up Prospero's intent: a good Magus or a bad one?

As Rosalind suggested in As You Like It, and as can be witnessed with Prospero, the
magician is first related to religion (and above all to Catholicism). The practices of
magicians relate to those of the Roman Catholic priests of the Renaissance.
Magic is first viewed as a learned art, which works by the manipulation of occult virtues
of creation, or the compulsion of spirits, or access to heavenly powers, while witchcraft
operates through submission to higher spirits or contract made with them and is always
bad. The ideal magician corresponds to the ideals of sacerdotal learning, purity and
chastity. One may retort that Prospero cannot be chaste since he had a daughter, yet his
way of referring to Miranda’s birth is rather convoluted:
“Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter ; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan ; and his only heir
A princess – no worse issued.” (I,2)

Prospero’s cell – and we all know that magic cannot be contrived in the open – is also
an echo of a friar’s cell. His previous neglect of his dukedom for his library – of the
mundane world for his books - is very much what monks do when they retire in a
monastery. And Prospero also has something of a Christ-like figure: he organizes a
banquet, he brings the dead back on the stage.
Still, there is a difference between a miracle and an illusion. God (or Christ) produces
miracles, while magic is all illusion. It works with tricks. Magic will never change a
man into a beast, but will make sure that we think it is a beast. The operation of magic
is based on deception of the senses by play upon the imagination. Thus, Prospero does
not make the goddesses appear for the masque, he has Ariel impersonate these figures.

Prospero the good Magus: Prospero is a learned magician, who is interested in the
theories of magic. Prospero may be considered to use his powers for the greater good,
not for personal gain. His magic contrasts with the destructive witchcraft of Sycorax. If
he simply wanted personal vengeance, he could have killed everybody in the storm. But
he makes sure that no one is harmed. His aim is to bring his enemies to recognise their
evil actions and repent, thus restoring them to divine grace. The illusions he creates are
all for this purpose.

Prospero also wishes to marry his daughter to a worthy suitor. From the pure chastity of
this couple a truly noble generation should emerge, ensuring the security of the
dukedom. Ariel represents Prospero's art in its most spiritual form, free from the
constraints of the body. Caliban symbolises his earthly side, and the fact that Prospero
clearly has control over Caliban shows he has the proper discipline over his lower human
tendencies.

When Prospero renounces his magic art, it is not a sign of guilt, but a necessary step to
resuming his worldly duties as a duke. The final scene of pardon and compassion is a
fitting climax for this beneficent magic. If the reconciliation is not complete, it is
because Antonio is still unable to repent: not even a Magus can take away divinely
bestowed free will, or rid the soul of evil.

Prospero the bad Magus:

Propero’s books are probably more to do with Astrology than Astronomy as, when he
shows concern with the study of planetary influences on the earth, it is to note that his
magical career is at its height or zenith while a particular star is in the ascendant.
His absorption in study is irresponsible, taking him away from his duties as duke and
allowing his brother to take over; but it also makes of him more than a Magus, he
actually puts his knowledge into practice the way an enchanter or a sorcerer does, as he
can create a storm, something only God should be capable of doing, force Miranda to
fall asleep, use spirits to torture other people. To enforce his magic, Prospero needs to
enslave Ariel as much as he has enslaved Caliban.
At many points in the play, he is given to outbursts of anger, and his treatment of
Ferdinand is hard to understand. His irritable demeanour, his brooding moods and
violent imagery hardly suggest a serene Magus high above the world of human rivalry.
Prospero himself seems to doubt his own 'rough magic' and its dubious effects: 'Graves
at my command / Have wak'd their sleepers' (5.1.48–49). It is as if he has been playing
God, and wants to step back from this interference with the natural order. Even the
contrast with Sycorax is not wholly clear, since we have no other real source about her
besides Prospero himself. At one point, it is Ariel who apparently points Prospero away
from anger to higher thoughts of compassion, based on a human sympathy he is in
danger of losing.

Prospero as a victim of his learning: immersed in the ideal world of his books,
Prospero is possessed by a desire for impossible purity in the world, and incapable of
seeing that evil is a normal part of human affairs: he was naive about his brother, and
foolish to leave Caliban alone with Miranda. He still seems to find it hard to believe that
Caliban and his associates would want to plot against him. According to this argument,
Prospero undergoes a journey of self-knowledge in the play: his magic has distanced
him from real human behaviour, and he has to renounce it to return from a world of
illusion and manipulation to the human community.
Prospero and his books: Prospero certainly corresponds to the image of the
Renaissance scholarly Magus, in that learning is crucial to his power which derives from
his books. He is indeed the first one to assert the crucial role of his library. When he
tells Miranda about the flight to the island he describes the way he neglected ‘worldly
ends, all dedicated / To closeness and the bettering of my mind’ (I.2). His ‘secret studies’
are what drew him from the business of government: ‘my library / Was dukedom large
enough’ he says, (I.2) thus admitting that he prized his books above his dukedom. And
Gonzalo knew how much they mattered to him, when he put them on the boat.

When, at the end of the play, Prospero at last decides that it is time for him to renounce
his magic, two symbolic gestures are needed: the breaking of his staff, and ‘deeper than
did ever plummet sound / I’ll drown my book’ (V,1). In this he echoes Christopher
Marlowe’s Dr Faustus (written around 1588? 1592? First performed after Marlowe’s
death in 1594, first published in print in 1604), whose terrified protagonist offers to
‘burn [his] books’ in his last desperate soliloquy in the face of eternal damnation (Faust,
the brilliant scholar who wants even more knowledge and sells his soul to the devil in
order to master more magic…). It is interesting to see that in one of his last plays,
Shakespeare should evoke the work of his most famous contemporary, certainly the
most talented playwright of Elizabethan drama had he not died in 1593 just before
Shakespeare got on the London stage – and you will remember that some critics have
suggested that Shakespeare and Marlowe may well in fact have been one and the same
person.

When, in the middle of the play, Caliban discusses with his new-found comrades how
they should assassinate ‘a tyrant, / A sorcerer, that by his cunning hath / Cheated me of
the island’ (III.2), Caliban is clear: Prospero’s books must be destroyed, ‘for without
them / He’s but a sot, as I am; nor hath not / One spirit to command’.

Books are not any kind of instrument: they are not just like a magic cloak or a wand,
they represent the power of words. And in this, Prospero’s use of them is like the
playwright who uses words to play on the feelings of his audience, to convince or
mesmerize them the way a magician does. Manipulation and illusion, those words apply
to the playwright as much as to the magician.

Is Prospero Shakespeare?

The Tempest was possibly written as Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage, as the central
figure in it, Prospero, is a creator of illusions who eventually breaks his magic wand and
throws away his books before going back home, (cf Act V, sc 1 Soliloquy) – the way
the playwright himself may have wanted to do – supposedly, this was the last play
Shakespeare staged in London on his own before returning to Stratford. Not exactly his
very last work for the stage, but the last one just by him, as three more plays may be
mentioned: Henry VIII, written in collaboration with some unknown writer, and The
Two Noble Kinsmen and Cardenio, in collaboration John Fletcher. Cardenio is in fact a
lost play and seems to have been largely inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Cervantes’
book had been translated into English in 1612 by Thomas Shelton and would have been
immediately known to such people as Shakespeare and Fletcher.

Magic and theatrical illusion are easily associated, and can be documented by Prospero’s
words in particular in
- His speech to Ferdinand and Miranda IV,1, l. 148-158
- His soliloquy V, 1, l. 33-57. (…. I’ll drown my book)
- The Epilogue.

The Tempest is a play about the theatre, about the theatre’s power to influence minds,
about the conditions that make theatrical production possible.

Prospero the master exploiting the servant, is also Prospero the playhouse owner and
manager over the people working for the theatre. (note that at the time people working
in theatres were “bound” to the owners of the theatre house and/or to the masters of the
company)
Prospero is both the dramatist AND the actor of his own drama.

First, like a stage, the island of The Tempest is defined as a place of exposure: it was
the case first with Sycorax, followed by Prospero and Miranda, and eventually the
castaways of the opening scene. (Caliban was born on the island, but he is the reason
why Sycorax was exposed there; only Ariel seems to really belong to the island, but at
the end of the play he prefers to return to the elements, and not to the island).
The island is in fact devoid of proper natives – as such, it gives no identity to the people
who come there. And it is remote from any other land, both in time and space.

The timing of the Tempest is the time necessary to put on a play. NB: Latin Tempestas
means “a portion of time”. Prospero makes it plain that the play will last the time of day
that plays were performed in theatres: I,2, l. 240: twixt six and two glasses (ie 2 to 6
pm).

Prospero is the scriptwriter and prompter, as he comments on the progress of the play in
an aside: “It goes on, I see, as my soul prompts it” (I, 2, 420-421)

All along the play he makes it quite clear that he has the power to stage illusions that are
intended to act upon his audience – the people on the island, but of course also the
audience in the theatre. The epilogue is as much the catalogue of the accomplishments
of his magic as what a stage director may boast:

I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar. Graves at my command
Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art.
(5.1.41)

Magic is an art, in Prospero’s own words.

By contrast with Prospero’s power, but as much an indication of the play as being about
play-writing and play acting, one may view the two conspiracies (Sebastian and
Antonio’s against Alonso and Trinculo, Stefano and Caliban’s against Prospero) as
failed plots by poor theatre directors.

Antonio gives himself as an artist who can devise a plot, “My strong imagination sees a
crown” (II, 1, 208-209) but it will fail.
Similarly, Stefano is but a poor plotter too: “III, 2, 106-109 “… I will kill this
man…Doth thou like the plot Trinculo?” (his synopsis of his play is rather pitiful). These
plots turn into farces, while Prospero’s is successful.

Ariel’s actions are performances as indicated by Prospero: I, 2, 238: “Ariel, thy charge
exactly is performed” says he as he refers to the preceding scene.
At the beginning of the play, it is time for Ariel to get ready for a new performance.

Ariel: boy actors were bought, sold and bound in theatres, without payment, as
‘apprentices’. By royal writ, schoolchildren could be seized, and forced to work as actors
in companies – especially those related to the crown, such as the Chapel children – this
led to abuses, and even legal suits against a company when a father discovered that his
son had been abused.
Ariel’s situation is very similar to that of the actor performing the part at the time.

The part played by Ariel is interesting as it is also an enactment of theatrical illusion:

Ariel is invisible, but visible to the audience, and the audience witnesses his
performances of theatrical illusion before the audience composed by the characters –
what Sebastian describes as a “living drollery” (II, 3, 21)

All that the characters take to be magic is what the audience sees as a theatrical trick.
There is no magic for the audience, no illusion as to what Prospero and Ariel are doing.
Ariel’s deeds are praised as skilled “performance” (III, 3, 83-84)

Our revels are now ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air...
....
The great globe itself,
Yeah, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. (Tempest, IV, 1, 148-150 then 153-156)