Oct 5, 2020
Society in Elizabethan England is well known for being divided by class. There were workers, peasants, aristocracy, and even a kind of middle class but what was the definition of a labourer? When it comes to exploring the roles of characters like Ariel and Caliban in Shakespeare’s Tempest it is important to understand the 16th century mindset towards labor. Under Catholic England, the monasteries had decided they placed a higher value on the ability to commune with your thoughts and labor at intellectual pursuits, whereas Protestant England had leanings toward a more active, physical labor as being more valuable, particularly an emphasis on trades like making gloves, shoes, or wool. The practical aspects of everyday life in England like food to eat, houses to live in, and clothes to wear were all built on the value of craftsmen, tradesmen, servants, laborers, and what Henry V might have called England’s yeomen. But what is an industrious servant precisely? Can we recognize one when we see them on stage? What are the appearances, actions, or conditions of a servant for Tudor England, and what was Shakespeare trying to draw attention to with characters like Ariel who spend most of the play, The Tempest, yearning for his freedom. To explore the realities of servanthood, including where superstition overlaps with practicality to create a suspicion of magic associated with good craftsmanship is our guest, James Tink.