The Tempest instantiates Shakespeare's penchant for the young, in battles of will between forebears and followers. While Prospero's magic seems to render his will omnipotent, the break in the Masque, at 4.1, undermines that appearance, as well as revealing that will's partiality; Prospero's will vis-à-vis his daughter is suggested as potentially incestuous. The play's happy ending is reached through a marriage alliance beyond the wills of Prospero and his ancient enemy, Naples. Here is further evidence of Shakespeare's penchant for the young: those whose freedom relies on a space protected from the forebear's will. The broader political relevance of tensions between the wills of forebears and followers is underlined, not only by the crown of Naples' dependence on the outcome of a passionate father—daughter parting, but also by Prospero's musings, in 5.1, on the kind of law that would be given by elves who leave no footprints. A forebear giving such a law would refrain from enforcing his will on following generations. Prospero's magic is representation without enforcement, a lightening of passing law.
Map of this detour: This is one of a series of detours compelled by consideration of inheritance law as an aspect of cultural transmission. This course draws attention to three problematic temporalities through which the "self" & its relations with history are often written & read. These implicit time forms are all too common & all too easily go unrecognized. Each involves the illusion of some kind of exalted & immediate convergence between the self (the subject) & an object of exaggerated importance to this self (the world, the universe, the metaphysical or artistic beyond, the origin, etc). Three figures are explored here: that of Hercules in Hegel's Aesthetics & those of Adrian & Breisacher in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus. Each of these invites attention to a different temporality through which an exalted convergence may be imagined: the first involves a fantasy of immediate belonging to the whole of history, the second, that of escape forward from history (toward a self-created "ultimate" object), & the third, that of return to fullness in origin (before history). This detour also suggests ways of reading history (including "reading for mana through glances," which will be explained) that protect against the problems just described. The detour closes considering implications of all of the above for U.S. inheritance law. The tutor text for this last leg is Francois Mauriac's Le noeud de viperes. This detour is written to be accessible to those without much experience in critical theory. To those few for whom these courses are obvious, the goad would be: why do you not take the next step? If these historiographical problems are now well known to the humanities, is not current inheritance law their most material & oppressive manifestation? Would not broader discussion of these structural connections create enormous opportunities for non-violent social change? 12 References. [Copyright 2004 Elsevier Ltd.]
