Word: prospero
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...flimsy, far-flung net of narrative and then gets all tangled up in it. At the center of the tangle is the Magus, a swami-style psychiatrist who owns part of an Aegean isle, stocks it with 30 or 40 of his disciples, and with their help plays Prospero to the unhappy young man who is the novel's narrator. Kill or cure is his intention, and to further it he mounts a colossal psychodrama that takes about two months to run its course...
...Mayer saw the chance decisions as the work of a supernatural providence. Ariel is present at both scenes; he inspires Prospero's mercy and, as Mayer staged it, he fixes the old crown of Milan on Prospero's head...
...list is long. But the crown of this particular meditation is the picture of Prospero working out his return to his normal station by supernatural means, the idea of art as a means of grace. Prospero's salvation comes though works as well as fortune--the fortune that thrusts him from his study as well as the fortune that brings his enemies to his shore. To characterize Prospero, like Leontes, as the servant of his random thoughts, is to seriously mistake...
Mayer's interpretation of Prospero's decisions to forgive his enemies and to change his magic for his ducal staff is particularly surprising in view of the care with which he has Prospero plan the marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda. Seltzer's hidden joy--"It works"--and pretended severity as the couple provide some of the nicest touches in his characterization of the wise old mage. It is hard to believe Prospero could be so happily engineering a dynastic marriage, while plotting the permanent destruction of the head of the opposite house...
Within the interpretation Mayer provided for him, Seltzer created an utterly engaging Prospero. His anger, his twinkle, his thunder, his weariness, all were part of the same man--a man I've never met anywhere, but one I'd like to know...