The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.108 Monday, 3 March 2014
[1] From: Stuart Manger <
Date: February 28, 2014 at 3:44:19 PM EST
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Ariel x 2
[2] From: John Crowley <
Date: February 28, 2014 at 4:33:59 PM EST
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Ariel
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stuart Manger <
Date: February 28, 2014 at 3:44:19 PM EST
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Ariel x 2
Larry Weiss is surely right in his amused distaste for entirely unlikely theologies being drafted into the circumstances of the writing of The Tempest. But with this particular correspondent there is a wearisome track record: we have been here many, many times before.
My own view for what it is worth, and that may not be much, is that Shakespeare was playing with lilting names, with an open, lifting rhyme and sound pattern to suggest lightness and insubstantiality, and the '-el' ending of many if not most of the archangels would have been familiar to him form every day familiarity with the Bible, plus he knew that he had the notion of his Ariel as an 'airy spirit', hence 'Air-iel'.
The byzantine contortions Mr Basch has to wrestle with and then wrench the works into to make them fit some a priori mind set get more exhausting and indeed amusing every time one reads them.
Stuart Manger
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Crowley <
Date: February 28, 2014 at 4:33:59 PM EST
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Ariel
Agrippa (Occult Philosophy Book III) says that Ariel is a name for the spirit presiding over the astrological sign Aries. Like many others, including John Dee, he loved to make up angel names by adding “el” to words. He created angels of all the signs (Ariel, Tauriel, Geminiel, Cancriel, Leoniel, Virginiel, Libriel, Scorpiel, Sagittariel, Capriel, Aquariel, Pisciel) and all the planets too. I think Agrippa would be a far more likely to be known to Shakespeare—even by hearsay—than anything rabbinical. Heywood (Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, 1635) names Ariel as one of the seven princes who rule the waters. A little late but MSS or word of mouth could have circulated, and Heywood was likely known to WS.