Bodies of Water and Stephano's Ontological Indulgence in The Tempest.

This article explores the merging of the body and the ocean in William Shakespeare's The Tempest , with particular attention given to the often underexplored drunken butler Stephano. Stephano disturbs the notion of ontological and political fixities by performing naturalistic "spells," serving as a parodic foil to the island's magical ruler Prospero. A clown figure, Stephano performs his own colonization of the island, which includes recreating Prospero's subjugation of Caliban. Such an analysis of Stephano invites a comparison between ecocritical and postcolonial readings of the play because Stephano's consumption of wild liquids to fuel his conquest aligns him both politically and ideologically with Shakespeare's ocean. The contents of Stephano's bottle advance the play's arguments about the lawlessness of the body in the same way the sea does. Stephano's cult of consumption reveals that the ontological split between human bodies and nature, articulated in Prospero's linguistic ruling process, is arbitrary. Focusing on the political status that this imagined ontological distinction enables, this article engages with early modern medical discourse and contemporary ecocritical readings of The Tempest to argue that Stephano reveals the absurdity of colonial power by highlighting the indivisibility of the body from lawless, shapeless nature. This paper explores the merging of the body and the ocean in William Shakespeare's The Tempest , with particular attention given to the often underexplored drunken butler Stephano. Stephano disturbs the notion of ontological and political fixities by performing naturalistic "spells," serving as a parodic foil to the island's magical ruler Prospero. A clown figure, Stephano performs his own colonization of the island, which includes recreating Prospero's subjugation of Caliban. Such an analysis of Stephano invites a comparison between ecocritical and postcolonial readings of the play because Stephano's consumption of wild liquids to fuel his conquest aligns him both politically and ideologically with Shakespeare's ocean. The contents of Stephano's bottle advance the play's arguments about the lawlessness of the body in the same way the sea does. Stephano's cult of consumption reveals that the ontological split between human bodies and nature, articulated in Prospero's linguistic ruling process, is arbitrary. Focusing on the political status that this imagined ontological distinction enables, this essay engages with early modern medical discourse and contemporary ecocritical readings of The Tempest to argue that Stephano reveals the absurdity of colonial power by highlighting the indivisibility of the body from lawless, shapeless nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]