Figurative Language In The Tempest

The Tempest revolves around the former Duke of Milan, Prospero. When his daughter, Miranda, falls in love with the Prince of Naples, Ferdinand, Prospero has to ensure her virtue is safe until a proper marriage. Using his magical powers, Prospero conjures up a masque, a performance consisting of song and dance, with Greek goddesses to emphasize chaste behavior and show how nature will reward patience. Goddess of agriculture and fertility, Ceres, finishes off the masque with a song, blessing the couple. This song connects both the man-made and organic components of utopia, language, mythology, and marriage. These interactions between the natural and unnatural show that man has power over nature.
By recalling earlier mentions of utopia within

for example, in lines 112-113, Ceres describes how the earth will respond to Ferdinand’s marriage: “Vines and clustering bunches growing/ Plants with goodly burden bowing” (4.1.112-113). This descriptive diction, especially “clustering” and “burden,” is used to emphasize how crowded and plentiful their land will be. Then, in the last line, Ceres uses personification to promise “scarcity and want shall shun you” (4.1.116) to Ferdinand. By assigning human concepts, such as shunning, to natural events, like scarcity, we are imposing our own feelings onto the earth. We have the power to define scarcity and the lack thereof in our own terms. Furthermore, the first four lines employ mostly plosive consonants, the sharp p, b, and t sounds found in “plenty,” “barns,” “empty,” “bunches,” “plants,” and “burden bowing” (4.1.110-113). These create a sharp distinction to the softer sibilant s sounds in the last lines of the song: “Scarcity and want shall shun you/Ceres' blessing so is on you” (4.1.115-116). The contrast exists because in the beginning of the song, Ceres first wants to grab Ferdinand’s attention with strong sounds. She wants him to listen closely to how much he will rewarded for his chastity. By the end of her lines, however, Ceres gives her blessing. She no longer tries to push an agenda, but soothes him and letting him know she approves. Moreover, Shakespeare rhymed every pair of lines to show that it was meant to be a song and that Ferdinand was meant to remember this message. These sound patterns are important because they show complex thought. It requires intelligence and planning to find sounds that echo the mood and to create rhymes that fit the story. These are all qualities exclusive to humans. Sure, all animals make sounds and have meanings behind their sounds, but only a human has such control over language. Shakespeare layered literal meanings of words with