Who knew that it's news to us that "It's new to thee"?

Before Huxley appropriated and politicized it, the phrase "brave new world" was merely a portion of a more extended exclamation by Miranda in The Tempest. The phrase is uttered by her during the denouement of the play when, after occupying a deserted island since infancy with only her father, the wizard Prospero, and the deformed and sexually dangerous Caliban, she first sets eyes on more humans than she has seen (or can ever remember) in her past twelve formative years. Earlier in the day Prospero matched her with the King of Naples' son, Ferdinand, (who is one of the seemingly solitary human flotsam washed up on shore from the shipwreck Prospero has precipitated). Enraptured and instantly in love at the sight of Ferdinand -- despite the fact that Prospero tells her that "To th' most of men this is a Caliban,/And they to him are angels" [I. ii. 482-483] --Miranda declares that "I have no ambition/To see a goodlier man" [I. ii. 483-484] in response to her father's attempt to dampen (but not completely quench) the sexual spark suddenly ignited.

This same tempering by Prospero follows Miranda's "brave new world" exclamation, too. The exchange is as follows:

MIRANDA: O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in 't!

PROSPERO: It's new to thee. [V. i. 182-186]

"Miranda," from the Latin mirari, is a name that signifies "wonderment." When fifteen-year old Miranda encounters more human beings than she ever dreamed she would see, including a human being like Ferdinand, she experiences a sense of wonderment that mimics the sexual awakening of a young pubescent. Such wonderment requires a vulnerable suspension of the sense of Time and of an ordinary sense of reality. As it was left to Prospero -- a symbol of the paternal and of the old -- to graphically moderate the ardors of affection between Ferdinand and Miranda -- warning Ferdinand not to "break her virgin-knot" before the rites of marriage [IV. i. 15] -- so it is left to Prospero -- again as a symbol of paternity and of the old -- to again remind Miranda that when she experiences wonder, it is because "It's new to thee." But there is a great deal to be discerned in that phrase, both within the context of the play and within the context of our perspectives of Shakespeare's art.

In another part of the island (and of the play), Old Gonzalo, sensing the miraculous aspects of his environment, says "All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement/Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us/Out of this fearful country!" [V. 1.104-106] Like Miranda's exclamations, the line -- out of the immediate context -- echoes the tingling terror of sexual awakening -- a terra incognita of sexual experience representing (with apologies to Hamlet) those unexplored regions of a discover'd country to whose bourne every man and woman is compelled to return. Prospero, behind a facade of complete control and in contrast to his ostensible power over the wonderment, shows himself to be more catalyst than creator. As we contemplate his role, we see that his "It's new to thee" is perhaps more wistful than warning, since -- after all -- he acknowledges that soon "Every third thought shall be my grave." [V. i. 313] It's as if Shakespeare was reminding us that it is not the old who are bereft of wonderment, but what is old in us that is. Wonderment is a product of discovering something new, or rediscovering anew something that was lost. And what is new is news. At the end of the play, Gonzalo asks the Boatswain "What is the news?" [V. i. 221] The Boatswain replies that "The best news is" what is found (i.e., the ship, the King, his retinue). This echoes Gonzalo's revelatory wonderment that despite the travails of the voyage and the shipwreck, the son and daughter of the King have found their respective mates, Prospero has again found his dukedom, and "all of us ourselves/When no man was his own." [V. i. 212-213]

Prospero is a great liberator, but not the great liberator -- that title (and the task it impels) is reserved to us, to our imaginations. It is true that Prospero freed the airy spirit Ariel from the cloven pine into which the foul witch, Sycorax, had condemned him. He likewise frees Ferdinand from indentured labor on the island so as to permit the young man to commit his love for Miranda "as willing/As bondage e'er of freedom." [III. i. 88-89] With respect to the spell that he has placed on his traitorous brother and on those who betrayed him -- a spell that left them "Confin'd together" [V. i. 7] -- he commands Ariel to "Go release them, Ariel:/My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,/And they shall be themselves." [V. i. 30-32] And he finally commands: "Set Caliban and his companions free;/Untie the spell." [V. 1. 252-253] All are liberated from their respective confines -- "confines," from the Latin com = with + finis = limits or boundaries -- a place or state with impenetrable limits or boundaries. When Prospero lifts the spell on the King and his brother, he remarks that:

Their understanding
Begins to swell; and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shore
That now lies foul and muddy. [V. i. 79-82]

And so it is Prospero who -- in a remarkable Epilogue -- breaks from the play and directly addresses us, the audience. He tells us that it is our imagination, not his "charms" (that, after all, "are all o'erthrown") that truly holds the power over the future. He acknowledges that "'tis true/I must be here confin'd by you/Or sent to Naples" depending upon how our imagination plays out the resolution of the play. But he begs, "As you from crimes would pardon'd be,/Let your indulgence set me free." Prospero's prayer -- alluding as it does to "Do unto others..." and "Forgive us our trespasses..." -- goes well beyond the mores or morals of such allusions, and asks us simply to muse with wonderment so as to set him -- and us all -- free from the confines of Time and the ordinary sense of reality. It is hard -- if not impossible -- to resist the request, particularly when we realize that Shakespeare has not the actor playing Prospero, but Prospero himself, in character, deliver the Epilogue. As we receive Prospero's request, we unwittingly suspend Time and an ordinary sense of reality. Earlier, Prospero tells Ariel that "I will discase me" in anticipation of revealing his identity to the King and his brother, (where "discase" means "unmask"). But he doesn't "discase" himself to us in the Epilogue, and we are left simply in wonderment to find ourselves in a place where everything can be -- if we permit it to be so -- "new to thee."