Journeys

journeys Speech

Have you ever been so engrossed, immersed in a novel, that you’ve lost all sense of time? Where reality becomes blurred with the realms of the imaginative? Where characters come to life, their traits, looks, personalities and actions, every bit real as the novel you hold before you? Most likely I’d say….. In that case you’ve experienced and undertaken an imaginative journey. Imaginative journeys are a recurring concept, constantly being probed by composers, especially imaginative ones, where we as the responder get lost and entangled in the wonderful world of fiction, fabricated by witty composers. Over time through the exploitation of language features, positioning of we, the responders and the plot of texts including characters, setting- composers have created an illusionary world that seems that every bit real as we read.

A representation of imaginative journeys in a text is one of the great William Shakespeare, his later text, ‘The Tempest’. It’s a complex, detailed and strikingly composed play, which encompasses everything Shakespeare has ever inscribed into his works. It possesses love, treachery, revenge, magic, exploration. All these aspects of Shakespeare’s previous texts come together to transform this text, its characters, its plot and its values and ideas, into a ‘blockbuster’. On the other hand, is ‘The Road Not Taken’ another profound and philosophical poem composed by the brilliant Robert Frost who as always presents an unique and oblique perspective of things such as an imaginative journey, in his texts. Both texts serve as stimulus for our senses, acting as vehicles for our imagination, driving the imaginative journey forward using all language and composition techniques available.

The context of “The Tempest” is significantly relevant to the audience Shakespeare would’ve been targeting during the Jacobean era, reflecting the heavily Eurocentric values and attitudes of the time.   During this period, also referred to as the...