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S
et on an enchanted island
ruled by the wizard-like
Prospero, The Tempest is a
play of magic and wonder, beautiful
poetry and fantastical imagery. It
has the most spectacular opening
of any of Shakespeare’s plays—
in the form of the mighty storm of
the play’s title. Yet it is one of the
hardest plays to fathom, a mystery
that has absorbed countless hours
of debate, and inspired radically
different interpretations. It is
perhaps this very mystery that
is key to the play’s power.
The Tempest was probably the
last play Shakespeare wrote by
himself, and some interpretations
have hung on this biographical
detail. Critics a century ago began
to describe it as a “late” play,
arguing that it was the culmination
of the Bard’s work, his swansong to
the theater. Prospero, they believed,
was a portrait of Shakespeare
himself, creating the storm and the
island’s magic out of the air just as
Shakespeare creates his magic on
the stage. Prospero’s evocative
speech, which ends the magical
wedding masque, was read as
Shakespeare’s own rueful farewell:THE TEMPEST
“Our revels now are ended. These
our actors, / As I foretold you, were
all spirits, and / Are melted into
air, into thin air; / And like the
baseless fabric of this vision, / The
cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous
palaces, / The solemn temples, the
great globe itself, / Yea, all which
it inherit, shall dissolve; / And,
like this insubstantial pageant
faded, / Leave not a rack behind”
(4.1.148 –156).
This does indeed sound
like a poetic goodbye for a great
magician of the theater. But this
is not actually the end of the
play. Prospero’s words here are a
conjuring trick to lull Ferdinand and
Miranda into sleep while he deals
with another plot against him.
Neither Prospero nor Shakespeare
are quite yet done. And if Prospero
really is Shakespeare, then he has
painted an unflattering portrait
of himself. It is not until his magic
spirit Ariel shows Prospero theIN CONTEXT
THEMES
Loyalty, servitude,
freedom, love, magicSETTING
A magic island, probably
in the MediterraneanSOURCES
8 CE The play is original, but
draws inspiration from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses.1603 Michel de Montaigne’s
essay “Of the Cannibals.”1610 News of the shipwreck
of the Sea Venture.LEGACY
1610 First performance is
possibly at the Blackfriars
Theatre, London.1611 The play is performed
before King James I in
Whitehall Palace.1667 John Dryden and William
Davenant stage a spectacular
called The Tempest, or the
Enchanted Island.1857 Charles Kean’s staging at
London’s Princess Theatre has
a storm sequence that wows
Hans Christian Andersen
1930 John Gielgud plays
Caliban at London’s Old Vic.
Gielgud goes on to become a
highly acclaimed Prospero, too.1945 Canada Lee is the first
black Caliban, in New York,
as audiences begin to see
parallels with slave history.2004 A major opera of the play
by British composer Thomas
Adès opens in London.A 19th-century etching by Robert
Dudley shows the alarmed Alonso,
Antonio, Sebastian, and Gonzalo as
they stumble upon banqueting spirits.
Invisible to them, Prospero watches on.