The Tempest

Lore & Background

The Tempest is set on a remote island, where Prospero, a magician, lives with his daughter Miranda and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. Twelve years before the action of the play, Prospero, formerly Duke of Milan and a gifted sorcerer, had been usurped by his treacherous brother Antonio with the aid of Alonso, King of Naples. Escaping by boat with his infant daughter Miranda, Prospero flees to a remote island where he has been living ever since. There he used his magic to force the island's only inhabitant, Caliban, to protect him and Miranda. He also frees the spirit Ariel and binds him into servitude. When a ship carrying his brother Antonio passes nearby, Prospero conjures up a storm with help from Ariel and the ship is destroyed. Antonio is shipwrecked, along with Alonso, Ferdinand (Alonso's son and heir to the throne), Sebastian (Alonso's brother), Gonzalo (Prospero's trustworthy minister), Adrian, and other court members. Prospero enacts a sophisticated plan to take revenge on his usurpers and regain his dukedom. Using magic, he separates the shipwreck survivors into groups on the island: Ferdinand is rescued by Prospero and Miranda and given shelter, and Prospero successfully manipulates the youth into a romance with Miranda. Trinculo, the king's jester, and Stephano, the king's drunken butler, encounter Caliban, and the three stage an unsuccessful 'rebellion' against Prospero, providing comic relief. Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, and two attendant lords (Adrian and Francisco) are also on the island; Antonio and Sebastian conspire to kill Alonso and Gonzalo so Sebastian can become King, but Prospero and Ariel thwart the conspiracy. Later, Ariel takes the form of a harpy and chastises Antonio, Alonso, and Sebastian for their crimes. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language; Ariel and other spirits, performing as the classical goddesses Juno, Ceres, and Iris, celebrate the betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda while instructing the young couple on the value of chastity and marriage. The masque is suddenly interrupted when Prospero realises he had forgotten the plot against his life. In Act V, Prospero vows that once he achieves his goals, he will set Ariel free and abandon his magic. Ariel brings on Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian, and Prospero forgives all three. Prospero's former title, Duke of Milan, is restored. Ariel fetches the sailors from the ship, and then Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano. Caliban, seemingly filled with regret, promises to be good. Stephano and Trinculo are ridiculed and sent away in shame by Prospero. Before the reunited group leaves the island, Ariel is instructed to provide good weather to guide the king's ship back to the royal fleet and then to Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will be married. After this, Ariel is set free. In an epilogue, Prospero requests that the audience set him free – with their applause.

Reader's Guide

The Tempest has been widely interpreted in later centuries. Its central character, Prospero, has been identified with Shakespeare, with Prospero's renunciation of magic signaling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage. The play has also been seen as an allegory of Europeans colonising foreign lands. The play has had a varied afterlife, inspiring artists in many nations and cultures through stage and screen adaptations, literature, music (especially opera), and the visual arts. The play explores themes including magic, betrayal, revenge, forgiveness, and family. It contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. The play's sources include William Strachey's A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, an eyewitness report of the real-life shipwreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 on the island of Bermuda; Montaigne's essay 'Of the Canibales', translated into English by John Florio in 1603; and Ovid's Metamorphoses, a source for Prospero's speech in act five in which he bids farewell to magic. The Tempest may take its overall structure from traditional Italian commedia dell'arte, which sometimes featured a magus and his daughter, their supernatural attendants, and a number of rustics. Other dramatic influences on Prospero's character include Greene's Friar Bacon, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and Shakespeare's own Owen Glendower. Bremo in Mucedorus may have influenced Caliban. Scholars have debated the influence of Virgil's Aeneid. Recently, scholars have also identified the influence on the Tempest of Marston's The Malcontent, Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster and the anonymous romance Primaleon, Prince of Greece.

Did You Know?

• The Tempest is thought to be one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote alone, but it was not his last play, since it is post-dated by his collaborations with John Fletcher: Henry VIII, Cardenio and The Two Noble Kinsmen.
• Edward Blount entered The Tempest into the Stationers' Register on 8 November 1623, one of 16 Shakespeare plays he registered on that date.
• The play's opening scene may have been influenced by William Strachey's eyewitness report of the real-life shipwreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 on the island of Bermuda.
• Gonzalo's description of his ideal society thematically and verbally echoes Montaigne's essay 'Of the Canibales', translated into English by John Florio in 1603.
• Prospero's farewell to magic in act five is based on an invocation by the sorceress Medea found in Ovid's Metamorphoses.