The Tempest (play)

The Tempest is one of William Shakespeare's last plays. Its first known performance was on November 1, 1611 at Whitehall Palace in London. It would also have been performed at the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre.

Plot

The sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda, have been stranded for twelve years on an island in the Adriatic, after Prospero's jealous brother Antonio—helped by the King of Naples—deposed him and set him adrift with the three-year-old girl. Possessed of magic powers due to his great learning and prodigious library, Prospero is reluctantly served by a spirit, Ariel, whom he has rescued from imprisonment in a tree. Ariel was imprisoned by the African witch Sycorax, who had been exiled to the island years before and died before Prospero arrived. The witch's son Caliban, a deformed monster who was the only non-spiritual inhabitant before the arrival of Prospero, has been compelled by Prospero to serve as the sorcerer's servant, carrying wood and gathering pig nuts. Caliban, provoked by the comeliness of Miranda, has proposed to her that they join in sexual union in order to create a new race to populate the island.

Related Topics:
Sorcerer - Prospero - Milan - Miranda - Naples - Ariel - Sycorax - Caliban

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The play opens as Prospero, having divined that his brother, Antonio, is on a ship passing close by the island (having returned from the nuptials of Alonso's daughter Claribel with a Carthaginian king), has raised a storm (the tempest of the title) which causes the ship to run aground. Also on the ship are Antonio's friend and fellow conspirator, King Alonso, and Alonso's son, Ferdinand. Prospero, by his spells, contrives to separate all the survivors of the wreck so that Alonso and Ferdinand believe one another dead.

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Three plots then alternate through the play. In one, Caliban falls in with Stephano and Trinculo, two drunken crew members, whom he believes to have come from the moon, and drunkenly attempts to raise a rebellion against Prospero, but this fails. In another, Prospero conspires a romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda. The two fall immediately in love, but Prospero worries that "too light winning make the prize light", and so compels Ferdinand to become his servant so that his affection for Miranda will be confirmed. In the third subplot, Antonio conspires to kill the King of Naples and his secretary Gonzalo, but is diverted by a singing pixie. All ends happily, as Prospero forgives his enemies and produces a magical masque to celebrate the union of Miranda with Ferdinand.

Related Topics:
Trinculo - Pixie - Masque

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