Ashley Libben
Dean’s Student
Scholarship Symposium
The Tempest:
The Unmasking of the World’s Greatest Playwright
Scholars and Historians have long speculated about the elusive life of the world’s most famous author, William Shakespeare. The Tempest may provide them with the insights they seek. Although, as Park Honan writes, Shakespeare “was still to write three more plays” (372) The Tempest was, according to Michael Wood, his “last work as a sole author” (322). Indeed, Mark Love suggests, Shakespeare “may have retired to Stratford after writing The Tempest in 1611 [because] he gives Stratford as his address in a London court case in spring 1612.” And since, as David Bevington points out, “no direct literary source for . . . The Tempest has been found” (A-35), the natural place to search for a source is Shakespeare’s life. The plot of The Tempest is “one of the few that Shakespeare made up rather than borrowed” (Wood 322). It is likely that if Shakespeare were to write autobiographically, he would do so in poetic and dramatic form. And this is exactly what he does in The Tempest. The life of Prospero, the protagonist, parallels that of the dramatist in several ways: his sources of power are metaphorically like Shakespeare’s, the relationship between Prospero and his daughter Miranda is similar to that of Shakespeare and his daughter Susannah, and, like Shakespeare, Prospero bids farewell to his art as the play ends.
First of all, Prospero’s sources of power parallel Shakespeare’s own strengths. Prospero derives power from his books. Plotting to overthrow Prospero, Caliban tells visitors to the islands,
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Remember
First to possess his books, for without them
He’s but a sot, as am I, nor hath not
One spirit to command. They all do hate him
As rootedly as I. Burn but his books. (Shakespeare 867)
Caliban is well aware of the power these books of knowledge hold. These books are representative of Shakespeare’s own knowledge: the book knowledge from which he drew the plots and characters for his works and the knowledge of the times from which he drew the themes of his plays. According to the research of Michael Wood, Shakespeare was a very educated man “with a good Latin education” (64), and “he absorbed tales and myths, and discovered allegory and the topography of another universe [from his education and books]” (64). Shakespeare gathered all of this knowledge to become the most powerful writer of all times. These books, and thereby knowledge, were the source of both Prospero’s and Shakespeare’s power.
Prospero’s next source of power is his “magical cloak” (Shakespeare 853) which he dons throughout the play. Like Prospero, Shakespeare had his own “magical cloak” (Shakespeare 853), the costuming of an actor. Although the years between 1585 and 1592 are referred to as Shakespeare’s “lost years” (Wood 97), scholar Wood postulates that during this time “Shakespeare joined the leading [acting] company of the day, the Queen’s Men” (104). This theory has met some controversy as there are several other theories about Shakespeare’s activities during the “lost years” (Wood 97); however, most agree that “by the end of the year 1594 . . . [he was] a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s [theatrical] company” (Bevington lviii). This experience nurtured Shakespeare’s power as a costumed actor much like Prospero utilizes his “magical cloak” (Shakespeare 853).
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Finally, Prospero’s most powerful instrument is his staff. In Act V of the play, Prospero first “traces a charmed circle with his staff” (Shakespeare 874) and then in a poetic soliloquy proclaims,
I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book. (874)
He casts off his staff much as Shakespeare prepared to cast off his pen. In his lifetime, Shakespeare “wrote more than forty plays” (Love) and at least one hundred fifty-four sonnets (Bevington 880). This is an impressive spectrum of writing but is even more impressive when the literary value of each is considered. Each of Shakespeare’s works has been studied and hailed as literary works of art. The Tempest, as Shakespeare’s last work, contains incredibly poetic lines in which he “creates . . . a world of the imagination, a place of conflict and ultimately of magical rejuvenation” (Bevington 845). Scholar Michael Best asserts that “[t]he impressively orchestrated structure and originality of the play also suggests that Shakespeare may have intended the play as a sort of culmination of his art” (Prospero). Shakespeare was and still is the world’s most recognized and celebrated author. Even “Shakespeare’s cantankerous colleague, [Ben Jonson] . . . recognize[d] that his old rival had surpassed even the greatest of the ancient Greeks and Romans: ‘He was not of an age, but for all time’ ” (Wood 342).
Secondly, like Prospero, Shakespeare’s daughter married the son of his enemy. Within the play, Prospero tells his daughter, “[the] King of Naples, being an enemy to me inveterate” (Shakespeare 852) plotted with Prospero’s brother to overthrow him. He then tells her,
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By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore. (Shakespeare 853)
The same “accident most strange” (Shakespeare 853) that brought Prospero’s enemies to him also brought Ferdinand, the son of Alonso, the King of Naples to his, Prospero’s, daughter. Upon meeting him, Miranda calls Ferdinand “a thing divine” (Shakespeare 853), and Ferdinand calls Miranda “the goddess on whom these airs attend!” (Shakespeare 853). Toward the end of the play, “Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda, playing at chess” (Shakespeare 876) and seems to not only resign to but also respect the prospective match. Many believe that Shakespeare was a devout Catholic who was “well connected with the noble and intellectual circles of Catholicism” (Love Documents). Other reports have also surfaced saying that he “ ‘dyed a papiste’ ” (Love Documents) meaning “that he took the last rites of the Old Faith [Catholicism] on his deathbed” (Love Documents). As a Catholic, Shakespeare would want his children to remain in the faith; however, “his daughter Susanna married Dr. John Hall . . . a moderate Puritan” (Wood 296). Like Prospero, Shakespeare seems to respect his son-in-law; the two even “went to London together on Stratford business in the last year of the poet’s life” (Wood 296). When Shakespeare passed away and his final will and testament was read, “most of the estate went to Susanna and John Hall” (Wood 338). Shakespeare apparently appreciated the union between his daughter and a Puritan, and despite his own Catholic faith, he resigns himself to this marriage. Both Prospero and Shakespeare watched the courtship and marriage of their daughters to the sons of their enemies. The source for this subplot may very likely be the marriage of Shakespeare’s own daughter to his own nemesis, a Protestant.
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Indeed, the overall tone of the play represents the tone of Shakespeare’s life around 1610. The play opens with Prospero telling his daughter, “ ’Tis time I should inform thee farther” (Shakespeare 851) the story of his life. David Beauregard asserts in his critical essay “New light on Shakespeare’s Catholicism: Prospero’s epilogue in The Tempest” that “Prospero gives an early recounting to Miranda of their past life (1.2), and in the play’s concluding lines he promises to tell ‘the story of my life,’ a phrase twice repeated (5.1.303,312).” Prospero, aged, tired and ready to go home, wants to tell the story of his life. The tone of the play, while dramatic and fanciful at times, shifts to reflective and poignant. Shakespeare, whose life was tumultuous, had lost a son of which Wood says “[t]here can be no more shattering blow in life” (166) than the death of his son, dealt with the murder of his “first great inspiration” (Wood 156), Christopher Marlowe and was embarrassed by the scandals surrounding his daughters Judith and Susanna (Wood 337). All of this, combined with his successful career, tired Shakespeare and compelled him to tell the story of his life. Shakespeare “may have retired to Stratford after writing The Tempest in 1611" (Love Documents). Looking back on life, Shakespeare, like Prospero, wished to share his story inexplicitly with the world before he leaves for home.
Third and finally, Shakespeare wrote Prospero’s poignant epilogue as a final farewell to the stage. As an epilogue to the play, Shakespeare writes Prospero speaking these moving words:
Now my charms are all o’erthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint. Now, ’tis true,
I must be here confined by you
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
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And pardoned the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell,
But release me from my hands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardoned be,
Let your indulgence set me free. (878)
In the 1980 Jonathan Miller production of The Tempest, these lines are spoken directly to the audience, and through these lines, Shakespeare appears to be trying to connect with his audience. There have been several interpretations of these lines. Beauregard argues that “The Tempest, most pointedly in Prospero’s epilogue, contains a peculiar series of references to sin, grace and pardon that are the expressions of a sensibility rooted in Roman Catholic doctrine.” Beyond studying the religious language of the play, Beauregard acknowledges that “[t]here is a strong autobiographical motif in the play itself” and that the “epilogue can be plausibly interpreted as Shakespeare’s personal farewell to the stage.” Wood agrees,
Since the eighteenth century this speech has been seen as Shakespeare’s farewell. The Prospero magic of course has precise affinities with the author and director who orchestrates the plot, plays with his characters to produce the desired effect, and then quits the stage. From a dramatist so conscious of theatrical illusion it is hard not to see this in some sense as a valediction (and was this why his colleagues pointedly opened his posthumous collected works with this play?) This conclusion gains conviction with Prospero’s epilogue to his audience, which again lifts the veil on the illusion of acting. (328)
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Through Prospero, Shakespeare tells his audience that he wishes them “to set me free” (878) with the applause of their “good hands” (878). He tells the audience that his only aim “was to please” (878). After years of pleasing audiences, Shakespeare exits from the stage with a resounding farewell.
By modeling the character Prospero after himself, Shakespeare writes his autobiography in the only appropriate way: as a literary work of art. The author and his life have long been studied in both the academic and cultural worlds. Using his power as a scholar, actor and writer, conveying the mood of his life around 1610 and reflecting on his own life, Shakespeare gives the careful reader an intimate look at his life just before his retirement and eventual death. The iconic man has long been a mystery, but as an old man desiring to look back on his own life and share this view with the world, he unmasks himself for the world to see the true William Shakespeare.
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Works Cited
Beauregard, David N. “New light on Shakespeare’s Catholicism: Prospero’s epilogue in The Tempest.” Renascense: essays on values in literature. 49.3 (1997): 159-174. Literature Online. Funderberg Lib., North Manchester, IN. 15 Nov. 2004 <
Best, Michael. “Prospero, the magus, and Shakespeare.” Shakespeare’s Life and Times. 18 Sept. 2001. 22 Nov. 2004. <
Bevington, David, ed. The Necessary Shakespeare. New York: Pearson, 2005.
Honan, Park. Shakespeare: A Life. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.
Love, Mark. “Shakespeare and the Documents, Part 3: Religion.” In Search of Shakespeare. 2003. PBS Online. 20 Nov. 2004. <
Shakespeare, William. “The Tempest.” The Necessary Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Pearson, 2005. 845-578.
Wood, Michael. Shakespeare. New York: Basic Books, 2003.