Gayley, Charles Mills (1917). Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in America. New York: Macmillan. pp.75–76. ISBN 978-1-40869-223-3. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him (with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda) to sea on a "rotten carcass" of a boat to die, twelve years before the play begins. Prospero and Miranda had survived and found exile on a small island. He has learned sorcery from books, and uses it while on the island to protect Miranda and control the other characters. Sanchez, Melissa E. "Seduction and Service in The Tempest." Studies in Philology. 105.1 (2008): 50–82. Print. Meanwhile, the Duke Antonio and King Alonso are wandering about with their servants, Sebastian and Gonzalo. There’s a bit of a mid-snooze assassination attempt, but Ariel wakes them up.

Critics also argue that Miranda's feminine presence is essential to the central theme of the play. [8] Miranda's influence is what dulls the worst of her father's anger; Prospero cites her as being his reason for living after their initial banishment and he informs her that everything he does is "in care" of her. Michael Neill argues that Miranda's function on the Island is that of a Christ-figure—that she is the indicator of a given character's moral status within the social hierarchy of the island and that she also serves to protect the ethical code of the Island's inhabitants and visitors. Caliban, whom she rejects, is shown to be a monstrous figure, while Ferdinand—whom she embraces—is saved by her presence, her sympathy lightening the "baseness" of his given task. Critic Melissa Sanchez analyses Miranda in a similar light, discussing her as a representation of an "angelic—but passive—soul "caught in the conflict between enlightenment and base desire (represented by Prospero and Caliban). [9] Her decision to pursue a relationship with Ferdinand is also interpreted by critics as an indication that her marriage to him is more than a simple political match. Miranda makes a very clear decision to seek out Ferdinand and offer her assistance, all the while worrying that her father will discover them. She is also the one to abandon traditional concepts of Elizabethan modesty by ardently stating her love for Ferdinand, proclaiming that "I am your wife, if you will marry me; / If not, I'll die your maid". [7] Billington, Michael (1 January 1989). "In Britain, a Proliferation of Prosperos". The New York Times . Retrieved 20 December 2008.Prospero Burns publisher summary". Archived from the original on 13 October 2015 . Retrieved 17 October 2015. Twelve years earlier, when Miranda was three years old, Prospero was the Duke of Milan. However, he was betrayed by his brother, Antonio, and the King of Naples, Alonso, who sent Prospero and his daughter away on a rotten boat. The king’s advisor, Gonzalo, helped Prospero and Miranda by putting water, food and other supplies on the boat. Ferdinand's line as it appears in Shakespeare's First Folio published in 1623 Let me live here ever! So rare a wondered father and a wise Makes this place paradise! (4.1.122–124) It is not known for certain exactly when The Tempest was written, but evidence supports the idea that it was probably composed sometime between late 1610 to mid-1611. It is considered one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. [14] [15] Evidence supports composition perhaps occurring before, after, or at the same time as The Winter's Tale. [14] Edward Blount entered The Tempest into the Stationers' Register on 8 November 1623. It was one of 16 Shakespeare plays that Blount registered on that date. [16] Contemporary sources [ edit ] Sylvester Jourdain's A Discovery of the Barmudas In the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, the main character's mother goes by the name Prospera Mercury. She has sent her daughter, Suletta Mercury, to a piloting school alongside a Gundam named Aerial.

A handwritten manuscript of The Tempest was prepared by Ralph Crane, a scrivener employed by the King's Men. (A scrivener is one who has a talent and is practiced at using a quill pen and ink to create legible manuscripts.) Crane probably copied from Shakespeare's rough draft, and based his style on Ben Jonson's Folio of 1616. Crane is thought to have neatened texts, edited the divisions of acts and scenes, and sometimes added his own improvements. He was fond of joining words with hyphens, and using elisions with apostrophes, for example by changing "with the king" to read: "w’th' King". [31] The elaborate stage directions in The Tempest may have been due to Crane; they provide evidence regarding how the play was staged by the King's Company. [32]Dolan, Jill (1991). The Feminist Spectator as Critic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. p. 996 Bullough, Geoffrey (1975). Romances: Cymbeline , The Winter's Tale , The Tempest . Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. Routledge and Kegan Paul. ISBN 978-0-7100-7895-7. Ludwig van Beethoven's 1802 Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2, was given the subtitle "The Tempest" some time after Beethoven's death because, when asked about the meaning of the sonata, Beethoven was alleged to have said "Read The Tempest." But this story comes from his associate Anton Schindler, who is often not trustworthy. [128] Incidental music [ edit ]

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, using his magic to force the island's only inhabitant, the monstrous Caliban, to protect him and Miranda. He also frees the spirit Ariel and binds him into eternal servitude. Shaughnessy, Robert, ed. (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-60580-9. Rev. Dr. Krauth. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The tempest. IX. Ed. Furness, Horace Howard. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1892. 73–74. Print.Colino, Concha (1993). "The Romance in Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest" (PDF). Sederi. v: 6. Trinculo, the king's jester, and Stephano, the king's drunken majordomo, who encounter Caliban. Recognizing his miserable state, the three stage an unsuccessful "rebellion" against Prospero. Their actions provide the "comic relief" of the play.

Dolan, Frances E. (1992). "The Subordinate('s) Plot: Petty Treason and the Forms of Domestic Rebellion". Shakespeare Quarterly. Johns Hopkins University Press. 43 (3): 317–340. doi: 10.2307/2870531. ISSN 0037-3222. JSTOR 2870531. OCLC 39852252.Malone, Edmond (1808). An Account of the Incidents, from which the Title and Part of the Story of Shakespeare's Tempest were derived, and its true date ascertained. London: C. and R. Baldwin, New Bridge-Street. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Caliban, not Prospero, was perceived as the star act of The Tempest, and was the role which the actor-managers chose for themselves. Frank Benson researched the role by viewing monkeys and baboons at the zoo; on stage, he hung upside-down from a tree and gibbered. [101] 20th century and beyond [ edit ] A charcoal drawing by Charles Buchel of Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Caliban in the 1904 production. The Tempest is a play created in a male dominated culture and society, a gender imbalance the play explores metaphorically by having only one major female role, Miranda. Miranda is fifteen, intelligent, naive, and beautiful. The only humans she has ever encountered in her life are male. Prospero sees himself as her primary teacher, and asks if she can remember a time before they arrived to the island—he assumes that she cannot. When Miranda has a memory of "four or five women" tending to her younger self (1.2.44–47), it disturbs Prospero, who prefers to portray himself as her only teacher, and the absolute source of her own history—anything before his teachings in Miranda's mind should be a dark "abysm", according to him. (1.2.48–50) The "four or five women" Miranda remembers may symbolize the young girl's desire for something other than only men. [12] [73] The Tempest interprets Miranda as a living representation of female virtue. Miranda is typically viewed as having believed herself to be subordinate towards her father. She is loving, kind, and compassionate as well as obedient to her father and is described as "perfect and peerless, created of every creature's best". [5] She is, furthermore, the only female character within a cast of strong male figures, and much of her interaction on stage is dominated by the male figures around her. Miranda's behaviour is typically seen as completely dictated by Prospero, from her interactions with Caliban to her ultimate decision to marry Ferdinand. The traits that make her the pinnacle of femininity are her innocence and vulnerability, and these traits allow her to be readily manipulated first by her father then Ferdinand.