Discussion Questions for "The Tempest"

What are Prospero's powers? Where do they come from? What do they accomplish in settling accounts between Prospero and Antonio/Sebastian/Alonso?

How will Prospero and the others get back to Milan? Will he be a better duke the second time?

What's the significance of the Ferdinand-Miranda partnership? Is it meant to be a model of political legitimacy?

Is Miranda portrayed as solely a possession to be passed from father to husband?

Why is the wedding masque (Act IV, sc. 1) cut short when Prospero remembers that Trinculo/Stephano/Caliban are after him?

What are the parallels between the main plot (politics on the Italian peninsula) and the subplot (i.e., what takes place on the island)?

Evaluate Prospero's fathering skills as evidenced by his relationships with (a) Miranda, (b) Ariel, and (c) Caliban.

How does Gonzalo fit his billing in the List of Characters as "an honest old Counsellor"?



Is this a "comedy" in the sense that it has a happy ending? What's left unsettled by the ending?

The Bard's Month

Left: Prospero and Miranda, by William May Egley, ca. 1850.

To mark the month of April, which is: (a) National Poetry Month ; (b) Shakepeare's birthday month, AND (c) the occasion (completely coincidentally) of our discussion of The Tempest (on the 26th), allow me to offer here for your enjoyment a few of the play's more famous lines:

He receives comfort like cold porridge.
(spoken by Sebastian, Act 2, sc. 1)

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
(Trinculo, Act 2, sc.2)

The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
(Caliban, Act 3, sc.2)

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,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
and like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
(Prospero, Act 4, sc.1)

How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O, brave new world
That has such people in 't!
(Miranda, Act 5, sc.1)