History Theatre / TheTempest

This play is considered one of Shakespeare's finest, even to this day. Creator/GustaveDore illustrated the story. It inspired the science fiction classics ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'', ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' and ''Prospero's Books'', and Music/TheDecemberists song ''The Island'', and the characters appear again in ''Literature/ProsperosDaughter'' and ''Literature/AMidsummerTempest''. Contrary to popular belief, it was ''not'' the Bard's final work (it may have been the last play Shakespeare wrote by himself, but even that is not certain). It's also one of the few plays in which Shakespeare appears to have come up with an original plot [[note]]along with ''Theatre/LovesLaboursLost'', ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'', and ''Theatre/TheMerryWivesOfWindsor''[[/note]]. As a result of its popularity, as well as it being one of the later works, ''The Tempest'' is often among the first works of Shakespeare taught to students.

There are roughly twenty-one filmed and televised versions of this play. Some play it straight, some update to modern times, [[Film/TheTempest2010 one directed by Julie Taymor]] cast Creator/HelenMirren as Prosper''a'', and others such as ''Prospero's Books'' are [[MindScrew massively wild re-interpretations]].

* HappinessInSlavery: Averted. Both Caliban and Ariel are Prospero's slaves, and both demand freedom, though they use different arguments. Ariel is eventually freed; Caliban's fate is left more ambiguous.

* {{Expy}}: Prospero is often thought to have been inspired by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_dee John Dee]], an adviser to UsefulNotes/ElizabethI. Dee was a practicing occultist who was an early advocate of colonizing the New World -- and, contemporary legend had it, he had saved England from the Spanish Armada by using his magic powers to... ''raise a tempest''. During his later years, Dee completely lost all courtly income when King James I--well known for his fear of witches, witchcraft, and the supernatural, including astrology--succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603. Dee was forced to sell most of his books and astrological paraphenalia to survive, a parallel to Prospero giving up his magic, and his books of magic, to return to Milan.

* AsYouKnow: A lot of this in Prospero's first scenes with Ariel and Caliban, to explain the latter two's back stories.

* AttemptedRape: In the BackStory, Caliban tried this on Miranda and has ''never'' ceased reminding Prospero of it.

%%* EvilPrince: Antonio.

* IslandOfMystery: Prospero's island.

* KarmaHoudini: Antonio gets basically no comeuppance for his actions against Prospero. Prospero does torture them a bit through Ariel; whether this is enough is another question.
* LampshadeHanging: Shakespearean costuming was usually done with rich, well kept contemporary clothes regardless of the setting. This is why Prospero mentions how he was given rich linens before being exiled from Milan, and why the shipwrecked noblemen comment on how their clothes are bone dry despite having been sent through a storm.

* MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter: Miranda

* TheMatchmaker: Prospero

* MissingMom: Miranda's mother is mentioned once.

* PosthumousCharacter: Sycorax features heavily into the backstories of Caliban and Ariel, but died before Propsero and Miranda arrived on the island.

* ReversePsychology: Prospero's fake ParentalMarriageVeto

* TheChessmaster: Prospero

* DaddysGirl: Miranda.
* DrowningMySorrows: Caliban, after ThoseTwoGuys meet him.
* EvilPrince: Antonio.

* In ''Literature/TheMagus'' by the same author, the main character arrives to an island belonging to a mysterious man called Maurice Conchis who styles himself after Prospero, and plays elaborate mind games with the protagonist. On the island, the protagonist also encounters a beautiful young lady reminiscent of Miranda and a ScaryBlackman, who is explicitly referred to as Caliban, and starts thinking of himself as Ferdinand. [[spoiler: Though later events imply that it was the protagonist who was given the role of Caliban, since he was motivated more by lust than by actual love in his pursuit of the young woman.]]

* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Prospero summons the eponymous storm and performs [[EvilPlan his elaborate plot]] in a seeming effort to avenge his exile from dukedom. But the way his actions serve to teach his scheming brother, and the swiftness in which he agrees to Ariel's plea for mercy, suggest Prospero wasn't in this for revenge: he just wanted to go home with his daughter. (In the very last speech of the play he breaks the fourth wall and asks the audience to pray for him to be forgiven.)\\\
Bear in mind that Prospero, as a member of the nobility, might not have needed forgiveness for exacting revenge on people who kicked him out of Italy. The sorcery, on the other hand, was [[ValuesDissonance very illegal and a major sin]] in Elizabethan England, and would have been a very good reason for Prospero to beg the audience to pray for his soul, in much the same way that Puck in ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'' tells the audience that if all this magic has offended them, they should imagine they have just dreamed it all.

* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' has the magicians Coriakin and Ramandu, who are both [[SentientStars stars in human form]] and {{Expy}}s of Prospero. The former was exiled to an island inhabited by foolish and unruly dwarf-like creatures known as the Duffers, and has to rule them with the use of "rough magic" (he directly quotes Prospero when he describes his magic as such) in order to guide them to wisdom. He helps the protagonists who arrive on his island on a ship with a crew of sailors, and dreams of returning to the sky once his exile is over. The latter came to inhabit another island with his beautiful daughter. He also welcomes the sailors, the ship's captain Prince Caspian falls in love with his daughter, and eventually marries her.

* In ''Literature/TheCollector'' by Creator/JohnFowles, the VillainProtagonist captures a beautiful young lady called Miranda, [[AbductionIsLove hoping that he will eventually be able to make her love him]]. She compares him to Caliban, while he tells her that his first name is Ferdinand.

This play is considered one of Shakespeare's finest, even to this day. Creator/GustaveDore illustrated the story. It inspired the science fiction classics ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'', ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' and ''Prospero's Books'', and Music/TheDecemberists song ''The Island'', and the characters appear again in ''Literature/ProsperosDaughter'' and ''Literature/AMidsummerTempest''. Contrary to popular belief, it was ''not'' the Bard's final work (it may have been the last play Shakespeare wrote by himself, but even that is not certain). It's also one of the few plays in which Shakespeare appears to have come up with an original plot [[note]]along with ''Theatre/LovesLaboursLost'', ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'', and ''Theatre/TheMerryWivesOfWindsor''[[/note]].

* ThoseTwoGuys / ThoseTwoBadGuys:
** Antonio and Sebastian.
** Stephano and Trinculo.
** Adrian and Francisco, in Alonso's party.

* WhatTheHellHero: Reversed; the moment Prospero decides to back out of his revenge plan -- a near-miss "MyGodWhatHaveIDone"

Would become tender.\\\

Dost thou think so, spirit?\\\

* {{Expy}}: Prospero is often considered to have been inspired by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_dee John Dee]], an adviser to UsefulNotes/ElizabethI. Dee was a practicing occultist who was an early advocate of colonizing the New World -- and, contemporary legend had it, he had saved England from the Spanish Armada by using his magic powers to... ''raise a tempest''.
** During his later years John Dee completely lost all courtly income when King James I--well known for his fear of witches, witchcraft, and the supernatural, including astrology--succeeded Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. John Dee was forced to sell most of his books and astrological paraphenalia to survive, a parallel to Prospero giving up his magic, and his books of magic, to return to Milan.

* GenderBlenderName: Yes, confused readers: Ariel is male. Sometimes. See ViewerGenderConfusion. [[note]]Until the latter half of the 20th Century, Ariel was more commonly a male name than a female name. In Israel, this is still the case--recall the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. That said, Ariel is only referred to using masculine gender pronouns twice in the entire play, one of which is a stage direction rather than a line of dialogue, and the character was played exclusively by female actors from the mid-17th century to the 1930s. And then on top of that, Ariel is a shapeshifter, the actor playing Ariel sometimes also plays the goddess Ceres, and the classical conception of the four elements considered air to be hermaphroditic, so honestly, it's little wonder that his gender is so much in question.[[/note]]

* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Prospero summons the eponymous storm and performs [[EvilPlan his elaborate plot]] in a seeming effort to avenge his exile from dukedom. But the way his actions serve to teach his scheming brother, and the swiftness in which he agrees to Ariel's plea for mercy, suggest Prospero wasn't in this for revenge: he just wanted to go home with his daughter. (In the very last speech of the play he breaks the fourth wall and asks the audience to pray for him to be forgiven.)
** Bear in mind that Prospero, as a member of the nobility, might not have needed forgiveness for exacting revenge on people who kicked him out of Italy. The sorcery, on the other hand, was [[ValuesDissonance very illegal and a major sin]] in Elizabethan England, and would have been a very good reason for Prospero to beg the audience to pray for his soul, in much the same way that Puck in ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'' tells the audience that if all this magic has offended them, they should imagine they have just dreamed it all.

** Ariel does do this to Prospero if you assume Prospero is moved by Ariel's lines:\\\
ARIEL\\