The Tempest
1908
Often called Shakespeare's farewell to the stage, The Tempest is a haunting meditation on power, forgiveness, and the illusions we call reality. Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, has spent twelve years on a remote island with his daughter Miranda, honing his magical arts after his brother Antonio seized his dukedom with the King's help. When the play opens, Prospero conjures a tempest to shipwreck his enemies on the island, but what unfolds is not simple revenge. Through Ariel, the spirit he enslaves, and Caliban, the island's original inhabitant he subjugates, Prospero manipulates fate until he must confront what he truly wants: justice, love for his daughter, or the harder mercy of letting go. The play pulses with some of Shakespeare's most transcendent poetry, culminating in the famous 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on' monologue. Part romance, part tragedy, part treatise on theater itself, who controls the story controls everything. It endures because it asks what we all eventually face: when we have power over our enemies, what will we choose?
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“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.””
— William Shakespeare
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.””
— William Shakespeare
“What's past is prologue.””
— William Shakespeare
“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-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.””
— William Shakespeare
“Me, poor man, my libraryWas dukedom large enough.””
— William Shakespeare
“O, wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,That has such people in't!””
— William Shakespeare
“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,That, if I then had waked after long sleep,Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,The clouds methought would open, and show richesReady to drop upon me; that, when I waked,I cried to dream again.””
— William Shakespeare
“Full fathom five thy father lies;Of his bones are coral made;Those are pearls that were his eyes:Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange.Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong Hark! now I hear them,”
— William Shakespeare
“This thing of darkness IAcknowledge mine.””
— William Shakespeare
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Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-tempest-40c532aa-f82b-42bb-a817-7394822fb2cc.Shakespeare, W. (1908). The Tempest. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-tempest-40c532aa-f82b-42bb-a817-7394822fb2ccShakespeare, William. The Tempest. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-tempest-40c532aa-f82b-42bb-a817-7394822fb2cc.


































