The Tempest
1623
On a remote island, a former duke practices forbidden magic. Prospero orchestrates a storm that shipwrecks his enemies onto his shores, setting in motion a delicate game of revenge, redemption, and ultimately, forgiveness. His daughter Miranda has grown up in isolation, knowing only her father and their two servants: Caliban, the island's original inhabitant who resents his subjugation, and Ariel, the spirit whose freedom Prospero holds hostage. As the story unfolds, Prospero must confront the men who exiled him twelve years before, including the king who stole his dukedom. But the play pivots unexpectedly toward grace. The famous wedding masque in Act IV serves as a breathtaking interlude, a vision of love and fertility that also functions as Prospero's farewell to his own magical art. Some scholars hear Shakespeare's voice in Prospero's renunciation of magic: a playwright surrendering his greatest power. Others read the play as a colonial allegory, mapping European domination onto the island's tangled relationships. Whatever the lens, The Tempest endures because it asks what none of us want to answer: when we finally hold power over those who wronged us, what do we do with it?
