1. Reality A sea change into something rich and strange (1.2.401-2) These are not natural events, they strengthen from strange to stranger (5.1.227-8)

2. What is reality?

3. Versions of reality  Different characters present different versions of reality:  Caliban says he has been cheated: I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island. (3.2.42-44)  While Prospero says C responded to his kindness by trying to rape Miranda

4. Theatre  In this play Shakespeare obeys the classical unities of time, place and action  http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/S LT/plays/tempestunities.html http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/S LT/plays/tempestunities.html http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/S LT/plays/tempestunities.html  But this means that the whole plot (particularly elements such as the romance between Miranda and Ferdinand) are accelerated

5.  “The Tempest is an intensely self- conscious play - it is, in many ways, theatre about the theatre” (Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen)  Prospero directs events as an attempt to re-enact the past (cf Hamlet restaging his father’s assassination)

6. Sleep and Dreams The play overall has a dream-like quality. For example: 1.2 – “art” is used to describe P’s magic, Miranda feels sleepy during the long story 2.1 –Ariel sings a song which puts them all to sleep 3.2 – Caliban’s speech about music and dreams 3.3 – the feast appears

7. Act 4 Scene 1  Prospero puts on a wedding masque  It is to be observed like a play: "No tongue! All eyes! Be silent!" (4.1.59)  Prospero has managed to transform reality: "Spring come to you at the farthest, / In the very end of harvest!" (4.1.114-15)  P seeks to instruct the couple by presenting them with an ideal vision of themselves: all of us ourselves When no man was his own (5.1.204-12)  Ferdinand: “Let me live here ever.” (4.1.122)

8. Words  The theme of reality pervades the entire language of the play, e.g. Prospero talks of the “spectacle of the wreck”  These words appear more in this play than in any other Shakespeare play. Why?  Strange  Remember/remembrance  Spirit  Art

9.  MIRANDA 'Tis far off And rather like a dream than an assurance That my remembrance warrants. (1.2.44- 46)

10. PROSPERO 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. (4.1.139-162)