Although, taken from the point of view of a play, The Tempest is lacking in dramatic interest, the entire work is so marvellously rich in poetry and so inspired by imagination, that it forms a whole little world in itself, and holds the reader captive by that power which sheer perfection possesses to enthrall.
If the ordinary being desires to obtain a salutary impression of his own insignificance and an ennobling one of the sublimity of true genius, he need only study this last of Shakespeare's masterpieces. In the majority of cases the result will be prostrate admiration.
Shakespeare gave freer rein to his imagination in this play than he had allowed himself since the days of the Midsummer Nights Dream and the First Part of Henry IV. He felt able, indeed compelled to do this; and, in spite of the restraint imposed upon him by the occasion for which it was written, he devoted his whole individuality to the task with greater force than he had done for years. The play contains far more of the nature of a confession than was usual at this period. Never, with the exception of Hamlet and Timon, had Shakespeare been so personal.
It may be said that, in a manner, The Tempest was a continuation of his gloomy period; once again he treated of black ingratitude and cunning and violence practised upon a good man.
Prospero, Duke of Milan, absorbed in scientific study, and finding his real dukedom in his library, imprudently intrusted the direction of his little state to his brother Antonio. The latter, betraying his trust, won over to his side all the officers of state appointed by Prospero, entered into an alliance with the Duke's enemy, Alonso, King of Naples, and reduced the hitherto free state of Milan to a condition of vassalage. Then, with the assistance of Alonso and his brother Sebastian, Antonio attacked and dethroned Prospero. The Duke, with his little three-year-old daughter, was carried out some leagues to sea, placed in a rotten old hull, and abandoned. A Neapolitan noble, Gonzalo, compassionately supplied them with provisions, clothes, and, above all, the precious books upon which Prospero's supernatural powers depended. The boat was driven ashore upon an island whose one inhabitant, the aboriginal Caliban, was reduced to subjection by means of the control exercised over the spirit world by the banished man. Here, then, Prospero dwelt in peace and solitude, devoting himself to the culture of his mind, the enjoyment of nature, and the careful education of his daughter Miranda, who received such a training as seldom falls to the lot of a princess.
Twelve years have passed, and Miranda is just fifteen when the play begins. Prospero is aware that his star has reached its zenith and that his old enemies are in his power. The King of Naples has married his daughter, Claribel, to the King of Tunis, and the wedding has been celebrated, oddly enough, at the home of the bridegroom; but then it was probably the first time in history that a Christian King of Naples had bestowed his daughter upon a Mohammedan. Alonso, with all his train, including his brother and the usurper of Milan, is on his homeward voyage when Prospero raises the storm which drives them on his island. After being sufficiently bewildered and humiliated, they are finally forgiven, and the King's son, purified by the trials through which he has passed, is as Prospero has all along intended that he should be, united to Miranda.
It was evidently Shakespeare's intention in The Tempest to give a picture of mankind as he now saw it, and we are shown something quite new in him, a typical representation of the different phases of humanity.
In Caliban we have the primitive man, the aboriginal, the animal which has just evolved into the first rough stages of the human being. In Prospero we are given the highest development of Nature, the man of the future, the superhuman man of spirit.
We have seen that Shakespeare roughly planned such a character some years back, in the faintly outlined sketch of Cerimon in Pericles (ante [p. 591]). Prospero is the fulfilment of the promise contained in Cerimon's principal speech, a man, namely, who can compel to his uses all the beneficent powers dwelling in metals, stones, and plants. He is a creature of princely mould, who has subdued outward Nature, has brought his own turbulent inner self under perfect control, and has overpowered the bitterness caused by the wrongs he has suffered in the harmony emanating from his own richly spiritual life.
Prospero, like all Shakespeare's heroes and heroines of this last decade—Pericles, Imogen, and Hermione no less than Lear and Timon—suffers grievous wrong. He is even more sinned against than Timon, has suffered more and lost more through ingratitude. He has not squandered his substance like the misanthrope, but, absorbed in occupations of a higher nature, he has neglected his worldly interests and fallen a victim to his own careless trustfulness.