Chip Kendrick
AP Shakespeare

The Tempest: A Resignation Speech 

	In Shakespeare's,  The Tempest, the character Prospero is in many ways similar to 
Shakespeare himself at the time he wrote the play.  Prospero, having entertained himself 
with his magic for most of his life, now gives up his powers as he seems to understand 
that his magic is no more and no less than life itself :  it is just as transitory and hollow.  
This seems to reflect on Shakespeare's attitude toward play writing.  Having spent his life 
writing plays and being entertained by his own employment, Shakespeare finds that his 
plays, while they explore the themes of life and relationship, are finally no more 
meaningful than life itself seems to a man who must have been feeling his mortality.  The 
Tempest is Shakespeare's resignation speech.  Having found that his 'magic' has failed 
him, Shakespeare is retiring to the real world, for if nothing of meaning is to be gained in 
play writing, then all that is left is to be human.
	First, look at Prospero's final decision in the play.  He is capable of returning to 
Milan and ruling it while keeping his magical power - he does not have to choose 
between the two - and he abandons his power.  Just as Shakespeare was not forced to quit 
writing, Prospero is not forced to abandon his magic.  In addition, Shakespeare 
specifically has Prospero tell us : "My charms crack not, my spirits obey, ..." ( V.i 2 ).  
Shakespeare means to tell the audience he is not quitting because his ability as a writer is 
lessening at all, but specifically tells us through Prospero that he is at his peak and is 
completely in command of his art.  There is no other obvious thematic or plot-
development reason why Prospero should specifically mention his powers are at their 
best.
	In his resignation speech, Prospero seems to allude to events in some of 
Shakespeare's other plays.  The opening line of the speech, 'Ye elves of hills, brooks, 
standing lakes, and groves' ( V.i 53-55 ), seems to refer to the setting of A Midsummer 
Night's Dream.  Further into the speech, Prospero says he has:

			       " ...bedimmed
The noontide sun, called forth mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
set roaring war;..."
 ( V.i  41-44).

The use of the word "mutinous", the reference to a storm, and the outcome of "roaring 
war" suggest the play Julius Caesar.  Prospero also claims that "graves at my command/ 
have waked their sleeper, oped, and let 'em forth" ( V.i  48-49 ), which sounds like the 
spirit of the former King in Hamlet.  Other connections could be drawn.  In addition to all 
this,  Prospero is bragging.  If this speech were delivered by Shakespeare, and was in 
reference to Shakespeare's works, it would not be bragging, as it takes no particular 
"power" to make a plot happen in a play.  Prospero's delivering this speech is somewhat 
inconsistent with his attitude toward his own power throughout the rest of the book, in 
that he always gives the simplest, least boastful explanation of what he has done to 
anyone who asks, and in Act IV, Scene 1 makes it clear to Ferdinand that he is not in 
control of the gods, and is only conjuring spirits.
             The last piece of evidence for the connection I have drawn is in the solemn 
speech Prospero gives when he is interrupted and his spirits fade away:

"You do look, my son, in a moved sort, 
As if you were dismayed; be cheerful, sir.
Our revels are now 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-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which we 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." ( IV.i  146-157 )
Throughout his works, Shakespeare has taken on the viewpoints of his many characters.  
He has played the villain and the saint, and given the ideals and perspectives of each.  In 
each case, any extreme view they held, like Iago's total lack of morality, or Hotspur's 
view of absolute honor, had some doubt to it, or could be thought of differently.  
Prospero's argument here is irrefutable.  Nothing he presents is in any way 'iffy' or 
doubtable.  This is Shakespeare's final conclusion : plays, like life, fade into nothing, and 
nothing is left worth doing but to be what we are: human, and mortal.