Leave Not a Rack Behind: Shakespeare's Voice Through the Character of Prospero

One of William Shakespeare's greatest masterpieces, The Tempest is a poetic and wondrous tale of magic, nobility, family, love and betrayal. From the tumultuous opening storm scene to the final epilogue spoken by the protagonist Prospero, the play is an enchanting and enthralling story. This play has elements of both Shakespeare's comedy and tragedy, and has led to many debates as to how to classify the play. Some scholars label it, along with three other of Shakespeare's plays (Cymbeline, Pericles, and The Winter's Tale) as neither tragedies nor comedies, but "romances." Eventually, The Tempest turned out to be the final (non-collaborative) play that Shakespeare ever wrote, and many wonder if he meant it to be that way. Many of Prospero's speeches speak to the finality of things, and the character of Prospero could seem to represent Shakespeare's own goodbye to the theatre. By using this character as his medium, Shakespeare's voice seems to shine through and bid a fond farewell to his profession.

One of the many examples of Prospero's speech seeming to represent Shakespeare's voice appears in what is quite possibly the best-known speech of the play. Prospero interrupts the masque he is putting on for his daughter and her new fiancé, cutting his performers off with "Well done! Avoid! No more!" (IV, i) and tells the young lovers, "Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air." (IV, i) This is a rather interesting twist, to have the director of sorts (Prospero was dictating the small performance) stop the scene abruptly and proclaim that the actors were nothing but spirits, as if Shakespeare himself seems to be declaring a sudden end to his scenes, or to his career as a playwright. Prospero then continues, "...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) Shakespeare seems to be implying that he has finished, and that he will now disappear "...into air, into thin air," and return to Stratford (where he lived out the remainder of his life). This speech seems somewhat out of the context of the play, yet is one of Shakespeare's most beautiful and well-known. Prospero's reason for stopping the play is so that he may foil a plot against his life, yet he takes the time to give this speech to the lovers instead of merely stopping the spectacle and rushing off to stop the assassins. The most logical conclusion for the placement and nature of this speech is that Shakespeare meant to seemingly break the "fourth wall" (the imaginary barrier that separates the audience from the actors) and make his own voice heard to the audience.

Another point in the play where Shakespeare's personal voice seems to be heard loud and clear in Prospero's speech is in the epilogue. In this speech, Prospero tells that his "charms are all o'erthrown, and what strength I have's my own, which is most faint." (Epi.) This would seem to represent Shakespeare's own confession that after his many years as a playwright, he has finished and exhausted himself. The Globe Theatre, home of Shakespeare's theatrical company, had recently burned to the ground, and needed to be entirely rebuilt. Prospero speaks of his need to leave the tropics of the island and return to his home of Naples, perhaps a metaphor for Shakespeare leaving his paradise of London out of obligation to return home.

All in all, it is quite apparent that Shakespeare's voice comes beautifully through Prospero, and we see a reflection of ourselves in Prospero's powerful words. As he departs to return to the world of his nativity, Prospero requests, "Let your indulgences set me free," (Epi.) an echo of Shakespeare's desire to have his final work succeed. These two speeches, as well as many other aspects of Prospero's character seem so autobiographical, it is impossible to overlook the possibility that Shakespeare wrote this character as such. Without a doubt, Shakespeare managed to leave a lasting mark with this lyrical fantasy, which is to this day one of the most produced plays in England and America, as well as abroad