Quotes and Possible Essay Questions for The Tempest

Quotations:

1. "And to my state grew stranger, being transported / And rapt in secret studies." (Prospero 1.2)

2. "All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come / To answer thy best pleasure. . ." (Ariel 1.2)

3. "Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, / I flamed amazement. Sometimes I'd divide, / And burn in many places. . ." (Ariel 1.2)

4. "It was mine art, / When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape / The pine, and let thee out." (Prospero 1.2)

5. "For I am all the subjects that you have, / Which first was mine own king." (Caliban 1.2)

6. "You taught me language, and my profit on't / Is, I know how to curse." (Caliban 1.2)

7. "Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea change / Into something rich and strange." (Ariel 1.2)

8. "Most sure, the goddess / On whom these airs attend!" (Ferdinand 1.2)

9. "There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. / If the ill spirit have so fair a house, / Good things will strive to dwell with't." (Miranda 1.2)

10. "To the most of men this is a Caliban, / And they to him are angels." (Prospero 1.2)

11. "The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning." (Antonio 2.1)

12. "All things in common nature should produce / Without sweat or endeavor" (Gonzalo 2.1)

13. "My strong imagination sees a crown / Dropping upon thy head." (Antonio 2.1)

14. ". . .what's past is prologue, what to come, / In yours and my discharge." (Antonio 2.1)

15. "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows." (Trinculo 2.2)

16. "For several virtues / Have I liked several women; never any / With so full soul but some defect in her / Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed. . ." (Ferdinand 3.1)

17. "Nor can imagination form a shape, / Besides yourself, to like of." (Miranda 3.1)

18. "I say by sorcery he got this isle; / From me he got it." (Caliban 3.2)

19. ". . .all which it inherit, shall dissolve, / And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, / Leave not a rack behind." (Prospero 4.1)

20. "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep." (Prospero 4.1)

21. "Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury / Do I take part. The rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance. . ." (Prospero 5.1)

23. "O brave new world / That has such people in't!" (Miranda 5.1)

24. ". . .this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine." (Prospero 5.1)

Possible Essay Questions:

1. Discuss the relationship between Prospero and his two servants, Arial and Caliban. What does each seem to represent? How are they related to the four elements? Could the three of them form a single self?

2. Does Prospero begin (at the start of the play) by plotting revenge and end by granting mercy or does he carry out his original plan with no changes? How does Ariel's half-expressed wish to be human fit into this? Support your answer with examples from the play.

3. Compare and contrast two productions of The Tempest, giving your vision of an ideal production in the process.

4. Analyze any one scene in The Tempest, discussing sections and subsections, alternating groups of characters, and thematic concerns.

5. Why does Prospero decide to give up his magic and return to Milan? Discuss this in terms of the Renaissance ruler's responsibility, the dynastic themes of the play, and Prospero's plans for Miranda.

6. Discuss the utopian and dystopian elements in The Tempest.

7. Discuss and classify Prospero's magic.

8. Discuss any one of the adaptations of The Tempest.

9. Discuss the relationship between Prospero and Ariel.