Prospero is a fictional character and
the protagonist of William Shakespeare's
play The Tempest.
The Tempest 
Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan,
whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put
him to sea on "a rotten carcass of a
butt [boat]" to die, 12 years before the
play begins. Prospero and Miranda
survived and found exile on a small
island. He has learned sorcery from
books, and uses it while on the island
to protect Miranda and control the other
characters. Before the play has begun,
Prospero frees Ariel from entrapment
within "a cloven pine", about which
Prospero states:
It was mine Art,
When I arrived and heard thee, that made
gape
The pine and let thee out.
Prospero's sorcery is sufficiently
powerful to control Ariel and other
spirits, as well as to alter weather and
even raise the dead: "Graves at my
command have waked their sleepers, oped,
and let 'em forth, by my so potent
Art."- Act V, scene 1.
On the island, Prospero becomes master
of the monster Caliban and forces
Caliban into submission by punishing him
with magic if he does not obey, and of
Ariel, a spirit who is beholden to
Prospero after he is freed from his
imprisonment inside the pine tree.
At the end of the play, Prospero intends
to drown his book and renounce magic. In
the view of the audience, this may have
been required to make the ending
unambiguously happy, as magic smacked
too much of diabolical works; he will
drown his books for the same reason that
Doctor Faust, in an earlier play by
Christopher Marlowe, promised in vain to
burn his books.
Prospero's speech 
The final soliloquy and epilogue in The
Tempest is considered to be one of the
most memorable speeches in Shakespearean
literature.
Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:       
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.       
In it, Prospero states his loss and his
continuing imprisonment if the audience
is not pleased. Many feel that since The
Tempest was the last play that
Shakespeare wrote alone, Prospero's
feelings echo Shakespeare's own, or
perhaps may even have been his
"retirement speech".
In popular culture 
= Comics =
In Fables by Bill Willingham, Prospero
is a recurring character, one of the
"Thirteenth Floor Fables".
In the comic book series The League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore
and Kevin O'Neill, Prospero appears as a
founding member of the first such
grouping in 1610, alongside his
familiars Caliban and Ariel.
In The Sandman, the title character has
William Shakespeare write The Tempest.
= Film and television =
The film Forbidden Planet has
similarities to The Tempest.
In a television production of The
Tempest, Prospero was played by Maurice
Evans.
Sir Michael Redgrave played Prospero in
a BBC Play of the Month production in
1968.
Heathcote Williams played Prospero in
Derek Jarman's 1979 film version of The
Tempest.
Sir Michael Hordern played Prospero in a
1980 production for BBC television.
A Stratford Shakespeare Festival
production was videotaped and broadcast
on television in 1983, starring Len
Cariou as Prospero.
Paul Mazursky's film, Tempest, features
a Prospero-esque character portrayed by
John Cassavetes who is an exile of his
own cynical discontent, ego and
self-betrayal and who abandons America
for a utopian "kingdom" on a secluded
Greek isle.
In the Swedish animated film The Journey
to Melonia, which is loosely inspired by
The Tempest, Prospero is the ruler of
the island Melonia.
In Peter Greenaway's film Prospero's
Books, Prospero is played by John
Gielgud.
In Julie Taymor's 2010 film adaptation
of the play, Prospero is played by Helen
Mirren and is now named Prospera.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation
episode "Emergence" begins with Data
playing Prospero.
Based on the manga by the same name, the
anime series Blast of Tempest includes a
main character whose setup is similar to
Prospero's, a magician betrayed and
abandoned on a deserted island by her
followers
The TNT season 2 two-episode premiere of
The Librarians features Propero as the
antagonist of the episode.
= Games =
In the Divinity: Dragon Commander video
game by Larian Studios, the five
political counselors are named after
Shakespeare characters: Yorick the
undead, Falstaff the dwarf, Oberon the
elf, Prospera the lizard, and Trinculo
the imp.
Paul Prospero, the protagonist of The
Vanishing of Ethan Carter, is named
after Prospero.
In the table top war game Warhammer
40,000 by Games Workshop, one of the
Chaos Space Marine traitor legions; The
Thousand Sons' original homeworld was
called Prospero.
= Literature =
In J.G. Ballard's short story "Dream
Cargoes", the chemical waste ship
marooned on the World War II garbage
island is called the Prospero.
In John Bellairs's novel The Face in the
Frost, Prospero is one of the
protagonists.
T. S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land"
references Prospero.
In the The Horus Heresy series, several
books take place on a planet called
Prospero. The citizens of the planet are
versed in sorcery and psychic powers,
earning them the suspicion and ire of
the rest of the Imperium of Man.
One of the AIs of Christine Love's
visual novel, Digital: A Love Story, is
called Prospero and was created to
research the *Reaper's weaknesses.
In Erin Morgenstern's novel The Night
Circus, one magician's stage name is
"Prospero the Enchanter".
Frank O'Hara's "A Prayer to Prospero"
references Prospero.
In Yury Olesha's novel Three Fat Men,
one of the main characters is armorer
Prospero
Dan Simmons' novels Ilium and Olympos
reference Prospero.
Elizabeth Willey's novel A Sorcerer and
a Gentleman is a retelling of the story
from The Tempest. Her books The Well
Favored Man and The Price of Blood and
Honor pre- and post-date the story,
respectively.
In Tad Williams' novel Caliban's Hour,
the story of The Tempest is told through
the point of view of Caliban with
Prospero portrayed as the villain of the
story, being shown as manipulative,
prejudiced with colonialistic attitudes
and capable of murderous violence.
= Music =
Loreena McKennitt sings a slightly
altered version of the epilogue speech
on her album The Mask and Mirror.
= Periodicals =
The Economist blog on books, arts, and
culture is called Prospero.
= Radio plays =
Melon Cauliflower, by NZ playwright Tom
McCrory, is about a man Prospero, in his
late sixties, who struggles to come to
terms with the death of his wife and has
mistreated his daughter Miranda.
BBC Radio 3 broadcast a production of
The Tempest adapted for radio and
directed by David Hunter, starring
Philip Madoc as Prospero, Nina Wadia as
Ariel, Josh Richards as Caliban, Catrin
Rhys as Miranda, Andrew Cryer as
Ferdinand, Rudolph Walker as Gonzalo,
James Laurenson as Alonso, Christian
Rodska as Sebastian, and Ioan Meredith
as Antonio.
David Warner played Prospero in the BBC
Radio 3 Drama on 3 production of The
Tempest, broadcast as part of the
Shakespeare Unlocked series on the BBC.
The production included Carl Prekopp as
Ariel, Rose Leslie as Miranda, James
Garnon as Caliban, James Lailey as
Antonio and Peter Hamilton Dyer as
Sebastian, and was adapted for radio and
directed by Jeremy Mortimer.
= Sculpture =
Eric Gill sculpted Prospero and Ariel.
R. Juha sculpted Prospero.
References 
External links 
