     prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of william shakespeare's play the tempest. == the tempest == prospero is the rightful duke of milan, who (with his young daughter, miranda) was put to sea on "a rotten carcass of a butt (boat)" to die by his usurping brother, antonio, twelve years before the play begins. prospero and miranda survived, and found exile on a small island. he has learned sorcery from books secretly given to him (referred to as his "art" in the play), and uses it while on the island to protect miranda and control the other characters. on the island, he becomes master of the monster caliban (the son of sycorax, a malevolent witch) and forces caliban into submission by torturing him with magic if he does not obey him, and ariel, an elemental who is beholden to prospero after he is freed from his prison inside a tree. however, 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. in it, prospero describes his loss (magic) and his imprisonment of caliban and ariel. he relates his imprisonment of them to that of his own bondage, which can only be undone by the applause of the audience. many feel that since the tempest was the last play that shakespeare wrote alone, prospero's feelings echo shakespeare's own, or perhaps even his "retirement speech". == in popular culture == === literature === * 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 (v
Fictional_Italian_people_in_literature Fictional_castaways Fictional_characters_introduced_in_1611 Fictional_characters_who_use_magic Fictional_dukes_and_duchesses Literary_archetypes_by_name Male_Shakespearean_characters