How Shakespeare presents Prospero, and how the character develops across the text: the wronged Duke of Milan and magician who rules the island, moving from revenge to forgiveness, and how good a master he is.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'I pray thee, mark me', 'Me, poor man, my library / Was dukedom large enough', 'If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak', 'Thou most lying slave, / Whom stripes may move, not kindness!', 'Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled', 'my so potent art', 'The rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance', 'this rough magic / I here abjure', 'this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine', 'Let your indulgence set me free'.
How rarely he shares his feelings with the audience, which leaves them to judge his motives, and his long speeches of command and explanation.
Context: a learned magician whose command of spirits James I's laws would have punished, and readings of him as a loving father and wise ruler or as a controlling master and coloniser.
Edexcel's Shakespeare question has two parts: part (a) on the printed extract marks only language, form and structure (AO2), so context earns nothing there; part (b) on the play elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1, 15 marks) and context (AO3, 5 marks), not language analysis. Say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
