Prospero is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him to sea on a "rotten carcass" of a boat to die, twelve years before the play begins. Prospero and Miranda had 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.
Prospero and Miranda by William Maw Egley
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.
Title page of the part in the First Folio
The shipwreck in Act I, Scene 1, in a 1797 engraving by Benjamin Smith after a painting by George Romney
Prospero and Miranda, by William Maw Egley, c. 1850
A depiction from Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of Shakespeare's plays of the stage direction of the opening of the 1674 adaptation