The Tempest: key quotation sheet (PDF)
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From the The Tempest study guide.
How to use this sheet
These are the 10 quotations from the The Tempest study guide, set out for revision. Part one gives each quotation with a plain-English reading and space for your own notes. Part two prints them again with a word missing from each line, so that you can test yourself.
- Read the quotation aloud twice. Sound helps memory more than staring does.
- In the note space, name one method (a device, a word choice, a feature of the verse) and the effect it has.
- Add one link: to a theme, to another moment in the text, or to a point of context.
- A day later, cover part one and complete part two from memory.
Part one: the quotations
Me, poor man, my library
Prospero · Act 1, Scene 2
Was dukedom large enough.
Plain English: In my brother’s view, my books were all the kingdom I needed.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Hell is empty,
Ferdinand, reported by Ariel · Act 1, Scene 2
And all the devils are here.
Plain English: The devils have all left hell and come to this ship.
Method and effect:
Links to:
This island’s mine by Sycorax, my mother,
Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2
Which thou tak’st from me.
Plain English: I inherited this island from my mother, and you have stolen it.
Method and effect:
Links to:
You taught me language, and my profit on ’t
Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2
Is I know how to curse.
Plain English: You taught me to speak, and all I gained is the ability to curse you.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Nothing of him that doth fade
Ariel · Act 1, Scene 2
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Plain English: Everything in him that would decay is being transformed by the sea into something precious and wonderful.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Caliban · Act 3, Scene 2
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Plain English: Do not be frightened. The island is full of sounds and sweet music that please and do no harm.
Method and effect:
Links to:
We are such stuff
Prospero · Act 4, Scene 1
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Plain English: We are made of the same material as dreams, and our short lives are surrounded, and ended, by sleep.
Method and effect:
Links to:
The rarer action is
Prospero · Act 5, Scene 1
In virtue than in vengeance.
Plain English: It is a finer and less common thing to act well than to take revenge.
Method and effect:
Links to:
MIRANDA O, brave new world
That has such people in ’t!PROSPERO ’Tis new to thee.
Act 5, Scene 1
Plain English: Miranda: What a splendid new world, with such people in it. Prospero: It is only new to you.
Method and effect:
Links to:
This thing of darkness I
Prospero · Act 5, Scene 1
Acknowledge mine.
Plain English: This dark creature, I admit, belongs to me.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Part two: test yourself
Fill each gap from memory, then check against part one. Mark the ones you missed and come back to them tomorrow.
Me, poor man, my
Prospero · Act 1, Scene 2
Was large enough.
Hell is ,
Ferdinand, reported by Ariel · Act 1, Scene 2
And all the are here.
This mine by Sycorax, my mother,
Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2
Which thou from me.
You taught me , and my profit on ’t
Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2
Is I know how to .
of him that doth fade
Ariel · Act 1, Scene 2
But doth a sea change
Into rich and strange.
Be not . The isle is full of noises,
Caliban · Act 3, Scene 2
Sounds and sweet airs that give and hurt not.
We are such
Prospero · Act 4, Scene 1
As are made on, and our little life
Is with a sleep.
The rarer is
Prospero · Act 5, Scene 1
In virtue than in .
O, brave new world
That has such in ’t!PROSPERO ’Tis new to thee.
Act 5, Scene 1
This thing of I
Prospero · Act 5, Scene 1
mine.
Next steps
Turn three of these quotations into full paragraphs with the essay planner, and check your method against the close reading toolkit. For a small daily dose of the language, Daily Bard shows one passage each morning with a plain-English reading on the back of the leaf.
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