Prospero's power is held in his relationship to his books, and The Tempest is witness to more than a few apparently conflicting facets of his personality -- not all of them particularly praiseworthy. What was it, in those books, that made Prospero not only powerful but also a moralising schold and a petty revenger, a benevolent despote, a jealous father and also a master designer of song and dance? Are we truly the product of what we read?
Peter Greenaway
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Gonzalo threw many books into the bottom of the leaky vessel that took Prospero out on to the sea away from Italy and Europe into exile. Shakespeare does not, of course, elaborate what these volumes were. Prospero's Books speculates. There would need perhaps to be books on navigation and survival, there would need to be books for an elderly scholar to learn how to rear and educate a young daughter, how to colonise an island, farm it, subjugate its inhabitants, identify its plants and husband its wild beasts. There would need to be books to offer solace and advise patience and put past glory and present despondency into perspective. There would need to be books to encourage revenge.
Peter Greenaway
In one of the rooms of the Fortuny Palace there are eight books from Prospero's Library. They are magical books. In many senses all books are magical.
Peter Greenaway
A woman materialises behind Prospero -- leaning lightly on the back of his chair -- she is alternately a Titianesque nude and then the Vesalius figure -- flayed ... she leans lightly over and kisses Prospero on the cheek. The kiss leaves a blood-red mark on his withered cheek. Prospero shivers.
Peter Greenaway
Four handsome, naked, female dancers separate themselves from the crowd in Prospero's cloak... and they dance. From now on -- they become Prospero's dancers -- they mark out a four-figured symmetrical space around him -- dancing in perfect unison -- a strange, prancing, high-stepping, complicated, frankly sensuous dance -- danced with great firmness and confidence -- their eroticism is aimed only at themselves -- no mincing or quarter given -- their erotic confidence is demonstrative and challenging.
Peter Greenaway
Prospero has always felt most at ease in a study, surrounded by books.
Peter Greenaway
Greenaway, Peter
Greenberg, Clement
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