Prospero, or the Demiurge. Platonic Resonances in Shakespeare’s Mediterranean

In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has stressed the relevance of the multifaceted Mediterranean world for any comprehensive interpretation of Shakespeare’s !e Tempest. Reading !e Tempest as a Mediterranean play implies, as Geraldo de Sousa maintained, exploring “the centrality of the classical tradition” (2018, 908) to that speci,c context. In this regard, !e Tempest stands out as a sort of “echo chamber” – to borrow Stephen Greenbla!’s words (1997, 3047) – of the preeminent myths of Graeco-Latin civilisation. Building on such studies, this essay will put forward evidence of the hitherto li!le acknowledged similarities between Shakespeare’s Prospero and the divine-like Demiurge that Plato depicts in the Timaeus, one of his most in-uential philosophical dialogues, in which the origin and purposes of the universe are discussed.