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I BEGIN WITH AN ASSUMPTION ABOUT THE TEMPEST that Opens onto a set of related questions. The assumption is that among the highly valued books that Prospero brought with him into exile is one book essential to his magic, the one that he goes offstage to consult before the series of spirit spectacles begins in Act 3, the same one that near the end of the play he promises to drown as he abjures his magic. Though Peter Greenaway, in his film Prospéras Books, did not include such a book among the twenty-four he decided were necessary for Prospero's survival,1 the text indicates that Prospero not only has a magic robe and a magic staff (both of which are explicitly called for2), but, like Friar Bacon and Doctor Faustus and other stage magicians before him, he also has a magic book. Further, the play presents Prospero's always-offstage book as crucial to his rule over the island, the magical instrument that enables him to control the spirits who come from their confines when Prospero calls, who torment Caliban and keep him obedient, and who assume as needed the shapes of Greek mythological figures or vicious hunting dogs.
Granted, the play emphasizes Prospero's use of spirits much more than it does his dependence on a particular book for the power to so use them. By the time he says "I'll to my book, / For yet ere suppertime must I perform / Much business" (3.1.113-15), we know without a doubt that Prospero employs materialized spirits to carry out his commands. Not only have we witnessed his early dealings with Ariel; we have also observed Miranda's response to seeing Ferdinand: "What is't? A spirit? . . . It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit" (1.2.488-90). Her comment makes clear that to Miranda materialized spirits are a familiar sight. Prosperos reply,"No, wench, it eats and sleeps and hath such senses / As we have, such" (U, 491-92), is premised on Mirandas knowing basic distinctions between the faculties .of spirits and those of mortals. And in 2.2 we have heard Caliban in soliloquy describe the spirits Prospero employs:
His spirits hear me,
And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch,
Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me...