SOURCE: Coletti, Theresa. “Music and The Tempest.” In Shakespeare's Late Plays, edited by Richard C. Tobias and Paul G. Zolbrod, pp. 185-99. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1974.

In the following essay, Coletti describes how music informs the emotional, atmospheric, philosophical, and structural design of The Tempest.

The vital center of The Tempest is its music. Pervading and informing the action of the play, music is always sounding, always affecting and shaping the lives of the characters. Often directionless and ambiguous in its meaning, the music of The Tempest provides a context for Prospero's magical machinations and becomes, through the course of the play, a powerfully evocative symbol of this magic. In The Tempest music is the medium through which order emerges from chaos; it is the agent of suffering, learning, growth, and freedom.

Critics who have noted the pervasiveness of music, songs, and musical allusions in Shakespeare's drama¹ have...