ABSTRACT
In Act III, scene iii of The Tempest, Ariel, costumed as a harpy, bursts on to stage and causes a banquet set out before the court party of Alonso and the others to disappear. The stage direction tells us that this is done 'with a quaint device', where 'quaint' means ingenious and thereby pleasing. It is a word Prospero uses elsewhere of Ariel himself, to praise the spirit's appearance as a water nymph (I,ii,319). 1 The disappearing banquet is a sleight of hand. It is a conjuror's trick, real magic to the courtiers and a stage illusion to the audience. An experiment in metatheatre, the whole play explores the baffling territory m<>rked out by 'magic', 'illusion' and 'trick'. The staging of the play is both device and meaning. Design, not narrative, is The Tempest's major impulse and its structure is architectural, not dynamic. So far as we can tell it was a success on stage. Strange as it is (and 'strange' is a word much used in the play), Hemmings and Condell placed it first in the First Folio. Paradoxical and enigmatic, it occupies a special place too in theatre history and dramatic criticism. It is both a summation of Shakespeare's writing career and a radically experimental, new departure. Especially, it seems a 'quaintly' fashioned play appropriate to the Blackfriars.
