ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the figures both as individual theorists contributing to a broader set of magical philosophies, focusing primarily on Giordano Bruno, and more generally, in relation to their representation in English culture, a representation that does, many ways, suggests connection between them and alternative systems of philosophy. Prospero's connections to this tradition has used either to position him against other forms of magic, such as the negatively coded witchcraft of Sycorax, or to clarify the different cultural associations of the 'magician' for an early modern English theater audience. The chapter explores the failures of Prospero's magic in the context of the public conflict over memory systems that pitted Giordano Bruno's image-rich magical system against the iconoclastic methods favored by the Cambridge Ramists in late Elizabethan England. Perkins critiques the neo-Platonic and Hermetic ideas as both irreligious, in their dependence on icons, and inherently foolish.
