The Tempest – A Good Beach Read!

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare
The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158

The metaphor applies not just to the pageant created on the fictional island, but also to the pageant Shakespeare presents in his Globe Theater—the “great globe itself.” Dramatic illusion in turn becomes a metaphor for the “real” world outside the Globe, which is equally fleeting. Towers, palaces, temples, the Globe theater, the Earth—all will crumble and dissolve, leaving not even a wisp of cloud (a “rack”) behind. Prospero’s “pageant” is the innermost Chinese box: a play within a play (The Tempest) within a play (the so-called “real” world).