Beginner’s Magic: The Organization of Reality in The Tempest

Why does The Tempest begin the way it does? The first scene of the play is unique in Shakespeare’s drama, both for the pointed lack of context around the spectacle depicted and for the shared moment of deception with the audience as to the true nature of the event. This essay draws on the work of Lorna Hutson to suggest that the point of this peculiar construction is to serve as a comment on the nature of an audience’s synthesizing response in the context of mimetic theatre.