From magic to prayer: The interplay between disenchantment and re-enchantment in Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Prospero’s breaking of his magical staff in The Tempest is an iconic moment in Shakespearean drama. This poignant moment shows the wizard stripped down to sheer human weakness. What many readers or audiences of Shakespeare may be less likely to recall is that Prospero consciously exchanges his practice of magic for the spiritual discipline of prayer. In other words, some of the power of Shakespeare’s (possibly) last solely authored play is in its arc of conversion. This essay responds to historian Alexandra Walsham’s critique of sociologist Max Weber’s celebration of “the disenchantment of the world” by assessing how the play’s disenchantment with magic gives way to a re-enchantment with religion. As such, this study contributes to the ongoing discussions on the “turn to religion” in early modern literary studies.