William Shakespeare's the Tempest. the Origin and Meaning of the Names in the Play

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: B, University of Hildesheim (Linguistics), course: Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, language: English, abstract: The following term paper deals with the analysis of the names of the characters' in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", which was probably written between 1610 and 1611. The play is set on an island, where Prospero, a magician and the former Duke of Milan, and his daughter Miranda, watch a ship wreck. The shipwrecked make it ashore, among whom are Antonio, Prospero s brother, Alonso, King of Naples, his son Ferdinand, the King s brother Sebastian, the steward Stephano, the jester Trinculo, lord Gonzalo and the minor lords Adrian and Francisco. I assume that Shakespeare chose all the names in the play on purpose, because the names fit characteristically the personality of the characters.In this paper I am first going to give a short biography of the writer, following with a plot overview of the play and the description of the characters. Then I am going to give an insight on the origin and the meaning of the names in the play and analyze the reasons, why Shakespeare chose exactly those names.