"A Strange, Hollow, and Confused Noise": Prospero's "Start" and Early Modern Magical Practices

Abstract

This essay has benefited from careful and patient feedback both from individual readers and from audiences who have heard earlier verisons. Debapriya Sarkar and Roslyn Knutson helped me to refine my arguments, and I am grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers at Shakespeare Quarterly for their helpful suggestions. Audiences at the seminar series of the English Department at the University of Connecticut, the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, and the Columbia Shakespeare Seminar provided incisive commentary that greatly improved the essay. Thanks also to the staff at the Folger Shakespeare Library for introducing me to the wonders of The Book of Magic. 1 The Tempest, 4.1.137, 138. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the play come from The Tempest, ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan (London: Bloomsbury, 2011). 2 The Norton Facsimile of the First Folio of Shakespeare, prep. Charlton Hinman, rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), TLN 1805–8.