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Play: Cymbeline
--- Cymbeline's daughter, the British princess. Wise, beautiful, and resourceful, she incurs her father's displeasure when she chooses to marry the lowborn Posthumus instead of Cymbeline's oafish stepson, Cloten. |
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Play: Cymbeline
--- An orphaned gentleman, he is adopted and raised by Cymbeline, and he marries Imogen in secret, against her father's will. He is deeply in love with her but is nevertheless willing to think the worst of her when she is accused of infidelity. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---The king of Britain and Imogen's father. A wise and gracious monarch, he is led astray by the machinations of his wicked Queen. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---Cymbeline's wife and Imogen's stepmother. A villainous woman, she will stop at nothing--including murder--to see her son Cloten married to Imogen and, thus, made the eventual king of Britain. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---The Queen's son, he was betrothed to Imogen before her secret wedding to Posthumus. Her unwillingness to marry him is understandable, since he is an arrogant, clumsy fool. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---A clever and dishonest Italian gentleman. He makes a wager with Posthumus that he can seduce Imogen, and when his attempt at seduction fails, resorts to trickery to make Posthumus believe that he has succeeded. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---Posthumus's loyal servant, he is left behind in Britain when his master goes into exile, and he acts as a servant to Imogen and the Queen. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---A British nobleman, unjustly banished by Cymbeline. He kidnapped Cymbeline's infant sons to revenge himself on the king, and, under the name of Morgan, he has raised them as his own sons in the Welsh wilderness. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---Cymbeline's eldest son and Imogen's brother, he was kidnapped and raised by Belarius under the name of Polydore..Kills Cloten. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---Cymbeline's younger son and Imogen's brother, he was kidnapped and raised by Belarius under the name of Cadwal. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---An Italian gentleman. Posthumus stays at his home during his exile from Britain. |
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Play: Cymbeline
---The Roman ambassador to Britain and, later, the general of the Roman invasion force. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---The King of Sicilia, and the childhood friend of the Bohemian King Polixenes. He is gripped by jealous fantasies, which convince him that Polixenes has been having an affair with his wife, Hermione; his jealousy leads to the destruction of his family. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---The virtuous and beautiful Queen of Sicilia. Falsely accused of infidelity by her husband, Leontes, she apparently dies of grief just after being vindicated by the Oracle of Delphi, but is restored to life at the play's close. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---The daughter of Leontes and Hermione. Because her father believes her to be illegitimate, she is abandoned as a baby on the coast of Bohemia, and brought up by a Shepherd. Unaware of her royal lineage, she falls in love with the Bohemian Prince Florizel. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---The King of Bohemia, and Leontes's boyhood friend. He is falsely accused of having an affair with Leontes's wife, and barely escapes Sicilia with his life. Much later in life, he sees his only son fall in love with a lowly Shepherd's daughter—who is, in fact, a Sicilian princess. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---Polixenes's only son and heir; he falls in love with Perdita, unaware of her royal ancestry, and defies his father by eloping with her. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---An honest Sicilian nobleman, he refuses to follow Leontes's order to poison Polixenes, deciding instead to flee Sicily and enter the Bohemian King's service. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---A noblewoman of Sicily, she is fierce in her defense of Hermione's virtue, and unrelenting in her condemnation of Leontes after Hermione's death. She is also the agent of the (apparently) dead Queen's resurrection. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---A roguish peddler, vagabond, and pickpocket; he steals the Clown's purse and does a great deal of pilfering at the Shepherd's sheepshearing, but ends by assisting in Perdita and Florizel's escape. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---An old and honorable sheep-tender, he finds Perdita as a baby and raises her as his own daughter. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---Paulina's husband, and also a loyal defender of Hermione. He is given the unfortunate task of abandoning the baby Perdita on the Bohemian coast. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---The Shepherd's buffoonish son, and Perdita's adopted brother. |
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Play: Winter's Tale
---The young prince of Sicilia, Leontes and Hermione's son. He dies, perhaps of grief, after his father wrongly imprisons his mother. |
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Play: The Tempest
---he play’s protagonist, and father of Miranda. Twelve years before the events of the play, Prospero was the duke of Milan. His brother, Antonio, in concert with Alonso, king of Naples, usurped him, forcing him to flee in a boat with his daughter. The honest lord Gonzalo aided Prospero in his escape. Prospero has spent his twelve years on the island refining the magic that gives him the power he needs to punish and forgive his enemies. |
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Play: The Tempest
---The daughter of Prospero, Miranda was brought to the island at an early age and has never seen any men other than her father and Caliban, though she dimly remembers being cared for by female servants as an infant. Because she has been sealed off from the world for so long, Miranda’s perceptions of other people tend to be naïve and non-judgmental. She is compassionate, generous, and loyal to her father. |
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Play: The Tempest
---Prospero’s spirit helper. Ariel is referred to throughout this SparkNote and in most criticism as “he,” but his gender and physical form are ambiguous. Rescued by Prospero from a long imprisonment at the hands of the witch Sycorax, Ariel is Prospero’s servant until Prospero decides to release him. He is mischievous and ubiquitous, able to traverse the length of the island in an instant and to change shapes at will. He carries out virtually every task that Prospero needs accomplished in the play. |
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Play: The Tempest
---Another of Prospero’s servants. Caliban, the son of the now-deceased witch Sycorax, acquainted Prospero with the island when Prospero arrived. Caliban believes that the island rightfully belongs to him and has been stolen by Prospero. His speech and behavior is sometimes coarse and brutal, as in his drunken scenes with Stephano and Trinculo (II.ii, IV.i), and sometimes eloquent and sensitive, as in his rebukes of Prospero in Act I, scene ii, and in his description of the eerie beauty of the island in Act III, scene ii (III.ii.130-138)...Attached to Stephano |
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Play: The Tempest
---Son and heir of Alonso. Ferdinand seems in some ways to be as pure and naïve as Miranda. He falls in love with her upon first sight and happily submits to servitude in order to win her father’s approval. |
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Play: The Tempest
---King of Naples and father of Ferdinand. Alonso aided Antonio in unseating Prospero as Duke of Milan twelve years before. As he appears in the play, however, he is acutely aware of the consequences of all his actions. He blames his decision to marry his daughter to the Prince of Tunis on the apparent death of his son. In addition, after the magical banquet, he regrets his role in the usurping of Prospero. |
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Play: The Tempest
---Prospero’s brother. Antonio quickly demonstrates that he is power-hungry and foolish. In Act II, scene i, he persuades Sebastian to kill the sleeping Alonso. He then goes along with Sebastian’s absurd story about fending off lions when Gonzalo wakes up and catches Antonio and Sebastian with their swords drawn. |
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Play: The Tempest
---Alonso’s brother. Like Antonio, he is both aggressive and cowardly. He is easily persuaded to kill his brother in Act II, scene i, and he initiates the ridiculous story about lions when Gonzalo catches him with his sword drawn. |
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Play: The Tempest
---An old, honest lord, Gonzalo helped Prospero and Miranda to escape after Antonio usurped Prospero’s title. Gonzalo’s speeches provide an important commentary on the events of the play, as he remarks on the beauty of the island when the stranded party first lands, then on the desperation of Alonso after the magic banquet, and on the miracle of the reconciliation in Act V, scene i. |
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| Trinculo, a jester, and Stephano, a drunken butler, are two minor members of the shipwrecked party. They provide a comic foil to the other, more powerful pairs of Prospero and Alonso and Antonio and Sebastian. Their drunken boasting and petty greed reflect and deflate the quarrels and power struggles of Prospero and the other noblemen...Stephano is the one who Caliban is attached to. |
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