The Tempest quotes: Ariel

Relationship with Prospero
‘Remember I have done thee worthy service Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served Without grudge or grumblings’ asyndetic list: quickens the pace
Ariel is good: W.C Curry Ariel could be a representative of a rational platonic demon, able to carry out general commands- but not to the extent of Sycorax’s evil
Ariel is bad: Burton ” aerial spirits… are such as keep quarter most part in the aire, cause many tempests, thunder and lightnings”
S Beale’s 1993 production Ariel spits at Prospero when he bids him farewell
Die Schone Sidea (1600) story of an exiled prince who dabbles with magic on an island and conjures a devil to do his bidding
John Dee Uriel was the spirit of famous Elizabethan Alchemist John Dee
De Occulta philosophie ( Agrippa) ‘Ariel’ is one of the named elemental daemons. He was a spirit of earth rather than air. According to Agrippa Ariel would have had power over many legions of lower spirits
‘your affections Would become tender… Mine would, sir, were I human’ Ariel has the power to steer Prospero to see mercy and reconcile, he himself cannot feel emotion.
Neoplatonic dualism Ariel symbolises the air/ water Caliban’s baseness represents the earth
Wilson Knight ” Ariel and Caliban to Prospero are like Plato’s two seeds of the soul, the noble and the hideous, two potentialities of the human spirit”