cting himself a framework of personal and social meaning, but his true animal nature remains unchanged. In the heart of existence, life has no predefined meaning, it is a mere passage of survival from necessary birth to necessary death. Prospero's and his daughter's situation on the island was hopeless, however Prospero had chosen a function for his life - revenge. Prospero created a meaning for his life, built a synthetic reality to keep him sane on the path towards the finality of human death. Early existentialism begins to appear. The literatory image behind The Epilogue of The Tempest greatly involves the attitude and interpretation of art. Having constructed a window or more or less a door to an imaginary world for the audience, Shakespeare has succeeded in fusing art and reality. Upon that light it is incomprehensible to assume his need to address the subjective yet neutral third party, the audience - shatter the synthetic reality. However, The Epilogue is a beautiful and humble ending to a story filled with strong magical elements - the control is given to the audience, they are given Prospero’s magical garment. The passive third party is given a choice of interaction, chance to rise beyond spectatorship. An interesting aspect to The Epilogue of The Tempest is the fact that it was Shakespeare’s last play - the final words of a great artist. Due to the lack of historically trustworthy biographical information of Shakespeare’s character, it is difficult if not impossible to determine the effect of his life situation to the message itself. Whether justified or not, The Epilogue seems like a farewell - a humble artist handing over his life to the audience to which he has dedicated his entire life. When examining The Epilogue with the restriction of intertextuality, one is forced to focus on the character of Prospero. Why does he leave a farewell, why does he become the ultimate link from the world of the play to the...
