The Tempest - Softcover

William Shakespeare

3.79

209,594 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1903436087 ISBN 13: 9781903436080

Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare, 2000

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The Tempest has long dazzled readers and audiences with its intricate blend of magic, music, humour, intrigue and tenderness, its vibrant but ambiguous central characters. As Virginia and Alden Vaughan show, in their wide-ranging new edition of this established favourite, such antithetical extremes exemplify the play's endlessly arguable nature, its appeal to diverse eras and cultures.The Vaughans situate The Tempest at the centre of changing cultural attitudes towards colonialism, power politics and patriarchal hierarchies, and demonstrate how the play both shaped and reflected those changing attitudes. Informed by the concerns of a post-colonial international community, their edition emphasizes the play's world-wide cultural appropriation, and includes an extensive discussion of the play's after-life as well as an appendix of selected appropriations. The interdisciplinary editorial approach contributes a distinctively blended cultural and historical focus.'The Vaughans have provided a valuable new edition of the play, one whose expanded contextualisation, especially, will contribute to The Tempest's lively and varied afterlife both within and beyond the classroom.' Barbara Fuchs, University of Washington, Seattle, Shakespeare Quarterly

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Review:

One of Shakespeare's most famous but also enigmatic plays, for many years the story of Prospero's exile from his native Milan, and life with his daughter Miranda on an unnamed island in the Mediterranean, was seen as an autobiographical dramatisation of Shakespeare's departure from the London stage. The Epilogue, spoken by Prospero, claims that "now my charms are all o'erthrown", appeared to reflect Shakespeare's own renunciation of his magical dramatic powers as he retired to Stratford. But The Tempest is far more than this, as recent commentators have pointed out. The dramatic action observes the classical unities of time, place and action, as Prospero uses his "rough magic" to lure his wicked usurping brother, Antonio, and King Alonso of Naples to his island retreat to torment them before engineering his return to Milan.

However, the play is full of extraordinary anomalies and fantastic interludes, including Gonzalo's fantasy of a utopian commonwealth, Prospero's magical servant Ariel, and the "poisonous slave" Caliban. The creation of Caliban has particularly fascinated critics, who have noticed in his creation a colonial dimension to the play. In this respect Caliban can be seen as an American Indian or African slave, who articulates a particularly powerful strain of anti-colonial sentiment, telling Prospero that "this island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,/ Which thou tak'st from me". This has led to an intense reassessment of the play from a post-colonial perspective, as critics and historians have debated the extent to which the play endorses or criticises early English colonial expansion. --Jerry Brotton

Review:

"The Vaughans have provided a valuable new edition of the play, one whose expanded contextualization, especially, will contribute to "The Tempest"'s lively and varied afterlife both within and beyond the classroom...Extensive, up-to-date critical introduction that incorporates recent and even forthcoming scholarship...Te introduction provides a formidable range of materials for teachers, performers, and directors. The section on "The afterlife" of the text is especially strong, with a comprehensive survey of both stage and film productions, Particularly valuable is this section's geographical breadth...Lavish illustrations further enhance the production history. The notes to the text itself are copious and replete with useful information, from staging possibilities to related literary usages. They also refer frequently to previous editions, providing a virtual map of the text's editorial history. The notes...are a model of thorough scholarship."--"Shakespeare Quarterly"

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