Tempest (Arden Shakespeare) - Softcover

Shakespeare, William

3.79

209,624 ratings by Goodreads

9780416101904: Tempest (Arden Shakespeare)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0416101909 ISBN 13: 9780416101904

Publisher: Law Book Co of Australasia, 1975

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William Shakespeare is widely considered to have been the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist. More than 400 years after Shakespeare’s death, his plays are still performed more than any other playwright and have been translated into every major language in the world. Whether it be Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies, or histories, it is difficult not to immediately recognize his work and almost all students worldwide will have read some of his classics. The Tempest is a play that is set on a remote island and centers around a sorcerer named Prospero who tries to help his daughter Miranda through illusions.

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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 best notes of any edition I've used. (Lewis Ward, Exeter University)

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