The Tempest

The Wordsworth Classics’ Shakespeare Series Presents a newly-editde sequence of William Shakespeare’s works。The textual editing takes account of recent scholarship
while guving the material a careful reappraisal。
The Tempest is the most lyrical，profound and fascinating of Shakespeare’s late comedies。 Prospero，long exiled from Italy with his daughter Miranda，seeks to use his magical powers to defeat his former enemies。 Eventually，having proved merciful，he divests himself of that magic，his ’art’，and prepares to return to the mainland。 The Tempest has often been regarded as Shakespeare’s ’farewell to the stage’ before his retirement。
In the past，critics emphasised the romantically beautiful features of The Tempest，Seeing it as an imaginative fantasia。In recent decades，howeverm，The Tempest has also been treated as a potently political drama which offers controversial insights into colonialism and racism。Frdquently staged and diversely filmde，the play has influenced numerous poets and novelists。

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Book Description
The widely acclaimed Oxford School Shakespeare series offers students the perfect introduction to Shakespeare's plays. THE TEMPEST, probably written around 1611, dramatizes Prospero's plight to escape banishment to a lonely island by his brother Antonio. Illustrated.

Full of wisdom, conspiracy, humour and wit the plot concerns the restoration of the philosopher-king to his rightful palace. Prospero overthrows his enemies, his daughter Miranda achieves felicity and the monster Caliban is tamed reflecting the Aristotelian unity of the play.

Amazon.co.uk 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

Book Dimension :
length: (cm)19.8 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)12.6

General Introduction
Introduction
Further Reading
Note on Shakespare
Acknowldegements and Textual Matters
THE TEMPEST
Notes on The Tempest
Glossary