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People often go looking for a copy of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare; they often have trouble finding it because everyone classifies it differently. Some people feel it is a play based on history and politics. Some feel that it is a romance because of the relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda. Others consider it a masque because of
Act IV Scene i. Some consider it a tragedy because of how the play opens and turns out even though it turns out that no one dies in the end. There are those who consider it a comedy because of how some of the scenes turn out to make fun of the characters and how Ariel and Prospero are playing games with everyone’s mind. It is a comedy because you see more comedy in it than any other genre it has been classified as.
People have different definitions for Romances. Stephen J. Miko believes that a romance is based on forgiveness, reconciliation, and regeneration. He believes The Tempest contains these aspects. It is true that the play does contain these aspects in Act V. In Act V, Ariel states that King Alonso and his entourage feel sorry for what they have done. In this scene they are let into Prospero’s Cell and there he forgives them all for something they have done. King Alonso also asks for forgiveness of his son, for losing him on the island, and Prospero, for overthrowing him from his position. Caliban also asks forgiveness when he planed on overthrowing Prospero as well. Prospero also forgives him for his plans.
There is no denying that this definition of romance is in the play. Even though the play ends with everyone reconciling and forgiving each other leaving a moral to the play, but that is not the theme of the play. Forgiveness appears only towards the end of the play. In the ...
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...est and New Comedy.” Shakespeare Quarterly, 21.3(Summer 1970). 207-11. Print
Crowther, John, ed. “No Fear The Tempest.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 6 May 2010
Dean, Winter. “Operas on ‘The Tempest.” The Musical Times, 105. 1461 (Nov., 1964) 810-14. Print
Lewis, Liz. “The Mixture of Styles in Shakespeare’s Last Plays: The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.” Literature Study Online. William Shakespeare. December 2001. Web. 09. May, 2010.
Miko, Stephen J. “Tempest.” ELH, 49.1 (spring 1982): 1-17. Print.
Schmidgall, Gary. “The Tempest and Primaleon: A New Source.” Shakespeare Quarterly, 37.4(Winter 1986): 423-39. Print.
Sleights, William W. E. “A Source for The Tempest and the Context of The Discorsi.” Shakespeare Quarterly, 36.1 (Spring, 1985): 68-70. Print
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The Tempest by William Shakespeare is one of the most relevant and studied plays of the Elizabethan period among scholars, from both, ancient and actual times. One of the many readings that have prevailed suggests that the play’s protagonist, Prospero, and his two su-pernatural servants, Ariel and Caliban, can work as a single psychological unit is constantly discussed by the academics. This reading is not new; it has been considered for longer than the idea of The Tempest as an autobiographical allegory, being first proposed by Thomas Campbell in 1838 (Yachnin).
Snider, Denton J. "A review of The Tempest." The Shakespearian Drama a Commentary: The Comedies. (1890). Rpt. Scott. 320-324.
Dutton, R., & Howard, J.E. (2003). A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works.(p. 9) Maiden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
Clark, W. G. and Wright, W. Aldis , ed. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Vol. 1. New York: Nelson-Doubleday
In all of Shakespeare's plays, there is a definitive style present, a style he perfected. From his very first play (The Comedy of Errors) to his very last (The Tempest), he uses unique symbolism and descriptive poetry to express and explain the actions and events he writes about. Twelfth Night, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream are all tragicomedies that epitomise the best use of the themes and ideology that Shakespeare puts forth.
Solomon, Andrew. "A Reading of the Tempest." In Shakespeare's Late Plays. Ed. Richard C. Tobias and Paul G. Zolbrod. Athens: Ohio UP, 1974. 232.
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Greenblatt, Stephen. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1997.
The first difference between the play and the movie “The Tempest” is; the protagonist Prospero, the Duke of Milan, is played by a female character named Prospera in the movie filmed in 2010, directed by Julie Taymor. He is a complex character in the play however the personality that Shakespeare created was slightly changed in the movie. The key point of this gender difference is to highlight the role of women’s empowerment over the last two hundred years. Taymor’s movie is making a statement on how Prospera’s power is limited for the island, she is still able to empower throughout the text sexually,...
2.) Lamming, George. " A Monster, a Child, a Slave." The Tempest: Sources and Contexts,
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Second Revised Ed. United States of America: First Signet Classics Print, 1998. 1-87. Print.
Mowat, Barbara A. & Co. "Prospero, Agrippa, and Hocus Pocus," English Literary Renaissance. 11 (1981): 281-303. Shakespeare, William. The. The Tempest.
Knox, Bernard. "The Tempest and the Ancient Comic Tradition". The Tempest. New York: Signet Classic. 1987.
Knight,G.Wilson. “The Shakespearean Superman: An essay on The Tempest.” The Crown of life: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare’s Final Plays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947. 203-255
The Tempest. Arden Shakespeare, 1997. Print. Third Series Smith, Hallet Darius. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Tempest; A Collection of Critical Essays, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Shakespeare, William, and Robert Woodrow Langbaum. The Tempest: With New and Updated Critical Essays and A Revised Bibliography. New York, NY, USA: Signet Classic, 1998. Print.