There are many different interpretations and differences of opinion regarding the genre of The Tempest, a play by William Shakespeare. In the essays "The Backward Voice": Puns and the Comic Subplot of The Tempest, by Maurice Hunt, and The Tempest as Romance and Anti-Romance, by Richard Hillman, the genre of the play is discussed in depth. Using elements such as setting, lines of the characters, and the action that occurs in the play, the authors evaluate Shakespeare's play The Tempest to be a romance with a "comic subplot", and thereby show how important the interpretation of the language and interaction is in finding meaning in the play.
Literary critic Richard Hillman says that, in general, romantic dramas are characterized by their fantasy-like atmosphere with love as the main focus or concern of the play, and they usually exhibit a complete disregard for normal or realistic daily life occurrences (Hillman 141). For instance, Prospero's magic is not a common human trait, in fact, it is pure fiction. Human beings have never been know to posses powers such as he does that allow him to produce vanishing banquets and have such absolute control over Miranda. Thus, this is an indicator that The Tempest is a romantic play. The whole story would not take place without the existence of magic. Prospero could not have induced the storm, and if this did not occur, then the rest of the drama would not have followed.
The Tempest's dependency on magic as a key element of the plot is evidence of the romantic genre type. Magic is an illusion, unreal, and belongs in a fantasy world, which is what a romance is largely supposed to be: one complex fantasy. According to literary critic Anthony B. Dawson, The Tempest "...contains the c...
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... becomes what the person makes it. It can be a significant or insignificant as a person wants, but the beauty in language is in the freedom it provides to express and share with others. Shakespeare shared himself through his writing and others can share also if only they look for that deeper meaning, even in things such as genre type. Anything can become as important as the individual makes it.
Works Cited and Consulted
Hillman, Richard. "The Tempest as Romance and Anti-Romance." University of Toronto Quarterly 55:2 (1985-6), 141-60.
Hunt, Maurice. "The Backward Voice: Puns and the Comic Subplot of The Tempest." Modern Language Studies 12:4, (1982), 64-74.
Palmer, D.J. Shakespeare's Later Comedies: An Anthology of Modern Criticism. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971.
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. 1611. Ed. Stephen Orgel. New York: Oxford UP, 1994.
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.
Prospero’s Magic in Shakespeare's The Tempest. In order to understand the full effect the character of Prospero, in Shakespeare's The Tempest, would have had on the audience, it is important to understand how magic was regarded during the time. During the Tudor and early Stuart periods, interest in magic ran high, and attitudes toward magic were varied and complex. For instance, magic was to be avoided by God-fearing men, but "God permitted magic partly to demonstrate, by its overthrow, his own miraculous powers, and partly as one of the pitfalls that appeared in the world as a result of original sin" (Traister 3).
Moore, John Robert. The Tempest and Robinson Crusoe. The Review of English Studies January 1945, 21(81): 52-56. Print.
Through The Tempest play, William Shakespeare weaves together a tale that is characterized by anti-colonialist sentiments. Prospero - the deposed Milan Duke - adopts a colonialist mentality by treating his colleagues as slaves who have no rights. Characters who suffer mistreatment under Prospero include: Ariel - the spirit creature; Ferdinand - the Naples Prince; and Caliban - Sycorax’s son. Prospero possesses much magical power which he uses to oppress his compatriots. Consequently, Prospero is portrayed as a colonial tyrant who abuses his immense power. Anti-colonialism feelings are especially evident through the actions, utterances and disposition and of Caliban, Miranda, Ferdinand and Ariel. To illustrate, Caliban berates Prospero for the former’s forced labor. Likewise, Ariel protests Prospero’s reluctance to release the former as earlier agreed. Miranda also expresses her dissatisfaction with Prospero’s unfair imprisonment of Ferdinand. Similarly, Ferdinand appears to challenge Prospero’s authority by briefly stopping dragging timber so as to flirt and chat with Miranda. The foregoing four characters exhibit conduct that highlights their displeasure with Prospero’s colonial-style authority over them. From the preceding expose, it can thus be concluded that Shakespeare’s The Tempest play is about anti-colonialism based on its depiction of Caliban, Miranda, Ferdinand and Ariel’s opposition to Prospero’s oppressive authority.
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Greenblatt, Stephen. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1997.
Although Shakespeare’s plays are generally categorized according to their adherence to the formulaic definitions of histories, romances, comedies, or tragedies, there are several plays that complicate the task of fitting neatly into these groupings. Many literary critics, in fact, have singled out a handful of plays and labeled them ‘Problem Plays’ because they do not fall easily into any of the four categories, though they do loosely adhere to the predicated ‘formula’ of the genre under which they appear in the Folios. Although The Winter’s Tale is not generally considered a problem play, it certainly contains elements that greatly complicate our understanding of the term ‘comedy’ and make it difficult to accept the play as such. In this work, Shakespeare’ s comic vision is so darkened by tragic events that it is questionable whether the play is ever able to recover sufficiently to make the comedic ending acceptable. Although The Winter's Tale is considered a comedy in the formal sense (complete with the marriage at the end), it must also be seen as a serious response to tragedy in that it not only engages various tragic elements, but it also uses those elements to highlight the contradictory and unbelievable nature of its comedic ending. Through the odd construction of the play, the great dramatic risks taken, and the paradoxical conclusion of The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare creates a complex work that seems to suggest that categories like ‘comedy’ are largely ambiguous terms when the predicated comedic ending is so darkened by tragic events that the play does not have the time nor the strength to recover.
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.
The Tempest is believed to be the last play William Shakespeare ever wrote. As a result, many of the play's undertones act as a farewell to the stage. Within the play, there are multiple uses of imagery, symbolism and allusions, intended to accurately convey the message. Shakespeare uses aspects of the psychoanalytic theory in order to display the various forms of the human condition.
Moore, John Robert. The Tempest and Robinson Crusoe. The Review of English Studies January 1945, 21(81): 52-56. Print.
Illusion and Reality in Shakespeare's The Tempest. This essay will discuss the part that illusion and reality play in developing and illuminating the theme of Shakespeare's The Tempest. This pair of opposites will be contrasted to show what they represent in the context of the play. Further, the characters associated with these terms, and how the association becomes meaningful in the play, will be discussed.
The play opens with a fearful tempest threatening to destroy the king's ship and all of its passengers. This situation along with the terrified emotions of the characters appears to the reader to be very real. However, in the second scene, the reader meets Prospero and his daughter Miranda. Through their conversation we learn of Prospero's magical powers, his brother's unjust claim as the Duke of Milan, and the exile of the two to this mysterious island. Next unveiled is Prospero's plot of revenge to regain his rightful title, the first step being to shipwreck the royal party on his island with the creation of the magical tempest. The reality of the situation is that there never was any danger from the storm at all.
There is a hierarchy on the island, with Prospero on top of the list. Lorie Jerrell Leininger writes in her article “Miranda is given to understand that she is the foot in the family ...
In this essay I intend to explore the ways that William Shakespeare has presented the relationships between the main characters within his play “The Tempest”. I shall investigate Ferdinand and Miranda’s relationship, the father/daughter bond between Miranda and Prospero and Caliban’s lust after Miranda.
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.