The Tempest


The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where Prospero, a magician, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, forgiveness and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.
Although The Tempest is listed in the First Folio as the first of Shakespeare's comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, and modern criticism has created the category of late romance for this and others of Shakespeare's later plays. The Tempest has been widely interpreted in later centuries. Its central character Prospero has been identified with Shakespeare, with Prospero's renunciation of magic signaling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage. It has also been seen as an allegory of Europeans colonizing foreign lands.
The play has had a varied afterlife, inspiring artists in many nations and cultures, on stage and screen, in literature, music, and the visual arts.

Characters

Act I

Twelve years before the action of the play, Prospero, formerly Duke of Milan and a gifted sorcerer, had been usurped by his treacherous brother Antonio with the aid of Alonso, King of Naples. Escaping by boat with his infant daughter Miranda, Prospero flees to a remote island where he has been living ever since. There he used his magic to force the island's only inhabitant, Caliban, to protect him and Miranda. He also frees the spirit Ariel and binds him into servitude.
When a ship carrying his brother Antonio passes nearby, Prospero conjures up a storm with help from Ariel and the ship is destroyed. Antonio is shipwrecked, along with Alonso, Ferdinand, Sebastian, Gonzalo, Adrian, and other court members.

Acts II and III

Prospero enacts a sophisticated plan to take revenge on his usurpers and regain his dukedom. Using magic, he separates the shipwreck survivors into groups on the island:
  • Ferdinand, who is rescued by Prospero and Miranda and given shelter. Prospero successfully manipulates the youth into a romance with Miranda.
  • Trinculo, the king's jester, and Stephano, the king's drunken butler, who encounter Caliban. Recognizing his miserable state, the three stage an unsuccessful "rebellion" against Prospero. Their actions provide the comic relief of the play.
  • Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, and two attendant lords. Antonio and Sebastian conspire to kill Alonso and Gonzalo so Sebastian can become King; Prospero and Ariel thwart the conspiracy. Later, Ariel takes the form of a harpy and torments Antonio, Alonso, and Sebastian, causing them to flee in guilt for their crimes against Prospero and each other.
  • The ship's captain and boatswain, along with the other surviving sailors, are placed into a magical sleep until the final act.

    Act IV

Prospero intends that Miranda, now aged 15, will marry Ferdinand, and he instructs Ariel to bring some other spirits and produce a masque.
The masque will feature classical goddesses, Juno, Ceres, and Iris, and will bless and celebrate the betrothal. The masque will also instruct the young couple on marriage, and on the value of chastity until then.
The masque is suddenly interrupted when Prospero realises he had forgotten the plot against his life. Once Ferdinand and Miranda are gone, Prospero orders Ariel to deal with the nobles' plot. Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano are then chased off into the swamps by goblins in the shape of hounds.

Act V and Epilogue

Prospero vows that once he achieves his goals, he will set Ariel free, and abandon his magic, saying:
I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
Ariel brings on Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian. Prospero forgives all three. Prospero's former title, Duke of Milan, is restored. Ariel fetches the sailors from the ship, and then Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano. Caliban, seemingly filled with regret, promises to be good. Stephano and Trinculo are ridiculed and sent away in shame by Prospero. Before the reunited group leave the island, Ariel is instructed to provide good weather to guide the king's ship back to the royal fleet and then to Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will be married. After this, Ariel is set free.
In an epilogue, Prospero requests that the audience set him free — with their applause.

Date and sources

Date

It is not known for certain exactly when The Tempest was written, but evidence supports the idea that it was probably composed sometime between late 1610 to mid-1611. Evidence supports composition perhaps occurring before, after, or at the same time as The Winter's Tale. It is considered one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. But it was not, as is sometimes claimed, Shakespeare's last play, since it is post-dated by his collaborations with John Fletcher: Henry VIII, Cardenio and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Edward Blount entered The Tempest into the Stationers' Register on 8 November 1623. It was one of 16 Shakespeare plays that Blount registered on that date.

Text

The Tempest first appeared in print in 1623 in the collection of 36 of Shakespeare's plays entitled, Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies; Published according to the True and Original Copies, which is known as the First Folio. The plays, including The Tempest, were gathered and edited by John Heminges and Henry Condell.
The Folio text was based on a handwritten manuscript of The Tempest prepared by Ralph Crane, a scrivener employed by the King's Men. Crane probably copied from Shakespeare's rough draft, and based his style on Ben Jonson's Folio of 1616. Crane is thought to have neatened texts, edited the divisions of acts and scenes, and sometimes added his own improvements. He was fond of joining words with hyphens, and using elisions with apostrophes, for example by changing "with the king" to read: "wi'th' King". The elaborate stage directions in The Tempest may have been due to Crane; they provide evidence regarding how the play was staged by the King's Men.
The entire First Folio project was delivered to the blind printer, William Jaggard, and printing began in 1622. The Tempest is the first play in the publication. It was proofread and printed with special care; it is the most well-printed and the cleanest text of the thirty-six plays. To do the work of setting the type in the printing press, three compositors were used for The Tempest. In the 1960s, a landmark bibliographic study of the First Folio was accomplished by Charlton Hinman. Based on distinctive quirks in the printed words on the page, the study was able to individuate the compositors, and reveal that three compositors worked on The Tempest, who are known as Compositor B, C, and F. Compositor B worked on The Tempests first page as well as six other pages. He was an experienced journeyman in Jaggard's printshop, who occasionally could be careless. In his role, he may have had a responsibility for the entire First Folio. The other two, Compositors C and F, worked full-time and were experienced printers.
At the time, spelling and punctuation were not standardized, and varied from page to page, because each compositor had their individual preferences and styles. There is evidence that the press run was stopped at least four times, which allowed proofreading and corrections. However, a page with an error would not be discarded, so pages late in any given press run are the most accurate, and each of the final printed folios may vary in this regard. This was the common practice at the time. There is also an instance of a letter being damaged during the course of a run and changing the meaning of a word: After the masque Ferdinand says,
Let me live here ever!
So rare a wondered father and a wise
Makes this place paradise!
The word "wise" at the end of line 123 was printed with the traditional long "s" that resembles an "f". But in 1978 it was suggested that during the press run, a small piece of the crossbar on the type had broken off, and the word should be "wife". Modern editors have not come to an agreement—Oxford says "wife", Arden says "wise".

Themes and motifs

The theatre

The Tempest is explicitly concerned with its own nature as a play, frequently drawing links between Prospero's art and theatrical illusion. The shipwreck was a spectacle that Ariel performed. Prospero may even refer to the Globe Theatre when he describes the whole world as an illusion: "the great globe ... shall dissolve ... like this insubstantial pageant". Ariel frequently disguises himself as figures from Classical mythology, for example a nymph, a harpy, and Ceres, acting as the latter in a masque that Prospero creates.