The Tempest

by Shakespeare, William (Author); Braunmuller, A. R. (Editor); Holland, Peter (Introduction by)

• ISBN13: 9780140714852
• ISBN10: 0140714855
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Though written near the end of his career, The Tempest stands first in Shakespeare's First Folio of 1623. Recently redefined by modern criticism as a romance, the play has been read as an escapist fantasy, a political allegory, and a celebratory fiction. Most often, however, The Tempest isinterpreted as a summary of Shakespeare's view of his own art of playwriting. In this edition, Stephen Orgel reassesses the evidence for each of these critical speculations, and finds the play to be both more open and more historically determined than traditional views have allowed. The text hasbeen newly edited, and includes a stage history of its production, from the radical revisions of Davenant, Dryden, and Shadwell to the recent stagings of Peter Hall, Jonathan Miller, and Peter Brook.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. viii
Series editors' preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Editor's note	p. xii
List of abbreviations	p. xiv
List of productions	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
List of characters	p. 94
The Tempest and commentary	p. 95
Selected textual variations	p. 336
List of principal players	p. 343
Bibliography	p. 349
Index	p. 360
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