The Tempest

Course Overview

‘The Tempest’, believed to have been written c. 1610-1611, is commonly thought to be one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. Although it is listed as the first of Shakespeare’s comedies in the First Folio, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, which characterises his late romances more generally. Indeed, dealing with such tropes as the old patriarch, power, love, betrayal, revenge and the whimsical fairy tale aspect that explores the boundary between dreaming and reality, it combines well-known and much-loved themes from many of his previous plays. ‘The Tempest’ lends itself to a wide range of interpretations, with some regarding it as Shakespeare’s swansong as he, in the guise of Prospero, renounces his arts and bids farewell to the stage. Others consider it a nuanced allegory of European colonialism. Students will learn to appreciate the complexity of this work both in the context of its time and in subsequent reinterpretations, which continue to render the play highly relevant and meaningful to this day.