The Tempest » (1st Edition)

Stephen Orgel is Professor of English, Stanford University.

A terrible storm at sea. A shipwreck. A remote island, forever wrapped in mists But all is not as it seems, for Prospero--magician, sorcerer, enchanter--can conjure up a storm if it suits his purpose as it does.

He was once the Duke of Milan. But Antonio, his ambitious brother, plotted with the King of Naples, and devised a plan to set Prospero adrift in a boat with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda, certain that they would die at sea. But Antonio's plan failed. Prospero and Miranda survived to live on a remote island for twelve years.

Now, thanks to Prospero's magical powers, Antonio, the King and Ferdinand, the King's handsome young son--are shipwrecked on that very island! Furthermore, as Ferdinand is quick to notice, Miranda has become a beautiful young woman.

Preface

PART I. SHAKESPEARE AND THE TEMPEST
Introduction: The Life and Work of William Shakespeare
The Text of The Tempest

PART II. A CASE STUDY IN CRITICAL CONTROVERSY
Introduction: Why Study Critical Controversies about The Tempest?
Literary Study, Politics, and Shakespeare: A Debate
George Will, Literary Politics
Stephen Greenblatt, The Best Way to Kill Our Literary Heritage Is to Turn It into a Decorous Celebration of the New World Order

Sources and Contexts
Michel de Montaigne, from Of the Cannibals
William Strachey, from True Repertory of the Wreck
Sylvester Jourdain, from A Discovery of the Barmudas
Richard Hakluyt, Reasons for Colonization
Bartolome de la Casas, from Letter to Philip, Great Prince of Spain
Ronald Takaki, The Tempest in the Wilderness

Shakespeare and the Power of Order
Frank Kermode, From Shakespeare: The Final Plays
Reuben A. Brower, The Mirror of Analogy: The Tempest

The Postcolonial Challenge
Paul Brown, "This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine": The Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism
Francis Barker and Peter Hulme, Nymphs and Reapers Heavily Vanish: The Discursive Con-Texts of The Tempest
Aime Cesaire, A Tempest, Scene 2

Responding to the Challenge
Deborah Willis, Shakespeare's Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism
David Scott Kastan, "The Duke of Milan/And His Brave Son": Dynastic Politics in The Tempest
Meredith Anne Skura, Discourse and the Individual: The Case of Colonialism in The Tempest

The Feminist Challenge
Ania Loomba, from Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama
Ann Thompson, "Miranda, Where's Your Sister? Reading Shakespeare's Tempest