Steven Soderberg might just be faking us out. Grace Kelly went on to become a dang princess. What do Greta Garbo, Steven Soderberg, Grace Kelly and William Shakespeare have in common? What is The Tempest About and Why Should I Care? What else could you possibly expect from the play that capped the career of a guy so talented in the play-penning department that he’s known simply as The Bard? Whether you’re a magical realism nut or a sucker for a good love story, a fan of drunken mayhem or obsessed with devious plots, a bitter cynic or a wide-eyed believer in the milk of human kindness, The Tempest will deliver.Ĭome on. Literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt, who calls the play an 'echo-chamber of Shakespearean motifs,' points out that The Tempest resonates 'with issues that haunted Shakespeare's imagination throughout his career.'īut even if motifs and allusions (or spooky echo-chambers) ain't your cup of tea, The Tempest is almost guaranteed to be. Regardless of whether or not our man Shakespeare intended for us to understand the epilogue as a big adios to his own art, the play does seem to be a nice capstone to a brilliant career because The Tempest revisits some of the most important issues and themes to have emerged from Shakespeare's previous plays.

When Prospero (after giving up the art of magic he's spent a lifetime perfecting) appears alone before the audience he confesses, 'Now my charms are all o'erthrown, / And what strength I have's mine own,' we can't help but wonder if Shakespeare is speaking through this character here. Not only is the play chock-full of self-conscious references to the workings of the theater, but its epilogue seems to be a final and fond farewell to the stage. He then proceeds to dazzle and dismay the survivors (and the audience) with his art as he orchestrates his triumphant return home… where he plans to retire in peace.įor a lot of audiences and literary scholars, Prospero seems like a stand-in for Shakespeare, who spent a lifetime dazzling audiences before retiring in 1611, shortly after The Tempest was completed. Over the course of a single day, Prospero uses his magic to whip up the titular tempest to shipwreck the men responsible for his banishment. Its action revolves around an aging magician who has been living in exile with his young daughter on a remote island for twelve years. (If you're nitpicky, it's the last play he wrote entirely by himself.) And The Tempest, written between 16, was William Shakespeare's final play. Sadly, though, the bald man himself was very much mortal. It's as ridiculous to say that Shakespeare's plays are over as it is to say that, oh, picnics or roller coasters or stargazing is over. It's hard to think of Shakespeare as being 'over' when he’s considered to be the best playwright in English (daaang)-this guy's plays still transcend fashion or style or faddishness.

Give Big Billy Shakespeare a standing ovation: The Tempest is his swan song.

The tempest sparknotes