The Tempest/ Summary, characters, themes, quotes, questions and answers ALL IN ONE 2022 Updated edition
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Module
English Home Language
Institution
University Of Cape Town (UCT)
The Tempest can be a tiresome read, especially in Shakespearean. These notes summary are for any IEB student who is looking for an in depth analysis on The Tempest to prep for a test or exam, but may not have the time to reread the play.
The Tempest Study Guide
Tuesday, September 10, 2019 12:23 PM
Quick Notes Page 1
, Outline:
• The Tempest is the name of the book
• Wrote more than 35 plays by the time he was 47
• Retired from writing a couple years before he died.
• There was not too much known about William Shakespea
but a lot could be inferred.
• Birthday is celebrated on April 23, although there is no rec
that that is his actual birthday
• Was there not a curse for Shakespeare's family? Like mos
them died at a young age?
• Started acting and writing plays at age 28
• He was seen by lots of high universities and ridiculed for
works as he did not have much of an education.
• Most plays were made to please royalty at the time
• The top plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar,
Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth were written between the
1590s to about 1607
• The different types of characters in Shakespeare's plays w
heroes, heroines, villains, clowns, and comic figures.
• Shakespeare left his life of writing at the height of his
success.
• The Tempest was one of the last four plays that he wrote
• Died on April 23, 1616
` • Starts with quote from Prospero, the main character of The
Tempest and also a magician of some type.
• Shakespeare wrote the play when there were fresh winds
blowing in Europe, interesting considering the play is nam
after a violent storm.
• What happened in Prospero's past that makes him want to
"turn towards the future"?
• Written around the time when the colonization of America
was occurring
• Renaissance influence coming to England from Italy,
England splitting from the Roman Catholic Church and
creating the Church of England.
• The queen of England, Queen Elizabeth I, died shortly bef
the play was written and King James I took over.
• The English language was changing and was being
revolutionized and therefore influenced the writing style o
Shakespeare dramatically
• Shakespeare did not usually write romantics, but The Tem
was an oddball that was just the same and came from the
public's liking for romantic pieces at the time.
• His romantic writing style was found in a couple of his fin
books
• Usually Shakespearean plays were non-fiction and realisti
but The Tempest had fairy tale-like elements such as magi
shipwrecks, young lovers reunited after various trials, exo
settings, and supernatural creatures.
• The character development of romances were less dramati
and seemed effortless rather than that of Shakespeare's
tragedies
• The Tempest is considered Shakespeare's greatest play by
may critics, but showed that he was thinking about retirem
and that he would be retiring soon
• Prospero was written after Shakespeare himself and some
consider Prospero's final speech as Shakespeare's goodbye
the theatre life.
• Others however see the play as being semiautobiographica
• Lots of people thought that his leave was way too early fo
him to be leaving.
• The fad of the royal court of James I was romance and thu
Shakespeare wrote romantics.
• The theme of the story is of suffering, repentance, and
forgiveness is powerful.
• "the real magic of forgiveness springs from within the hum
heart"
• "the rarer action" is better than vengeance is more true
nowadays than it has ever been before.
• The Tempest, as it seems, is going to be a mostly sea-base
story considering the main setting is on an isolated island
the Mediterranean Sea.
• Shakespeare has changed his writing completely as it is
clearly stated that this does not take place in the real world
and rather takes place in an enchanted fairy-tale world of
imagination and I find it interesting that Shakespeare wou
change the settings of his stories at the very end.
• There were no actresses in Shakespearean plays and there
in place were little boys who would play for the girl parts
such as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and I still find this pret
disturbing
• Considering the theater had an open top and it could not
portray the time of day well, the audience would have to u
Quick Notes Page 2
, • There were no actresses in Shakespearean plays and there
in place were little boys who would play for the girl parts
such as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and I still find this pret
disturbing
• Considering the theater had an open top and it could not
portray the time of day well, the audience would have to u
their imagination to have the time of day in mind, also the
mention of someone asking for the time is very prevalent
throughout the book to give the audience clarity
• The plays were mostly played in the Globe Theater, which
was the theater of the company that Shakespeare partnered
with
• Another theater was the Blackfriars which was used by th
King's Men theater company of which Shakespeare also
partnered with after leaving his old one at the Globe theate
• This theater would be where the romances would be
performed
• The Tempest was also performed in the King's court befor
King James I to celebrate the wedding of the king's daugh
which makes it sound like The Tempest was almost written
for royalty
• Some special effects written in the play but could not actu
be performed such as the disappearing banquet in Act 3 an
the flying chariot of Act 4 would be very interesting to see
with today's technology
• Actual events inspired the story of The Tempest and this
would make sense because Shakespeare loved to make rea
life events into a non-fiction sense.
• The story was made after a journey which included a voya
including a group of ships that were heading out to
Jamestown, Virginia, but during a storm the lead ship was
separated from the others and ended up lost on a shore
somewhere near the Bahamas.
• Interesting that the storm event in the first scene of the bo
would be directly related to this event of the ship being lo
during a storm where the ship in the first scene was caugh
a violent storm, caused by Prospero as stated in scene 2
• Shakespeare actually wrote out to the captain of the ship t
ask what happened to the ship and if he could get detailed
information on the event, which eventually he did, but I co
imagine that the letters took months to go back and forth f
Jamestown and England.
Quick Notes Page 3
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