The Tempest

“Part of The Tempest’s permanent facination for so many playgoers and readers, in a myriad of national cultures, is its juxtaposition of a vengeful magus who turns to forgiveness.”

Harold Bloom

“The play is full of extraordinary anomalies and fantastic interludes…The creation of Caliban has particularly fascinated critics, who have noticed in his creation a colonial dimension to the play…Critics and historians have debated the extent to which the play endorses or criticizes early English colonial expansion.”

Amazon.co.uk editorial review

Prospero’s use of magic in The Tempest is a source of apparently endless critical speculation. It has been defined as benign and redemptive, its violence excused or legitimated. At the opposite end of the critical spectrum it has been defined as witchcraft and read as a metaphor for colonial oppression…By whatever means The Tempest is approached, magic is the defining factor in the relationship between Prospero and Caliban.”

Times Literary Supplement

“Shakespeare’s blend of romance, comedy and political intrigue and his echoings of Virgil and Ovid can make this, like his other late work, feel at once classical and incipiently postmodern.”

New York Times