The Tempest (The Arden Shakespeare Third Series) Paperback – December 6, 2011

Guide for the Perplexed time (since Amazon's listing of Formats seems designed to generate confusion):This is a review of the Mass-Market Paperback edition of "The Tempest" under the label of "Folger Shakespeare Library," published by Washington Square Press, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. It was first issued under the present label, with the yellow-and-mottled cover depicted on the page, in 2004. With its rich set of aides to the reader, it is a good introductory text, and contains much that will be useful to the more advanced student (although not intended to rival, say, the Arden and Norton Critical editions), and at this writing it is still attractively priced. It is part of a series of similar editions covering the complete canon of the plays.The OTHER formats (paperback, Kindle, Audio) currently listed by Amazon are of completely different editions of the same text, without the facing-page notes, period illustrations, and other features of the Folger/WSP editions; some of them without even line-numbers, to judge from previous reviews.Calling the newest version of the series just "Folger Shakespeare Library" somewhat confuses matters, since that is also the name of the actual sponsoring institution in Washington, D.C., which houses a major collection of Shakespeare editions, and related and period works of all kinds. Earlier printings of this text and notes, etc. (1994 and following) were under the label of "The New Folger Library Shakespeare," and differed only in having a pictorial cover by Kinuko Y. Croft. This edition is listed on Amazon, too, but its reviews are lumped together with those of numerous other editions. In addition, Amazon also lists a hardcover edition as being edited by Mowat and Werstine (not seen).In any format, the Mowat and Werstine edition is also to be distinguished from its predecessor in "The Folger Library General Reader's Shakespeare" series, edited by Louis B. Wright and Virginia A, LaMar (1961; also from Washington Square Press, and possibly also under its Pocket imprint), with the same basic facing-page design, but different notes and illustrations, and without the concluding essay and annotated bibliography ("Further Reading.) Copies appeared in both an older, smaller, mass-market format, and in the current, slightly larger one. In this instance, the texts are not drastically different; editorial practices and standards have changed, but the text, not published before the First Folio, is relatively clear and unproblematic.Those interested in a text edition of the play with notes restricted to the vocabulary, and without introductions on Shakespeare's stage and use of language, may want to take a look at Burton Raffel's "Annotated" edition, either in its paperback format, with the notes at the foot of the page, or its Kindle edition, with the notes hyper-linked to the text. The latter works well, but constant switching back and forth can produce a discontinuous reading of the play.To turn to the text being edited: "The Tempest" was probably the last play written entirely by William Shakespeare, sometime in 1610-1611. It was performed at court during the celebrations for the betrothal and marriage of King James I's daughter Elizabeth to Frederick, Prince of the Rhine Palatinate, and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, an event momentous in English literature for the sheer quantity and, frequently enough, the quality of verse it inspired. Whether it was written FOR the occasion is debatable; topical references seem instead to center on then-recent colonization efforts in the New World (Jamestown, and, accidentally, Bermuda); and the locales are all Mediterranean instead of Central European.Of course, given Shakespeare's "Sea Coast of Bohemia" (i.e., roughly, the modern Czech Republic) in another play, the argument from geography is not the firmest in the world. And, despite repeated arguments that the play is about European conquests and colonies in the New World, the repeated allusions seem to me more topical than thematic.The compactly-told story is set on a single island, during part of a single day, and is the only Shakespeare play since "Comedy of the Errors," at the very beginning of his career, to observe so strictly the "Classical Unities" of time and space. (Although "A Midsummer Night's Dream came close.) Shakespeare could have spread the story over fifteen or so years, and three or four distant places, as in other plays, but in this case chose not to do so. This requires some exposition of the "back story," which is handled well, as one would expect from Shakespeare at the height of his creative powers.Of course, there is a school of thought (or several) which insists on seeing in the tempest-raising magician Prospero an image of a tired Shakespeare on the verge of retiring from the theater. I admit that the notion is tempting, but Prospero himself, a testy old man, seems a poor image of Shakespeare, who, on the basis of the scanty evidence, seems to have been regarded as even-tempered and well-mannered (at least compared to most other theater-folk, or arrogant aristocrats).Then too, Prospero's insistence on stage-managing the events of the play is not a new idea in Shakespeare's work - compare the behind-the-scenes efforts of the incognito Duke in "Measure for Measure," and of Oberon in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."For those not already familiar with the play, it is the only one of Shakespeare plays without a recognizable source for the main plot, although there is documentation for many details in the voyage literature of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, especially the earlier years of the Virginia colony. A few hints may have come from histories of Italy, but the names don't match up with any specific events. Most of the other suggested parallels to the plot are too general to tie directly to the play, although they may be helpful in understanding it.The grumpy magician, his beautiful daughter, the handsome young hero, and the magician's attendant creatures (of varying appearances, and moral and intellectual characteristics), are commonplaces of traditional fairytales and medieval and renaissance romances. (Not to mention a lot of modern genre fantasy, and older or popularized science fiction.) So, too, are wicked brothers and scheming courtiers.In other hands, these elements could have made a rambling crowd-pleaser like the then-popular "Mucedorus." Shakespeare, who was at home with plots spread widely through time and space, here makes them the subject of a tightly constructed play. As has long been noted, "The Tempest" is one of the few Shakespeare plays to observe the so-called "classical unities" of (elapsed) time and a single place, in this case, a few hours nearby and on an enchanted island. In this is its unlike most other Elizabethan and Jacobean "romance" plays, very much including his own earlier ventures, such as "Twelfth Night" and "A Winter's Tale.""The Tempest" is one of my personal favorites in the Shakespeare canon. I'm not alone. It has inspired a long series of pastiches, retellings, parodies and satires, adaptations, operatic adaptations, and just plain productions. (My personal pick -- a purely sentimental one -- is "Forbidden Planet," the 1956 movie starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen, all upstaged by Robbie the Robot, in a double role emulating both the helpful spirit Ariel and the bumbling Caliban; and with an entirely different backstory.)

Since Amazon has, as often, bundled together a dozen (or more) different editions of the same text -- in this case, Shakespeare's late Romance / Comedy, "The Tempest" -- I should make it clear that I'm reviewing the Tempest as presented in the old "New Arden Edition" (1958), edited by Frank Kermode (since replaced in the series), and in the current "Folger Shakespeare Library / New Folger Library Shakespeare" series edited by Mowat and Werstine. (Alas, other editors' names are sometimes attached to the pictures....)Since Amazon also bundles in Kindle editions as if they were identical to the print editions they are listed with, I will warn the reader that (so far) none of the "Tempest" editions I'm discussing are actually available in Kindle format. (This isn't an entirely new problem; a lot of Amazon's lists of "other formats" really refer to other editions of a given book.)The play itself is one of my favorites, and these days its resemblance to genre fantasy may make it more accessible; many readers already will have met counterparts to short-tempered old magician Prospero, his naïve daughter Miranda, and their reluctant servants, the spirit Ariel and the thoroughly material Caliban. (Not that I'm proposing a huge influence on the genre -- Shakespeare was drawing on standard motifs of folk-tales and romances, and these have persisted in various guises.) For that matter, the back-story about power politics and betrayal in (a thoroughly fictional) Renaissance Italy is of a familiar type as well.The Kermode "Tempest" replaced a 1902 Arden Edition, edited by Morton Luce, which had appeared in four editions, and Kermode's version is therefore sometimes known as the fifth (and, with revision, the sixth) edition. This is a documented critical text (as much as is necessary for a play with a straightforward publication history) with good interpretive notes and historical and thematic analyses. It reflects the concerns of an older generation of critics, but what it includes is no less valuable than the concerns with race, gender, and colonialism in the Vaughan and Mason New[er] Arden edition of 1999. (Interestingly, Vaughan and Mason return to Luce's focus on the pamphlet literature concerning Jamestown and the (accidental) colonization of Bermuda; but Luce was more concerned with their bibliographic problems than with implications concerning imperialism.) Kermode examines the long tradition of allegorical readings of the play, including the autobiographical, the more recent emphasis on Symbolism, and issues explicitly raised in the play, such as Nature versus Nurture. It is a solid piece of work, even if currently fashionable issues of race, colonialism, and gender are under-served.In my experience, the Kermode edition is accessible to some High School students, particularly with a strong personal interest in Shakespeare, and some prior acquaintance with the play, but for classroom use is really best suited to the college level. A reader already familiar with basic Shakespeare studies will probably find it enlightening.As is standard for Arden additions, it has a fine set of useful Appendices (six), and a sheaf of extended "Additional Notes," including a set specifically part of the sixth edition. The running notes to the text are packed with information about vocabulary, grammar, and rhetoric, including unresolved issues which some editions quietly ignore.The volume appeared under several imprints, with a variety of covers in its trade paperback versions, ranging from the title on a pale background to an 18th-century illustration of the play. The last printings (I think) were by Routledge in 1987 and 1989, with, like other Arden volumes of the time, cover art by one of the Brotherhood of English Ruralists, in this case Ann Arnold. She offers a distinctly European visualization of Caliban, who is often treated by critics (with some justification in the play) as, thematically, a stand-in for Native Americans, enslaved Africans, etc.Starting in the early 1990s, the Mowat-Werstine series for the Folger Library replaced the old "Folger Library General Reader's Shakespeare," edited by Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar. That was published in the 1950s and 1960s, and most familiar in their small mass-market paperback Washington Square Press editions (there were also some from a sister-imprint, Pocket Books). The "General Reader's" edition of "The Tempest" was published in 1961, and was not revised beyond changes in the cover art. As novice reader of Shakespeare, I found it, like other volumes in the series, helpful at first, then limiting.The "New Folger" series preserves the characteristic features of facing-page notes, and the use of illustrations from period sources in the Folger Library collections, but is completely new otherwise. The introductory material is longer, and much better; it tries to address the sort of questions students actually ask, instead of guessing at what they will find confusing; points of contact between Elizabethan poetic rhetoric and ordinary speech are (rightly) emphasized. An essay on contemporary critical issues is included for each play -- in "The Tempest" it is by one of the editors, but other volumes have contributions by a variety of scholars and critics.The 1994 mass-market "New Folger" edition of "The Tempest" featured a lovely cover by Kinuko Y. Craft, portraying a rather good Ariel, an imperious white-bearded Prospero, and a young-looking Miranda (she should be about fifteen, although finding someone that age who can play the part is a challenge mostly avoided). Later printings, under the "Folger Shakespeare Library" heading, have fairly non-descript covers, "mottled" or "marbled" in various colors; "The Tempest" appeared in this form in 2004. Some of the plays were also issued in trade paperback; I haven't seen one for "The Tempest," but Amazon lists a 2002 hardcover, which I also haven't seen.The New Folger format, like the old one, does not provide for critical readings, source documents, and other aides to the reader found in the Arden editions, and many others, notably the Signet Classics Shakespeare (often revised and expanded) and the Norton Critical Editions. However, it has more in the way of direct aides to the reader than the Pelican and New Pelican Shakespeare (which do have some outstanding introductions).

El libro bien pero lleva un código para entrar en una página , pero búsque el CD no pareció en la caja ni dentro

Livraison rapide et dans les temps mais le livre était légèrement abîmé à son arrivé.

言わずと知れたシェークスピアの名作。たまに読みたくなってしましまいます。浪々としているところが大好きです。

Uno de los grandes desconocidos de Shakespeare. Las notas al pie ayudan a entender el texto. Huxley tomó el título de su libro, "Brave New World", de esta obra de Shakespeare. Y no, no significa "Un mundo feliz". Para entender el título tenemos que interpretar está obra. Excelente libro.

とうとう読んだ。テンペストはベートーベンのピアノソナタやチャイコフスキーの作品でその名前だけは知っていたが、この年になるまで未読のままだった。昨年から読み始めたシェークスピアだが、紆余曲折を経てこの作品にたどり着いた。中身は皆さんよく御存じの作品なので、今さら紹介の必要もないだろう。ジャンルとしてはいったいどの区分けになるのだろう。もちろん歴史劇ではない。喜劇との分類がされていたが、これが喜劇か。あんまり笑えないのだ。悲劇ともいえるのでは。まー、これも「問題劇」。ちょっと引いてみれば、シェークスピアの作品はどれも問題劇なんだ。本作品も謎だらけだ。魔術がテーマとされているのだが、どのような魔術かはよくわからない。船の遭難を引き起こした「あらし（Tempest）」は魔術によるものなのか？妖精Arielとcalibanを操っているのも魔術なのだろうか。そして魔術の秘密は本にあるというのだ。この話も時間が凝縮されている。前史の12年は別として、ストーリーの初めから完結まで実は一日もかかっていないのだ。実際のところ半日か。この短い時間の間にある一つの「恋愛」が生まれ成就するのだが、これをロマンスと見ることは可能なのか。あまりにも仕組まれた恋愛なのだ。そして本書のテーマは復讐劇なのだが、プロスペローのミラノへの帰還は果たされるようだが、個人的な復讐は果たされていない。プロスペローを追放に追いやった張本人たちは罰せられることもない。最後にプロスペロー自身が魔術を放棄しているのだ。先が思いやられる。そして島に取り残されるであろうcalibanはどうなるのか？やはり一番わかりにくいのは、Arielの歌や劇中劇ともいうべき「Masque」の部分だろうか。翻訳と首っ引きになってしまったが、何となくわかったようなわからないような。こんなもんかな。これまでは、「Arden版」を一度、その他は高校生向けの「Oxford School Shakespeare」を主に利用してきたが、今回は「Oxford World Classic」を初めて利用してみた。これにも相当詳細な註がついているのだが、「Arden版」ほどではない。ただ文字はかなり小さい。