Product Description

In the CliffsComplete guides, the play′s complete text and a glossary appear side–by–side with coordinating numbered lines to help you understand unusual words and phrasing. You′ll also find all the commentary and resources of a standard CliffsNotes for Literature.

CliffsComplete The Tempest tells the famous story of Prospero and his daughter Miranda. Through magic, Prospero has conjured up a storm that brings a ship full of his enemies to the island on which he and Miranda live. What follows is Shakespeare′s comic masterpiece that′s full of intrigue and romance.

Discover what happens to Prospero and Miranda — and save valuable studying time — all at once. Enhance your reading of The Tempest with these additional features:

• A summary and insightful commentary for each act
• Bibliography and historical background on the author, William Shakespeare
• A look at the historical context and structure of the play
• Discussions on the plays symbols and themes
• A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
• Review questions, a quiz, discussion topics (essay questions), activity ideas
• A Resource Center full of books, articles, films, and Internet sites

Streamline your literature study with all–in–one help from CliffsComplete guides!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7712 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 366 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
One of Shakespeare's most famous but also enigmatic plays, for many years the story of Prospero's exile from his native Milan, and life with his daughter Miranda on an unnamed island in the Mediterranean, was seen as an autobiographical dramatisation of Shakespeare's departure from the London stage. The Epilogue, spoken by Prospero, claims that "now my charms are all o'erthrown", appeared to reflect Shakespeare's own renunciation of his magical dramatic powers as he retired to Stratford. But The Tempest is far more than this, as recent commentators have pointed out. The dramatic action observes the classical unities of time, place and action, as Prospero uses his "rough magic" to lure his wicked usurping brother, Antonio, and King Alonso of Naples to his island retreat to torment them before engineering his return to Milan.

However, the play is full of extraordinary anomalies and fantastic interludes, including Gonzalo's fantasy of a utopian commonwealth, Prospero's magical servant Ariel, and the "poisonous slave" Caliban. The creation of Caliban has particularly fascinated critics, who have noticed in his creation a colonial dimension to the play. In this respect Caliban can be seen as an American Indian or African slave, who articulates a particularly powerful strain of anti-colonial sentiment, telling Prospero that "this island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,/ Which thou tak'st from me". This has led to an intense reassessment of the play from a post-colonial perspective, as critics and historians have debated the extent to which the play endorses or criticises early English colonial expansion. --Jerry Brotton

Lewis Ward, Exeter University
"The best notes of any edition I've used."

Synopsis
This edition situates "The Tempest" at the centre of changing cultural attitudes towards colonialism, power politics and patriarchal hierarchies, and demonstrates how the play both shaped and reflected those changing attitudes. Reflecting the concerns of a post-colonial international community, the edition emphasizes the play's worldwide cultural appropriation, and includes an extensive discussion of the play's after-life as well as an appendix of selected appropriations. The interdisciplinary editorial approach contributes a distinctively blended cultural and historical focus.

Customer Reviews

Arden Shakespeare
In some respects I think it'd be rather presumptuous of me to attempt to review Shakespeare. Someone so well known and influential wouldn't benefit from my opinions on their work, plus there are more scholarly and concise reviews out there. But I can comment on these Arden versions. Of all the Shakespeare I've read I've always found the Arden copies to be well laid out and to have excellent commentary and notes on the text. They really add to your understanding of Shakespeares outstanding plays and introduce you to the depth in his work. They have superb paper quality and are bound well, withstanding repeated readings and intensive study. For your collection of Shakespeare you can't do much better than Arden publications, some are quite hard to get hold of but it's worth the effort.

High-quality guide
I recently went to see Patrick Stewart in an RSC production of The Tempest and thought I would buy a copy of the play to look again at some of the speeches. Although I'm a little way past GCSE level I found this Cambridge School edition provided clear presentation of the text, with the play displayed down the right hand side and study notes opposite.

However, the book's real selling point is the inclusion of wonderful colour and black and white photographs of various productions of The Tempest. Several of these are from The Globe Theatre, London so provide a glimpse of what Elizabethan theatre (probably) looked like.

On the downside, some of the further study suggestions are a little simple-minded ("Draw a theatre poster advertising The Tempest featuring Ariel") but overall this is an attractively-presented guide which implicitly steers students towards the idea that Shakespeare's plays were meant to be seen and heard rather than read.

Excellent activity orientated edition
The Tempest is rightly regarded as being one of the Bard's greatest works, containing some of his deepest thoughts on the nature of power and the relationship between rational man as controller of nature, and the animal man always to be at the mercy of the passions both of himself, others, and the world around him. In fact, this play could be thought of as representing Shakespeare's final and definitive statement on topics that he had explored throughout his cannon. But profound as the philosophy is, and despite the beauty of the poetry and the many magical elements contained within the play, the fact is that as far as the average attention lacking teenager is concerned, not a lot happens. This is why this Cambridge schools edition scores over most others. It is almost entirely activity focused, the expressed aim being to 'bring the play to life'. With at least one suggested activity beside each page of Shakespeare's text (as well as a decent amount of background notes and interpretation), every teacher armed with this book should be able to enthuse his charges with the very real relevance of this play to the world which we have bequeathed them.