This theatre and its productions were extremely popular during Shakespeare's time, but the Globe burnt down in 1613, during a production. Shakespeare was part-owner of an acting company called Lord Chamberlain's Men, which after their success and popularity with King James the First was renamed The King's Men, and with this company he performed many of his plays at The Globe Theatre in London - a theatre which the group built. Shakespeare is the author of around thirty-seven plays and one hundred and fifty four sonnets and he became the most popular writer in England at the time, and his legacy is still immense today. For example, The Tempest uses several themes taken from the attitudes and values of this time such as: romance, peace and colonisation. These attitudes and values may have inspired or affected Shakespeare's work. Some common attitudes and values were: romance, prosperity, peace, conspiracies, colonisation, a decline in the significance of religion, science, technology and exploration, virginity, theatre, music, fine arts and entertainment such as Masques.
#THE TEMPEST PDF FULL#
The time that Shakespeare was writing in was full of attitudes and values which directed and influenced the themes of literature. (2004) The Tempest 'Commentary and Notes' Cambridge University Press: New Edition) It is argued that this event inspired Shakespeare to create a similar tale of 'loss and rediscovery, of the benevolence of nature, and of mutinies against an island's leader'. However, in 1610 it was discovered that this ship had survived and eventually reached Virginia, after finding that Bermuda was plentiful and that they were able to survive there, but mutiny broke out and some survivors began to steal resources and it was after this that the group left for Virginia.
In 1609 a fleet of nine ships left England carrying five hundred colonists with the goal of settling in Virginia but encountered trouble, and one ship - the Sea Venture - was driven onto the rocks of Bermuda the 'Devil's Islands' and London mourned this loss for a year. The title of the play The Tempest can be interpreted in two ways: firstly, in a literal sense, as a play about a group of people who are shipwrecked by a storm, and secondly, symbolically, as a representation of the emotional and psychological turmoil that almost all the characters suffer. The play is not one of Shakespeare's most famous, but it is still extremely respected and revered within literature and the theatre. It can be suggested that this play is a symbolic farewell of Shakespeare's to the theatre, and the themes of the play do support this idea. The play was first performed in 1611 at the Court by the King's Men with very little scenery and theatrical effects, which meant that the audience had to use their imagination to a large extent. Its genre is that of a romantic comedy, although it does have many deeper themes and criticisms of Elizabethan society. The Tempest was written around 1610-1611, and is believed to be the last play William Shakespeare wrote before retiring from the theatre.
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