So today's lecture is on The Tempest. And as you know, I've been in the habit of

beginning lectures by placing the play chronologically as a prelude to discussing it. One of the

things I want to show in this lecture is that the presumed chronological position of the Tempest is absolutely

inseparable from critical discussion about the play. So it is itself an interpretive

act what we say about where the Tempest fits in Shakespeare's career. The idea that the Tempest

is Shakespeare's last play, that's an assumption I want to challenge

a little bit during the course of this lecture, but let's start with it as an assumption.

The idea that the Tempest is Shakespeare's last play has been entirely intertwined with it,

with views of the play as a poetic summation of Shakespeare's career,

and more particularly as a self-portrait,

the portrait of the artist as an old man,

the old man saying farewell to the stage.

So the question I want this lecture to focus on,

and the way I want to try and approach some of the themes and the critical reception of this play is the question, is Prospero Shakespeare? Is Prospero Shakespeare?

So let's start by reviewing the play together. A storm causes a shipwreck and noblemen are washed up on an island. We discover that the storm has

been magicked up by Prospero, the former Duke of Milan and a magician who had been exiled to the island

12 years previously by his brother Antonio who has deposed him. Prospero is accompanied on the island by his daughter Miranda and two unwilling servants,

Ariel, a moody spirit, and Caliban, a reviled, embittered creature.

The shipwrecked King Alonzo believes his son Ferdinand is drowned, but in fact he's on another part of the island and is brought by Prospero into contact with Miranda, the couple duly fall in love.

Two servants from the ship, Trinculo and Stefano, fall into a drunken conspiracy with Caliban and plot to overthrow

to overthrow. Two nobles from the ship, Sebastian and Antonio Prospero's brother, plot to kill

Alonzo. Ariel is watching over these plots and prevents them coming to fruition. Prospero

...