Introduction – Genre

Shakespeare: The Tempest

In this twenty-four part course, Professor John McRae (University of Nottingham) explores Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In the first six lectures, we provide a broad introduction to the historical, political, intellectual, cultural and artistic context of early 17th-century England. In the eighteen lectures after that, we go through the play scene-by-scene, providing close reading and detailed analysis, with commentary on character, plot, themes and motifs, language, symbolism, and more.

Note: We use the Arden edition of the play (Third Series, ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan). Students using a different version of the play may encounter slight differences in both the text and line numbers.

Introduction – Genre

In this lecture, we begin our introduction to The Tempest, focusing in particular on: (i) where the play comes in Shakespeare’s career; (ii) the idea of the classical (or Aristotelian) unities: unity of action, unity of time, unity of place; (iii) the theory of the harmony of the spheres and the definition of tragedy and comedy; and (iv) the genre of the Tempest.