First published 2020
Jeremy Abrams takes readers through Shakespeare's most original and sincere theatrical invention. The Tempest represents the culmination of Shakespeare's accumulated knowledge and stage experience across his career. Abrams examines how this play functions as a deliberate experiment in spectacle, exploiting theatrical resources and stage tricks like no previous work. He shows how Shakespeare makes musical elements and sound effects into a structural framework that runs throughout the entire play. Abrams focuses particularly on Prospero's character within his natural theatrical context. The magician's art becomes Shakespeare's reflection on the playwright's own craft. The book reveals how the play operates as both metatheatre and psychodrama, working through suggestions that lead characters to reveal themselves while recognizing they belong to a larger intelligence that encompasses them all, part of the design through which the magician-playwright explains himself.
Genres: drama, literary-criticism, literary-fiction, shakespeare, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: metafiction, psychodrama
118 pages · Paperback · Independently published