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Prospero speaks the epilogue of William Shakespeare`s The Tempest proclaiming: ˜Now my charms are all o`erthrown` and we are tempted to read it as the enchanter of the stage clamouring to be freed of his magical powers as a thespian”powers which have made him lose his humanity, making him feel: ˜And my ending is despair, /Unless I be relieved by prayer.` But, its critical fortune has been much tempest tossed and scholars have gone beyond the traditional reading of the play as a dark, self-reflexive romance.
The Tempest, one of the last plays by Shakespeare, is a work that tests the limits of theatrical innovation. It has had multiple interpretations: as a drama of revenge as well as of forgiveness and reconciliation, of romance as well as loneliness, as an interrogation of the mind and art of a playwright, or as a play where colonial subjugation is enacted as well as resisted. More recently, the centrality of European dynastic concerns, the role of gender in forwarding or undermining such concerns, the treatment of Afro-European encounters and self-reflexive introspection by the text of theatrical illusions have also come under scrutiny.isbn-9788131709818
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Pages : 272
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