Context & Introduction

Understanding the historical, social, and literary context of The Tempest is essential for achieving top marks at GCSE. This lesson covers Shakespeare's late career, the Jacobean era, colonialism, the masque tradition, and the play's genre.

Shakespeare's Late Career

The Tempest was written around 1610–1611 and is widely considered Shakespeare's last sole-authored play. By this stage he had written approximately 37 plays spanning comedies, tragedies, and histories.

Period	Approximate Dates	Key Works
Early comedies & histories	1590–1600	A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V
Great tragedies	1600–1608	Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
Late romances	1608–1611	Pericles, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest

The late romances share distinctive features:

Separation and reunion of family members
Forgiveness and reconciliation rather than tragic death
Magical or supernatural elements driving the plot
Pastoral or exotic settings removed from everyday England

Examiner's tip: When the exam asks about context, link these features directly to The Tempest. For example: "Shakespeare's late romances characteristically move from suffering towards reconciliation, and The Tempest embodies this through Prospero's eventual decision to forgive rather than punish his enemies."

The Jacobean Era

Shakespeare wrote The Tempest during the reign of King James I (1603–1625). The Jacobean period shaped the play in several important ways:

Royal Power and Divine Right

James I believed in the divine right of kings — that monarchs were appointed by God and answerable only to Him. Prospero's absolute control over the island mirrors this idea.

Context box: James I published Basilikon Doron (1599), a treatise on kingship, and was fascinated by magic and witchcraft — he even wrote Daemonologie (1597). Shakespeare's audience would have connected Prospero's magic to contemporary debates about the limits of acceptable knowledge.

Masques and Court Entertainment

James I's court loved masques — elaborate theatrical spectacles combining music, dance, poetry, and spectacular stage effects. The Tempest features a masque within the play (Act 4 Scene 1) when Prospero conjures goddesses to bless Ferdinand and Miranda's betrothal.

Feature of a Masque	How It Appears in The Tempest
Mythological figures	Iris, Ceres, and Juno appear in Act 4 Scene 1
Music and song	Ariel's songs throughout the play
Spectacular visual effects	The opening storm, the vanishing banquet
Themes of order and harmony	The masque celebrates marriage and fertility

Colonialism and the New World

The Tempest was written during the Age of Exploration. In 1609, the ship Sea Venture was wrecked on Bermuda while sailing to the Virginia colony — accounts of this shipwreck likely inspired Shakespeare.

Colonial Readings

Many modern critics read the play as an exploration of colonialism:

         COLONIAL POWER STRUCTURE ON THE ISLAND
         ========================================

              Prospero (European coloniser)
                  /              \
           Ariel                Caliban
      (spirit servant,      (native inhabitant,
       earns freedom)        enslaved, land taken)
                  \              /
              The Island (colonised territory)

Prospero arrives on the island and takes control — just as European colonisers claimed lands already inhabited by indigenous peoples
Caliban is the island's original inhabitant whose land is seized — he says:

"This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, / Which thou tak'st from me." — Act 1 Scene 2

Ariel serves Prospero in exchange for the promise of freedom — reflecting how colonisers used systems of indentured service

Examiner's tip: Be careful not to present only one reading. The best answers acknowledge that colonial readings are modern interpretations and that Shakespeare's original audience may not have viewed the play primarily through this lens.

Shakespeare's "Farewell to the Stage"

Many scholars read The Tempest as Shakespeare's personal farewell to the theatre. The parallels between Prospero and Shakespeare are striking:

Prospero	Shakespeare
Controls the action through magic	Controls the action through writing
Creates illusions and spectacles	Creates plays and performances
Renounces his magic at the end	Retired from playwriting shortly after
Asks the audience for applause in the Epilogue	Addresses the audience directly

"Now my charms are all o'erthrown, / And what strength I have's mine own" — Epilogue

Examiner's tip: This is a popular interpretation but not a proven fact. Use phrasing like "It could be argued that..." or "Many scholars interpret..." to show you are evaluating rather than stating certainty.

Genre: Romance and Tragicomedy

The Tempest does not fit neatly into a single genre. It is usually classified as a romance or tragicomedy.

Key Genre Features

Feature	Evidence in The Tempest
Elements of tragedy	Betrayal, usurpation, attempted murder, enslavement
Elements of comedy	Love story, comic subplot (Stephano and Trinculo), happy resolution
Supernatural elements	Prospero's magic, Ariel as spirit, the storm
Reunion and reconciliation	Prospero forgives his enemies; family is reunited
Exotic setting	A remote, unnamed island
Passage of time	Twelve years of exile precede the action

Why Genre Matters

Examiner's tip: Understanding genre helps you analyse Shakespeare's choices. If an exam question asks about the ending, you can argue: "As a romance, the play moves towards forgiveness and restoration rather than the death and destruction typical of tragedy."

Source Influences

Shakespeare drew on several sources:

William Strachey's account of the Sea Venture shipwreck (1610) — descriptions of Bermuda's strange noises and storms
Michel de Montaigne's essay "Of the Cannibals" (1580) — the "noble savage" idea, reflected in Gonzalo's utopian speech (Act 2 Scene 1)
Ovid's Metamorphoses — Prospero's renunciation speech (Act 5 Scene 1) closely echoes the speech of the witch Medea
Virgil's Aeneid — parallels with Aeneas's storm-tossed journey and arrival at Carthage

Summary

The Tempest (c. 1610–1611) is one of Shakespeare's late romances.
The Jacobean context (divine right, masques, James I's interest in magic) directly influenced the play.
Colonial readings connect Prospero to European colonisers and Caliban to dispossessed indigenous peoples.
The play is often read as Shakespeare's farewell to the stage, with Prospero as a stand-in for the playwright.
Its genre is romance/tragicomedy — combining tragic elements with a reconciliatory ending.
Sources include the Sea Venture shipwreck, Montaigne, Ovid, and Virgil.