#the tempest play by william shakespeare

[artemlegere]

Miranda

Artist: John William Waterhouse (English, 1849–1917)

Date: 1875

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Private collection

Description

In a foreground of sea-shore Miranda, lightly draped, is seated on a rock, watching with clasped hands and partly averted face the brave ship tossing in the offing; the blue sea breaks unheeded on the sand, her eyes being wholly absorbed by the vessel, which is yet to suffer through the magic of Prospero… satisfying potency of colour and a finely graduated brilliance of illumination give admirable force and relief to the figure.’ (J.A. Blaikie, ‘J.W. Waterhouse, A.R.A.’, In Magazine of Art, 1886, p.3

The plays of Shakespeare were among the greatest sources of inspiration for John William Waterhouse, whose depictions of Ophelia are world famous. The present picture was Waterhouse’s first depiction of a heroine from Shakespeare and only his second exhibit at the Royal Academy. The painting was hailed as a major rediscovery in 2004 when it was found in a private collection in Scotland, having been lost for 131 years. It was a known painting and reproduced in Anthony Hobson’s seminal book on the artist published in 1989 but the image was reversed and in black and white and conveyed little of the quiet beauty of the picture.

Miranda depicts a scene of the artist’s own invention which precedes the opening of Shakespeare’s play. On a sandy beach, strewn with seashells and seaweed Miranda, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Prospero, sits alone and gazes out over the waves, her eyes fixed on the far horizon where the sails of a ship can be seen. Most artists painted Miranda witnessing the destruction of the ship carrying her eventual lover Ferdinand. Much later in his life this was the scene that Waterhouse himself painted on two occasions. However as a young man, he chose to depict a more unusual and more touching subject of the pensive Miranda awaiting the ship on the island to which she has been exiled for twelve years, as the ominous storm-clouds gather.

[britneyshakespeare]

I'm curious about people's levels of familiarity; I intend no judgment or elitism and it's absolutely fine not to be a completionist, btw. I didn't think I would've intended to have read them all at age 25; it just sort of happened that after I passed the halfway point in the middle of 2023, I came out of a reading slump and was motivated to finish. Fwiw I consider myself a hobbyist (I am not involved in academia or professional theater) but I realize that that label is usually attributed to people with less experience.

I also have always loved seeing other bloggers' Shakespeare polls where they put certain plays or characters up against each other, but I'm often left wondering if it's really a 'fair' fight all the time if you're putting up something like Hamlet or Twelfth Night against one of the more obscure works, like the Winter's Tale. It's not a grave affront to vote in those polls if you don't know every play, but I am curious about it.

Please reblog for exposure if you vote; I would appreciate it a lot. Also feel free to elaborate on your own Shakespeare journey in tags, comments, reblogs, because I love to hear about other people's personal relationships to literature.

[mrs-starkgaryen]

Favourite Shakespeare's Comedies

After my other poll, I am going to be specific. There shall be a battle of the favourites!!

For-

Two Gentleman of Verona (comment 🐕)

Winter's Tale (comment ⌛️)

For the love of Shakespeare, please reblog for a better analysis

[derangedrhythms]

William Shakespeare, from 'The Tempest'

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

(Illustration is from Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of Shakespeare's plays).

* * * *

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest.

(Sherry Baker)

[shakespearenews]

A month of Shakespeare News!

4/4: Someone won the "Sleep No More" auction and has a taxidermied javelina in their house. Also, Arthur Miller's first radio play was about Shakespeare forger William Henry Ireland because [reasons], someone doodled in a First Folio, and Ophelia gets some chemical help.

[cyber-corp]

Can’t believe Shakespeare made Prospero his self-insert and then made him say “maybe the TRUE tempest were the friends we made along the way ….”

[rickie-the-storyteller]

Another Poll!

I've missed doing these lol.

Here's a fun question that's been on my mind lately... and it has nothing to do with my own writing.

Yes, I'm aware that there are more plays. These were just the ones I could think of currently.

Perhaps I'll do a part 2...

I love these stories so much. I don't know what I'd pick here as my personal favourite. Maybe Romeo and Juliet? Since that was my introduction to Shakespeare growing up lol. Or Macbeth... because GCSE English vibes lol.

Can't wait to see what you guys think!

[galleryofart]

Miranda - The Tempest

Artist: John William Waterhouse (English, 1849–1917)

Date: 1916

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Private collection

Description

In 1916 Waterhouse submitted three works to the Royal Academy: the group composition A Tale from the Decameron along with two single figure works "I am Half Sick of Shadows," said the Lady of Shalott and Miranda-The Tempest. As the titles suggest, Waterhouse had abandoned classical myths as subjects in favor of medieval and Renaissance narratives, often centering on a woman experiencing a revelation.

The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's most romantic plays, written late in his career, circa 1611; its original performance a year later coincided with the wedding of Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of England's James I to Frederick, the Elector Palatine, later King of Bohemia.

As with many of Waterhouse's single-figure pictures of women, Miranda is a legendary, mystical woman withdrawn from the world, her future in peril. Miranda, her expression hidden from the viewer in three quarter profile, becomes a decorative object of dangerous beauty, her body surrounded by the violent bruised blue waves, the broken bits of Ferdinand's ship's mast suggesting the destructive, transformative power of love.

[litandlifequotes]

Hell is empty. And all the devils are here.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

[artemlegere]

Prospero and Miranda (from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act I Scene II

Artist: Henry Thomson RA (English, 1773-1843)

Date: c. 1804-1805

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Trust Collections, London, United Kingdom

Description

Prospero stands in the centre, in a cave, his back to the viewer, but towards Miranda on his right. Ferdinand approaches them from the beach with signs of a shipwreck behind whilst the spirit Ariel hovers above in the sky, playing music. It depicts the second scene in the first Act of the play after the daughter has declared: 'If by your art, my dearest father, you have / Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.'

[midnightfreedom]

" Hell is empty and all the devils are here. "

~ William Shakespeare

[bookholichany]

These are my favourite Shakespearean performances.( We don't have them on stage or any access to foreign movies in cinemas here. So these are the best from those I could find on the internet or digital channels.)

[derangedrhythms]

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

William Shakespeare, from 'The Tempest'

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

god. i love miranda thetempest.

she’s a teenage girl who’s spent all the days of her living memory on a deserted island. she’s surrounded by magic but not privy to it. she has a dad who doesn’t treat her like a full human being. she’s an attempted rape survivor. and once again—she’s a teenager! she’s growing up, going through some of the most painful years!

she lashes out, of course. she talks back. she defies everyone who tries to hurt her or hurt other people. she hurts too—in more ways than one.

and yet.

she’s not just soft—this is a girl who is accustomed to carrying logs and will gladly do so because she’s more fit to it than this sheltered royal boy she meets. she screams at her dad. she screams at caliban. she screams at herself, beats herself up for breaking the rules that have been so engrained in her.

but at the same time, none of this has broken her spirit. she is so intensely empathetic. she cries out for humanity in a magical, inhuman world. she falls madly in love with the first boy she meets and she allows herself to be poetic, to be truly open and vulnerable, to be equal, to be truly herself with someone who adores her exactly as she is. she’s so intelligent. she’s the first one to propose in the exquisite scene that is 3.1.

she is brimming, nay, overflowing with joy and wonder and love.

“o wonder! how many goodly creatures are there here! how beauteous mankind is! o, brave new world that has such people in ’t!”

in short, i fucking love her, as i have since i saw the taymor tempest way back in 2013. and thank you dearly, @socialshakespeare for letting me take a turn at bringing her to life <3