---
product_id: 5108268
title: "The Tempest (The Annotated Shakespeare)"
brand: "william shakespeareburton raffelharold bloom"
price: "€ 20.44"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 11
url: https://www.desertcart.de/products/5108268-the-tempest-the-annotated-shakespeare
store_origin: DE
region: Germany
---

# The Tempest (The Annotated Shakespeare)

**Brand:** william shakespeareburton raffelharold bloom
**Price:** € 20.44
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Tempest (The Annotated Shakespeare) by william shakespeareburton raffelharold bloom
- **How much does it cost?** € 20.44 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.de](https://www.desertcart.de/products/5108268-the-tempest-the-annotated-shakespeare)

## Best For

- william shakespeareburton raffelharold bloom enthusiasts

## Why This Product

- Trusted william shakespeareburton raffelharold bloom brand quality
- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

The Tempest (The Annotated Shakespeare)

## Images

![The Tempest (The Annotated Shakespeare) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31CMiuWo7VL.jpg)
![The Tempest (The Annotated Shakespeare) - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31o9W5ZBnYL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Ian Myles Slater on: Basic Guide to Prospero's Island
  

*by I***R on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 19, 2012*

I first encountered the work of Burton Raffel sometimes in the mid-1960s, when his 1963 verse translation of "Beowulf" was the "new kid on the block" in that increasingly crowded neighborhood. It was an early favorite of mine, although displaced in later years by more literal renderings; e.g., Raffel would throw in a phrase now and then which was not to be found anywhere in the Old English text. For those who like the verse style, however, it remains a "good read" (and still available in paperback and Kindle formats).Raffel's "Annotated" editions of Milton and some of Shakespeare's plays are from a later stage in his career, and in places read like notes toward a translation out of sixteenth and seventeenth-century English into early twenty-first-century American. The annotations are not explanatory or interpretive notes, expansions of metaphors, or identifications of literary or topical allusions, but mainly glosses on words which have changed meaning, acquired or lost meanings, or fallen out of use during the last 350-400 years.Compared to Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Middle English, the language of Shakespeare and Milton is definitely "Modern" -- but already archaic by the eighteenth century, and dramatically farther still from both colloquial and formal English of the twentieth century. In this volume Raffel deals with a play which first appeared in print as the first play in the (posthumous) First Folio collection of Shakespeare's plays, and which is, by Elizabethan and Jacobean standards, fairly unproblematic (only a few words and sentences are so corrupt as to baffle scholars)."The Tempest" seems to have premiered in 1610 or, more likely, 1611, and a court performance is recorded in the latter year. It is probably the last play wholly by Shakespeare, and also the most tightly plotted. It is one of the most fantastic: if one leaves aside merely far-fetched improbabilities in, for example, "The Winter's Tale," the only rival is "A Midsummer Night's Dream."It is also strikingly original, in one sense -- it is the only play for which Shakespeare seems to have had no main source, although points of detail can be traced back to the Roman poet Ovid (and ultimately Homer) on the one hand, and to the contemporary colonizations of Jamestown and Bermuda on the other.It is also the least original, in that the major characters, although given individuality by Shakespeare's genius, are variations on stock figures, especially those in traditional "fairy tales." The testy Old Magician (Prospero) with the Beautiful Daughter (Miranda), the mysterious island (or mountain, or valley), the handsome young hero (Prince Ferdinand) and other lost travelers, not all of them trustworthy (Prospero's brother, Ferdinand's uncle), the Magician's non-human servants (Ariel and Caliban), the comic-relief stooges (Stefano and Trinculo), all are familiar types to lovers of story. Which basic familiarity is probably just as well, since back-story exposition in the second scene covers material with which Shakespeare could have filled three or four acts!The same stock figures are still around, in popular fiction, (with some displacement of relationships, see Ian Fleming's "Dr. No") in overt fantasy fiction, and in a lot of older science fiction, where, not so very long ago, Mad Scientists with Beautiful Daughters, alien or robotic servants, and gallant heroes used to abound, as enshrined in the 1956 film "Forbidden Planet," with its open allusions to "The Tempest." (And with Walter Pidgeon in the Prospero role, Anne Francis as the Miranda figure, Leslie Nielson as the Prince -- well, Spaceship Captain -- and Robbie the Robot as both Ariel and Caliban.)Raffel's treatment of the vocabulary was originally made up of foot-of-page glosses, and a final comprehensive glossary (in which additional uses of repeated terms could be found, cutting down on repetitious footnotes). In the Kindle edition, this is abandoned for hyperlinked glosses (the glossary is retained, although not hyperlinked).The Kindle links work very well (at least on Kindle for Macs), but they do have the disadvantage of pulling the attention away from the play for longer than necessary. For first-time readers of the play, I would suggest a straight-through reading to get the main action and characterization straight, and then a re-reading, methodically checking the vocabulary to make sure of getting the details right.Inevitably, some of Raffel's definitions are judgment-calls as to likelihood, but his choices seem to me plausible, and most often he is probably -- or certainly -- correct.As Raffel says, he offers little explicit help for more advanced interpretations of the play, or its imagery -- but then, the first step is always to know what is actually said. The accompanying essay by Harold Bloom is interesting, but on a number of points out of step with more recent scholarship (was Shakespeare really alluding to the death of Christopher Marlowe in a passage in "As You Like It"?) He does make some interesting points worth considering, such as the relationship of the names of "Faustus" and "Prospero," both suggesting good fortune (e.g., prosperity); but I remain to be convinced that "The Tempest" is to be considered a long-delayed "reply" to Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." (Hey, what about the rival magicians in Greene's "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay"?)

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    yes, but its difficult to read the annotations on the kindle edition
  

*by S***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 15, 2013*

a friend of mine is performing in the tempest here in seattle and environs and i wanted a version of the play to read and like an academic version -- the problem is, the annotations are small aa, ab, ac, ba, bb, that are next to the word being expanded on, or phrase, and it is hard for my fingers to always get the annotation and not the turn page rather response and i don't enjoy the hopping back and forth that happens. it's a smart choice -- it only cost 95 cents, which is a real bargain. bloom, the great and possibly last great english professor, contributes to it. it is simply a bit awkward as an ebook.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    It's Shakespeare
  

*by S***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 2, 2017*

Purchased for a class assignment.  I enjoyed a number of his plays, this one is on my "enjoyed" list; however, I must confess that I didn't read this for fun.  I read it because I had to.  But for learning a few quotable lines to use at dinner parties, I would rather have spent the time fishing.

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.de/products/5108268-the-tempest-the-annotated-shakespeare](https://www.desertcart.de/products/5108268-the-tempest-the-annotated-shakespeare)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Germany*
*Store origin: DE*
*Last updated: 2026-02-20*