THE TEMPEST
By William Shakespeare
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Having read Lamb’s version of the story, we are ready for the play as Shakespeare wrote it. To begin with, we will read it through from beginning to end with as little hesitation and delay as possible. We shall not expect to understand it all, and will pass over the more difficult passages without attempting to master them. If at times we are unable to go on intelligently, we will look at the notes at the bottom of the pages and get the help we need. This reading, however, is intended merely to give us a general idea of the play. We are spying out the land as a general might do it, trying to see what kind of a country we are invading, and to locate the places where we are liable to meet with resistance. We will stop a moment now and then to shudder at Caliban, to admire Prospero, to love the sweet Miranda or to laugh at the nonsense of the jester and the drunken butler, but we will hasten on to the end nevertheless, knowing that we will become better acquainted with the people at another time.
Having finished the play, we will return to the beginning for a second, a slower, more careful reading. Now many things that at first seemed obscure will have cleared themselves by our greater knowledge of the play. This time, however, we must read every sentence carefully and try to understand the meaning of all. The footnotes should all be read, because it often happens that when we think we understand what a sentence signifies, we give the wrong meaning to a word or phrase, and hence change the whole sense.
When this second reading has been completed, we will have a good understanding of the play, a more intimate acquaintance with the characters, and be ready for the more interesting studies which follow the play.