The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's most suggestive, yet most elusive plays. It is a magical romance, yet deeply embedded in seventeenth-century debates about authority and power. This edition attends to the implications of Prospero's magic, his political and paternal ambitions, and the controversial issue of his "colonialist" control of Caliban. The Tempest was also Shakespeare's response to the new opportunities offered by the Blackfriars theater, and careful attention is accordingly given to the play's dramatic form, stage-craft, and use of music and spectacle, to demonstrate its uniquely experimental nature.