SOURCE: "The Tempest," in Shakespeare: The Four Romances, W. W. Norton & Company, 1989, pp. 123-157.

In the following essay, Adams provides an account of the sources, structure, themes, and characterization of The Tempest.

Three facts about … [The Tempest]—all true, all of questionable import—frame any discussion of the drama. It was Shakespeare's last complete play, if not the last work he did for the theater; unusually among the dramas, it occupies restricted space and limited time, that is, observes the "unities"; and though there are some sources and many analogues for particular details of scene, action, or verbal expression, no single source provided the armature for [The Tempest]—as the core of [Pericles] derives from the legend of Apollonius, the main component of [Cymbeline] from Decameron II.9, and most of [The Winter's Tale] from Pandosto. All three of these facts can be made to point toward a single...