by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was twenty-one years old when the English founded their first North American colony at Roanoke in 1585. He moved to London, most likely in 1587, to pursue a career in the theater. There he rose from actor to mender of others' plays to playwright, director, and company coowner over the course of some twenty-eight years. Meanwhile, England under Queen Elizabeth I (who reigned from 1558 to 1603) and then under King James 1 (1603-1625) struggled to build an empire. By 1610, when Shakespeare is thought to have begun The Tempest, England had founded a colony at Jamestown, Virginia, but the colony's survival still hung in the balance. The Tempest, called a tragicomedy, is tied to this early time in English colonial history as well as to a tumultuous period in Italy's past.

Events in History at the Time the Play Takes Place

Italian history. Single-ruler governments, multiruler...