The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island is a comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 adapted by John Dryden

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...

 and William D'Avenant from Shakespeare's

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 comedy The Tempest. The musical setting, previously attributed to Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

, and probably for the London revival of 1712, was very probably by John Weldon

John Weldon

John Weldon may refer to:* John Weldon , British musician* John Weldon , Academy Award-winning National Film Board of Canada animator-See also:* Brinsley MacNamara , Irish writer, born John Weldon...

.

The Dryden/Davenant adaptation was first performed at the Duke's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, on 7 November 1667, and published in 1670

1670 in literature

The year 1670 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* The philosophical arguments of John Locke inspire the formation of the Board of Trade in London ....

. It is written partly in blank verse

Blank verse

Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...

 and partly in a sort of "rhythmic prose". The play was revised and revived a number of times, and adapted as an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 by Thomas Shadwell

Thomas Shadwell

Thomas Shadwell was an English poet and playwright who was appointed poet laureate in 1689.-Life:Shadwell was born at Stanton Hall, Norfolk, and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1656. He left the university without a degree, and...

 in April 1674

1674 in literature

The year 1674 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Isaac de Benserade is elected to the French Academy, along with Pierre Daniel Huet.* Thomas Ken and Izaak Walton visit Rome together.* The new Theatre Royal, Drury Lane opens in March...

; Shadwell's revision had a musical score created by a team of composers that included Matthew Locke

Matthew Locke (composer)

Matthew Locke was an English Baroque composer and music theorist.-Biography:As a boy, Locke was trained in the choir of Exeter Cathedral, under Edward Gibbons, the brother of Orlando Gibbons...

 and Pelham Humfrey

Pelham Humfrey

Pelham Humfrey was the first to prominence of the new generation of English composers at the beginning of the Restoration....

. This was the version of "The Tempest" most familiar to audiences up until William Macready's enormously successful production of Shakespeare's original on 13 October 1838. Shadwell's version was revived in 1701, in 1702 through 1704, in 1706 through 1708, in 1710, in 1712 through 1717, and more than 20 times between 1729 and 1747.

Dryden and D'Avenant keep a great deal of Shakespeare's sublime verse, but generally tone the play down, simplifying grammar and language occasionally, removing much of the "mythic resonance" of the original, and adding a fair amount of their own invention. The added elements include new characters — Hippolito, a man who has never seen a woman, and Dorinda, a second daughter of Prospero

Prospero

Prospero is the protagonist in The Tempest, a play by William Shakespeare.- The Tempest :Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, who was put to sea on "a rotten carcass of a butt [boat]" to die by his usurping brother, Antonio, twelve years before the play begins. Prospero and Miranda survived,...

. Hippolito and Dorinda, predictably, fall in love; their love parallels that between Miranda

Miranda (Shakespeare)

In Shakespeare's play The Tempest, Miranda is the beautiful daughter of the old Duke Prospero.Cast away with her father since she was three years old, she has lived an extremely sheltered existence. Though she has received a well-rounded education from her father, she is desperately lacking in real...

, Shakespeare's maiden who has never seen a man, and Ferdinand, son to the Duke of Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

 (or to the King of Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 in Shakespeare's version). Ariel was given an ethereal girlfriend in Milcha (Shadwell expanded her role in 1674). Even Caliban

Caliban

Caliban is a character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.Caliban may also refer to:* Caliban , a moon of Uranus* Caliban , a metalcore band from Germany* Caliban , an acoustic Celtic folk duo...

 got a sister.

Shadwell's 1674 operatic version of Dryden and Davenant's adaptation was mocked by Thomas Duffet

Thomas Duffet

Thomas Duffet , or Duffett, was an Irish playwright and songwriter active in England in the 1670s. He is remembered for his popular songs and his burlesques of the serious plays of John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, Elkanah Settle, and Sir William Davenant.By profession, Duffet was a milliner; he...

 in his farce

Farce

In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...

 The Mock Tempest, or the Enchanted Castle

The Mock Tempest

The Mock Tempest, or the Enchanted Castle is a Restoration era stage play, a parody by Thomas Duffet; it premiered in 1674, and was first printed in 1675 by the bookseller William Cademan...

, also in 1674.