The Tempest is a difficult play to categorize. Although it ends in a wedding and thus might be defined as a comedy, there are many serious undertones that diminish the comedic tone. Instead, most modern anthologies of Shakespeare's works list this play as a romance. This separate division of romances includes what are generally labeled as "the problem plays." Along with The Tempest, the romances include Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Two Noble Kinsmen, plays of Shakespeare's later years. These plays were written between 1604 and 1614, just prior to his retirement, when Shakespeare was composing plays that combined romance with some of the darker aspects of life. The romances are plays with the potential for tragedy but in which these tragic elements are resolved.
With The Tempest, Shakespeare turns to fantasy and magic as a way to explore romantic love, sibling hatred, and the love of a father for his child. In addition, The Tempest examines many of the topics that Shakespeare had focused on in his earlier plays, topics such as the attempts to overthrow a king (Macbeth, Richard II, and Julius Caesar), nature versus nurture (The Winter's Tale and King Lear), and innocence (Twelfth Night).
Although The Tempest provides the first masque within a play, the idea of a play within a play had occurred in earlier works, such as Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing. In many ways The Tempest serves as a culmination of Shakespeare's earlier work, since in this play, he brings many of these earlier ideas together in one work.
