title: The War of the Worlds

text: By the time Wells wrote "The War of the Worlds", there had been three centuries of observation of Mars through telescopes. Galileo observed the planet's phases in 1610 and in 1666 Giovanni Cassini identified the polar ice caps. In 1878 Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed geological features which he called canali (Italian for "channels"). This was mistranslated into English as "canals" which, being artificial watercourses, fuelled the belief in intelligent extraterrestrial life on the planet. This further influenced American astronomer Percival Lowell.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: In 1895 Lowell published a book titled "Mars", which speculated about an arid, dying landscape, whose inhabitants built canals to bring water from the polar caps to irrigate the remaining arable land. This formed the most advanced scientific ideas about the conditions on the red planet available to Wells at the time "The War of the Worlds" was written, but the concept was later proved erroneous by more accurate observation of the planet, and later landings by Russian and American probes such as the two Viking missions, that found a lifeless world too cold for water to exist in its liquid state.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The Martians travel to the Earth in cylinders, apparently fired from a huge space gun on the surface of Mars. This was a common representation of space travel in the nineteenth century, and had also been used by Jules Verne in "From the Earth to the Moon". Modern scientific understanding renders this idea impractical, as it would be difficult to control the trajectory of the gun precisely, and the force of the explosion necessary to propel the cylinder from the Martian surface to the Earth would likely kill the occupants.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: However, the 16-year-old Robert H. Goddard was inspired by the story and spent much of his life building rockets. The work of the German rocket scientists Hermann Oberth and his student Wernher von Braun led to the V-2 rocket becoming the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line on 20 June 1944, and rocket developments culminated in the Apollo program's human landing on the Moon, and the landing of robotic probes on Mars.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The Martian invasion's principal weapons are the Heat-Ray and the poisonous Black Smoke. Their strategy includes the destruction of infrastructure such as armament stores, railways, and telegraph lines; it appears to be intended to cause maximum casualties, leaving humans without any will to resist. These tactics became more common as the twentieth century progressed, particularly during the 1930s with the development of mobile weapons and technology capable of surgical strikes on key military and civilian targets.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells's vision of a war bringing total destruction without moral limitations in "The War of the Worlds" was not taken seriously by readers at the time of publication. He later expanded these ideas in the novels "When the Sleeper Wakes" (1899), "The War in the Air" (1908), and "The World Set Free" (1914). This kind of total war did not become fully realised until the Second World War.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Critic Howard Black wrote that "In concrete details the Martian Fighting Machines as depicted by Wells have nothing in common with tanks or dive bombers, but the tactical and strategic use made of them is strikingly reminiscent of Blitzkrieg as it would be developed by the German armed forces four decades later. The description of the Martians advancing inexorably, at lightning speed, towards London; the British Army completely unable to put up an effective resistance; the British government disintegrating and evacuating the capital; the mass of terrified refugees clogging the roads, all were to be precisely enacted in real life at 1940 France." Black regarded this 1898 depiction as far closer to the actual land fighting of World War II than Wells's much later work "The Shape of Things to Come" (1933).


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells's description of chemical weapons – the Black Smoke used by the Martian fighting machines to kill human beings in great numbers – became a reality in World War I. The comparison between lasers and the Heat-Ray was made as early as the later half of the 1950s when lasers were still in development. Prototypes of mobile laser weapons have been developed and are being researched and tested as a possible future weapon in space.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Military theorists of the era, including those of the Royal Navy prior to the First World War, had speculated about building a "fighting-machine" or a "land dreadnought". Wells later further explored the ideas of an armoured fighting vehicle in his short story "The Land Ironclads". There is a high level of science fiction abstraction in Wells's description of Martian automotive technology; he stresses how Martian machinery is devoid of wheels. They use "a complicated system of sliding parts" to produce movement, possess multiple whip-like tentacles for grasping, and paralleling animal motion, "quasi-muscles abounded in the crablike handling machine".


title: The War of the Worlds

text: H. G. Wells was a student of Thomas Henry Huxley, a proponent of the theory of natural selection. In the novel, the conflict between mankind and the Martians is portrayed as a survival of the fittest, with the Martians whose longer period of successful evolution on the older Mars has led to them developing a superior intelligence, able to create weapons far in advance of humans on the younger planet Earth, who have not had the opportunity to develop sufficient intelligence to construct similar weapons.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The novel also suggests a potential future for human evolution and perhaps a warning against overvaluing intelligence against more human qualities. The Narrator describes the Martians as having evolved an overdeveloped brain, which has left them with cumbersome bodies, with increased intelligence, but a diminished ability to use their emotions, something Wells attributes to bodily function.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The Narrator refers to an 1893 publication suggesting that the evolution of the human brain might outstrip the development of the body, and organs such as the stomach, nose, teeth, and hair would wither, leaving humans as thinking machines, needing mechanical devices much like the Tripod fighting machines, to be able to interact with their environment. This publication is probably Wells's own "The Man of the Year Million", first published in "The Pall Mall Gazette" on 6 November 1893, which suggests similar ideas.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: At the time of the novel's publication the British Empire had conquered and colonised dozens of territories in Africa, Oceania, North and South America, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and the Atlantic and Pacific islands.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: While invasion literature had provided an imaginative foundation for the idea of the heart of the British Empire being conquered by foreign forces, it was not until "The War of the Worlds" that the reading public was presented with an adversary completely superior to themselves. A significant motivating force behind the success of the British Empire was its use of sophisticated technology; the Martians, also attempting to establish an empire on Earth, have technology superior to their British adversaries. In "The War of the Worlds", Wells depicted an imperial power as the victim of imperial aggression, and thus perhaps encouraging the reader to consider imperialism itself.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The novel also dramatises the ideas of race presented in Social Darwinism, in that the Martians exercise over humans their 'rights' as a superior race, more advanced in evolution.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Social Darwinism suggested that the success of these different ethnic groups in world affairs, and social classes in a society, were the result of evolutionary struggle in which the group or class more fit to succeed did so; i.e., the ability of an ethnic group to dominate other ethnic groups or the chance to succeed or rise to the top of society was determined by genetic superiority. In more modern times it is typically seen as dubious and unscientific for its apparent use of Darwin's ideas to justify the position of the rich and powerful, or dominant ethnic groups.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells himself matured in a society wherein the merit of an individual was not considered as important as their social class of origin. His father was a professional sportsman, which was seen as inferior to 'gentle' status; whereas his mother had been a domestic servant, and Wells himself was, prior to his writing career, apprenticed to a draper. Trained as a scientist, he was able to relate his experiences of struggle to Darwin's idea of a world of struggle; but perceived science as a rational system, which extended beyond traditional ideas of race, class and religious notions, and in fiction challenged the use of science to explain political and social norms of the day.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Good and evil appear relative in "The War of the Worlds", and the defeat of the Martians has an entirely material cause: the action of microscopic bacteria. An insane clergyman is important in the novel, but his attempts to relate the invasion to Armageddon seem examples of his mental derangement. His death, as a result of his evangelical outbursts and ravings attracting the attention of the Martians, appears an indictment of his obsolete religious attitudes; but the Narrator twice prays to God, and suggests that bacteria may have been divinely allowed to exist on Earth for a reason such as this, suggesting a more nuanced critique.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The novel originated several enduring Martian tropes in science fiction writing. These include Mars being an ancient world, nearing the end of its life, being the home of a superior civilisation capable of advanced feats of science and engineering, and also being a source of invasion forces, keen to conquer the Earth. The first two tropes were prominent in Edgar Rice Burroughs's "Barsoom" series beginning with "A Princess of Mars" in 1912.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Influential scientist Freeman Dyson, a key figure in the search for extraterrestrial life, also acknowledged his debt to reading H. G. Wells's fictions as a child.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The publication and reception of "The War of the Worlds" also established the vernacular term of 'martian' as a description for something offworldly or unknown.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells is credited with establishing several extraterrestrial themes which were later greatly expanded by science fiction writers in the 20th century, including first contact and war between planets and their differing species. There were, however, stories of aliens and alien invasion prior to publication of "The War of the Worlds".


title: The War of the Worlds

text: In 1727 Jonathan Swift published "Gulliver's Travels". The tale included a people who are obsessed with mathematics and more advanced than Europeans scientifically. They populate a floating island fortress called Laputa, 4½ miles in diameter, which uses its shadow to prevent sun and rain from reaching earthly nations over which it travels, ensuring they will pay tribute to the Laputians.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Voltaire's "Micromégas" (1752) includes two beings from Saturn and Sirius who, though human in appearance, are of immense size and visit the Earth out of curiosity. At first the difference in scale between them and the peoples of Earth makes them think the planet is uninhabited. When they discover the haughty Earth-centric views of Earth philosophers, they are greatly amused by how important Earth beings think they are compared to greater beings in the universe such as themselves.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: In 1892 Robert Potter, an Australian clergyman, published "The Germ Growers" in London. It describes a covert invasion by aliens who take on the appearance of human beings and attempt to develop a virulent disease to assist in their plans for global conquest. It was not widely read, and consequently Wells's vastly more successful novel is generally credited as the seminal alien invasion story.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The first science fiction to be set on Mars may be "Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record" (1880) by Percy Greg. It was a long-winded book concerned with a civil war on Mars. Another Mars novel, this time dealing with benevolent Martians coming to Earth to give humankind the benefit of their advanced knowledge, was published in 1897 by Kurd Lasswitz – "Two Planets" ("Auf Zwei Planeten"). It was not translated until 1971, and thus may not have influenced Wells, although it did depict a Mars influenced by the ideas of Percival Lowell.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Other examples are "Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet" (1889), which took place on Mars, Gustavus W. Pope's "Journey to Mars" (1894), and Ellsworth Douglas's "Pharaoh's Broker", in which the protagonist encounters an Egyptian civilisation on Mars which, while parallel to that of the Earth, has evolved somehow independently.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Wells had already proposed another outcome for the alien invasion story in "The War of the Worlds". When the Narrator meets the artilleryman the second time, the artilleryman imagines a future where humanity, hiding underground in sewers and tunnels, conducts a guerrilla war, fighting against the Martians for generations to come, and eventually, after learning how to duplicate Martian weapon technology, destroys the invaders and takes back the Earth.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Six weeks after publication of the novel, "The Boston Post" newspaper published another alien invasion story, an unauthorised sequel to "The War of the Worlds", which turned the tables on the invaders. "Edison's Conquest of Mars" was written by Garrett P. Serviss, a now little remembered writer, who described the inventor Thomas Edison leading a counterattack against the invaders on their home soil. Though this is actually a sequel to "Fighters from Mars", a revised and unauthorised reprint of "The War of the Worlds", they both were first printed in the "Boston Post" in 1898. Lazar Lagin published "Major Well Andyou" in the USSR in 1962, an alternative view of events in "The War of the Worlds" from the viewpoint of a traitor.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: "The War of the Worlds" was reprinted in the United States in 1927, before the Golden Age of science fiction, by Hugo Gernsback in "Amazing Stories". John W. Campbell, another key science fiction editor of the era, and periodic short story writer, published several alien invasion stories in the 1930s. Many well known science fiction writers were to follow, including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford D. Simak and Robert A. Heinlein with "The Puppet Masters" and John Wyndham with "The Kraken Wakes".


title: The War of the Worlds

text: The theme of alien invasion has remained popular to the present day and is frequently used in the plots of all forms of popular entertainment including movies, television, novels, comics and video games.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Alan Moore's graphic novel, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II", retells the events in "The War of the Worlds".


title: The War of the Worlds

text: "The War of the Worlds" has inspired seven films, as well as various radio dramas, comic-book adaptations, video games, a number of television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. Most are set in different locations or eras to the original novel. Among the adaptations is the 1938 radio broadcast that was narrated and directed by Orson Welles. The first two-thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a series of news bulletins, often described as having led to outrage and panic by listeners who believed the events described in the program to be real. In some versions of the event, up to a million people ran outside in terror. Later critics, however, point out that the supposed panic was exaggerated by newspapers of the time, seeking to discredit radio as a source of news and information or exploit racial stereotypes. According to research by A. Brad Schwartz, fewer than 50 Americans seem to have fled outside in the wake of the broadcast, and it is not clear how many of them heard the broadcast directly. In 1953 came the first theatrical film of "The War of the Worlds", produced by George Pal, directed by Byron Haskin, and starring Gene Barry.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: In 1978 a best selling musical album of the story was produced by Jeff Wayne, with the voices of Richard Burton and David Essex. Two later, somewhat different live concert musical versions, based on the original album, have since been mounted by Wayne and toured throughout the UK and Europe. These feature a performing image in 3D of Liam Neeson, alongside live guest performers. Both versions of this stage production have utilised live music, narration, lavish projected computer animation and graphics, pyrotechnics, and a large Martian fighting machine appears on stage and lights up and fires its Heat-Ray.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: On 30 October 1988, a slightly updated version of the script by Howard Koch, adapted and directed by David Ossman, was presented by WGBH Radio, Boston and broadcast on National Public Radio for the 50th anniversary of the original Orson Welles broadcast. The cast included Jason Robards in Welles' role of 'Professor Pierson', Steve Allen, Douglas Edwards, Hector Elizondo and Rene Auberjonois. A Halloween-based special episode of "Hey Arnold!" was aired to parody "The War of the Worlds"; the costumes that the main characters wore referenced a species from "Star Trek". An animated series of "Justice League" from 2001 begins with a three-part saga called "Secret Origins" and features tripod machines invading and attacking the city.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Steven Spielberg directed a 2005 film adaptation starring Tom Cruise, which received generally positive reviews. "The Great Martian War 1913–1917" is a 2013 made-for-television science fiction film docudrama that adapts "The War of the Worlds" and unfolds in the style of a documentary broadcast on The History Channel. The film portrays an alternative history of World War I in which Europe and its allies, including America, fight the Martian invaders instead of Germany and its allies. The docudrama includes both new and digitally altered film footage shot during the War to End All Wars to establish the scope of the interplanetary conflict. The film's original 2013 UK broadcast was during the first year of the First World War centennial; the first US cable TV broadcast came in 2014, almost 10 months later.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: In the spring of 2017, the BBC announced that in 2018 it would be producing an Edwardian period, three-episode mini-series adaptation of Wells novel. The first of the three episodes debuted in the UK on 17 November 2019. Also in 2019, Fox debuted a series adaptation set in present-day Europe starring Gabriel Byrne and Elizabeth McGovern.


title: The War of the Worlds

text: Colin Morgan starred in "The Coming of the Martians", a faithful audio dramatisation of Wells's 1897 novel, adapted by Nick Scovell, directed by Lisa Bowerman and produced in native 5.1 surround sound. It was released in July 2018 by Sherwood Sound Studios in download format and as a 2-Disc CD, a Limited Edition DVD.


title: American bison

text: The American bison (Bison bison) is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the European bison. Its historical range, by 9000 BC, is described as the great bison belt, a tract of rich grassland that ran from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, east to the Atlantic Seaboard (nearly to the Atlantic tidewater in some areas) as far north as New York, south to Georgia and, according to some sources, further south to Florida, with sightings in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750. Once roaming in vast herds, the species nearly became extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle. With a population in excess of 60 million in the late 18th century, the species was culled down to just 541 animals by 1889. Recovery efforts expanded in the mid-20th century, with a resurgence to roughly 31,000 wild bison as of March 2019. For many years, the population was primarily found in a few national parks and reserves. Through multiple reintroductions, the species now freely roams wild in several regions in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with it also being introduced to Yakutia in Russia.


title: American bison

text: Two subspecies or ecotypes have been described: the plains bison ("B. b. bison"), smaller in size and with a more rounded hump, and the wood bison ("B. b. athabascae")—the larger of the two and having a taller, square hump. Furthermore, the plains bison has been suggested to consist of a northern plains ("B. b. montanae") and a southern plains ("B. b. bison") subspecies, bringing the total to three. However, this is generally not supported. The wood bison is one of the largest wild species of extant bovid in the world, surpassed only by the Asian gaur. Among extant land animals in North America, the bison is the heaviest and the longest, and the second tallest after the moose.


title: American bison

text: Spanning back many millennia, Native American tribes have had cultural and spiritual connections to the American bison. It is the national mammal of the United States of America.


title: American bison

text: There are two living species of bison: the American bison and the European bison; and two types of buffalo: the African buffalo, native to Africa, and the water buffalo, native to Asia. Samuel de Champlain applied the term buffalo ("buffles" in French) to the bison in 1616 (published 1619), after seeing skins and a drawing shown to him by members of the Nipissing First Nation, who said they travelled forty days (from east of Lake Huron) to trade with another nation who hunted the animals. In English usage, the term "buffalo" dates to 1625 in North America, when the term was first recorded for the American mammal. The word buffalo is derived from the French “bœuf,” a name given to bison when French fur trappers working in the US in the early 1600s saw the animals. The word bœuf came from what the French knew as true buffalo, animals living in Africa and Asia. The term "bison" was first recorded in 1774, and is the correct scientific terminology.


title: American bison

text: In Plains Indian languages in general, male and female bison are distinguished, with each having a different designation rather than there being a single generic word covering both sexes. Thus:


title: American bison

text: Such a distinction is not a general feature of the language (for example, Arapaho possesses gender-neutral terms for other large mammals such as elk, mule deer, etc.), and so presumably is due to the special significance of the bison in Plains Indian life and culture.


title: American bison

text: A bison has a shaggy, long, dark-brown winter coat, and a lighter-weight, lighter-brown summer coat. Male bison are significantly larger and heavier than females. Plains bison are often in the smaller range of sizes, and wood bison in the larger range. Head-rump lengths at maximum up to for males and for females long and the tail adding . Heights at withers in the species can reach up to for "B. b. bison" and "B. b. athabascae" respectively. Typically weights can range from , with medians of ("B.b. bison") and ("B.b.athabascae") in males, and with medians of in females, although the lowest weights probably representing typical weight around the age of sexual maturity at 2 to 3 years of age. The heaviest wild bull for "B.b.bison" ever recorded weighed while there had been bulls estimated to be . "B.b.athabascae" is significantly larger and heavier on average than "B.b.bison" while the number of recorded samples for the former was limited after the rediscovery of a relatively pure herd. Elk Island National Park, which has wild populations of both wood and plains bison, has recorded maximum weights for bull bison of 1186 kg (plains) and 1099 kg (wood), but noted that 3/4 of all bison over 1000 kg were wood bison. When raised in captivity and farmed for meat, the bison can grow unnaturally heavy and the largest semidomestic bison weighed . The heads and forequarters are massive, and both sexes have short, curved horns that can grow up to long with to width, which they use in fighting for status within the herd and for defense.


title: American bison

text: Bison are herbivores, grazing on the grasses and sedges of the North American prairies. Their daily schedule involves two-hour periods of grazing, resting, and cud chewing, then moving to a new location to graze again. Sexually mature young bulls may try to start mating with cows by the age of two or three years, but if more mature bulls are present, they may not be able to compete until they reach five years of age.


title: American bison

text: For the first two months of life, calves are lighter in color than mature bison. One very rare condition is the white buffalo, in which the calf turns entirely white.


title: American bison

text: Bison are members of the tribe Bovini. Genetic evidence from nuclear DNA indicates that the closest living relatives of bison are yaks, with bison being nested within the genus "Bos," rendering "Bos" without including bison paraphyletic. While nuclear DNA indicates that the two living bison species are each others closest living relatives, the mitochondrial DNA of European bison is more closely related to that of domestic cattle and aurochs, which is either suggested to be the result of incomplete lineage sorting or ancient introgression. Bison first appeared in Asia during the Early Pleistocene, around 2.6 million years ago. Bison only arrived in North America 195,000 to 135,000 years ago, during the late Middle Pleistocene, descending from the widespread Siberian steppe bison ("Bison priscus"), which had migrated through Beringia. Following its first appearance in North America, the bison rapidly differentiated into new species such as the largest of all bison, the long-horned "Bison latifrons" as well as "Bison antiquus". The first appearance of bison in North America is considered to define the regional Rancholabrean faunal stage, due to its major impact on the ecology of the continent. Modern American bison are thought to have evolved from "B. antiquus" during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene transition via the intermediate form "Bison occidentalis".


title: American bison

text: Although they are superficially similar, the American and European bison exhibit a number of physical and behavioral differences. Adult American bison are slightly heavier on average because of their less rangy build, and have shorter legs, which render them slightly shorter at the shoulder. American bison tend to graze more, and browse less than their European relatives, because their necks are set differently. Compared to the nose of the American bison, that of the European species is set farther forward than the forehead when the neck is in a neutral position. The body of the American bison is hairier, though its tail has less hair than that of the European bison. The horns of the European bison point forward through the plane of its face, making it more adept at fighting through the interlocking of horns in the same manner as domestic cattle, unlike the American bison which favors charging. American bison are more easily tamed than the European, and breed more readily with domestic cattle.


title: American bison

text: During the population bottleneck, after the great slaughter of American bison during the 1800s, the number of bison remaining alive in North America declined to as low as 541. During that period, a handful of ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species from extinction. These ranchers bred some of the bison with cattle in an effort to produce "cattalo" or "beefalo". Accidental crossings were also known to occur. Generally, male domestic bulls were crossed with bison cows, producing offspring of which only the females were fertile. The crossbred animals did not demonstrate any form of hybrid vigor, so the practice was abandoned. The proportion of cattle DNA that has been measured in introgressed individuals and bison herds today is typically quite low, ranging from 0.56 to 1.8%. In the United States, many ranchers are now using DNA testing to cull the residual cattle genetics from their bison herds. The U.S. National Bison Association has adopted a code of ethics which prohibits its members from deliberately crossbreeding bison with any other species.


title: American bison

text: Despite being the closest relatives of domestic cattle native to North America, bison were never domesticated by Native Americans. Later attempts of domestication by Europeans prior to the 20th century met with limited success. Bison were described as having a "wild and ungovernable temper"; they can jump close to vertically, and run when agitated. This agility and speed, combined with their great size and weight, makes bison herds difficult to confine, as they can easily escape or destroy most fencing systems, including most razor wire. The most successful systems involve large, fences made from welded steel I beams sunk at least into concrete. These fencing systems, while expensive, require very little maintenance. Furthermore, making the fence sections overlap so the grassy areas beyond are not visible prevents the bison from trying to get to new range.


title: American bison

text: Population estimates in 2010 ranged from 400,000 to 500,000, with approximately 20,500 animals in 62 conservation herds and the remainder in approximately 6,400 commercial herds. According to the IUCN, roughly 15,000 bison are considered wild, free-range bison not primarily confined by fencing.


title: American bison

text: The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has reintroduced bison to over a dozen nature preserves around the United States. In October 2016, TNC established its easternmost bison herd in the country, at Kankakee Sands nature preserve in Morocco, Newton County, Indiana. In 2014, U.S Tribes and Canadian First Nations signed a treaty to help with the restoration of bison, the first to be signed in nearly 150 years.


title: American bison

text: American bison live in river valleys, and on prairies and plains. Typical habitat is open or semiopen grasslands, as well as sagebrush, semiarid lands, and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are also known historically to have supported bison. Bison also graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep. Though not particularly known as high-altitude animals, bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are frequently found at elevations above and the Henry Mountains bison herd is found on the plains around the Henry Mountains, Utah, as well as in mountain valleys of the Henry Mountains to an altitude of . Reintroduced plains bison in Banff National Park have been observed to roam mountainous areas including high ridges and steep drainages, and archaeological finds indicate some bison historically may have spent their lives within mountains while others may have migrated in and out of mountains.


title: American bison

text: Those in Yukon, Canada, typically summer in alpine plateaus above treeline. The first thoroughfares of North America, except for the time-obliterated paths of mastodon or muskox and the routes of the mound builders, were the traces made by bison and deer in seasonal migration and between feeding grounds and salt licks. Many of these routes, hammered by countless hoofs instinctively following watersheds and the crests of ridges in avoidance of lower places' summer muck and winter snowdrifts, were followed by the aboriginal North Americans as courses to hunting grounds and as warriors' paths. They were invaluable to explorers and were adopted by pioneers.


title: American bison

text: Bison traces were characteristically north and south, but several key east–west trails were used later as railways. Some of these include the Cumberland Gap through the Blue Ridge Mountains to upper Kentucky. A heavily used trace crossed the Ohio River at the Falls of the Ohio and ran west, crossing the Wabash River near Vincennes, Indiana. In Senator Thomas Hart Benton's phrase saluting these sagacious path-makers, the bison paved the way for the railroads to the Pacific.


title: American bison

text: The southern extent of the historic range of the American bison includes northern Mexico and adjoining areas in the United States as documented by archeological records and historical accounts from Mexican archives from 700 CE to the 19th century. The Janos-Hidalgo bison herd has ranged between Chihuahua, Mexico, and New Mexico, United States, since at least the 1920s. The persistence of this herd suggests that habitat for bison is suitable in northern Mexico. In 2009, genetically pure bison were reintroduced to the Janos Biosphere Reserve in northern Chihuahua adding to the Mexican bison population. In 2020, the second herd was formed in Maderas del Carmen. A private reserve named Jagüey de Ferniza has kept bisons since before the above-mentioned reintroductions in Coahuila.


title: American bison

text: Since 2006, an outherd of wood bison sent from Alberta's Elk Island National Park was established in Yakutia, Russia as a practice of pleistocene rewilding; wood bison are the most closely related to the extinct bison species. The bison are adapting well to the cold climate, and Yakutia's Red List officially registered the species in 2019; a second herd was formed in 2020.


title: American bison

text: Bison are migratory and herd migrations can be directional as well as altitudinal in some areas. Bison have usual daily movements between foraging sites during the summer. In the Hayden Valley, Wyoming, bison have been recorded traveling, on average, per day. The summer ranges of bison appear to be influenced by seasonal vegetation changes, interspersion and size of foraging sites, the rut, and the number of biting insects. The size of preserve and availability of water may also be a factor. Bison are largely grazers, eating primarily grasses and sedges. On shortgrass pasture, bison predominately consume warm-season grasses. On mixed prairie, cool-season grasses, including some sedges, apparently compose 79–96% of their diet. In montane and northern areas, sedges are selected throughout the year. Bison also drink water or consume snow on a daily basis.


title: American bison

text: Female bison live in maternal herds which include other females and their offspring. Male offspring leave their maternal herd when around three years old and either live alone or join other males in bachelor herds. Male and female herds usually do not mingle until the breeding season, which can occur from July through September. However, female herds may also contain a few older males. During the breeding season, dominant bulls maintain a small harem of females for mating. Individual bulls "tend" cows until allowed to mate, by following them around and chasing away rival males. The tending bull shields the female's vision with his body so she will not see any other challenging males. A challenging bull may bellow or roar to get a female's attention and the tending bull has to bellow/roar back. The most dominant bulls mate in the first 2–3 weeks of the season. More subordinate bulls mate with any remaining estrous cow that has not mated yet. Male bison play no part in raising the young.


title: American bison

text: Bison herds have dominance hierarchies that exist for both males and females. A bison's dominance is related to its birth date. Bison born earlier in the breeding season are more likely to be larger and more dominant as adults. Thus, bison are able to pass on their dominance to their offspring as dominant bison breed earlier in the season. In addition to dominance, the older bison of a generation also have a higher fertility rate than the younger ones.


title: American bison

text: Bison mate in August and September; gestation is 285 days. A single reddish-brown calf nurses until the next calf is born. If the cow is not pregnant, a calf will nurse for 18 months. Cows nurse their calves for at least 7 or 8 months, but most calves seem to be weaned before the end of their first year. At three years of age, bison cows are mature enough to produce a calf. The birthing period for bison in boreal biomes is protracted compared to that of other northern ungulates, such as moose and caribou.


title: American bison

text: Bison have a life expectancy around 15 years in the wild and up to 25 years in captivity. However, males and females from a hunted population also subject to wolf predation in northern Canada have been reported to live to 22 and 25 years of age, respectively.


title: American bison

text: Bison have been observed to display homosexual behaviors, males much more so than females. In the case of males, it is unlikely to be related to dominance, but rather to social bonding or gaining sexual experience.


title: American bison

text: Bison mate in late spring and summer in more open plain areas. During fall and winter, bison tend to gather in more wooded areas. During this time, bison partake in horning behaviors. They rub their horns against trees, young saplings, and even utility poles. Aromatic trees like cedars and pine seem to be preferred. Horning appears to be associated with insect defense, as it occurs most often in the fall when the insect population is at its highest. Cedar and pines emit an aroma after bison horn them and this seems to be used as a deterrent for insects.


title: American bison

text: A bison wallow is a shallow depression in the soil, which bison use either wet or dry. Bison roll in these depressions, covering themselves with dust or mud. Past and current hypotheses to explain the purpose of wallowing include grooming associated with shedding, male-male interaction (typically rutting), social behavior for group cohesion, play, relief from skin irritation due to biting insects, reduction of ectoparasite (tick and lice) load, and thermoregulation. Bison wallowing has important ecosystem engineering effects and enhances plant and animal diversity on prairies.


title: American bison

text: While often secure from predation because of their size and strength, in some areas, vulnerable individuals are regularly preyed upon by wolves. Wolf predation typically peaks in late winter, when elk migrates south and bison are distressed with heavy snows and shortages of food sources, with attacks usually being concentrated on weakened and injured cows and calves. Wolves more actively target herds with calves than those without. The length of a predation episode varies, ranging from a few minutes to over nine hours. Bison display five apparent defense strategies in protecting calves from wolves: running to a cow; running to a herd; running to the nearest bull; running in the front or center of a stampeding herd; entering water bodies, such as lakes or rivers. When fleeing wolves in open areas, cows with young calves take the lead, while bulls take to the rear of the herds, to guard the cows' escape. Bison typically ignore wolves not displaying hunting behavior. Wolf packs specializing in bison tend to have more males, because their larger size than females allows them to wrestle prey to the ground more effectively. Healthy, mature bulls in herds rarely fall prey.


title: American bison

text: Grizzly bears are known to feed on carcass and may steal wolves' kills. While grizzlies can also pose a threat to calves and sometimes old, injured, or sick adult bison, direct killing of non-calves is rare even when targeting lone and injured young individuals; attacking healthy bison is risky for bears, who can be killed instead.


title: American bison

text: Bison are among the most dangerous animals encountered by visitors to the various North American national parks and will attack humans if provoked. They appear slow because of their lethargic movements, but can easily outrun humans; bison have been observed running as fast as for . Bison may approach people for curiosity, and close encounters including to touch the animals can be dangerous, and gunshots do not startle them.


title: American bison

text: Between 1980 and 1999, more than three times as many people in Yellowstone National Park were injured by bison than by bears. During this period, bison charged and injured 79 people, with injuries ranging from goring puncture wounds and broken bones to bruises and abrasions. Bears injured 24 people during the same time. Three people died from the injuries inflicted—one person by bison in 1983, and two people by bears in 1984 and 1986.


title: American bison

text: Buffalo hunting, i.e. hunting of the American bison, was an activity fundamental to the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. This activity was later adopted by American professional hunters, as well as by the U.S. government, in an effort to sabotage the central resource of some American Indian Nations during the later portions of the American Indian Wars, leading to the near-extinction of the species around 1890. For many tribes the buffalo was an integral part of life—something guaranteed to them by the Creator. In fact, for some Plains indigenous peoples, bison are known as the first people. The concept of species extinction was foreign to many tribes. Thus, when the U.S. government began to massacre the buffalo, it was particularly harrowing to the Indigenous people. As Crow chief Plenty Coups described it: "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened. There was little singing anywhere." Spiritual loss was rampant; bison were an integral part of traditional tribal societies and they would frequently take part in ceremonies for each bison they killed to honor its sacrifice. In order to boost morale during this time, Sioux and other tribes took part in the Ghost Dance, which consisted of hundreds of people dancing until 100 persons were lying unconscious.


title: American bison

text: Today, many conservation measures have been taken by Native Americans with the Inter Tribal Bison Council being one of the most significant. It was formed in 1990, composed of 56 tribes in 19 states. These tribes represent a collective herd of more than 15,000 bison and focus on reestablishing herds on tribal lands in order to promote culture, revitalize spiritual solidarity, and restore the ecosystem. Some Inter Tribal Bison Council members argue that the bison's economic value is one of the main factors driving its resurgence. Bison serve as a low cost substitute for cattle, and can withstand the winters in the Plains region far easier than cattle.


title: American bison

text: Bison are increasingly raised for meat, hide, wool, and dairy products. The majority of American bison in the world are raised for human consumption or fur clothing. Bison meat is generally considered to taste very similar to beef, but is lower in fat and cholesterol, yet higher in protein than beef, which has led to the development of beefalo, a fertile hybrid of bison and domestic cattle. In 2005, about 35,000 bison were processed for meat in the U.S., with the National Bison Association and USDA providing a "Certified American Buffalo" program with birth-to-consumer tracking of bison via RFID ear tags. A market even exists for kosher bison meat; these bison are slaughtered at one of the few kosher mammal slaughterhouses in the U.S., and the meat is then distributed nationwide.


title: American bison

text: Bison are found in publicly and privately held herds. Custer State Park in South Dakota is home to 1,500 bison, one of the largest publicly held herds in the world, but some question the genetic purity of the animals. Wildlife officials believe that free roaming and genetically pure herds on public lands in North America can be found only in: the Yellowstone Park bison herd; the Henry Mountains bison herd at the Book Cliffs and Henry Mountains in Utah; at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota; Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana; Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary in the Northwest Territories; Elk Island National Park and Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta; and Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan. Another population, the Antelope Island bison herd on Antelope Island in Utah, consisting of 550 to 700 bison, is also one of the largest and oldest public herds in the United States, but the bison in that herd are considered to be only semifree roaming, since they are confined to the Antelope Island. In addition, recent genetic studies indicate that, like most bison herds, the Antelope Island bison herd has a small number of genes from domestic cattle. In 2002, the United States government donated some bison calves from South Dakota and Colorado to the Mexican government. Their descendants live in the Mexican nature reserves El Uno Ranch at Janos and Santa Elena Canyon, Chihuahua, and Boquillas del Carmen, Coahuila, located near the southern banks of the Rio Grande, and around the grassland state line with Texas and New Mexico.


title: American bison

text: Recent genetic studies of privately owned herds of bison show that many of them include animals with genes from domestic cattle. For example, the herd on Santa Catalina Island, California, isolated since 1924 after being brought there for a movie shoot, were found to have cattle introgression. As few as 12,000 to 15,000 pure bison are estimated to remain in the world. The numbers are uncertain because the tests used to date—mitochondrial DNA analysis—indicate only if the maternal line (back from mother to mother) ever included domesticated bovines, thus say nothing about possible male input in the process. Most hybrids were found to look exactly like purebred bison; therefore, appearance is not a good indicator of genetics.


title: American bison

text: The size of the Canadian domesticated herd (genetic questions aside) grew dramatically through the 1990s and 2000s. The 2006 Census of Agriculture reported the Canadian herd at 195,728 head, a 34.9% increase since 2001. Of this total, over 95% were located in Western Canada, and less than 5% in Eastern Canada. Alberta was the province with the largest herd, accounting for 49.7% of the herd and 45.8% of the farms. The next-largest herds were in Saskatchewan (23.9%), Manitoba (10%), and British Columbia (6%). The main producing regions were in the northern parts of the Canadian prairies, specifically in the parkland belt, with the Peace River region (shared between Alberta and British Columbia) being the most important cluster, accounting for 14.4% of the national herd. Canada also exports bison meat, totaling in 2006.


title: American bison

text: A proposal known as Buffalo Commons has been suggested by a handful of academics and policymakers to restore large parts of the drier portion of the Great Plains to native prairie grazed by bison. Proponents argue that current agricultural use of the shortgrass prairie is not sustainable, pointing to periodic disasters, including the Dust Bowl, and continuing significant human population loss over the last 60 years. However, this plan is opposed by some who live in the areas in question.


title: American bison

text: A major problem that bison face today is a lack of genetic diversity due to the population bottleneck the species experienced during its near-extinction event. Another genetic issue is the entry of genes from domestic cattle into the bison population, through hybridization.


title: American bison

text: Officially, the "American buffalo" is classified by the United States government as a type of cattle, and the government allows private herds to be managed as such. This is a reflection of the characteristics that bison share with cattle. Though the American bison is not only a separate species, but also is usually regarded as being in a separate genus from domestic cattle ("Bos taurus"), they clearly have a lot of genetic compatibility and American bison can interbreed with cattle, although only the female offspring are fertile in the first generation. These female hybrids can be bred back to either bison or domestic bulls, resulting in either 1/4 or 3/4 bison young. Female offspring from this cross are also fertile, but males are not reliably fertile unless they are either bison or domestic. Moreover, when they do interbreed, crossbreed animals in the first generation tend to look very much like purebred bison, so appearance is completely unreliable as a means of determining what is a purebred bison and what is a crossbred cow. Many ranchers have deliberately crossbred their cattle with bison, and some natural hybridization could be expected in areas where cattle and bison occur in the same range. Since cattle and bison eat similar food and tolerate similar conditions, they have often been in the same range together in the past, and opportunity for crossbreeding may sometimes have been common.


title: American bison

text: In recent decades, tests were developed to determine the source of mitochondrial DNA in cattle and bison, and most private "buffalo" herds were actually crossbred with cattle, and even most state and federal buffalo herds had some cattle DNA. With the advent of nuclear microsatellite DNA testing, the number of herds known to contain cattle genes has increased. As of 2011, though about 500,000 bison existed on private ranches and in public herds, perhaps only 15,000 to 25,000 of these bison were pure and not actually bison-cattle hybrids. "DNA from domestic cattle ("Bos taurus") has been detected in nearly all bison herds examined to date." Significant public bison herds that do not appear to have hybridized domestic cattle genes are the Yellowstone Park bison herd, the Henry Mountains bison herd, which was started with bison taken from Yellowstone Park, the Wind Cave bison herd, and the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd and subsidiary herds started from it, in Canada.


title: American bison

text: A landmark study of bison genetics performed by James Derr of Texas A&M University corroborated this. The Derr study was undertaken in an attempt to determine what genetic problems bison might face as they repopulate former areas, and it noted that bison seem to be adapting successfully, despite their apparent genetic bottleneck. One possible explanation for this might be the small amount of domestic cattle genes that are now in most bison populations, though this is not the only possible explanation for bison success.


title: American bison

text: In the study, cattle genes were also found in small amounts throughout most national, state and private herds. "The hybridization experiments conducted by some of the owners of the five foundation herds of the late 1800s, have left a legacy of a small amount of cattle genetics in many of our existing bison herds." He also said, "All of the state owned bison herds tested (except for possibly one) contain animals with domestic cattle mtDNA." It appears that the one state herd that had no cattle genes was the Henry Mountains bison herd; the Henry Mountain herd was started initially with transplanted animals from Yellowstone Park. However, the extension of this herd into the Book Cliffs of central Utah involved mixing the founders with additional bison from another source, so it is not known if the Book Cliffs extension of the herd is also free of cattle hybridization.


title: American bison

text: A separate study by Wilson and Strobeck, published in "Genome", was done to define the relationships between different herds of bison in the United States and Canada, and to determine whether the bison at Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and the Yellowstone Park bison herd were possibly separate subspecies. The Wood Buffalo Park bison were determined to actually be crossbreeds between plains and wood bison, but their predominant genetic makeup was that of the expected "wood buffalo". However, the Yellowstone Park bison herd was pure plains bison, and not any of the other previously suggested subspecies. Another finding was that the bison in the Antelope Island herd in Utah appeared to be more distantly related to other plains bison in general than any other plains bison group that was tested, though this might be due to genetic drift caused by the small size of only 12 individuals in the founder population. A side finding of this was that the Antelope Island bison herd appears to be most closely related to the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd, though the Antelope Island bison are actually plains bison.


title: American bison

text: In order to bolster the genetic diversity of the American bison, the National Park Service alongside the Department of the Interior announced on May 7, 2020, the 2020 Bison Conservation Initiative. This initiative focuses on maintaining the genetic diversity of the metapopulation rather than individual herds. Small populations of bison are at considerably larger risk due to their decreased gene pool and are susceptible to catastrophic events more so than larger herds. The 2020 Bison Conservation Initiative aims to translocate up to three bison every five to ten years between the Department of the Interior's herds. Specific smaller herds will require a more intense management plan. Translocated bison will also be screened for any health defects such as infection of brucellosis bacteria as to not put the larger herd at risk.


title: American bison

text: Among many Native American tribes, especially the Plains Indians, the bison is considered a sacred animal and religious symbol. According to University of Montana anthropology and Native American studies professor S. Neyooxet Greymorning, "The creation stories of where buffalo came from put them in a very spiritual place among many tribes. The buffalo crossed many different areas and functions, and it was utilized in many ways. It was used in ceremonies, as well as to make tipi covers that provided homes for people, utensils, shields, weapons and parts were used for sewing with the sinew." The Sioux consider the birth of a white buffalo to be the return of White Buffalo Calf Woman, their primary cultural prophet and the bringer of their "Seven Sacred Rites". Among the Mandan and Hidatsa, the White Buffalo Cow Society was the most sacred of societies for women.


title: American bison

text: The American bison is often used in North America in official seals, flags, and logos. In 2016, the American bison became the national mammal of the United States. The bison is a popular symbol in the Great Plains states: Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming have adopted the animal as their official state mammal, and many sports teams have chosen the bison as their mascot. In Canada, the bison is the official animal of the province of Manitoba and appears on the Manitoba flag. It is also used in the official coat of arms of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.


title: American bison

text: Several American coins feature the bison, most famously on the reverse side of the "buffalo nickel" from 1913 to 1938. In 2005, the United States Mint coined a nickel with a new depiction of the bison as part of its "Westward Journey" series. The Kansas and North Dakota state quarters, part of the "50 State Quarter" series, each feature bison. The Kansas state quarter has only the bison and does not feature any writing, while the North Dakota state quarter has two bison. The Montana state quarter prominently features a bison skull over a landscape. The Yellowstone National Park quarter also features a bison standing next to a geyser.


title: True Romance

text: True Romance is a 1993 American romantic crime film directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino. It features an ensemble cast led by Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, with Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Walken in supporting roles. Slater and Arquette portray newlyweds on the run from the Mafia after stealing a shipment of drugs.


title: True Romance

text: "True Romance" began life as an early script by Tarantino; he sold the screenplay in order to finance his debut feature film, "Reservoir Dogs" (1992). It is regarded by proponents as a cross-section of writer Tarantino and director Scott's respective trademarks, including a Southern California setting, pop cultural references, and stylized violence punctuated by slow motion.


title: True Romance

text: Though initially a box-office failure, the film's positive reviews, with critics praising the dialogue, characters, and off-beat style, earned it a cult following. It has come to be considered one of Scott's best films and one of the best American films of the 1990s.


title: True Romance

text: At a Detroit theater showing kung fu films, Alabama Whitman strikes up a conversation with Elvis Presley fanatic Clarence Worley. They later have sex at his downtown apartment. Alabama tearfully confesses that she is a call girl hired by his boss as a birthday present but has fallen in love with him. The two get married the next day at City Hall. An apparition of Elvis visits Clarence and convinces him to kill Alabama's abusive pimp, Drexl Spivey. Going to the brothel where Alabama worked, he shoots and kills Drexl, and takes a bag he assumes contains Alabama's belongings. Back at the apartment, he and Alabama discover it contains a large amount of cocaine that Drexl had stolen from two drug pushers.


title: True Romance

text: The couple visits Clarence's estranged father Clifford, a retired cop, for help. He tells Clarence the police assume Drexl's murder is a gang killing committed in revenge for the murdered dealers. After the couple leave for Los Angeles, Clifford is interrogated by Vincenzo Coccotti, "consigliere" to mobster "Blue Lou Boyle", who had hired Drexl to steal and distribute the cocaine on his behalf. He reveals that the mob knows about Clarence's theft since they found his driver's license near Drexl's body. Clifford, realizing he will die anyway, mockingly defies Coccotti, who shoots him dead. One of his men then finds an LA address taped to Clifford's refrigerator.


title: True Romance

text: In LA, Clarence and Alabama meet Clarence's aspiring actor friend Dick Ritchie, who introduces him to actor and production assistant Elliot Blitzer. He reluctantly agrees to broker the sale of the drugs to his boss, legendary film producer Lee Donowitz. While Clarence is out buying lunch, Coccotti's enforcer Virgil finds Alabama in her motel room and beats her for information. Alabama fights back, using hairspray to set fire to Virgil's clothes and putting nail polish in his eyes, before grabbing his sawn-off shotgun, stabbing him with a corkscrew, and shooting him to death in a maniacal rage. Clarence tends to her wounds, and they discuss their future together.


title: True Romance

text: Elliot is pulled over for speeding and gets charged when his mistress spills a bag of cocaine after he tries to hide it in her dress. To stay out of jail, he agrees to wear a wire and record the drug deal between Clarence and Donowitz for police detectives Dimes and Nicholson. Coccotti's men also learn about where the deal will take place from Dick's stoner roommate Floyd. Clarence, Alabama, Dick, and Elliot go to Donowitz's suite at the Ambassador Hotel with the drugs. In the elevator, a suspicious Clarence threatens Elliot at gunpoint, but is persuaded by Elliot's pleading for mercy.


title: True Romance

text: Clarence fabricates a story for Donowitz that the drugs were given to him by a corrupt cop, and he agrees to the sale. Excusing himself to the bathroom, the vision of Elvis reassures him that things are going well. Donowitz and his bodyguards are ambushed by the cops and the mobsters. Elliot reveals himself to be an informant by asking the cops if he could leave, whereupon a shootout erupts. Dick throws the suitcase of the drugs in the air, where it gets shredded by gunfire, and flees. Donowitz, his bodyguards, Elliot, the cops, and the mobsters are all killed, and Clarence is wounded as he exits the bathroom. He and Alabama escape with Donowitz's money as more police arrive. They flee to Mexico where Alabama gives birth to a son, whom they name Elvis.


title: True Romance

text: The title and plot are a play on the titles of romance comic books such as "True Life Secrets", "True Stories of Romance", "Romance Tales", "Untamed Love" and "Strange Love".


title: True Romance

text: The film was a breakthrough for Tarantino. Released after "Reservoir Dogs", it was his first screenplay for a major motion picture, and Tarantino contends that it is his most autobiographical film to date. He had hoped to direct the film, but lost interest in directing and sold the script. According to Tarantino's audio commentary on the DVD release, he was happy with the way it turned out. Apart from changing the nonlinear narrative he wrote to a more conventional linear structure, it was largely faithful to his original screenplay. He initially opposed director Tony Scott's decision to change the ending (which Scott maintained was of his own volition, not the studio's, saying "I just fell in love with these two characters and didn’t want to see them die"). When seeing the completed film, he realized Scott's happy ending was more appropriate to the film as Scott directed it. The film's first act, as well as some fragments of dialogue, were repurposed from Tarantino's 1987 amateur film "My Best Friend's Birthday".


title: True Romance

text: The film's score by Hans Zimmer is a theme based on Gassenhauer from Carl Orff's "Schulwerk". This theme, combined with a voiceover spoken by Arquette, is an homage to Terrence Malick's 1973 crime film "Badlands", in which Sissy Spacek speaks the voiceover, and that also shares similar dramatic motifs.


title: True Romance

text: The movie was heavily censored by the UK BBFC. The majority of the confrontation between Alabama and Virgil was cut as well as much of Floyd's drug use. There was also an alternative ending where Detective Nicky Dimes was not shot by Alabama but by Toothpick Vic, one of the mafia hitmen, instead. This edit was the official 1993 VHS release but subsequently all DVD and Blu-ray releases are of the original uncensored American version.


title: True Romance

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 93% with an average rating of 7.5/10, based on 55 reviews. The site's critics consensus states: "Fueled by Quentin Tarantino's savvy screenplay and a gallery of oddball performances, Tony Scott's "True Romance" is a funny and violent action jaunt in the best sense." On Metacritic the film received a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: True Romance

text: Phil Villarreal of the "Arizona Daily Star" called it "one of the most dynamic action films of the 1990s". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave it three stars, saying "it's Tarantino's gutter poetry that detonates "True Romance". This movie is dynamite."


title: True Romance

text: Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review remarking that "the energy and style of the movie are exhilarating", and that "the supporting cast is superb, a roll call of actors at home in these violent waters: Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, and Brad Pitt, for example". A negative review by "The Washington Post"s Richard Harrington claimed the film was "stylistically visceral" yet "aesthetically corrupt".


title: True Romance

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote, ""True Romance", a vibrant, grisly, gleefully amoral road movie directed by Tony Scott and dominated by the machismo of Quentin Tarantino (who wrote this screenplay before he directed "Reservoir Dogs"), is sure to offend a good-sized segment of the moviegoing population".


title: True Romance

text: Although a critical success, "True Romance" was a box office failure. It was given a domestic release and earned $12.3 million on a $12.5 million budget. Despite this, the film developed a cult following over the years.


title: True Romance

text: "Empire" ranked "True Romance" the 83rd greatest film of all time in 2017, writing: "Tony Scott's handling of Quentin Tarantino's script came off like the cinematic equivalent of cocaine-flavoured bubble-gum: a bright, flavoursome confection that had an intoxicatingly violent kick. It also drew some tremendous big names to its supporting cast."


title: True Romance

text: The Hopper/Walken scene, colloquially named "The Sicilian scene", was praised by Oliver Lyttelton of IndieWire, who called it "one of the most beautiful tête-à-têtes in contemporary cinema, wonderfully written and made utterly iconic by the two virtuoso actors". Tarantino himself has named it as one of his proudest moments. "I had heard that whole speech about the Sicilians a long time ago, from a black guy living in my house. One day I was talking with a friend who was Sicilian and I just started telling that speech. And I thought: 'Wow, that is a great scene, I gotta remember that'."


title: True Romance

text: Oldman's villain also garnered acclaim. MSN Movies wrote: "With just a few minutes of screen time, Gary Oldman crafts one of cinema's most memorable villains: the brutal, dreadlocked pimp Drexl Spivey. Even in a movie jammed with memorable cameos from screen luminaries [...] Oldman's scar-faced, dead-eyed, lethal gangster stood out." Jason Serafino of "Complex" named Spivey as one of the top five coolest drug dealers in movie history, writing: "He's not in the film for a long time, but the few scant moments that Gary Oldman plays the psychotic dealer Drexl Spivey make "True Romance" a classic ... Oldman gave us a glimpse at one of cinema's most unfiltered sociopaths." "Maxim" journalist Thomas Freeman ranked Spivey as the greatest performance of Oldman's career.


title: True Romance

text: "Robbers", a song by the English indie rock band The 1975 from their 2013 debut album, was inspired by the film. Vocalist Matthew Healy explained: "I got really obsessed with the idea behind Patricia Arquette's character in "True Romance" when I was about eighteen. That craving for the bad boy in that film [is] so sexualized."


title: True Romance

text: Brad Pitt's stoner character in "True Romance", Floyd, was the inspiration for making the film "Pineapple Express", according to producer Judd Apatow, who "thought it would be funny to make a movie in which you follow that character out of his apartment and watch him get chased by bad guys".


title: True Romance

text: James Gandolfini landed his iconic role of Tony Soprano on "The Sopranos" when he was invited to audition for the role after casting director Susan Fitzgerald saw a short clip of his performance in "True Romance". Gandolfini ultimately received the role ahead of several other actors including Steven Van Zandt and Michael Rispoli.


title: True Romance

text: The DVD was released on September 24, 2002, as a Two-Disc set. It was later released on Blu-ray on May 26, 2009.


title: Emily Watson

text: Emily Margaret Watson (born 14 January 1967) is an English actress. She began her career on stage and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1992. In 2002, she starred in productions of "Twelfth Night" and "Uncle Vanya" at the Donmar Warehouse, and was nominated for the 2003 Olivier Award for Best Actress for the latter. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her debut film role as Bess McNeil in Lars von Trier's "Breaking the Waves" (1996) and for her role as Jacqueline du Pré in "Hilary and Jackie" (1998), winning the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress for the latter. For her role as Margaret Humphreys in "Oranges and Sunshine" (2010), she was also nominated for the AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson's other films include "The Boxer" (1997), "Angela's Ashes" (1999), "Gosford Park" (2001), "Punch-Drunk Love" (2002), "Red Dragon" (2002), "Equilibrium


title: Emily Watson

text: (2002), "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" (2004), "Corpse Bride" (2005), "Miss Potter" (2006), "Synecdoche, New York" (2008), "War Horse" (2011), "The Theory of Everything" (2014), "" (2017), "The Happy Prince" (2018) and "God's Creatures" (2022). For her role in the HBO miniseries "Chernobyl", she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. She won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for playing Janet Leach in the 2011 ITV television biopic "Appropriate Adult" and was nominated for the International Emmy Award for Best Actress for the 2017 BBC miniseries "Apple Tree Yard".


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson was born in London. Her father, Richard Watson, was an architect, and her mother, Katharine ("née" Venables), was an English teacher at St David's Girls' School, West London. She was brought up as an Anglican. She has described her childhood-self as 'a nice middle-class English girl ... I'd love to say I was a rebellious teenager, but I wasn't.' She is a childhood friend of actress and writer Clara Salaman, and starred in the screen adaptation of Salaman's novel "Too Close".


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson was educated at St James Independent Schools in west London which were founded by the School of Economic Science. Whilst there, she witnessed "incidents of extreme cruelty" that were "very scarring for people going forward in their lives". She attended the University of Bristol, where she obtained a BA (1988, English). She later received an MA (2003, honorary) from Bristol University. Watson later trained at Drama Studio London.


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson was a member of the School of Economic Science until 1996, when aged 29 she was expelled following her part in "Breaking the Waves". She describes the organisation as a "very repressive regime" and a "system where you were supposed to think a certain way and you weren’t really allowed to think any other way". Breaking out of it, she says, was a "very powerful release" in her life.


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson's career began on the stage. Her theatre credits include "The Children's Hour" (at the Royal National Theatre), "Three Sisters", "Much Ado About Nothing" and "The Lady from the Sea". Watson has also worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company in "A Jovial Crew", "The Taming of the Shrew", "All's Well That Ends Well" and "The Changeling".


title: Emily Watson

text: In 2002, she took time off from cinema to play two roles in Sam Mendes' repertory productions of "Uncle Vanya" and "Twelfth Night", first at Mendes' Donmar Warehouse in London and later at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her performance was widely acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic and she was nominated for an Olivier Award nomination for "Uncle Vanya".


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson was virtually unknown until director Lars von Trier chose her to star in "Breaking the Waves" (1996) after Helena Bonham Carter dropped out. Watson's performance as Bess McNeill won her the Los Angeles, London and New York Critics' Circle Awards for Best Actress, as well as the US National Society of Film Critics' Award for Best Actress and nominations at the Academy Awards, the British Academy Film Awards, and the Golden Globe Awards.


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson came to public notice again in another controversial role, that of cellist Jacqueline du Pré in "Hilary and Jackie", for which she learned to play the cello in three months, and received another Oscar nomination. She also played a leading role in "Cradle Will Rock", a story of a theatre show in the 1930s, directed by Tim Robbins. Though she won the title role of Frank McCourt's mother in the adaptation of his acclaimed memoir, "Angela's Ashes", the film underperformed. In 2001, she appeared with John Turturro in "The Luzhin Defence" and in Robert Altman's ensemble piece "Gosford Park".


title: Emily Watson

text: The following year, she starred as Reba McClane in the adaptation of Thomas Harris's "The Silence of the Lambs" prequel, "Red Dragon", as the romantic interest of Adam Sandler in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love" and in the sci-fi action thriller "Equilibrium" with Christian Bale.


title: Emily Watson

text: In 2004, Watson received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance as Peter Sellers's first wife, Anne Howe, in the HBO film "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". 2005 saw Watson star in four films: "Wah-Wah", Richard E. Grant's autobiographical directorial debut; "Separate Lies", directed by "Gosford Park" writer Julian Fellowes; Tim Burton's animated film "Corpse Bride", with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter; and John Hillcoat's Australian-set "western", "The Proposition".


title: Emily Watson

text: In 2006, Watson took a supporting role in "Miss Potter," a biographical drama about children's author Beatrix Potter, from "Babe" director Chris Noonan, with Ewan McGregor and Renée Zellweger; and also in an adaptation of Thea Beckman's children's novel "Crusade in Jeans". In 2007, she appeared in "", an adaptation of the Dick King-Smith children's novel about the origin of the Loch Ness Monster.


title: Emily Watson

text: In 2008, Watson starred with Julia Roberts and Carrie-Anne Moss in "Fireflies in the Garden", the Lifetime Television movie "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" (based on the novel with the same name), and in screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, "Synecdoche, New York." In 2009 she appeared in the film "Cold Souls", from first-time director Sophie Barthes, and "Within the Whirlwind", a biographical film of Russian poet and Gulag survivor Evgenia Ginzburg from "The Luzhin Defence" director Marleen Gorris. Watson considers Ginzburg her best recent role; however, the film was not picked up for distribution.


title: Emily Watson

text: In 2010, she starred in "Oranges and Sunshine", a film recounting the true story of children sent into abusive care homes in Australia, directed by Jim Loach, and also the following year (2011) in "War Horse", an adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's prizewinning novel, directed by Steven Spielberg. In 2011, she played Janet Leach in the ITV two-part film "Appropriate Adult", about serial killer Fred West, for which she won a BAFTA.


title: Emily Watson

text: In 2014, Watson had supporting roles in "The Book Thief", alongside Geoffrey Rush and Sophie Nélisse, and the Oscar-nominated film "The Theory of Everything", portraying Jane Wilde, Hawking's mother in law, alongside Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. In 2015, she had supporting roles in "Testament of Youth", alongside Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington, Eduardo Verástegui's "Little Boy" and "A Royal Night Out", in which she portrayed Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She also received rave reviews for her portrayal of Julie Nicholson in the BBC Drama "A Song for Jenny", with experts tipping her to win the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress.


title: Emily Watson

text: In 2019 she appeared as a nuclear scientist — a composite of several real scientists — in the miniseries Chernobyl.


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to drama. In 2017, she starred in the BBC mini-series "Apple Tree Yard".


title: Emily Watson

text: In 2007, "Mood Indigo", a script written by Watson and her husband, was optioned by Capitol Films. The film is a love story set during the Second World War and concerns a young woman who falls in love with a pilot.


title: Emily Watson

text: Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet wrote the character "Amélie" for Watson to play (Amélie was originally named Emily) but she eventually turned the role down due to difficulties speaking French and a desire not to be away from home. The role made a star of Audrey Tautou. She was also the first choice to play Elizabeth I in Shekhar Kapur's film "Elizabeth", the role that won Cate Blanchett an Academy Award nomination.


title: Emily Watson

text: She is frequently confused with Emma Watson, the actress who plays Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" film series due to the similarity of their names. She has stated that she does not correct anyone who makes that mistake, as she is "quite flattered that people think I'm 21".


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson is a supporter of the children's charity the NSPCC. In 2004, she was inducted into the society's hall of fame for spearheading the successful campaign to appoint a Children's Commissioner for England. Receiving her award in the crowded House of Commons, she spoke out against the possibility that the Children's Commissioner become a figurehead with little real power. She is also one of the patrons of the London children's charity Scene & Heard. In April 2018, Watson presented Maternity Worldwide as her chosen charity on the BBC Radio 4 Appeal.


title: Emily Watson

text: Watson married Jack Waters, whom she had met at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1995. They have a daughter born in 2005, and a son in 2009. They live in Greenwich, London.


title: Emily Watson

text: Her mother fell ill with encephalitis shortly before filming commenced on "Oranges and Sunshine". Watson returned to London but arrived just after her death.


title: The Tempest

text: The Tempest is a play by English playwright William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.


title: The Tempest

text: Although "The Tempest" is listed in the First Folio as the first of Shakespeare's comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, and modern criticism has created a category of romance for this and others of Shakespeare's late plays. "The Tempest" has been put to varied interpretations, from those that see it as a fable of art and creation, with Prospero representing Shakespeare, and Prospero's renunciation of magic signaling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage, to interpretations that consider it an allegory of Europeans colonizing foreign lands.


title: The Tempest

text: Twelve years before the action of the play, Prospero, formerly Duke of Milan, had been usurped by his treacherous brother Antonio, aided by Alonso, King of Naples. Escaping by boat with his infant daughter Miranda, Prospero had fled to an island where he has been living ever since, using his magical powers to keep the island's only inhabitant, Caliban, as a slave, and a local spirit Ariel as a servant.


title: The Tempest

text: When a ship carrying his brother Antonio passes nearby, Prospero conjures up a storm and the ship is destroyed. Antonio is shipwrecked, along with Alonso, his son Ferdinand, his brother Sebastian, and the good courtier Gonzalo.


title: The Tempest

text: Prospero is determined to regain his dukedom. Using magic he separates the shipwreck survivors into groups on the island:


title: The Tempest

text: Prospero intends that Miranda, now aged 15, will marry Ferdinand, and he instructs Ariel to bring some other spirits and produce a masque. The masque will feature classical goddesses, Juno, Ceres, and Iris, and will bless and celebrate the betrothal. The masque will also instruct the young couple on marriage, and on the value of chastity until then.


title: The Tempest

text: The masque is suddenly interrupted when Prospero realizes he had forgotten the plot against his life. He orders Ariel to deal with this. Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano are chased off into the swamps by goblins in the shape of hounds. Prospero vows that once he achieves his goals, he will set Ariel free, and abandon his magic, saying:


title: The Tempest

text: Ariel brings on Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian. Prospero forgives all three. Prospero's former title, Duke of Milan, is restored. Ariel fetches the sailors from the ship; then Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano. Caliban, seemingly filled with regret, promises to be good. Stephano and Trinculo are ridiculed and sent away in shame by Prospero. Before the reunited group (all the noble characters plus Miranda and Prospero) leave the island, Ariel is instructed to provide good weather to guide the king's ship back to the royal fleet and then to Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will be married. After this, Ariel is set free.


title: The Tempest

text: "The Tempest" begins with the spectacle of a storm-tossed ship at sea, and later there is a second spectacle—the masque. A masque in Renaissance England was a festive courtly entertainment that offered music, dance, elaborate sets, costumes, and drama. Often a masque would begin with an "anti-masque", that showed a disordered scene of satyrs, for example, singing and dancing wildly. The anti-masque would then be dramatically dispersed by the spectacular arrival of the masque proper in a demonstration of chaos and vice being swept away by glorious civilization. In Shakespeare's play, the storm in scene one functions as the anti-masque for the masque proper in act four.


title: The Tempest

text: The masque in "The Tempest" is not an actual masque, it is an analogous scene intended to mimic and evoke a masque, while serving the narrative of the drama that contains it. The masque is a culmination of the primary action in "The Tempest:" Prospero's intention to not only seek revenge on his usurpers, but to regain his rightful position as Duke of Milan. Most important to his plot to regain his power and position is to marry Miranda to Ferdinand, heir to the King of Naples. This marriage will secure Prospero's position by securing his legacy. The chastity of the bride is considered essential and greatly valued in royal lineages. This is true not only in Prospero's plot, but also notably in the court of the virgin queen, Elizabeth. Sir Walter Raleigh had in fact named one of the new world colonies "Virginia" after his monarch's chastity. It was also understood by James, king when "The Tempest" was first produced, as he arranged political marriages for his grandchildren. What could possibly go wrong with Prospero's plans for his daughter is nature: the fact that Miranda is a young woman who has just arrived at a time in her life when natural attractions among young people become powerful. One threat is the 24-year-old Caliban, who has spoken of his desire to rape Miranda, and "people this isle with Calibans", and who has also offered Miranda's body to a drunken Stephano. Another threat is represented by the young couple themselves, who might succumb to each other prematurely. Prospero says:


title: The Tempest

text: Prospero, keenly aware of all this, feels the need to teach Miranda—an intention he first stated in act one. The need to teach Miranda is what inspires Prospero in act four to create the masque, and the "value of chastity" is a primary lesson being taught by the masque along with having a happy marriage.


title: The Tempest

text: It is not known for certain exactly when "The Tempest" was written, but evidence supports the idea that it was probably composed sometime between late 1610 to mid-1611. It is considered one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. Evidence supports composition perhaps occurring before, after, or at the same time as "The Winter's Tale". Edward Blount entered "The Tempest" into the Stationers' Register on 8 November 1623. It was one of 16 Shakespeare plays that Blount registered on that date.


title: The Tempest

text: There is no obvious single origin for the plot of "The Tempest"; it appears to have been created with several sources contributing. Since source scholarship began in the eighteenth century, researchers have suggested passages from "Naufragium" ("The Shipwreck"), one of the colloquies in Erasmus's "Colloquia Familiaria" (1518), and Richard Eden's 1555 translation of Peter Martyr's "De orbo novo" (1530).


title: The Tempest

text: William Strachey's "A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight", an eyewitness report of the real-life shipwreck of the "Sea Venture" in 1609 on the island of Bermuda while sailing toward Virginia, is considered a primary source for the opening scene, as well as a few other references in the play to conspiracies and retributions. Although not published until 1625, Strachey's report, one of several describing the incident, is dated 15 July 1610, and it is thought that Shakespeare may have seen it in manuscript sometime during that year. E.K. Chambers identified the "True Reportory" as Shakespeare's "main authority" for "The Tempest". Regarding the influence of Strachey in the play, Kenneth Muir says that although "[t]here is little doubt that Shakespeare had read ... William Strachey's "True Reportory"" and other accounts, "[t]he extent of the verbal echoes of [the Bermuda] pamphlets has, I think, been exaggerated. There is hardly a shipwreck in history or fiction which does not mention splitting, in which the ship is not lightened of its cargo, in which the passengers do not give themselves up for lost, in which north winds are not sharp, and in which no one gets to shore by clinging to wreckage", and goes on to say that "Strachey's account of the shipwreck is blended with memories of Saint Paul's—in which too not a hair perished—and with Erasmus' colloquy." The character of Stephano has been identified with Stephen Hopkins, who later signed the Mayflower Compact.


title: The Tempest

text: Another "Sea Venture" survivor, Sylvester Jourdain, published his account, "A Discovery of The Barmudas" dated 13 October 1610; Edmond Malone argues for the 1610–11 date on the account by Jourdain and the Virginia Council of London's "A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia" dated 8 November 1610.


title: The Tempest

text: Michel de Montaigne's essay "Of the Caniballes" is considered a source for Gonzalo's utopian speculations in Act II, scene 1, and possibly for other lines that refer to differences between cultures.


title: The Tempest

text: A poem entitled "Pimlyco; or, Runne Red-Cap" was published as a pamphlet in 1609. It was written in praise of a tavern in Hoxton. The poem includes extensive quotations of an earlier (1568) poem, "The Tunning of Elynor Rymming", by John Skelton. The pamphlet contains a pastoral story of a voyage to an island. There is no evidence that Shakespeare read this pamphlet, was aware of it, or had used it. However, the poem may be useful as a source to researchers regarding how such themes and stories were being interpreted and told in London near to the time "The Tempest" was written.


title: The Tempest

text: "The Tempest" may take its overall structure from traditional Italian "commedia dell'arte", which sometimes featured a magus and his daughter, their supernatural attendants, and a number of rustics. The "commedia" often featured a clown known as Arlecchino (or his predecessor, Zanni) and his partner Brighella, who bear a striking resemblance to Stephano and Trinculo; a lecherous Neapolitan hunchback who corresponds to Caliban; and the clever and beautiful Isabella, whose wealthy and manipulative father, Pantalone, constantly seeks a suitor for her, thus mirroring the relationship between Miranda and Prospero.


title: The Tempest

text: Gonzalo's description of his ideal society (2.1.148–157, 160–165) thematically and verbally echoes Montaigne's essay "Of the Canibales", translated into English in a version published by John Florio in 1603. Montaigne praises the society of the Caribbean natives: "It is a nation ... that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of Letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no successions, no dividences, no occupation but idle; no respect of kinred, but common, no apparrell but natural, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corne, or mettle. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousnes, envie, detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them."


title: The Tempest

text: A source for Prospero's speech in act five, in which he bids farewell to magic (5.1.33–57) is an invocation by the sorceress Medea found in Ovid's poem "Metamorphoses". Medea calls out:


title: The Tempest

text: "The Tempest" first appeared in print in 1623 in the collection of thirty-six of Shakespeare's plays entitled, "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies; Published according to the True and Original Copies", which is known as the First Folio. The plays, including "The Tempest", were gathered and edited by John Heminges and Henry Condell.


title: The Tempest

text: A handwritten manuscript of "The Tempest" was prepared by Ralph Crane, a scrivener employed by the King's Men. A scrivener is one who has a talent and is practiced at using a quill pen and ink to create legible manuscripts. Crane probably copied from Shakespeare's rough draft, and based his style on Ben Jonson's Folio of 1616. Crane is thought to have neatened texts, edited the divisions of acts and scenes, and sometimes added his own improvements. He was fond of joining words with hyphens, and using elisions with apostrophes, for example by changing "with the king" to read: "w’th' King". The elaborate stage directions in "The Tempest" may have been due to Crane; they provide evidence regarding how the play was staged by the King's Company.


title: The Tempest

text: The entire First Folio project was delivered to the blind printer, William Jaggard, and printing began in 1622. "The Tempest" is the first play in the publication. It was proofread and printed with special care; it is the most well-printed and the cleanest text of the thirty-six plays. To do the work of setting the type in the printing press, three compositors were used for "The Tempest". In the 1960s, a landmark bibliographic study of the First Folio was accomplished by Charlton Hinman. Based on distinctive quirks in the printed words on the page, the study was able to individuate the compositors, and reveal that three compositors worked on "The Tempest", who are known as Compositor B, C, and F. Compositor B worked on "The Tempest"s first page as well as six other pages. He was an experienced journeyman in Jaggard's printshop, who occasionally could be careless. He also was fond of dashes and colons, where modern editions use commas. In his role, he may have had a responsibility for the entire First Folio. The other two, Compositors C and F, worked full-time and were experienced printers.


title: The Tempest

text: At the time, spelling and punctuation was not standardized and will vary from page to page, because each compositor had their individual preferences and styles. There is evidence that the press run was stopped at least four times, which allowed proofreading and corrections. However, a page with an error would not be discarded, so pages late in any given press run would be the most accurate, and each of the final printed folios may vary in this regard. This is the common practice at the time. There is also an instance of a letter (a metal sort or a type) being damaged (possibly) during the course of a run and changing the meaning of a word: After the masque Ferdinand says,


title: The Tempest

text: The word "wise" at the end of line 123 was printed with the traditional long "s" that resembles an "f". But in 1978 it was suggested that during the press run, a small piece of the crossbar on the type had broken off, and the word should be "wife". Modern editors have not come to an agreement—Oxford says "wife", Arden says "wise".


title: The Tempest

text: "The Tempest" is explicitly concerned with its own nature as a play, frequently drawing links between Prospero's art and theatrical illusion; the shipwreck was a spectacle that Ariel performed, while Antonio and Sebastian are cast in a troupe to act. Prospero may even refer to the Globe Theatre when he describes the whole world as an illusion: "the great globe ... shall dissolve ... like this insubstantial pageant". Ariel frequently disguises himself as figures from Classical mythology, for example a nymph, a harpy, and Ceres, acting as the latter in a masque and anti-masque that Prospero creates.


title: The Tempest

text: Thomas Campbell in 1838 was the first to consider that Prospero was meant to partially represent Shakespeare, but then abandoned that idea when he came to believe that "The Tempest" was an early play.


title: The Tempest

text: As it was Shakespeare's last solo play, "The Tempest" has often been seen as a valedictory for his career, specifically in Prospero's final speech in which he tells the audience "Let your indulgence set me free", asking to be released from the stage one last time before retiring.


title: The Tempest

text: Prospero is a magician, whose magic is a beneficial "white magic". Prospero learned his magic by studying in his books about nature, and he uses magic to achieve what he considers positive outcomes. Shakespeare uses Caliban to indicate the opposite—evil black magic. Caliban's mother, Sycorax, who does not appear, represents the horrors that were stirring at this time in England and elsewhere regarding witchcraft and black magic. Magic was taken seriously and studied by serious philosophers, notably the German Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, who in 1533 published in three volumes his "De Occulta Philosophia", which summarized work done by Italian scholars on the topic of magic. Agrippa's work influenced John Dee (1527–1608), an Englishman, who, like Prospero, had a large collection of books on the occult, as well as on science and philosophy. It was a dangerous time to philosophize about magic—Giordano Bruno, for example, was burned at the stake in Italy in 1600, just a few years before "The Tempest" was written.


title: The Tempest

text: Prospero uses magic grounded in science and reality—the kind that was studied by Agrippa and Dee. Prospero studied and gradually was able to develop the kind of power represented by Ariel, which extended his abilities. Sycorax's magic was not capable of something like Ariel: "Ariel is a spirit too delicate to act her earthy and abhored commands." Prospero's rational goodness enables him to control Ariel, where Sycorax can only trap him in a tree. Sycorax's magic is described as destructive and terrible, where Prospero's is said to be wondrous and beautiful. Prospero seeks to set things right in his world through his magic, and once that is done, he renounces it, setting Ariel free.


title: The Tempest

text: What Prospero is trying to do with magic is essential to "The Tempest;" it is the unity of action. It is referred to it as Prospero's project in act two when Ariel stops an attempted assassination:


title: The Tempest

text: Prospero seems to know precisely what he wants. Beginning with the tempest at the top of the play, his project is laid out in a series of steps. "Bountiful fortune" has given him a chance to affect his destiny, and that of his county and family.


title: The Tempest

text: His plan is to do all he can to reverse what was done twelve years ago when he was usurped: First he will use a tempest to cause certain persons to fear his great powers, then when all survived unscathed, he will separate those who lived through the tempest into different groups. These separations will let him deal with each group differently. Then Prospero's plan is to lead Ferdinand to Miranda, having prepared them both for their meeting. What is beyond his magical powers is to cause them to fall in love—but yet they do. The next stages for the couple will be a testing. To help things along he magically makes the others fall into a sleep. The masque which is to educate and prepare the couple is next. But then his plans begin to go off the tracks when the masque is interrupted. Next Prospero confronts those who usurped him, he demands his dukedom and a "brave new world" by the merging of Milan and Naples through the marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda.


title: The Tempest

text: Prospero's magic hasn't worked on Sebastian and Antonio, who are not penitent. Prospero then deals with Antonio, not with magic, but with something more mundane—blackmail. This failure of magic is significant, and critics disagree regarding what it means: Jan Kott considers it a disillusionment for both Prospero and for the author. E. M. W. Tillyard plays it down as a minor disappointment. Some critics consider Sebastian and Antonio clownish and not a real threat. Stephen Orgel blames Prospero for causing the problem by forgetting about Sebastian and Antonio, which may introduce a theme of Prospero's encroaching dotage. David Hirst suggests that the failure of Prospero's magic may have a deeper explanation: He suggests that Prospero's magic has had no effect at all on certain things (like Caliban), that Prospero is idealistic and not realistic, and that his magic makes Prospero like a god, but it also makes him other than human, which explains why Prospero seems impatient and ill-suited to deal with his daughter, for example, when issues call on his humanity, not his magic. It explains his dissatisfaction with the "real world", which is what cost him his dukedom, for example, in the first place. In the end Prospero is learning the value of being human.