Critical Quotes

Question 1

‘The Tempest’s colonial scenario…’ - Voigts

Answer 1

‘can be meaningful in any spacial framework, all more so as the play is ‘singular in its insistence on spatial ambiguity’

Question 2

‘Contemporary performances tend to…’ - Voigts

Answer 2

‘deconstruct Prospero and cast grave doubts on his authority, either by demonising him or by belittling him’

Question 3

’ The New world is Lurking…’ - Voigts

Answer 3

’ in [the play’s] lines, for instance in Caliban’s reference to the Patagonian god Setebos’

Question 4

‘Caliban first became…’ - Voigts

Answer 4

‘a crucial character in this discussion when the Romantics inaugurated his reading as a ‘noble savage’

Question 5

‘The tempest can also be seen as a reflection…’ - Wilson

Answer 5

‘of British destiny as a colonising power that will ‘raise savage people from superstition and blood-sacrifice, taboos and witchcraft and the attendant fears slaveries, to a more enlightened existence’

Question 6

‘Except for Miranda and Ferdinand, …’ Knott

Answer 6

‘who exist outside of real time, the play’s multiple plots are all based on violent struggles for power, and natural as it exists on the island is more brutal than benign’

Question 7

‘Like the play’s magic island,…’

Answer 7

‘The Tempest offers myriad interpretive possibilities’ Cherry

Question 8

‘The play is […] structured…’ Cherry

Answer 8

‘around the eminence of royal power and social hierarchy, which are both challenged by Caliban, who symbolises rebellion and disorder’

Question 9

‘Caliban is constructed…’ - Cherry

Answer 9

‘as monster, brute and savage, all reminiscent of the ways in which many Europeans represented natives across the world’