Tempest Context

Question 1

Colonialism

Answer 1

At the time of the play, in the early 17th century, colonisation was seen as an instrument to spread the English language around the world – as Greenblatt states ‘the importance of the link between language and empire was recognised early on in the colonial enterprise! The contemporary views would be that the teaching of language to ‘brutal’ savages as a moral and Christian duty a ‘hope to deliver the world from a foul and general error’ (Strachey letter on the Bermudas).

Question 2

Machiavel

Answer 2

A villainous stock character in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, so called after the Florentine writer Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavels are practised liars and cruel opportunists, who delight in their own manipulative evil (Gray)

Question 3

The Divine Right of Kings

Answer 3

“Kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throng, but even by God himself are called gods.” (King James 1)

Question 4

Miranda’s abhorred speech

Answer 4

In the 18th and 19th centuries her speech was give to Prospero instead