The Tempest other Interpretations Flashcards
What did critic John Dover Wilson say about the tempest being Shakespeare’s autobiography and when?
•1932
• The Tempest is Shakespeare’s ‘farewell to the theatre’
What does critic Dr Sean McEvoy say about how the tempest forces the audience to consider its political messages and when?
• 2014
•Prospero is ‘Shakespeare the Brechtian director’
What does critic Dr Sean McEvoy say about the play’s anti colonialist message and when?
• 2014
•In The Tempest, ‘the coloniser is shown to have no innate moral superiority which justifies his imperialism’
What does critic Dr Sean McEvoy say about the result of Prospero’s treatment of Caliban and when?
• 2014
• Caliban is the ‘product of violent enslavement by Prospero’
What does Dr Sean McEvoy say about Caliban in an environmentalist reading and when?
• 2014
• Caliban’s call for nature in his curses reflect resistance to human ‘exploitation of the wilderness’
What does critic Richard Jacobs say about women within the tempest and when?
• 2005
• Positioning Claribel and Miranda and Ms Prospero as virtuous ‘demonise Sycorax as the ‘dark’ or ‘other’ woman and mother’
What does critic Richard Jacobs say about Claribel and when?
• 2005
• The play passes over Claribel’s story in a ‘perfunctionary way’
What does Critic George Norton say about one of the key purposes of the Tempest and when?
•Argues the play is about identity and the ‘loss of impermanence of self’
• 2021
What does critic George Norton say about mortality in the tempest and when?
• 2021
• the play is about ‘human life inexorably dissolving away’
What does critic George Norton say about the pricing of Caliban in the play?
• 2021
• Acts as a commentary on the ‘practice of displaying for profit Native Americans brought back from expeditions to the New World’
What does John Dryden say about Caliban and when?
• Caliban has ‘all the discontents and malice of a witch, and of a devil’
• 1679
What does Neil Bowen say about the tempest and power?
•‘the Tempest can be seen as exposing fault lines in the seemingly impregnable social order’
•The Tempest presents ‘an ambiguous picture of colonialism’
What does Neil Bowen say about women within the tempest?
Shakespeare shows how ‘the political system depends on the subjugation of women’
17th century interpretations of the play
• the play was interpreted to be a religious allegory as it conveys the ideology that sin redeemed leads to virtue
• early audience may see the play as didatic, reinforcing Christian values of forgiveness and salvation, maybe viewing Prospero’s magic as sinful
Ferdinand’s conditions about marrying miranda
‘If a virgin’ he will make her queen of Naples act 1 scene 2
