Tempest Critics

Ava Bateson

The tempest is extremely obliging work of art which leads itself to almost any interpretation

Samuel Pepys

The most innocent play

• Dryden version - ‘the enchanted isle‘

Bowling

Theme of natural order

Thompson

Highlights a ‘pattern of exploitation’

Noel Cobb

Ariel is Prospero's diligence

Contemporary audiences

Ariel is the real magical force

Mannoni

argues prospero has an ‘inferiority complex’

18th century veiw of Prospero

• They focus on Prospero as  ‘wise man’ and ‘moral governor’

  • Algins with view of current monarchy - James I

Gilding

the characters ‘are perfectly distinct from the other’

• specifically referring to use of lang

Gilding

Caliban's ‘ill nature’

Heath

there was nothing in Caliban language to distinguish him from Prospero

S. Johnson

Caliban is ‘clouded by the gloominess of his temper and the malignity of his purpose’

Schlegel

saw the relationship between Miranda and Ferdinand as beautiful and enchanting

Coleridge

Caliban is a creature of the earth + a brute

Coleridge

Ariel is a innocent childlike being

Hazlitt

Prospero = ‘stately magician‘

Miranda = ‘Goddess of the isle‘

Ferdinand = ‘Princely‘

Ania Loomba

Sycorax and Miranda ‘split the patriarchal stereotype of women as the white devil-virgin and whore goddess‘

Ania Loomba

Prosperos conquest of the isle is ‘a radical plunder and transfer to patriarchy‘

Ann Thompson

attributes enormous power to female chastity and fertility

Charry

harmony is consistently disrupted and happiness diluted

Greenblatt

language is the perfect instument of empire