Idealization and the Problematic in The Tempest | Idealization and the Problematic in The Tempest
Idealization and the Problematic in The Tempest
Joseph Westlund, Northeastern University
For a very long time The Tempest was perceived as an idealistic romance about a benevolent prince who by means of his art inspires repentance in his enemies and creates a better world; that critics perceived an identity between Prospero and Shakespeare reinforced the view. This comfortable and rather sentimental interpretation no longer prevails. In the most striking instance of the present shift in attitude, Stephen Orgel has written the first introduction to a play by Shakespeare devoted entirely to the discovery of problematic aspects, with the inevitable result of undermining traditional idealizations about the play.1 With similar effect, new historicist readings treat The Tempest as part of the discourse of English colonialism; from such a perspective idealization is always suspect as a political act.2...
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