The Tempest as a Renaissance Drama.

      ‘Renaissance’ means rebirth, which marks a shift from seeing humans as sinners to a focus on their potentials and achievements. Humanism was key part of Renaissance spirit. Quest for knowledge and power, a spirit of adventure, a quest for exploring new territories, presence of evil in the politics and interest in magic are the Renaissance element in The Tempest.
    The play’s major focus is on Prospero’s quest for perfection, knowledge and power. He devotes himself to learning even to the extent of neglecting his duties as a ruler. Use of magic is a weapon through which he can attain perfection. He attains to the status of God on the island assigning roles to the people, commanding and punishing them whenever they go wrong. The act of Antonio’s usurpation of power gives us insights into the evil that was apart of Renaissance politics. The predominance of magic in the play shows the Renaissance king’s interest is in the magical things. Prospero leaves Milan and happens to land on a new island. This incident of traveling through sea, facing shipwreck, coming to a new land reminds us of the spirit of adventure of Renaissance times made possible by the invention of compass. The quest for geographical discovery of the time is vividly referred to. The long process of colonization began during the Renaissance period. Prospero goes to Caliban’s island and gives it culture and rules over it. He seems to have fulfilled the colonizing mission. He is the representative of western civilization, goes to a wild locale and molds it in the image of his own culture. He takes the land away from Sycorax to whom it legally belongs.
    Antonio’s greed for power, Prospero’s quest for knowledge and perfection as well as his spirit of adventure form the Renaissance elements of the play. The use of magic as a means for gaining perfection and the colonization of the island also makes The Tempest a typical Renaissance drama.

Why The Tempest is often interpreted as a play about colonialism? Make a postcolonial interpretation of the play.

    Colonialism began much earlier with Columbus’ discovery of America. It was a big issue during Shakespeare’s time. The opening up of new frontiers and new land being discovered stimulated European information. Shakespeare’s imagination has taken this in to account. Exploration of new geographical spaces and control of those lands by the explorers is basically what we know by colonialism. Interpreted as white man’s burden, colonization was a means of conquering new lands and imposing the colonizer’s culture from on the native people. Prospero’s capture of sycorax’s land and his treatment of the natives of the island have prompted many critics to interpret the play as working out the drama of colonization. Caliban’s protest against Prospero and his resistance to colonial power using the language taught by the colonizer helps us interpret the play as a postcolonial text.
    The Tempest has often been interpreted as a play about colonialism primarily because Prospero comes to sycorax’s island, subdues her, rules the land and imposes his own culture on the people of the land. Pushing the native to the side he places himself at the helm of affairs. He displaces Caliban’s mother and treats her as a beast. He has full control over everything on the island. He makes Caliban work as his servant and calls him a thing of darkness. Caliban is being dehumanized or treated as subhuman. This shows the colonizer’s attitude of looking down on the colonized people. Caliban is seen as a despicable entity. The whites looked down on the people of other color. Some are born to dominate while others are born to be dominated. Caliban is treated as inferior. The colonizer used words like light, knowledge and wisdom to refer to himself while he used terms like darkness, ignorance and elemental to describe the colonized. This binary opposition shows how Prospero as a colonizer creates essences about the colonized people. Prospero sees himself as a ruler carrying out the project of civilization mission. The way light dispels darkness and knowledge dispels ignorance Prospero as a colonizer educates and civilizes Caliban but without much success. The civilizing mission is always accompanied by the politics of domination over the colonized. These elements allow us to study the play in the light of colonialism. Read More...

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