In discussions of The Tempest, one controversial issue has been subtly slipped onto the table. On the one hand, Aime Cesaire argues through his rewrite of The Tempest, A Tempest, that Shakespeare's intended message was a political criticism of colonialism, religion, and race. Stephen Greenblatt argued that The Tempest "teach[es] us about forgiveness, wisdom, and social atonement." Others even maintain that Shakespeare's writing is made up of such useless blather that it is not worth mentioning in the modern pool of discussion. Yet the latter will not be used in Calvin's today blog.

However, my own view will be written as Shakespeare's own seems to have been through his text; with a much less direct attack. Shakespeare made money. Shakespeare made LOTS of money. This was partly due to the fact that he was a brilliant writer who could pour out countless amounts of plays and sonnets which not only entertained the listener, but also often held deeper, more socially-applicable meanings, as well as actor and director who could put these things onto the stage. Yet the deeper meanings, in his time, often had to be kept on, as I would say, the "down-low." Religious heretics were destroyed in his time. Colonialism ran rampant because many colonizers considered their victims to be nothing more than beasts of an untamed land. Women of intellect were still scorned; Queen Elizabeth's reign to power was an enormous and shocking leap for feminism, made successful mainly because she was such a strong ruler, and it was largely due to her support that Shakespeare's plays weren't as scorned as they could have been. Yet changes in universal thought, in a common sense, have over history come slowly, subtly. It took decades for feminists to gain the right to vote in America, and they still haven't been able to achieve the full stature of having the same rights as men. Slaves were freed, but it took decades before the overwhelming discrimination of blacks which fell like a blanket across America came to a head thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. Just as these folks had to tread carefully to induce change, so did Shakespeare not state his criticisms too blatantly in his writing. Prospero forgives his "wrongdoers" for exiling him from his country and Caliban forgives Prospero for treating him like a beast. Though Shakespeare shows within The Tempest that treating colonized peoples like animals is a disgusting and fruitless practice, he ends up revealing that the ruling power (Prospero) was ultimately right in his treatment of the people and was not all bad, for he is now allowed out of exile, just like Shakespeare wished to show the rulers of his time who advocated colonialism and sometimes disliked rulings would always come out to be the good guys. This way, Shakespeare's art could continue and the shady meanings within his plays could be subtly past out into the increasingly free generations of humans to follow.

I agree partially with Cesaire. I do agree that the overall feel of the political comments Cesaire made in his rewrite were latent in Shakespeare's original piece. Yet Cesaire's piece is exactly what it is said to be; a rewrite. It pulled from the original text ideas and then specified them to current issues, issues which Shakespeare did not himself attack. Cesaire seems to have done exactly what Shakespeare hoped later generations, or someone braver than himself, would someday do; take the wretched image that Shakespeare painted of the way Prospero treats his daughter (like an innocent, unintelligent doll), and Caliban (like a beast), and show how this treatment is wrong. Instead of showing Miranda as an innocent princess, curious about the world and in reverence of Prospero as Shakespeare showed her, Cesaire reveals the girl to be critical of her father, pointing out that he made mistakes and acting as if she were entitled to an explanation, instead of merely in want of one. Shakespeare made Caliban a dolt, who admitted to sexually desiring Miranda and seeing anyone with alcohol a God, but Cesaire made him an intelligent character capable of refuting Prospero's claims to ownership of a slave and actually angry about his position in life not simply because Prospero stole his land, but because Prospero stole his identity. Caliban of Cesaire's story considered not only the land his own property, but also his existence his property. Cesaire did not write a modern version of Shakespeare. Shakespeare is not modern or of the past, it is written in his own language and of so ambiguous of a nature that any human could sympathize with it with connection to any number of ailments. But Cesaire did write what Shakespeare seemed to have precluded and desired to inspire in his writing; an application of his writing to a personal, present problem.

Greenblatt is pointless. It seemed like he simply wanted to argue with George Will for the sake of argument. He was right when saying that The Tempest was about colonialism. But forgiveness, wisdom, and social atonement? The only person forgiven, unless another person forgiven by this man, was Prospero, who committed the heinous crime deserving of exile and sinking his fellow countrymen's ship. It was not of forgiveness, but of forgetting past misdeeds. Wisdom? All the men and girl learned was to accept Prospero as being as good as he said he was and living in blissful ignorance of his past misdeeds. Social atonement? Does this mean to say Caliban accepting his social position in the world? That's gross.