Synopses & Reviews
Tempests After Shakespeare shows how the “rewriting” of Shakespeares play serves as an interpretive grid through which to read three movements—postcoloniality, postpatriarchy, and postmodernism—via the Tempest characters of Caliban, Miranda/Sycorax and Prospero, as they vie for the ownership of meaning at the end of the twentieth century. Covering texts in three languages, from four continents and in the last four decades, this study imaginatively explores the collapse of empire and the emergence of independent nation-states; the advent of feminism and other sexual liberation movements that challenged patriarchy; and the varied critiques of representation that make up the “postmodern condition.”
About the Author
Chantal Zabus is Professor of Postcolonial and Womens Studies at the University of Paris XIII. She the is author of
The African Palimpsest, and has edited
Le Secret: Motif et Moteur de la Litterature and
Changements au féminin en Afrique noire.
Table of Contents
Introduction *
One: Calibanic Post-Coloniality * The Deprivileging of Prospero * The Rise of Caliban * Caliban on the Edge *
Two: Miranda and Sycorax on the “Eve” of Postpatriarchy * The Canadian Miranda and the Law of the Father * Caribbean Increments to Miranda’s Story * Chapter VI Including America: The Indian Maiden and the Bedizened Crone *
Three: The Return of Postmodern Prospero * The Pleasures of Intergalactic Exile * The Other Niece of Utopia: Fantasy * Sinister Variants on Enclosure * Flaunting The Tempest: From “Insubstantial Pageant” To Celluloid Fresco * Conclusion: The Selfish Meme