The Tempest, first performed around 1611, has been one of Shakespeare’s most adapted and popular plays. In this seminar students will be invited to consider Shakespeare’s work and the ways in which his work was mediated at different moments in history. After reading and engaging with Shakespeare’s material we will engage with other literary adaptations. These include The Mock-Tempest, an adaptation produced in 1675 by Thomas Duffett, which highlighted the themes of imprisonment, gender, politics, and morality by staging the play in a London brothel and a prison, and Hag-Seed (2016), a novelisation by contemporary Canadian author Margaret Atwood which focuses on a performance of The Tempest by inmates at a prison under the stewardship of a vengeful artistic director. Students will be asked to reflect on the transformation of The Tempest’s themes, such as performance and metatheatricality, incarceration and its impacts, and the developing ideas of femininity and masculinity across the centuries.
- Enseignant·e: Honor Jackson