Department of English

Did Shakespeare write about an enslaved black man before the advent of slavery in England’s colonies in the Americas? Or perhaps about a Native American or an Irish man? Modern critics have associated the monstrous character of Caliban, in Shakespeare’s play about Europeans shipwrecked on a newly discovered island, with numerous races. Some have interpreted Caliban as African, African American, or black Caribbean; others have argued that his character was based on contemporary characterizations of Native Americans or the Irish. But what would have been Shakespeare’s own understanding of these non-English peoples? This course seeks to investigate how racial difference was conceived in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, given dominant discourse that claims race was an eighteenth-century development. We will do so by contextualizing the play alongside a number of early modern European archives, including travel narratives, maps, scientific writing, and drawings depicting various cultures. We will use these documents to consider the ways in which racial difference intersects with gender, religion, nationality, and language to analyze various characters in the play.

In this course we will also examine modern criticism and debates that have associated the play with discussions of race, slavery, and colonialism. We will think through how race has been imagined over time and why The Tempest has served as an exemplar for the exploration of these themes.    

Assignments will include brief analytical and creative responses and a final paper that we will scaffold over the semester. No previous familiarity with Shakespeare is required.