Magister Artium - MA / The demands of modernity and globalisation present print culture as dominant in such a way that oral tradition is forced in to a shadowy position, because the latter tradition cannot be exploited entirely for profit. Dominant scholarship on oral studies therefore positions orality in the background of writing, so as to suggest that it is a past tradition of, and serves as a reservoir for, written literature. However, such approaches reveal theoretical gaps, highlighted, as will be shown in the thesis, by the effaced position of the black woman as storyteller. Orality, in this, becomes the spectre which haunts the writing of most African writers in the same way that the black woman haunts man -centred nationalism. Such spectrality is precisely one which is embodied if not by the black woman in nationalist discourse and in society in general. I begin in by examining the representation of an archetypal black woman namely Sycorax, in William Shakespeare’ s The Tempest. Even though Shakespeare is quite ambiguous about her racial identity, I interpret Sycorax– whose story is told by male characters– as a black black woman.

This dissertation contends that The Tempest by William Shakespeare plays a seminal role in the development of postcolonial literature and criticism because it was created in a moment when the colonial system that was now falling apart was just beginning to come into being. Creative writers and critics from the Third World, particularly Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, and the First found that the moment reflected in The Tempest had something very specific to say to a generation coming of age in the postcolonial world of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. I establish that a significant discourse that begins in the Nineteenth Century and intensifies in the Twentieth depends on The Tempest to explore the nature of colonialism and to develop an understanding of the postcolonial world. I then examine the role theories of adaptation play in understanding why The Tempest assumes such a crucial role and determine that the most useful model of adaptation resembles the method developed by biblical typologists which “sets two successive historical events [or periods] into a reciprocal relation of anticipation and fulfillment” (Brumm 27). I ague that postcolonial writers and critics found in The Tempest evidence of a history of colonial oppression and resistance often obscured by established historical narratives and a venue to explore their relationship to their past, present, and future. Because my argument rests on the contention that The Tempest was created in a world where colonialism was coming into being, I explore the historical context surrounding the moment of the play’s creation and determine, in spite of the contention of many historians and some literary critics to the contrary, the forces bringing colonialism into being were already at play and were having a profound effect. After briefly illustrating the historical roots of several popular themes in The Tempest that postcolonial writers have embraced, I turn to the work of writers and critics from the Third World and the First to show how The Tempest plays a significant role in postcolonial studies.

This dissertation contends that The Tempest by William Shakespeare plays a seminal role in the development of postcolonial literature and criticism because it was created in a moment when the colonial system that was now falling apart was just beginning to come into being. Creative writers and critics from the Third World, particularly Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, and the First found that the moment reflected in The Tempest had something very specific to say to a generation coming of age in the postcolonial world of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. I establish that a significant discourse that begins in the Nineteenth Century and intensifies in the Twentieth depends on The Tempest to explore the nature of colonialism and to develop an understanding of the postcolonial world. I then examine the role theories of adaptation play in understanding why The Tempest assumes such a crucial role and determine that the most useful model of adaptation resembles the method developed by biblical typologists which “sets two successive historical events [or periods] into a reciprocal relation of anticipation and fulfillment” (Brumm 27). I ague that postcolonial writers and critics found in The Tempest evidence of a history of colonial oppression and resistance often obscured by established historical narratives and a venue to explore their relationship to their past, present, and future. Because my argument rests on the contention that The Tempest was created in a world where colonialism was coming into being, I explore the historical context surrounding the moment of the play’s creation and determine, in spite of the contention of many historians and some literary critics to the contrary, the forces bringing colonialism into being were already at play and were having a profound effect. After briefly illustrating the historical roots of several popular themes in The Tempest that postcolonial writers have embraced, I turn to the work of writers and critics from the Third World and the First to show how The Tempest plays a significant role in postcolonial studies.

William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) theatrical work The Tempest was first performed in 1611 at the court of James I. Since the XVII century until today this work of art has travelled the world and has been (re)interpreted from the perspective of multiple ideologies. This thesis seeks to understand the representations and uses that Caliban has had in different spaces and historical moments. The anti-colonial interpretations of Roberto Fernández Retamar authorize us to read metaphorically the current socio-political situation of Latin immigrants in the United States through the perspective of The Tempest. The first chapter of this thesis studies and critically analyzes the way in which the character Caliban is negatively constructed. This chapter concludes that many of the critics that are cited base their interpretations of Caliban not necessarily on textual evidence but rather on their own colonial and oppressive ideologies. To illustrate this tension I present a detailed analysis of the supposed rape of Miranda by Caliban, I analyze Caliban’s poetic voice and give historical context of the theatrical work’s production and its critical reception by the European literary tradition. The second chapter seeks to present an ideological and analytic counterpoint to this European tradition. This chapter presents the anti-colonial project of Roberto Fernández Retamar who throughout his many essays on Caliban turned this character into a symbol of Latin-American and revolutionary identity. In this section I study the evolution of Fernández Retamar’s thinking through his many essays on Caliban. To understand the importance of his literary reinterpretation I analyze the Cuban historical context of the 60’s and 70’s while paying particular attention to the controversies surrounding the “Padilla affair”. The third chapter applies a metaphorical historic reading of contemporary Latin communities in the United States using the characters of The Tempest. This chapter seeks to centralize the importance of the feminine voice in this theatrical work by combating the supposed silence of Sycorax, Caliban’s mother. In this section I do a detailed textual study to demonstrate that Sycorax, even though she has no lines of her own, is an important character in the play and can be seen as a correction to a long masculinist trajectory that has silenced the importance of women in colonial literature. This last chapter seeks to synthesize the analyzing and theorizing of literature, the studying of social movements in Massachusetts and the political and social status of Latin people using Sycorax + Caliban as an identity metaphor.