La Tempête ou l’évanouissement du rêve humaniste

Abstract

This article explores the different senses in which the word “modernity” has been employed in critical studies of Shakespeare’s Tempest. It first examines the different meanings given to “modernity” in Stephen Greenblatt’s postcolonial interpretation of the play and then shows how Greenblatt’s ideological approach of the play points to another type of modernity. I shall argue that The Tempest’s modernity lies indeed in its ability to exhibit the limits of the humanist world picture and to give a critical representation of humanist knowledge and rhetoric. In this sense, the play can be said to be fully representative of its own “early modern” era.

Keywords

• post-colonialism
• humanism
• knowledge
• eloquence
• monstrosity