Recent moves by New Historicists to evaluate theatrical material
from the early modern
period have been at the expense of what historians would recognize
as acceptable use of historical
context. One of the most glaring examples of the dangers of taking a
play out of such a proper context
has been The Tempest. The play has had a great deal of
literary criticism devoted to it, attempting
to fit it into comfortable twentieth-century clothing in regard to
its commentary on empire, at the
expense of what the play's depiction of imperialism meant for
the year 1611 when it was written. The
purpose of this paper will therefore be to suggest that the play
does not actually call into question the
Jacobean process of colonization across the Atlantic at all, and
suggests that of more importance for
its audience would have been the depiction of the hegemony of the
island nation of Great Britain as
recreated in 1603. Such a historical reconstruction is helped
through contrasting Shakespeare's play
with the Jonson, Chapman, and Marston collaboration, Eastward Ho,
as well as with the
anonymous Masque of Flowers and Chapman's Memorable Masque.
These works will be used
to illustrate just what colonialism might mean for the Jacobean
audience when the Virginia project
was invoked and suggest that an American tale The Tempest is not.