“O Brave New World, That Has Such Critics In’t”: An Argumentative Essay on Criticism of The Tempest

Sammanfattning:

Shakespeare criticism has been a rapidly evolving field of literary studies. Scholars such as Francis Barker and Peter Hulme, Meredith Anne Skura, Stanley Wells, Harold Bloom and Sidney Shanker have continuously developed new theories and dismissed previous theories. In this essay, I discuss the negative results of such attitudes and the problems of “over-reading”, in the critiques which are based on the following theories: the post-colonial, psychoanalytical, biographical and ideological. I elaborate on the relevant arguments and issues within literary critique mentioned by Michael Taylor in his book Shakespeare Criticism in the Twentieth Century. To create a common ground for the theories, I have used critical texts concerning William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I find that while all forms of literary critique have flaws, the theories also contribute valuable insights for further readings. I maintain that combining several forms of literary critique when analysing a text will create a more complex and in-depth reading, impossible to achieve through a singular critical theory.