The Tempest Controversies

In discussions of The Tempest, one controversial issue has been the subject of colonialism and how The Tempest portrays the imperialistic attitude. On the one hand, Stephen Greenblatt argues that there is a hidden message that lies within the literal text that exposes Shakespeare's view on colonialism. On the other hand, George Will contends that writing should be taken as what the text actually says and there is no need for further analysis on authors' writings. However, I agree with Stephen Greenblatt and his ideas. Everybody has a different set of experiences that changes the way they might interpret a text. I feel that we should be able to read someone's writing and take what we learned from it and dig deeper than what the literal text says. I believe the best pieces of writing are the ones that have more than one possible meaning and allows the reader to have their own view on the subject. However I do not think you should be able to re-write somebody's work as Aime Cesaire did. He completely changed the tone of the piece and basically altered somebody else work of art to make his own. If he wanted to put his input on the subject of colonialism he could have used some of the ideas of The Tempest and write his own story that possessed whatever point he was trying to get across. I believe it is important to build of previous ideas, but it is not right when someone takes the same exact characters and story line and alter what the text says so it serves as a completely different meaning. In the end were all going to have our own opinions, and make our own interpretations on pieces of literature. Literature should be open-ended, so we can explore other points of view because it is relative that we do not only see one side of a subject.