[Rob Wright]

Thank you, Orwn and John. You are both quite right, the Duke and his fellow conspirators are the monsters. I should have put "monster" in quotes. I also see Caliban as a man, one who has been subjugated by what I think of as a sort of colonial power.

[John Whitworth]

But he does need subjugating since he is a savage.

[Rob Wright]

John,

But, if he is Rousseau's "Natural Man" as you insist, doesn't his subjugation constrain that natural state?

RobW

[Orwn Acra]

I am not sure Caliban is a savage, and I am not sure he wants to rape Miranda or if he is just repeating what Prospero has said to him. What I am sure about is that that last statement will be met with much disagreement. When Caliban claims that he'd have peopled the "isle with Calibans" had Prospero not stopped him from doing so, I have always gotten the sense that Caliban has been told this so many times he comes to believe it. Miranda never mentions it (or I don't think she does; it's been a while).

But also: one gets the sense that there is another story going on behind the main one and that Prospero is not a reliable narrator. And since Shakespeare scholars love equating Prospero with Shakespeare, perhaps The Tempest is the bard's way of saying that in the end it is the writer who gets the final say.

(It's silly to call an Elizabethan play "postmodern" if one uses that word to mean part of a certain time period. But I think The Tempest shares elements with what we typically consider postmodern literature.)

[John Whitworth]

I don't insist on anything, Rob. I suggest. Rousseau's natural savage, I suggest, is a load of tosh. It all depends on whether you think we are born good. I see no evidence for that anywhere. Have you seen what children do to each other?

Prospero is God. It's hard being God. I wouldn't take the job on at any price. I wouldn't even want to be poor old President Obama, the nearest thing we have to God walking on earth.

Orwn, you might say that all Shakespeare's plays contain the elements you call postmodern. Isn't Richard lll by far the 'best' character in his play.

[Ann Drysdale]

They used that speech at the opening ceremony for the London Olympics, the conceit being that THIS isle has been full of noises throughout its history - agricultural, industrial, martial... And underpinning it, the "noise", the sound, of speech at its most beautiful from one of its greatest sons.

Tootight took it once more and added another kind of beauty. Go back and watch again. And again.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Really, Annie! Tootight owns it here, it's true.
Don't knock eye shadow, Allen. I see an urgent makeover in your future.

Nemo

[Allen Tice]

Neither a panda nor a quarterback be.
That's my off-stage policy.