Ania Loomba, “Gender, race, Renaissance Drama”

1. What does Loomba means when she says that the “dominant fictional representation [of black men] has legitimized both patriarchal and racist myths of female and black sexuality”(392)? How is this claim connected with her discussion of Caliban?

2. In what ways does Loomba draw a contrast between Miranda and Sycorax? Why does she think that this contrast is significant in understanding how gender assumptions function in the play?

3. How, for Loomba, do notions of sexual desire shape the characters of Prospero, Miranda, and Caliban?

Francis Barker and Peter Hulme, “Nymphs and Reapers Heavily Vanish: The Discursive Con-texts of The Tempest”

1. Why do Barker and Hulme argue that literary criticism should not focus on the unity of a text?

2. In what ways does The Tempest serve as an example, for Barker and Hulme, of what they call “colonialist legitimation”(302)?

3. What do Barker and Hulme think is the significance of Prospero’s sudden statement that he had “forgot that foul conspiracy/Of the beast Caliban and his confederates”(4.1.139-140)?