ABSTRACT
The multiple levels of transculturation and displacement taking place between the two texts raise a number of questions regarding historical and geographical contexts. This chapter shows, the suggestion that anticolonial and postcolonial appropriations of The Tempest bear witness to the play's cross-cultural appeal needs to be supplemented with a nuanced theory of transculturation. Césaire's account of the genesis of his "adaptation" of The Tempest is especially interesting in this respect. In Césaire's own words, "If négritude involves taking root in a particular soil, négritude is transcendence and expansion into the universal". Peter Hulme has remarked that the institution of Shakespeare studies has for many years ignored or marginalized this body of work, thus missing the radical opportunities that it affords. Even now, although in discussions of postcolonial approaches to The Tempest Césaire's play is regularly acknowledged, only a few readings, as opposed to passing references, have appeared in English.
