ABSTRACT
The twentieth century saw an exponential increase in Tempests in performance, literary adaptation, and critical commentary. The integrative play was firmly established as the dominant version, but, especially at moments of social crisis, The Tempest was also taken up by critics and dramatists as a symbol of violent social change and cultural dissolution, the storm repeatedly suggestive of war, economic crisis, and revolutionary upheaval. Periodically, liberatory Tempests, with Prospero emblematic of tyranny and injustice, and Caliban and Ariel elevated to figures of resistance and rebellion, also emerged. The Tempest became a point of reference for many of the most significant transatlantic Anglophone writers of the century, including T.S. Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Aldous Huxley, H.D., W.H. Auden, Sylvia Plath, and John Fowles. Along the way, The Tempest was associated with capitalist modernity in a state of transition and crisis, and the terms ‘sea-change’ and ‘brave new world’ entered into ubiquitous common usage.
