"The subject of this play is the producing of a play" (1986, 172)

The world's favourite playwright. Today's best-loved novelists. Timeless stories retold" ("Hogarth")

"The books are true to the spirit of the original plays, while giving authors an exciting opportunity to do something new"

"the rendering apposite or appropriate, as it were, of Shakespearean drama in another context" (2001, 3)

"Atwood has explained that she has always been drawn to The Tempest because of the many questions it leaves unanswered"

'Atwood’s text is a tribute to Shakespeare in a year of countless

world-wide tributes to the Bard.'

'To what extent we are sustaining, assimilating or dissolving his plays when we change his actions, his characters and, crucially, his language.'

'the most evident intention is to pay tribute to

Shakespeare and celebrate the power of his work to entertain, educate and make us human'.

'In The Tempest Shakespeare seems not so much interested in telling a story... as intent on exploring the

very act of constructing and staging a performance'.

'Prospero can be seen as a metaphorical theater director who

stages all the events on the island to create the result that he is looking for'.

An elegant example of latter-day sophisticated intertextuality or a post-

postmodern take on a canonical play which retrieves humanist readings of the artist-magician Prospero after decades of distrusting him as a patriarchal tyrant and a proto-colonizer.

The resonances of The Tempest in the novel are at the same time obvious and discreet, blatant and nearly invisible.

In an otherwise enthusiastic review that describes the text as a neo-Shakespearean novel and claims that “students will learn more about the deeper meanings of The Tempest from this singular novel than from dozens of academic studies” (Bate 2016)

Miranda is a problematic character for

many contemporary readers who see her as the submissive daughter who follows her father’s orders and is given little space to maneuver into agency of any kind.

The Tempest can thus be read as a

metatheatrical text about an aged director who seems to believe in the nobleness of his enterprise as a means to an end, but also as an engrossing project in and of itself.

5a. [The Tempest is] "the closest Shakespeare gets to writing a play about putting on a play"

"At points one gets the feeling that in a twenty-first-
century recasting of the play only a dead Miranda whose ghost Felix
conjures up at will could fulfil the role of docile daughter that we
find in the original."

"Felix presents The Tempest to his actors as a story about prisons,
prisoners and jailers, so that by bringing the play to the context of
the readers, Shakespeare speaks to their specific situation and
becomes relevant for them."

"Felix sees the play as full of prison
images and in the acknowledgements section Atwood calls attention
to the prison literature that has inspired and helped her in her
retelling of The Tempest."

"This multiplicity of endings allows Atwood to incorporate
subversive, against-the-grain, re-visions of The Tempest that the tight
premise of the Hogarth series has bounded in, and provides a
glimpse of insights that could pan out into alternative
appropriations of the play."

"The subtitle of the novel, The Tempest Retold, highlights the
necessary nature of Hag-Seed as a retelling of a canonical play. In
Negotiating with the Dead, Atwood discusses the inevitable dialogue
that authors must maintain with those that preceded them: “All
writers learn from the dead. As long as you continue to write, you
continue to explore the work of writers who have preceded you; you
are also judged and held to account by them” (Atwood 2002, 178)."

"The Tempest can thus be read as a
metatheatrical text about an aged director who seems to believe in
the nobleness of his enterprise as a means to an end, but also as an
engrossing project in and of itself."

"Atwood has explained that she
has always been drawn to The Tempest because of the many
questions it leaves unanswered and because of its generic complexity
as “an early multimedia musical”

"Prospero can be seen as a metaphorical theater director who
stages all the events on the island to create the result that he is
looking for; as on the platform of a playhouse, he moves characters
around, rearranges groups, creates special effects and even appears
at the end to engage with the audience, who both are and are not the
actual audience of the play"

“Without his art, Prospero would be unable to
rule. It’s this that gives him power [...] altogether, he is an
ambiguous gentleman. Well, of course he is ambiguous—he is an
artist, after all”

As in the play, Ariel has
shifting shapes: his role is taken over in part by the ghost of
Miranda, half vision of desire half hallucination, and for Felix,
always, the beloved daughter that keeps him company; but Ariel’s
tasks are also performed by the inmates-actors who help him in his
plans.

A post-
postmodern take on a canonical play which retrieves humanist
readings of the artist-magician Prospero after decades of distrusting
him as a patriarchal tyrant and a proto-colonizer.

“the subject of this play is the producing of a play” (1986, 172),
and this is the overall understanding of The Tempest that she uses in
Hag-Seed, a novel that celebrates the potential and power of
Shakespeare’s drama.

“the metaphor for literary and
artistic value [...] as cultural capital is rapidly becoming
commonplace” (Hedrick and Reynolds 2000, 6)

Each generation reads, performs and interprets
Shakespeare in its own image, and the commemoration has
generated a wide-spread urge to reconsider how his works can still
talk to us and how Shakespeare can be, as Jan Kott famously phrased
it in the sixties, our contemporary.

The resonances of The Tempest in the novel are at the same time obvious and discreet, blatant and nearly invisible.

"The Tempest hinges upon the belief in magic, a premise that goes against our contemporary understanding of how the world works"

Magic in Atwood’s novel gets

transferred to forms that contemporary readers can relate to, such as the impact and possibilities of audio-visual and digital media, the

internet or the hallucinatory effects of recreational drugs" = power of the theater, of performance and

alternate worlds - how they shape realities

"Without his art, Prospero would be unable to rule. It’s this that gives him power"

"monster/savage/subjugated slave of the original play is transformed into a repository of the very human foibles and failures of a Canadian prison, with a multicultural population of colorful

names" - comparison of Atwood and Shakespeare's characterisation

The idea of theater as a "healing mechanism" seen through Prospero and the prisoners

"Postcolonial readings have seen it as a paradigmatic example of the encounter
between colonizer and colonized"

"Feminist interpretations, neo-historicist, cultural materialist and postcolonial readings have focused on the dynamics of power and inequality in the play and considered how Prospero uses and abuses his magic superiority on the island to regain his previous position of power."

"The rewriting of The Tempest Hag-Seed occupies a peculiar position in relation to concepts such as adaptation, appropriation, intertextuality, revision, collaboration, interpellation and other varied attempts to charter engagements with Shakespeare’s work".

"The resonances of The Tempest in the novel are at
the same time obvious and discreet, blatant and nearly invisible."

"In The Tempest Shakespeare seems not so much interested in
telling a story as intent on exploring the very act of constructing and staging a performance, and criticism of
the play has frequently highlighted its connections with the
ceremonial form of the masque."

“The Tempest hinges upon the belief in magic, a premise that goes against our contemporary understanding of how the world works”

“Without his art Prospero would be unable to rule. It’s this that gives him power.”

“Felix presents The Tempest to his actors as a story about prisons, prisoners and jailers, so that by bringing the play to the context of the readers, Shakespeare speaks to their specific situation and becomes relevant for them”

“This multiplicity of endings allows Atwood to incorporate subversive, against-the-grain, re-visions of The Tempest that the tight premise of the Hogarth series has bounded in, and provides a glimpse of insights that could pan out into alternative appropriations of the play.”

“Atwood’s aim is to retell The Tempest to create a contemporary double of the original, a recognizable copy that is at the same time its own creature”

Prospero can be seen as a metaphorical theater director who
stages all the events on the island to create the result that he is
looking for; as on the platform of a playhouse, he moves characters
around, rearranges groups, creates special effects and even appears
at the end to engage with the audience, who both are and are not the
actual audience of the play.

Many of the dramatis personae in the play are metamorphosed into
easily recognizable characters in the novel

Another possible reason for Atwood’s intervention in the plot of
the play may have to do with Miranda’s status as obedient daughter
in The Tempest

This multiplicity of endings allows Atwood to incorporate
subversive, against-the-grain, re-visions of The Tempest that the tight
premise of the Hogarth series has bounded in, and provides a
glimpse of insights that could pan out into alternative
appropriations of the play.

Atwood has explained that she
has always been drawn to The Tempest because of the many
questions it leaves unanswered and because of its generic complexity
as “an early multimedia musical”

Felix begins to feel that his daughter is

“still with him, only invisible” (45). Like an actor that gets fully

involved in a role, “a conceit, a whimsy, a piece of acting: he didn’t

really believe it, but he engaged in this non-reality as if it were real”

When Felix first introduces The Tempest to his Fletcher actors (he

refuses to call them or think of them as inmates) he gets a more

negative reaction than in previous years

Felix presents The Tempest to his actors as a story about prisons,

prisoners and jailers, so that by bringing the play to the context of

the readers, Shakespeare speaks to their specific situation and

becomes relevant for them

The motley crew into which Caliban becomes reincarnated in the

novel are at the center of Section V of the novel, significantly entitled

“This thing of darkness,” Prospero’s famous final acknowledgement

of Caliban as his own in act 5

Prospero’s brother

Antonio becomes Tony Price, Felix’s ambitious colleague at the

Makeshiweg Shakespeare Festival, “the evil-hearted, social-

clambering, Machiavellian foot-licker” (Atwood 2016a, 11) who

ousts him from his job and eventually becomes Heritage Minister.

"An elegant example of latter-day sophisticated intertextuality or a post-
postmodern take on a canonical play which retrieves humanist readings of the artist-magician Prospero after decades of distrusting him as a patriarchal tyrant and a proto-colonizer."

"The Tempest Hag-Seed

occupies a peculiar position in relation to concepts such as adaptation, appropriation, intertextuality, revision, collaboration, interpellation and other varied attempts to charter engagements with Shakespeare’s work"

"This multiplicity of endings allows Atwood to incorporate subversive, against-the-grain, re-visions of The Tempest that the tight premise of the Hogarth series has bounded in, and provides a glimpse of insights that could pan out into alternative appropriations of the play."

"thus Atwood’s ending seems to be a playful

wink to her devoted readers to apply their own magic in their

response to this quirky, multifaceted, hag-seed of a novel which both

is and is not The Tempest—a peculiar polymorphic creature that, like

Caliban in the inmates’ final reading of the play, is the offspring of

two magicians: Shakespeare and Atwood, Atwood and Shakespeare"

Felix feels indeed like the original Prospero an agent

of regeneration for his students and he sees himself as the vehicle for

positive transformation, although he will have no qualms about

using them for his own plan of revenge while presenting it as a

move to defend their Literacy through Literature program, claiming

like Prospero with his daughter that he has done nothing “but in

care of thee” (1.2.19)

Hagseed is an example of a "neo-Shakespearean novel," a term that highlights both its originality and its faithfulness to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The novel is imaginative and innovative while also staying true to its literary roots

A central theme of Hagseed is imprisonment, both literal and metaphorical. The novel relocates The Tempest’s island to a modern prison. Atwood explores different forms of imprisonment: Psychological, Social, and Institutional

The novel highlights the transformative power of theater, particularly in the way Felix (Prospero) uses drama as a tool for both revenge and redemption. The prison setting reinforces the idea that storytelling and performance can be a means of escape and self-discovery, much like the role of theater in Shakespeare’s time

Hagseed as existing between adaptation (staying close to the original) and appropriation (reworking it with new meaning). Atwood’s Hagseed is not just a simple adaptation of The Tempest, it changes the setting, the characters, and even the themes.

Literary Revisionism: Atwood rewrites Shakespeare, showing how a post-modern audience can reinterpret classical texts. Atwood allows the prisoners to imagine multiple afterlives/What if's for Shakespeare’s characters, something The Tempest never resolves. This add layers of interpretation and subversion to Shakespeare’s ambiguous ending. The prisoners’ ideas include:

• Ariel staying on Earth to tackle climate change

• Antonio and Sebastian murdering everyone on the way home

• Miranda inheriting Prospero’s magic and defeating the villains

• Caliban becoming a famous rapper or plotting revenge on Prospero

Hag-Seed is a neo-Shakespearean novel that balances creativity and fidelity to The Tempest, aligning with Northrop Frye’s idea that originality involves both invention and homage.

Atwood reinterprets The Tempest through themes of imprisonment, using a literal prison setting to reflect the confinement experienced by Shakespeare’s characters.

The title references Caliban, but instead of centering on him, the novel disperses his rebellious spirit among the prison inmates, offering a broader commentary on oppression.

Hag-Seed is deeply intertextual and meta-theatrical, featuring a play-within-a-play structure that mirrors The Tempest’s themes of illusion and performance.

As part of a contemporary Shakespeare retelling project, Hag-Seed modernizes The Tempest by engaging with current issues like incarceration, power, and grief while maintaining the play’s essence.

Both The Tempest and Hag-Seed revolve around the crucial theme of imprisonment, where Atwood uses a literal prison for the inmates to find an escape from through Shakespeare

A multiversal ending that leaves the question of what happens next open ended to the audience. It begs the question as to how different individuals and audiences will look at and interpret the endings in different ways, if they will accept one of the offered choices or make their own as to what happens.

Hag-Seed as a simulacra of The Tempest as Atwood has rebranded the play to modern day Canada with a literal prison instead of the island seen in The Tempest. This allows new audiences to engage with the text in a modern setting as well as allowing Atwood to include new ideas and criticisms of modern day society, or exclude certain parts of the play that don't align with her story.

The role of Caliban as “In this day and age Caliban is the favourite, everyone cheers for him” shows how we interpret Caliban differently to how they would of during the plays time. Looking at how Caliban represents the evil of society in todays society.

The different tact Atwood took with Hag-seed compared to The Tempest in how she chose a imaginary version of Miranda and how its a twist on Prospero's magic as Felix believes her to be real

The Tempest hinges upon the belief in magic, a premise that goes
against our contemporary understanding of how the world works.

Atwood’s
novel runs against this trend, and even though its title points to
Caliban, his voice finds its way in a more indirect way through the
prison inmates that Felix teaches.

Another possible reason for Atwood’s intervention in the plot of
the play may have to do with Miranda’s status as obedient daughter
in The Tempest.

While inmates can easily relate to ideas of
imprisonment and revenge in the play, other elements are remote
from their experience, and this opens the way for Felix-Atwood’s
creativity

These ‘alter-native’ plots serve to
dismantle narrative authority and to reorient the circulation of
knowledge. The singular, punctual Tempest is ousted by Tempests,
which accommodate the multiple instabilities of contemporary texts
and contexts

Explore how Atwood reimagines The Tempest in Hag-Seed, focusing on power, revenge, and redemption.

Atwood’s self-awareness in rewriting a classic adds depth to Hag-Seed as a meta-narrative.

LShakespeare’s island and Atwood’s prison setting symbolise transformation and isolation.

Atwood’s take on postmodern identity and autonomy is key -- could discuss how Felix, like Shakespeare’s characters, struggle with control and self-definition within society.

Highlights Shakespeare’s ongoing relevance -- could explore how Atwood not only reinterprets The Tempest but also reimagines the timeless themes in a modern context.

'The most evident intention is to pay tribute to Shakespeare and celebrate his work to entertain, educate and make us human'.

'The books are true to the original plays, while giving authors an exciting opportunity to do something new.'

Atwood's intervention in the plot of the play may have been due to Miranda's status as the obedient daughter in the Tempest

Caliban as 'In this day and age Caliban is the favourite, everyone cheers for him' shows how we interpret Caliban differently to how they would have seen him during the context of the play. Caliban represents evil in the current day.

'She constructs a light narrative which nevertheless includes tragic and elegiac elements.'

Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold (2016) is a multi- layered novel that imaginatively transforms its ostensible source text

Julie Sanders stated in 2001 is still true: “the
terms in which this area of interest is articulated—adaptation,
appropriation, reworking, revision—remain a site of contestation
and debate” (2001, 1)

Shakespeare’s and later works (including her own), an elegant
example of latter-day sophisticated intertextuality or a post-
postmodern take on a canonical play which retrieves humanist
readings of the artist-magician Prospero after decades of distrusting
him as a patriarchal tyrant and a proto-colonizer.

a rewriting of The Tempest Hag-Seed
occupies a peculiar position in relation to concepts such as
adaptation, appropriation, intertextuality, revision, collaboration,
interpellation and other varied attempts to charter engagements with
Shakespeare’s work

she constructs a narrative which nevertheless includes tragic and elegiac elements

'Hag-Seed' is a palimpsest of Shakespeare's work, and an example of a latter-day sophisticated intertextuality on the play 'The Tempest'

The novel is both a tribute and modernisation of Shakespeare's play, appearing as an adaptation, appropriation, intertextuality, revision, collaboration, and interpellation to gain engagements with Shakespeare's texts

The references to 'The Tempest' are both obvious and discreet, blatant and nearly invisible

Magic in Atwood’s novel gets transferred to forms that contemporary readers can relate to, such as the impact and possibilities of audio-visual and digital media

The title would be to place Caliban’s subjugation at its center, but the focus of Hag-Seed is not the subaltern voice of the monster servant but Prospero