Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare's The Tempest Retold

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Hag-Seed is based on Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. What do you know about this play? What is a “tempest”? Have you heard references to the characters of Prospero, Ariel, or Caliban? Have you ever heard the quote “O brave new world, / That has such people in’t”? Based on what you know about The Tempest, what can you guess about Hag-Seed?

Teaching Suggestion: In order to thoroughly understand Hag-Seed, students should have some familiarity with The Tempest. The resources listed below offer three varying levels of entry points for The Tempest—the video is a quick introduction, the RSC site can be explored in whatever depth is desired, and the Shakespeare Editions introduction is very thorough, discussing themes, the context of colonialism, metatheatrical elements, and so on. If your students have already read The Tempest, you might wish to use the Alternative Tempest Prompt below. The suggested resources that follow the Alternative Tempest Prompt are more analytical in nature, addressing specific issues pertinent to Hag-Seed’s intertextuality with the play.

• This 5-minute video from TED-Ed offers a basic introduction to The Tempest.