The Tempest's Trans Magic: Transition, Technology, & Futurity in Ariel Across Time

Authors

• Robin Haas

Abstract

Is Ariel trans? In an effort to deepen and complicate our understanding of various representations of Ariel across time, I argue that employing trans studies methodologies to our study of Shakespeare’s The Tempest enables us to uncover Ariel as a trans figure whose experiences of transness are richly multifaceted, at once encompassing both a backwards-looking navigation of past trauma and a future-oriented, joyful hope. In my reading of Ariel’s imprisonment within and subsequent liberation from the “cloven pine,” I argue that Ariel’s cycles of transition and transformation offer us a rare opportunity to explore trans narratives of becoming in the work of Shakespeare. Investigating who has the power to recount trans narratives and what kinds of futures Shakespeare envisions for his characters that lie between or beyond traditionally-gendered boundaries, I read the original play alongside Dryden’s Restoration-era adaptation, The Enchanted Island, to trouble the ways that Dryden renegotiates, confuses, and ultimately limits Ariel’s liberatory trans potential and thus defangs The Tempest’s radical possibilities. I conclude with an analysis of a Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play from 2016, which employs cutting-edge stage technologies like motion capture to push the boundaries of what is possible on stage, as an example of a recent production which actively stages and engages the original play’s trans magics to allow a trans Ariel to flicker to life.

Recommended Citation

Haas, Robin (2026) "The Tempest's Trans Magic: Transition, Technology, & Futurity in Ariel Across Time," Comparative Drama: Vol. 60: Iss. 1, Article 8.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol60/iss1/8