- Richard Dadd, Come Unto These Yellow Sands (1842)
- William Hogarth, A Scene from "The Tempest" (c. 1730)
- John Anster Fitzgerald, Ariel (c. 1858)
- Henry Fuseli, Ariel (c. 1800-10)
- James Henry Nixon, The Tempest (n.d.)
Consider the following questions:
Identify the characters, actions, and scenes: What specific lines of Shakespeare’s text does the artist appear to be illustrating? Is the illustration accurate in relation to Shakespeare’s text? Is it clearly dependent on some source other than Shakespeare? In choosing these characters, this action, this scene, what is the illustrator suggesting about them? Does the illustration indicate their relative importance? Does the illustrator ignore certain episodes usually deemed crucial?
Examine the methods of the illustrators: does the illustrator focus on one key, dramatic exchange or does he attempt to epitomize the narrative sense of the whole scene, act, or play? Does the illustrator have a command of scale? Is concern with landscape important in the illustration? Is it a central concern?
Explain how the illustrations interpret the text: Are symbolic meanings attached to the literal? How do you know—because the figures reference, perhaps, iconography that you recognize? Does the illustration suggest the character’s states of mind, interior experience as well as exterior? Can you state some kind of thesis concerning the illustration: what kind of messages or meanings in The Tempest is this illustrator emphasizing? What kind of comments on, or criticisms of, The Tempest is this illustrator making? How would you evaluate the artist’s interpretation according to your own reading of the play?
In a well developed, five-page essay, develop an argument about how the artist's visual adaptation of scene interprets the character of Ariel in Shakespeare's The Tempest.