For a long time many critics read Shakespeare's plays, particularly The Tempest, as fables of imperialism, thus firmly

locating Shakespeare in the mould of colonial discourse (see, for example, Kuhl 1962; Mason 1962; James 1967; Mannoni 1964; Greenblatt 1976). Critical focus was often on the ways in which the Shakespearean text enacts and perpetuates colonialism by alienating the Other (Caliban), by being involved in anti-Semitism and racism (Shylock and Othello) and in its overt defence of imperialism (Julius Caesar). In simple terms, such criticism sees Shakespeare as a staunch defender of colonialism, because he deploys colonial categories such as hegemony, language, centre and periphery, as well as savage and civilised dichotomies, to name but a few. Those propounding this view obviously see the continued presence of Shakespeare in the university and school curricula as a possible threat to readers. Joseph Sherman, for example, concludes that "Shakespeare in our schools, so far from enriching pupils with pearls beyond price, not only wastes their time, but does them positive harm" (1984: 3). The most discernible harm pointed out by critics is Shakespeare's "incomprehensible" and archaic language (Wright 1990/91) which is alien to the contemporary world. This article aims at highlighting the postcolonial features inherent in some of Shakespeare's plays by adopting what Ashcroft et al. call "symptomatic reading". In their seminal work on postcolonial theory, The Empire Writes Back, Ashcroft et al. describe symptomatic readings as those "alternative" readings which
are not concerned primarily with evaluating one text against another in some privileging hierarchy or canon, nor with "discovering" their essential metaphoric meaning, but rather with identifying and articulating the symptomatic and distinctive features of postcoloniality. (Ashcroft etal. 1989:115)

Following the above assertion, an interpretation of Shakespearean plays will be suggested which reveals not only the colonial ideologies and other discursive formations that the plays contain, but also the postcolonial strategies which, though at times implicit, feature prominently in these texts.
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 161011, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place using illusion and skillful manipulation. He conjures up a storm, the eponymous tempest, to lure his usurping brother Antonio and the complicit King Alonso of Naples to the island. There, his machinations bring about the revelation of Antonio's lowly nature, the redemption of the King, and the marriage of Miranda to Alonso's son,Ferdinand. Critics see The Tempest as explicitly concerned with its own nature as a play, frequently drawing links between Prospero's "art" and theatrical illusion, and early critics saw Prospero as a representation of Shakespeare, and his renunciation of magic as signalling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage. The play portrays Prospero as a rational, and not an occultist, magician by providing a contrast to him inSycorax: her magic is frequently described as destructive and terrible, where Prospero's is said to be wondrous and beautiful.

Never was it the case that the imperial encounter pitted an active Western intruder against a supine or inert non-Westem native; there was always some form of active resistance, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, the resistance finally won out. (Said 1993: xii)

Prospero's narration of the history, foregrounded in Act I Scene ii, forms a subtext of the play. Salway explains the significance of narrating this history: His own story, his version of the island's history, his knowledge and preoccupations,

although only marginally represented in the manifest text, bubble irrevocably beneath the structure of the action. (Salway 1991:114) Prospero's speech, together with his irrational dimension, constitutes the dominant colonialist discourse of the play, because it enables the assembled characters "to recognise themselves as subjects of his discourse, as beneficiaries of his civil largesse" (Brown 1985: 59). Practically none of the other characters in The Tempest have any positive historical identity. This identity is ingeniously invented and "narrated" by Prospero, who sees such a narration of history as his task. Only Caliban, one of the indigenous inhabitants of the island, has his own history, and this is always marginalised and suppressed by the coloniser, Prospero: This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak'st from me. (I.ii: 331-332) Prospero's response to this charge is ostensibly a way of repudiating Caliban's identity and the history of the island by shifting the main thrust of the discourse and stressing Caliban's alleged intention to rape Miranda: Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us'd thee Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate The honour of my child. (n.ii: 344-348) Ironically, and perhaps for unstated colonialist reasons, Prospero obviously chooses to forget that he has also "penetrated" and "raped" the island! As a defence mechanism for his colonising of the island, Prospero, the false "liberator", seeks to induce guilt-feelings of ungratefulness in Caliban, when he claims to have saved Ariel from the tyranny of Sycorax, to render legitimate his colonial mission of conquest which, indeed, "has followed a familiar colonialist pattern" (Salway 1991: 112). Colonial discourse is maintained and sustained through the emphasis on hierarchical differences between the cultural practices of the coloniser and the colonised. This is particularly relevant in The Tempest, where both Prospero and Caliban's mother, Sycorax, are depicted as magicians, though of different breeds. Prospero's magic, which he puts to "good" use - "the bettering of my mind" (I.ii: 90) - is sharply contrasted with Sycorax's which is presumably "terrible to enter human hearing". Similarly, in Othello, the Moor is also unfairly accused of winning Desdemona's hand through "black" magic. Such descriptions are important because they actually cast into stark contrast the cultural differences between the coloniser and the colonised. Prospero becomes a magus-like figure, while the colonised Sycorax, who miscegenously gave birth to the deformed Caliban by copulating with the devil, is seen as a witch and tyrant. Prospero's task as a coloniser-magus, to "civilise" the degenerate colonised, is not entirely successful, because Caliban ends up resisting domination by Prospero. Typical of a colonialist with his insecurities, Prospero maintains his power over Caliban through threats of physical pain and coercion. After the abortive rape of Miranda, which is symbolic of Caliban's resistance to colonialism, and by extension a crude denial of civilisation and its concomitants, Prospero threatens him thus: to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall forth at vast of night, that they may work
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd

As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging Than bees that made them. (I.ii: 325-329)

Despite Prospero's threats, the spirit of resistance in Caliban is never diminished, for on recognising that Prospero was only interested in appropriating the island and colonising its inhabitants, he promises: "I'll be wise hereafter,/And seek for grace" (V.i: 294-295), thus affirming his legitimate ownership of the island. Prospero's ill-treatment of Caliban covertly reveals the ineffectiveness of colonialism because Prospero, the coloniser, becomes more of a victim of his evil schemes than Caliban, the putative victim, thus complying with Ashis Nandy's postcolonial model outlined in his The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (1983). Nandy's incisive critique shifts the focus from the colonised as victim of colonialism to the coloniser as co-victim in the master/slave relationship by negating the basis on which the coloniser articulates his identity as superior to the colonised. Instead, he argues rightly that rather than emphasising racial binarisms, attention should be given to the dichotomy of
the exclusive part versus the inclusive whole ... not the oppressor versus the oppressed but both of them versus the rationality which turns them into covictims. (Nandy 1983: 99)

In the case of The Tempest, we need to sympathise with Prospero because he is the victim of his own colonial atrocities and this, Sal way avers, is linked not only to his inability to respect the humanity of the oppressed, but also to defects in his personality. John Salway observes, quite rightly, that these irrational acts "are generally attributed to defects in Prospero's personality, his anger, his intolerance, his jealous guardianship over Miranda's virginity" (1991: 112). 3 Linguistic (De-)Colonisation The Tempest profoundly captures the essence of linguistic colonialism in Shakespeare by foregrounding "the absence of the language of the colonised" (Stam & Spence 1983: 7), a trend "symptomatic of colonialist attitudes" . After Caliban's futile attempt to rape Miranda, Prospero curses him:
Abhorred slave, Which any print of goodness wilt not take, Being capable of all ill. I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known. But thy vile race, Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures Could abide to be with; therefore wast thou Deservedly confin'd into this rock, Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison. Caliban's response to this charge, which breaks the deafening

silence imposed on the colonised, clearly reflects the futility and irony of imposing language on the colonised; instead of using the language of the coloniser profitably, the only thing Caliban is capable of doing, which provokes the tempestuous anger of Prospero is, ironically, to curse the coloniser himself:
You taught me language; and my profit on't is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language! (I.ii: 363-365)

Caliban's scathing statement, which in a way, is a momentary affirmation of a self untainted by the values and definitions of the coloniser, boldly

asserts that though linguistically colonised, Caliban, like all colonised people, is not perpetually muted but can still undergo the psychotherapeutical process of linguistic decolonisation even in the face of malicious colonialism. In Janheinz Jahn's words, "Caliban broke out of the prison of Prospero's language, by converting that language to his own needs of selfexpression" (1969: 242). Intricately linked to linguistic colonialism is the potential of language to serve as a tool for articulating power. Language, therefore, can be the locus of the power struggle among characters.

Advantage of postcolonial reading of Shakespeares Plays: Dacanonizaton A canon is a set of reading practices(the enactment of innumerable individual and community assumptions, for example about genre, about literature, and even about writing)These reading practices, in their turn, are resident in institutional structures, such as education curricula and publishing networks. So the subversion of a canon involves bringing to consciousness and articulation of these practices and institutions, and will result not only in the replacemet of some texts by others, or the redeployment of some hierarchy of value within them, but equally crucially by the reconstruction of the so-called canonical texts through alternative reading practices. Rest from page 178( empire writes back)