Shakespeare criticism has long been recognised as a touchstone to shifts in our critical discourses. The following paper constitutes an examination of two conflicting discourses. The analysis will be confined to the views presented in Stephen Greenblatt's article entitled "Martial Law in the Land of Cockaigne" and Ben Ross Schneider, Jr's "Are We Being Historical Yet?": Colonialist Interpretations of Shakespeare's Tempest - a contest, if you will, between two different theoretical positions as to where the text lies.
             In his article entitled "Are We Being Historical Yet?": Colonialist Interpretations of Shakespeare's Tempest, Ben Ross Schneider, Jr extends Carolyn Porter's critique of new historicism to recent work on The Tempest. Included in Schneider's study of eight recent analyses of The Tempest, is Stephen Greenblatt's article "Martial Law in the Land of Cockaigne." Schneider argues that by choosing colonialism as a frame, and then "reifying" it as if it were "coterminus with the limits of discourse in general," the new historicists marginalize not only a large field of relevant contemporary discourse, but also The Tempest itself (Schneider 121).
             Schneider maintains that the great variety of theoretical underpinning in the set of essays fails to produce a corresponding variety of interpretation (Schneider 122). He then proceeds to highlight those areas of the play which provide the common ground for new historicist interpretation. It is not, however, the aim of this paper to analyse the five different areas mentioned by Schneider. What is more important for the author, is the contest that exists between the different theoretical positions as to where the text lies. The new historicists will be represented by Stephen Greenblatt, the opposing theoretical discourse will take the form of Ben Ross Schneider, Jr.
             Schneider's search for a timeless meaning to The Tempest ( a goal, which is remarkably similar to that of the old autote...