Julia Margaret Cameron, "The Tempest," and the South-West Wind
In Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, Caliban curses Prospero by summoning “a south-west [wind] blow on ye, / And blister you all o’er.” (Act 1, Scene 2). This moment might be considered a difficult subject for a realistic photograph, but Julia Margaret Cameron achieved fame for posing and costuming her models to represent literary allegories. In 1864, she depicted Ellen Terry as The South-West Wind. In my new project, I want to ask how her audience interpreted this photograph in relation to her other representations of Shakespeare’s plays. But because of Cameron’s roots in colonial India, I also want to interpret this image in relation to questions of international relations and mercantilism, British exploration into foreign lands, cross-cultural encounters, racial and class conflict, and wars over contested territories: To what extent did Cameron’s photograph of The South-West Wind embody unsettling ideas of otherness, unpredictability, and danger?