Shakespeare's The Tempest

The Tempest is the only romance in which father and daughter are together from the beginning. It also possesses the only plot that observes the classical unities of time and place. Many commentators believe that the play represents Shakespeare's greatest dramatic achievement, blending together beautiful verse, richly realized characters, and the moving wonders of the imagination. There can be no question that The Tempest is a refined and elevating statement of the themes of Providence and of order and degree (French, 45).

At the center of the play's action, and controlling it from the island where he lives in exile, is the wise magician Prospero. He conjures a storm to shipwreck his brother Antonio, usurper of his ducal throne in Milan. Prospero engineers a marriage between his daughter and the son of an enemy, King Alonso of Naples, who accompanies Antonio. The marriage would end the feud and allow Prospero to regain his dukedom (Kermode, 96).

The portrayal of the villainous characters presents a contradiction between seeming and being. Reportedly they have victimized Prospero; yet on stage we see them as Prospero's victims. The shipwreck leaves them helpless, stranded, and separated; Alonso grieves when he thinks that his son has died in the storm (Lindley, 37).

Perhaps in few of his other plays has Shakespeare created a closer relationship between the human and natural universes. In The Tempest, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, and cruelty and gentleness are matched with the external environment, and everything works toward a positive reconciliation of the best in both humans and nature. This harmony is expressed by the delightful pastoral masque Prospero stages for the young lovers, in which reapers and nymphs join in dancing, indicating the union of the natural with the supernatural. The coming marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda also foreshadows such harmony, ...