The Tempest

1
The Tempest

• The Romances

2
The Romances or later comedies

• Although Shakespeares plays are usually divided
  between tragedies, comedies and histories, 4 of
  his final plays are usually referred to as the
  romances or late-comedies
• 1.Pericles,
• 2.Cymbeline,
• 3.The Winters Tale
• 4.The Tempest
• The plot has a measure of independence from the
  doings of the characters. (Something driving the
  plot such as fate or magic)
• Wildly implausible, if not shocking incidents,
  such as storms, shipwrecks and other acts of
  God drive the plot. (in TWT exit pursued by a
  bear)
• Families are often scattered on land or sea,
  doomed to wander, and then astonishingly reunited
  at the close of the play.
• Terrible calamities are narrowly avoided from
  sudden changes of heart ending in reunion,
  forgiveness restoration of order.

3

• Because romances combine both tragic and comic
  elements, John Fletcher called them
  "tragi-comedies" (a term which he coined in the
  preface to The Faithful Shepherdess, 1608
• According to Fletcher, a tragi-comedy "wants
  deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy,
  yet brings some near it, which is enough to make
  it no comedy." 
• Like comedy, romance includes a love-intrigue and
  culminates in a happy ending. Like tragedy
  romance has a serious plot-line (betrayals,
  tyrants, usurpers of thrones) and treats serious
  themes it is darker in tone (more serious) than
  comedy.  While tragedy emphasizes evil, and
  comedy minimises it, romance acknowledges evil --
  the reality of human suffering. 

4

• Romance is a natural step in describing human
  experience after tragedy. 
• Tragedy involves irreversible choices made in a
  world where time leads inexorably to the tragic
  conclusion.  In Romance, time seems to be
  "reversible" there are second chances and fresh
  starts.  As a result, categories such as cause
  and effect, beginning and end, are displaced by a
  sense of simultaneity and harmony.  Tragedy is
  governed by a sense of Fate (Macbeth, Hamlet) or
  Fortune (King Lear) in Romance, the sense of
  destiny comes instead from Divine Providence. 
• Tragedy depicts alienation and destruction,
  Romance, reconciliation and restoration.  In
  tragedies, characters are destroyed as a result
  of their own actions and choices in Romance,
  characters respond to situations and events
  rather than provoking them. 
• Tragedy tends to be concerned with revenge,
  Romance with forgiveness.  Plot structure in
  Romance moves beyond that of tragedy  an event
  with tragic potential leads not to tragedy but to
  a providential experience. 

5

• The providential "happy ending" of a Romance
  bears a superficial resemblance to that of a
  comedy.  But while the tone of comedy is genial
  and exuberant, Romance has a muted tone of
  happiness -- joy mixed with sorrow. 
• Like comedies, Romances tend to end with
  weddings, but the focus is less on the personal
  happiness of bride and groom (the culmination of
  an individual passion) than on the healing of
  rifts within the total human community.  Thus,
  whereas comedy focuses on youth, Romance often
  has middle-aged and older protagonists in pivotal
  roles. 
• Similarly, while tragedy deals with events
  leading up to individual deaths, Romance
  emphasizes the cycle of life and death.  While
  tragedy explores characters in depth (emphasis on
  individual psychology), Romance focuses instead
  on archetypes, the collective and symbolic
  patterns of human experience.  Compared to
  characters in a Shakespearean tragedy (or
  comedy), romance characters may seem shallow or
  one-dimensional.  But Romance characters are not
  meant to be psychologically credible their
  experiences have symbolic significance extending
  beyond the limits of their own lives and beyond
  rational comprehension.  In Romance, the emphasis
  shifts from individual human nature to Nature. 

6
common in the 4 Romances

• an enveloping conflict (war, rebellion, jealousy,
  treachery, intrigue) that may cover a large time
  span (conflict begun a generation before events
  of play) and is resolved at end of play 
• happy endings to potentially tragic situations
  (e.g. apparent resurrection, sudden conversions,
  etc.) 
• themes of transgression, expiation/atonement and
  redemption villain(s) penitent rather than
  punished at end 
• improbable plots rapid action surprises
  extraordinary occurrences (shipwrecks disguises
  riddles children/parents lost and found
  supernatural events/beings) 
• characters of high social class rural and court
  settings extremes of characterization (exalted
  virtue and deep villainy) 
• love of a virtuous hero and heroine "pure" and
  "gross" loves often contrasted 

7
The young girl

• The romances are notable for their daughters with
  symbolic names who intervene as instruments of
  special grace, restore hope and perception to
  fathers who have lost their way and are saved
  from their guilt, grief and despair.
• Marina in Pericles, from the sea
• Fidele in Cymbeline, as in fidelity
• Perdita in The Winters Tale, lost
• Miranda in The Tempest worthy of
  admiration
• Praised for beauty, it is these girls, not the
  boys they fall in love with, who are responsible
  for ensuring restoration and reconciliation
  occurs in the romances.

8
The Sea- as a motif in the romances

• (i) Incoming tide cleans the dirty shore
  cleansing, restoring quality, washing away traces
  of the past (5.1.79-82)
• The sea is often an image of the untamed and
  therefore unpredictable. The Tempest shows the
  movement from chaos to order.
• Mythical terms an agent of discovery,
  recognition and reversal