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SIMILARITIES AND DIVERGENCEIS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE VIEWS OF G. WILSON KNIGHT AND E. M, W. TILLYARD ON
THE THEME! OF HUMAN REGBNBRATION
There is order in the universe and cosmic laws and
moral laws derive from God. Shakespeare p l a y s are
illustrations of t he success and failures of human
responses to order. G . Wilson Knight and E. M. W - Tillyard
expand the concept of order from the common forum of
Elizabethan world picture.
Knight sees all moral laws as magnificent expressions
of order. In the prefatory note to
ma+. he comments:
Now, whereas Shakespeare's thought may o f t e n be
related t o philosophy of order and other
hierarchies, his action functions regularly as a
challenge to such concepts. Though the
philosophies themselves may be either medieval
or contemporary, w e can certainly relate the
challenge itself to Renaissance humanism, and
beyond that, to poetic genius. Anyone can
understand the necessity of order. We a l l know
how salutary it is, in any age, to pray for t h e
squire and h i s relations or other equivalents.
What only genius can do is to set going an
action which comes near to toppling over the
universe whilst simultaneously engaging our
sympathies. 1
A r t and morals express t h e longings for the
resolution of discord; each is an attempt to create a more
perfect order. Every Shakespeare play is about
regeneration and each of his endings is both a reminder of
a process taking place in the imagined world of the play
and a returning of the audience to the changing world of
real life,
Each play is an image of perfection in the sense of
completeness. As a work of art it is a beautifully
finished thing but it is never complete in itself since
the audience's degree of receptivity varies. Alan Hobson
supports the view of Knight. He writes: "A whole play by
Shakespeare, tragedy, no less than comedy, is a harmonious
order in which disintegration, disharmony, misrule,
deviation, perversion, murder, jealousy, and waste are
contained and actually cantribute to the artistic harmony.
What w e call the beauty of the play is the disintegration
of the parts.w2 Similarly each play describes human
behaviour and the dramatist indicates the principles
governing human behaviour. He relates the cosmic laws in
terms of art and principles of animation, motivation and
regeneration in terms of morals. The plats of u n a Lear
and t h e stories of the L a s t Plays substantiate t h e
complementariness of a r t and morals. The pilgrimage of
Cordelia and the divine interventions of the Last Plays,
Shakespeare's preoccupation w i t h forgiveness and
redemption leave the strongest impression that like
artistic creation, moral development must proceed by the
acceptance and consequent transformation of elements.
Knight interprets Shakespeare's symbols in terms of v
binary oppositions. In the Last Plays ha emphnsises the
opposition of tempest-symbolism to music and the hate
theme to love. As music is for the musician so is order
for charity. Discord and anarchy are symptoms of bad art
and bad morals. The ~nchiavellian philosophy of power
gave scope for usurpation which is an obvious
manifestation of disorder. Antonio and Sebastian are
typical Machiavellian villains, Caliban is an embodiment
of Montaiqnefs primitivism. The badness of bad morals and
bad a r t (as in the case of Sycorax) lies in unresolved
disharmonies, Officiousness and licentiousness make man
wretched and miserable, whereas responsibility and
independence make t h e m strong and magnificent. Services
and sacrifices enhance happiness which alone makes life
meaningful. Prospero creates a circle of joy and
fellowship through self-regeneration and othersf
regeneration. Shakespeare's primary objective of human
regeneration is a harmonious order in life and art.
The camplementariness of morals and art may be
demonstrated from Prosperors display of the masque and the
game af chess Ferdinand and Miranda play as prenuptial
entertainments. Prosperofs ambition was an orderly state
of affairs in the family life of the couple and the
domestic governance of Naples, But his aspiration cannot
be f u l f i l l e d unless Ferdinand and Miranda, upon whom he
wishes these blessings, themselves desire them. The royal
game of chess is a symbol of t h e superiority of reason
over passions. Patients and temperance are aspects of
morals which are promoters of unity in diversity. The
discourse Prospero delivers on civilisation has reference
to ar t . The creative endeavours of man suggest aesthetic
values of order. Art can create a new dimension of human
existence. Morals facilitate inward harmony because man
is rational, social, and religious. Restoration of order
through ar t and morals is t h e significance of human
regeneration.
Knight * s argument that Caliban is part of Prospero
may be seen from the paints of view of regeneration.
Prospero, the magus, was responsible for the usurpation of
Milan by Antonio. Prospero, the magician and researcher
in necromancy, violates the theology of order. H i s
vaulting ambition to attain perfection in h i s art amounted
to indulgence in irresponsibility. Therefore he is a
symbol of disorder inasmuch as Caliban is one of that
category. It is the regenerated Prospero who is a
representative of order. Caliban is incapable of
regeneration. Therefore Knight's proposition is partly
true and partly false, The analogy is striking and it
needs a critical study.
This view has been questioned by Rose Abdelnour
Zimbardo. She writes: "G. Wilson Knight has said that
Caliban is part of ProsperoFs nature, basing h i s argument
upon the speech at the end of the play wherein Prospero
owns Caliban as h i s , But Caliban is not part of Prospero,
he comprises t h a t element of the disorder that Prosperots
art cannot reach and. Prospero claims him as a deficiency
or limitation of h i s art . Caliban is actively opposed to
Prospero s order.
Caliban represents disorder which is opposed to
temperance, obedience and other qualities. His disordered
nature resisted them in Ferdinand and Miranda. Ever since
he pledged himself to slavery, he had decided to destroy
order and indulge in chaos.
Rose Abdelnour Zirnbardo disagrees on Knight's picture
of Prospero as Shakespeare's superman, Tillyard's
description of him as a regenerated King, Churton ~olins'
idea of Prospero as God and D. G . JamesJ conceptfan of him
as a poet. He maintains that Prospero is an artist of a
kind, who uses music the very symbol of order.
Preservation of order and form is the aim of h i s magic and
Rose's refutation of Knight is based on the reality that
Prospero is only a mortal, fallible, and irascible and a
bit ridiculous a t times, but always under necessity to
react violently against the forces of disorder. She
writes:
We might outline his role in this way: Prospero
at the beginning of the play is in a posi t ion in
which he can take h i s enemies who represent
disordered mankind since they are usurpers, out
of the flux of life--which is emphasised by
their voyage from a marriage f e a s t back to the
affairs of state. H i s enemies are Antonio and
Sebastian, the centre of the forces of disorder,
and Alonso and Ferdinand, who will be
permanently influenced by their experience; with
them is Gonzalo, who already stands on the side
of the forces of order. 4
In a sense Rose AMelnouris view is fascinating, She
looks at the plot from the point of view of contrast, not
emphasis. Regenerated Prospero, t h e good Gonzalo, the
blessed couple Ferdinand and Hiranda are creations of and
submitters to a system of order in contrast to Antonio and
Sebastian, Stephano and Trinculo, with Caliban in the
centre, who are creators of disorder. If the project of
Prospero is three-fold, restoration of ~ilan, a royal
matrimonial alliance for Miranda and a peaceful death, the
stress is on human regeneration. Reconciliation with
Alonso was necessary to the conjugal prosperity of Miranda
and Ferdinand, A peaceful life implied self-reconciliation
and reunion with God through forgiveness in the posi t ive
sense- That means human regeneration is the point of
emphasis and order is considered a facet of human
regenaxation.
E . M . W . Tillyard argues t h a t the order which prevails
in the heavens is duplicated on earth, the King
corresponding to the sun. Disorder in the heavens breeds
disorder on earth in the physical sublunary organisation
and in the commonwealth of men. When Shakespeare calls
degree the ladder to all high designs, he visualises
another correspondence in mind: that between the ascending
grades of man in h i s social s t a t e and the ladder of
creation or chain of being which stretched from the
meanest piece of inanimate matter in unbroken ascent to
the highest of the angels.
When an ~lizabethan audience heard the words 'Chaos,
where degree is suffocated," the educated people at least
would understand chaos in a more precise sense than w e
should naturally do. They would understand it as a
p a r a l l e l i n the state to the primitive warring of the
elements from which the universe w a s created and into
which it would f a l l i f the constant pressure of God's
ordering and sustaining will ever relaxed.
The Elizabethan idea of world-order was basically a
medieval philosophy. The theologians and cosmologists
made relevant modifications and updated the thoughts.
Shakespeare presented t h e s e ideas i n order to please
the cultured minds of the Elizabethan audiences.
E. M . W . Tillyard clarifies that the Elizabethan conception
of world order was in its outlines medieval although it
had discarded much medieval detail. The universe was a
unity, in which everything had its place, and it was a
perfect work of God. Any imperfection was t h e work of
man; for with the fall of man the universe underwent a
sympathetic corruption.
The actual order of the world presented itself to the
Elizabethans under three different, though often related,
appearances--a chain, a series of corresponding planes,
and a dance to music.
E, M, W. Tillyard's picture of the chain of beings
could be illustrated as fallows.
As a chain, creation was a series of beings
stretching from the lowest of inanimate objects
up to t h e archangel nearest to the throne of
God. T h e ascent was gradual, no step was
missing; and on the borders of the great
divisions between animate and inanimate,
vegetative and sentient, sentient and rational,
rational and angelic, there were the necessary
transitions. 5
Obviously Shakespeare learnt the doctrine of t h e
great chain of Beings from the book of Genesis in The
Bible and Plata's pesublic. Though Shakespeare knew
little L a t i n and less Greek, he made use of the
translations of the Chr- and the u.
Order implies intelligence; the absolute intelligence
is God. Man partakes of t h e intelligence; man is
rational, simple, and spiritual. Man is at the same time
a corporal being: man is a composite of body and soul.
Therefore, man can regenerate physically, improve mentally
and spiritually. Human regeneration is part and parcel of
the reality of order. There is a definite time for man's
coming into existence; man undergoes a range of
metaphysical growth till he dies. E. #S. W, Tillyard
logicizes thus:
All growth implies destruction and recreation.
Any important mental growth implies them very
markedly; they are jointly inherent in any vital
change. Thus it is that the man is most alive
who is the readiest to forgo the lazy comforts
of his own habitual ways of thinking, and, when
confronted with a new situation, to recast the
contents of his mind. Such a recasting is
invariably painful, although it brings its
reward. Tragedy symbolises this process, and
those who witness tragedy are encouraged to
heighten their own vitality by re-enacting the
same process. In this sense tragedy goes
outside drama. 6
This quality he finds in Shakespearean tragedy. T h e
notion of tragedy implies human regeneration,
E. M. W. Tillyard gives a very obvious example for
t h e concept of human regeneration as a prologue to the
Last Plays, for the spectacular feature of the Last Plays
is human regeneration, Tillyard further thinks that in
the last three plays n, T h e w , and
The the old order is destroyed as thoroughly as in
the main group of tragedies. E. M. W. Tillyard excludes
Pericm. He remarks:
Examining the base plots rather than the total
impression of the last three plays , we find in
each the same general scheme of prosperity,
destruction, and recreation. The main character
is a king, A t the beginning he is in prosperity.
He then does an evil or misguided deed. Great
suffering follows, but during their suffering or
at its height the seeds of something new to
issue from it are germinating usually in secret,
In the end, this new element assimilates and
transforms the old evil, The king overcomes h i s
evil instincts, joins himself to the new order
by an act of forgiveness or repentance, and the
play issues into a fairer prosperity than had
first existed. ' There exists a continuity of the same theme from the
early comedies, through the tragedies to the Last Plays.
In the early comedies there are symbols of human
regeneration, the spring season being the m o s t predominant
one, In the tragedies there is an emphatic transmutation
of disposition which the heroes and heroines express in
wards, and they show goodwill to live up to that standard
even though some of them fail to survive. In the final
plays there are instances of symbolism and expressions of
human regeneration.
The responses of G l Wilson Knight and E . M , W . Tillyard
to the theme of human regeneration in Shakespeare's L a s t
Plays display an assertion of a moral order. They show
that Shakespeare is closer to medieval traditions.
Antonio the traitor is represented poised between
Sebastian and Prospero who are the good and bad angels
respectively.
Rec~nciliation, according these critics, is the
virtue that affiliates human beings to God. A forgiving
person vanquishes his enemy nobly. Theref ore
reconciliation to a divine revenge is transferred to a
civil or moral realm. In the spiritual realm the
oppressed cry to God, who alone can dole out justice
indiscriminately. He alone can convert evil into good.
He alone can shower graces to convert an obstinate sinner
into a repentant person. Furthermore, sanctification of
human life is enhanced in the measure mercy is distributed
to fellow-beings disinterestedly. An analogy may be
suggested. A flower does n o t reserve its beauty and
fragrance only to the garden or to t h e caretakers. The
fortunes of nature are shared appropriately by the good as
well as the bad. civilization demands forgiveness of
evil: likewise, vices are to be eliminated and replaced by
public virtues and culture demands reconciliation with
enemies.
The virtuous wight suffer like Job, the wicked might
prosper like the green bay-tree, But God allows evil also
a time. Misfortunes may be occasions to test the sense of
perseverance of the suffering or to expedite repentance in
the evil doers. In a l l t h e s e cases God transforms the
folly of men. Human regeneration is the natural cross.
T h e Last Plays are therefore aesthetic testaments of
the paschal mystery: incarnation, passion, death, and
resurrection. G . Wilson Knight and E. M. W. Tillyard
converge on this mystical plane of reality.
James Walter is in general agreement w i t h certain
points of the above stream of thought. He comments:
In the eschatological perspective that joins the
aesthetic one in the Epilogue, all human words,
deeds, and creations depend for their final
meaning and their only substantiality on their
subordination to the work of Mercy. Hence the
poet-prophet must release the audience from the
confines of the play's beauty in itself and move
them to use their freedom to realise a l l the
meanings of what they have witnessed. BY
interpreting the play in their consequent
thought and through their deeds of love, the
audience w i n a freedom that is identical with
Prosperofs freedom to renew every traveller to
h i s isle with the oblation of a broken heart.8
According to Dover Wilson is not a
subject of argument or explanation; it is to be accepted
and experienced, This play is at once the completion
and the obverse of m a f&m. In Shakespeare
succeeded in showing Truth at its bleakest and most
terrifying, as Beauty. In me Ternnest he succeeded in
showing Beauty, at its surest, most magical and most
blessed as Truth. Keats perhaps inspired Dover Wilson to
discover the t w o aspects of eternity in these plays,
E. M. W, Tillyard's philosophy and the vision of
J. Dover Wilson synchronize on the theme of human
regeneration. Aesthetics elevate the mind, it is a facet
of spirituality. Beauty consists in the intrinsic value
of anything or in a behaviour which is the revelation of a
disposition, T r u t h means reliability: God alone is fully
trustworthy and loyal, Beauty ultimately is God and all
beautiful things are manifestations of the Absolute
Reality.
Shakespeare, according to Dover Wilson, unveils the
picture of humanity as being capable of and actively
involved in regeneration. They hold in unison that the
purpose of human existence is to discover happiness and
that this can be achieved through the elimination of the
ugly and the false in thoughts, words, and deeds. In two
passages (Antony gazing on the sunset clouds, and Prospero
in the "our revels now ended speechn) Dover Wilson finds
the expression of what is to him the most essential aspect
of Shakespeare's s p i r i t .
To dream, to meditate, to lose ourselves i n
thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls, to
love the gay appearances of the world and know
then as illusions--this temper of an ironic
mind, of a happy, en joying and yet melancholy
nature, expresses itself in a secret rhythm, as
cadence, a delicate and dream-like music which
is, for me, the loveliest poetry of the world.9
~irgil K* Whitaker in h i s appraisal of The Teapest
endorses the views of G . Wilsan Knight and E.M.W, Tillyard
on the theme af human regeneration. We states: ageginning
about the turn of the twentieth century Shakespeare shows
a heightened interest in the philosophical-theological
interpretation of life contained within the Christian
heritage.lt10 In his opinion Tho is another
confirmation of these trends, for in this play,
Shakespeare develops a political theme in a manner as is
suitable to tragi-comedy and in essentially Christian
terms. Be tries to show--by presenting a series of
rebellions--that evil men, found inevitably in primitive
as well as civilized societies, impede the establishment
of an ideal political state. Seen in this light, the play
reveals itself as a direct refutation of t h e cultural
primitivism embodied in Montaigns's concept of the noble
savage, It is also an indirect refutation of other
contemporary philosophies based upon an example of
primitive goodness. Similarly Dean Ebner remarks,
'iShakespeare seems to make the positive assertion that any
improvements in human nature necessary to the
approximation of an ideal society must come, no t through
the power of human knowledge, but through the exercise of
Christian virtue,
In Artist Richard G .
Maulton comments on the Elizabethan philosophy of order
which Knight and Tillyard fbund applicable to
Shakespeare's concept of human regeneration.
Shakespeare is n o t satisfied with the easy
morality which converts all its villains before
the fall of t h e curtain. In the play, as in
actual life men are seen divided into two
classes: those in whom evil is only accidental,
to be purged out of them by the discipline of
experience and those in whom t h e evil seems to
be part of their nature and a l l the working of
events upon them serves only to drive it deeper
in. A l m s 0 is by h i s doom driven to ecstasies
of remorse: why? because he has before had a
heart that could feel compunction. 12
Human nature is imperfect and fallible, but the sense of
order in it compels the disordered persons to regenerate.
Human regeneration through suffering is the theme of
the major tragedies. The Last Plays are perfect tragedies
by virtue of this theme which functions like the strand of
Shakespeare plays. A critical survey of prominent
elucidations may be undertaken so as to focus attention on
G . Wilson Knight and E. M. W, Tillyard.
A. C, Bradley gives a fatalistic approach to tragedy.
There may be intellectual perception of t h e error of
judgement in the tragic hero, Regeneration is only an
intellectual value, n o t a lived value, That means the
tragic hero enjoys freedom to live up to or n o t to live up
to the insight, but he is not capable of exercising it as
an act of fulfilment, However, he admits that Shakespeare
tragedies evince the correlation among character, motive,
and action. He defends Shakespeare's tragic philosophy
that character is destiny; there is poetic justice which
raeans virtue is rewarded and evil is punished in the light
of the principle of justice. The Bradleyan conception of
poetic justice is the artistic harmony between character
and fate. He finds in Shakespearean tragedies a painful
mystery of suffering .
Janet Spens explains the concept of regenerat i o n in
tragedy.
Recently tragedy has been put in terms of the
mental experience of rebirth. This new notion
is in itself more congenial to the modern mind
than the old one but it is unfamiliar still and
cannot as yet compete with something less
cangenial and more familiar. Next, the terms in
use are multivocal when it cames to describing
the process of the mind. It may well be that
tragedy renders other experiences also and we
lack the vocabulary to cope w i t h this situation.
A theory lacking technical terms and expressible
only through arbitrary circumstances is at a
disadvantage, to say the least. And, l a s t l y , to
define the literary kinds thus psychologfcally
is to run all sorts of r i s k , is to leave
restricted safety for a realm where conjecture,
has every chance of flourishing. Nevertheless I
believe that t h e notion of the kinds can still
.promote the business of criticism and that of
the different not ions the psychological one
stands the &st chance of ultimate aceeptance.13
C , H. Herford has his own views about the theme of
human regeneration in Shakespeare's plays. He writes:
Shakespeare's tragedies do not suggest the
morose temper of a pessimist: his most terrible
picture of t h e power of evil gives us the
ineffable vision of goodness in Cordelia and in
Desdemona, and it is rightly seen that though
they perish miserably the world which produced
them cannot he hopeless; the vital thing is not
that they were happy or unhappy; but that they
existed at all. And it is significant that this
free and open nature is the constant mark of his
tragic heroes as if Shakespeare had been most
impressed by the kind of calamity which befalls
such natures as his own, l4
S . F. Johnson has elahorated on the theme of human
regeneration in Shakespeare4s major tragedies. He points
out t h a t nlbzd&& and the other tragedies contain the theme
of human regeneration in that the heroes recognize their
error and in that they are wiser if n o t finer for their
sufferings. "35
S. F . Johnson analyses the concept of regeneration in
Hamlet. His first observation is that there is no
spiritual development since Hamlet has been shown to be
deeply religious throughout the play. The second idea is
that he enjoyed quietism which is not religious
enlightenment: it means a mental state of tranquillity,
As he observes, mrHa~let is ready for anything that will
come along; he has not acquired a new and liberating
mastery of h i s own fate."'' Quietism is the doctrine that
religious perfection on earth consists in positive and
uninterrupted contemplation of God.
He disagrees with Bradley's view that t h e following
speech betrays only the fatalistic attitude of Hamlet:
We defy augury, There is a special providence
In the fall of a sparrow. (I.v.82)
He rejects also the view of Roy Walker, who believes
that Hamlet is an instrument of providence, heavens'
scourge and minister, and that what was required of him
was acceptance of h i s own nature with all the complexities
and contradictions. He challenges and repudiates Ray
Walker's second argument that Hamlet's attitude amounted
to ~mysticismw and so it must wait upon inspiration.
A. A. smirnov proposes a historical interpretation
of the theme of human regeneration in Shakespearean
tragedies. He argues that every tragedy is illuminated by
an affirmation of life: Lear's suffering leads to a
spiritual regeneration, OthelloOs to a rebirth of faith in
Desdemona's purity and in human nature at large Antonyf s
death, to an enlightening revelation of the universal
historical process. Enlightened Antony dies like a Roman.
He says "1 am dying, Egypt is dyingm (Antony and C-
1V.xv.l). Shakespeare unceasingly strove towards an
understanding of the l i fe process i n all its extant and
profundity. He explored the depths of human suffering,
and through h i s understanding pointed the way to ethical
and social values, Shakespeare rejected the medieval
notion of predestination and man's mission on earth.
Having faith, like all other great humanists, in the
innate goodness of human nature, he believed that if man
were allowed to develop naturally and fully in accordance
with the needs and demands of the society, he would
achieve not only happiness but social perfection.
Smrinov further writes that a sense of the tragic
permeates the Last Plays, each of which contains socio-
moral dramatic conflicts which bring the protagonists to
the verge of ruin. The regeneration of these characters
is rooted in the moral character of human nature.
Shakespeare delineates individuals from the soc ia l and
moral angles: their rights, their relations to the family,
the sta te and the rest of society. He always stresses the
social roots of the problem.
T h i s view is more of a materialistic kind and
Shakespeare was not perceiving man as t h e measure of
everything. He goes beyond the terrestrial values of
human relations, He upholds the folly of the cross, and
believes that the rarer action is in virtue than in
vengeance. Love and forgiveness are unconditional which
involve a supramundane relation to God. Professor
Smrinov's argument carries conviction but is merely a
partial one.
G. Wilson Knight and Tillyard loom large in t h e
interpretation of Shakespearean tragedy and its completion
in the Last Plays. The theme of human regeneration runs
imperfectly through the major tragedies and reaches the
peak of excellence in the Last Plays. There are
ostensible p o i n t s of agreements in their views on the
tragedies as miniature regeneration plays.
Tragedy is imitative in nature and cathartic in
function. It imitates the death of the hero. The
physical ruin is the conventional nature of the tragic
hero. Before death, the hero may be purified by virtue of
reason and religion. suffering ennobles and purifies the
tragic hero. This is magnificently depicted in the Last
Plays where death is evaded but agony of the soul is more
painful than the torture in dying, Renewal follows
destruction according Knight and Tillyard.
Regeneration is the richest term to express Knight's
concept of resurrection and Tillyardis idea of recreation.
The spiritual regeneration is a prelude to the physical
one. The resurrection of the body and soul is implied in
Knight's description that Shakespearean tragedy transcends
the tragic, The same is suggested in the dialectical
determinism: Prosperity, destruction and recreation
propounded by Tillyard.
The two critics jointly hold that the tragic heroes
regenerate in the sense that they attain self-recognition
(according to Knight) and self-discovery (according to
Tillyard). They tide over the religious sense of
repentance. Hamlet and Othello achieve a new spiritual
poise at the close of their lives,
E. C , Pettet epitornises the cornon features of their
views. He says that the romances are distinguished from
t h e comedies because they contain suffering and
destruction. They are distinguished from t h e tragedies
because they embody a f i n a l phase of prosperity and
reconciliation. The purificatory function of suffering
and the immortal nature of the human soul are the
essential facets of tragedy according to them. This truth
is vaguely pictured in t h e tragedies but magnificently
portrayed in t h e -st Flays.
Knight describes tragedy as a great truth of life
showing in it, in one sense, a fall and in another sense a
rise. The fall consists in renewal leading to the
resurrection of the hero, In the Last Plays this t r u t h is
shown to be a mystic experience by Knight, whereas it is
developed as a biological fact of t h e nature of man by
Tillyard. The former belongs to the metaphysical plans of
reality, the latter belongs to the natural plane of
reality.
E. M. W, Tillyard distinguishes three kinds af tragic
feeling, any or all of which may be present in a tragedy:
f%hat produced by the suffering of a hero, w i t h or without
tragic flaw: that produced by sacrificial purgation,
involving something of a religious response, and that
produced by renewal consequent on destruction.
He perceives an organic and even necessary connection
of the tragedies with the Last Plays. He traces in them a
comaran pattern of prosperity (happiness), destruct ion
(suffering) and recreation (renewal), He discovers self-
discovery in Othellors confession to Ludavico that he
loved Desdemona too well but not wisely.
It may be suggested that in W s ~ e a r e ' s W t P l w
Tillyard examines the relationship of the Last Plays with
the tragedies, The theme of rebirth, which is the seminal
truth of the Aeschylean Trilogy, inspired Shakespeare to
cultivate it in the tragedies and harvest it in the Last
Plays. He holds that the myth of fertility is extensively
displayed in The Winter's T a . The regenerative quality
is abundantly brought out in the tragedies where
Shakespeare portrays the horror of evil and the
possibility of redemption and in the Last Plays he
demonstrates how evil is redeemed. In varying degrees
Shakespeare creates a symbolic awareness of the beauty of
normal humanity after it has been purged of evil--a
blessed reality under the evil appearance of suffering.
G I Wilson Knight argues that Shakespeare's vision of
the depths of man's suffering, of the essential tragedy of
his lot, remains as his deepest insight into human
destiny. The Last Plays complement and confirm the
ultimate truths conveyed by t h e tragedies. Human
regeneration is in potency here and now, it is in act only
in resurrection. That is what Knight meant by h i s dictum
that Shakespearean tragedy transcends the tragic.
Knight and Tillyard have influenced several other
Shakespeare critics. A perusal of the following views
drives home to the readers the impact of their criticism
on the relevance of human regeneration in t h e major
tragedies.
Alan Siobsan writes that Lear has learned to feel with
and for others through the terrible suffering but the
fullness of self-sacrificing love would be too much to
expect. Lear is born again, but as a new born-child.
Devouring self-love has given way to devouring love.
Altruism has been born and possessiveness disappears, but
there is little time for the flowering of the altruism.
Irving Ribber is of the view that the suffering of Lear
and Gloucester is preserved with all the immediate
intensity in order to emphasize that the process of
regeneration is a purgatorial one. nKincr. L e u asserts the
perfection of God's harmonious order and the inevitable
triumph of justice over the forces of evil preying upon
and destroying themselves. In the process they subvert
the good, but finally good must be vict~rious. In such a
world man must subject h i s will to the will of God,
patiently enduring whatever may came, with only faith in
the perfection of the divine plan to sustain him."18
Riboner indicates that specifically in this play
Shakespeare affirms the possibility of human salvation,
and that he does this by placing in an imaginative setting
the regeneration from evil of two aged men. In t h e
vagueness of the setting Shakespeare creates the feeling
that the stage of Lear is in the entire world, and in the
double action he reminds us forcefully t h a t the life
journey of Lear may be the life-journey of every man.
In Kina ];em Shakespeare's emphasis is upon the
process of human regeneration, self-knowledge,
penance and expiation for s i n upon which he had
touched only lightly in the final scene of
m. That Shakespeare now chose for his
hero an old man was appropriate, for h i s concern
is with a spiritual rebirth for which man never
can grow too old. Shakespeare just poses
dramatically the physical age of h i s hero
against the new manhood he attains through
suffering: he affirms that Lear's four score
years of pride and self-deception were merely
the prelude to l i f e and not true life at all. 19
Human regeneration is the basic message of Pinu Lew
according t o David Horowitz. In h i s opinion "endurance is
made possible by the stoic recognition of maturity; it is
a knowledge that what is not lost cannot be found, an
aesthetic recognition that life is a 'defect perfection,'
its perfection seen as, in some essential way, lodged in
its defect; for the ground of every spring is a winter , of
every birth, a death.w20
G. K. Hunter interprets m g J . m as the central
Shakespearean statement. wThe word which most clearly
leads the modern eye straight from *a Lsar to the Last
Plays is the word 'reconciliation. ' is seen as
the greatest of tragedies because it not only strips,
reduces and assaults human dignity but because it also
shows w i t h the greatest force and detail the process of
restoration by which humanity can recover from this
degradation. Lear i s exiled from h i s throne, h i s friends,
h i s dependents, h i s family, even from his own reason and
from his own identity.~21
The insanity and exile are expressions of corruption.
It is self-induced moral strain that caused his
derangement, The love and constancy of cordelia
accelerated his self-perception that 'ripeness is allof
According to M. C . Bradbrook is a Christian
Play: is set in pagan times and Shakespeare has
totally abstracted the Christian hope, though he has l e f t
t h e Christian ethics. Every doctrinal expectation is
contradicted. "Yet this is a most religious play, in the
sense that it deals with ultimate suffering and finds no
answer to the mystery of evil. But the solution to the
problem of justice is seen in the vanishing of this
problem. w 2 2
Lear ends his life in self-discovery. A similar
restoration of tho self has been effected by Job. He
encountered an undeserved tragedy while Lear was doled out
a tragic measure of existence. Critics have compared
The Book of Job and U n a L w from the perspective of
human regeneration. Dover Wilson points out that lqW
Bnpk sf Job is a marvellous poem on the meaning of the
universe, a theme which is handled artistically and not
philosophically, exactly as Shakespeare handles it in
. But the former embraces more than the fatter;
it includes the recovery as well as the anguish.n23
Human regeneration in ufi is a glimmering
cultural evolution. Macbethts inward call f ~ r rebirth is
projected symbolically, when Macbeth speaks to the doctor
of physic:
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed busorn of that perilous stuff
which weighs upon the heart?
(m II.ii.58ff)
It may be said then that in Shakespeare has
achieved a superbly poetic morality play on the theme of
anbition, deadly sin, worldly ruin, death and damnation.
At the same time, the deeper spiritual interests which
dominate almost all the other plays of h i s maturity appear
to have in some of the speeches what might be called a
mystical purgatorial start.
Uldy Macbeth had suppressed grievous burdens of s i n
in her subconscious mind, when they sought an outlet and
relief in the unconscious level of her life. Sonnambulisn
is an expression of the unconscious state of mind. It
illustrates the human psychology that human behaviour
concentrates on goals and unmet needs. She aspired
therefore for deliverance from the bondage of s i n but the
force of habit impeded the easy exoneration from the
consequences of sin.
Here is the smell of blood still. ~ l l the
perfume of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, Oh, Oh. (V.iii.1)
The doctor of physic confirms the need for human
cooperation with the divine invitation for the fulfilment
of regeneration. He stresses it in the following speech:
Foul whispering are abroad. Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their
secrets
Mare needs she t h e divine than the physician.
(V.ii.48ff)
In the final soliloquy of Macbeth there are elements
of human salvation. He recognizes how he has undone
himself and the world, how he has unmade his life,
reducing it to no more than
a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets h i s hour from the stage
And then is heard no more, (V.v.28ff)
In the light of the ~nglican theology the
protagonists' painful spiritual condition is a healthy
sign of regeneration. William Perkins writes on the
relevance of despair: "In the Renaissance thinking,
despair can produce two opposing spiritual states. On the
one hand, unqualified despair, doubting God's power to
grant remission for one's sins and demonstrating a lack of
faith results in eternal damnation. But on the other
hand, qualified despair can be positive, marking the very
start of onefs spiritual r e o o ~ e r ~ . ~ ~ ~ Luther and Calvin
found a kind of self-despair as prerequisite to salvation,
Protestant sermons stressed the need for fallen humanity
to be aware of its unworthiness, to be rehrn through the
experience of positive despair to a complete dependence on
God. According to Robert Burton, despair could affect
even God's best ,children. nIn the devotional literature
of Shakespeare's time the spiritual struggle of working
through a deep troubled conscience to arrive at a renewed
faith in God was a process much di~cussed.~
There is human regeneration in the major tragedies
which are preludes to the regeneration plays. ~espair of
the heroes is no f ndication of their spiritual damnation.
Theologians like Acquinas and calvin upheld that it is
natural for man to experience the fear of despair but it
is a factor for trust in God. "Despair must indicate s i n
to the theologian; yet theology recognizes that despair
may exist without unbelief. Despair, Aquinas argues,
refers to an inclination of the soul.n For despair must
form part of the process of salvation. "It is right that
the world should for a time appear to the travailing soul
like a beautiful flower. 25
The suffering which arises out of the sense of mortal
inadequacy and affliction has to do w i t h the health of the
soul: 'despair8 as Reinhold Norden puts it, Rhas a greater
affinity with repentance than complacency has with
faith.u26 The foolish arrogance of the spirit can only be
beaten down. Calvin declares : Rby that proof of man s
frailty which drives h i m to invoke the strength of God, 27
and the thought i s commonplace in Elizabethan devotional
literature that God permits h i s children to encounter
evils on earth
to the end that they dote not upon a secure
estate here, but rather through adversity and
affliction he maketh them weary of this world,
that they may desire heaven he maketh them to
know themselves to be but wretched men; as of
themselves, and to have all their help from
him. 28
The consciousness of sin is at one with the
cansciousness of God. Therefore the tragic heroes
transcend the negative state of despair. They regenerate.
In the theatre the negative power of despair w a s
dranntised in Marlowers Doctor F a u s t u . For other
characters, however, despair can revive hope by taking
away everything but trust in Gadl Unlike Faustus those
predestined to be saved will progress out of despair to
arrive at true repentance, forgiveness and remission of
sins. This process is shown by Edgar's treatment of his
father in m u u: Gloucester must be brought to
understand the need to trust in divine providence. The
puritans believed that heaven alone determines the timing
and conditions of birth and death, our ltcoming hithern as
well as our "going hence." One can suggest several
reasons why Shakespeare frequently presents characters who
struggle with their despair. It was a concern of
widespread interest for t h e Elizabethan audience. It
often affected men in an extremely emotional and therefore
highly dramatic manner. It is a theme in the epistle of
Saint Paul to the Corinthians and Shakespeare might have
had a predilection for it from the point of view of human
regeneration. you n o t know that you are God's temple
and that God's spirit dwells in you: If anyone destroys
God's temple God will destroy him, for God's temple is
holy, and that temple you areM [Cor. 3 . 6 and 6,ll),
G . Wilson Knight and E. M. W. Tillyard appreciate the
suitability of txngi-comedy as an effective vehicle to
convey the thene of human regeneration. Tillyard writes
that unlike the tragedies which do not reserve a full A c t
for self-discovery, the Last Plays devote the final A c t
exclusively for human regeneration. The joy of
reconciliation replaces the sorrows over the deaths in the
tragedies. The cheers over the reunions remove the cups
of woes. However he remarks:
There was no absolute need, in expressing the
last part of the tragic pattern, to depart from
the realistic methods of the tragedies proper,
even though it may have been convenient to mark
off the theme of recreation from that of
destruction, by a change of manner. But by
adding variety of character treatment to variety
of plot Shakespeare could powerfully enrich h i s
means of expressing h i s sense of different
worlds. And this was the main reason for his
new treatment of character. 29
Dover Wilson disagrees with Knightr& theory of
'Shakespearean Progress.' He argues that the Last Plays
literary form is only an adoption of a nascent genre
invented by John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont and that it
represents Shakespeare's poetic conversion, n o t a
religious one.
Dover Wilson's contention is weak because the theme
of human regeneration is a faithful portrait of human
nature and the genre of tragi-comedy is a realistic
initation of the working of the human mind. In the light
of Emmnnuel Kantfs The C r l t ~ a u e s P re Reason . I f u a l l men
enjoy the transcendental appreciation. He shows that we
a l l experience the same world: we a l l have the same
structure in our mental perception. Thus a unitary self
prevails which makes possible the objective nature of our
experience. If every individual had a different concept
of space and time, solipsism would be the only
alternative; we would live in a purely private world, and
no definite judgements i n science and mathematics could be
made.
Knight and Tillywrd maintain that the Romances
complete the pattern of tragedy which always suggests
rebirth. This pattern is displayed in -terrs T u .
According to Tillyard, the resurrection theme is
explicitly projected in me T-. Both opine that
Cariolnnus makes a transition to the Last Plays. Their
point of stress is that Shakespeare had started the theme
of human regeneration in Utonv and Cleonatra and
Corialanus and consummated it the Last Plays.
Wilson Knight makes an analogy between tragedy and
the rhythm of life. nLife flows and ebbs in rhythm.
There are necessary rhythms of creation and destruction
throughout animal life and natural evolution. w30 He shows
how in plants and animals the twin processes of creation
and destruction take place. There are the principles of
the survival of the fittest and 'might is righti as normal
courses of the vegetative life and sentient life
respectively. In the personal life of man these necessary
rhythms of creation and destruction take after the
following realities. (I) Self-assertion and (2) Self-
sacrifice, In self-assertion man vindicates h i s rights
through pursuit of righteousness. Man acts according to
the moral determinism of doing good and avoiding evil.
Self-sacrifice assumes its course in the moral trajectory
of sin, suffering, repentance, penance, forgiveness, and
redemption. In self-assertion man proves himself superior
to the rest of creation by surmounting tho urges of the
lower nature. He is conscientious and gives everyone h i s
due. We gives to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God
what belongs to God. In man's perseverance as a moral
baing he regenerates himself as a spiritual being by
exercising mortifications. By practising the moral
trajectory he elevates himself to a state of enlightenment
and d i v i n e grace which flower into mystic regeneration.
Mortification and resurrection are therefore like two
facets of the same reality of human regeneration,
Growth i n wisdom is a process that demands of man
self-assertion and mortification. The same truth is
described by Tillyard in an attractive analogy. He
imagines the benevolence of an individual who is
susceptible to refinement. He offers himself as a plant
being pruned constantly by a gardener who also facilitates
heliotropism, phototropism, and geotropism. The plant co-
operates with the plan of the gardener. In the event of
development in culture and civilization man has to
sacrifice many comforts, preferences and egoism in
thought, word, and deed. The nobility of reason and
sublimity of faculties can be achieved only through proper
attitude and behaviour.
Human regeneration is an attitude, not an act ,
according to Knight and Tillyard. In self-assertion the
suffering penitent s e e k s t h e Kingdom of Gad and its
justice. In this option he endeavours to remove the
impediments to regeneration, one may not succeed one
hundred per cent to transcend the ordinary human
judgement- Y e t God's reward to the penitent is
commensurate with his fervour and efforts for
regeneration.
Amaresh Datta is an important name in Shakespeare
criticism. H i s comments on Shakespearean tragedies and
their relation with the Last Plays have a reference to the
similarities in the respanses of Knight and Tillyard. He
agrees with them that the tragedies enclose the seminal
form of human regeneration and that they sprout and
vigorously mature in t h e L a s t Plays. Suffering is
metaphorically a refinery and regeneration is the
fulfilment of a natural as well as supernatural order.
Amaresh Datta writes:
Tragedy certainly shows at the end reversal of
fate but the process it symbolises is n o t that
of the biological l a w of life but of a more
mysterious spiritual principle leading each aan
to the realisation of h i s own destiny.
Sometimes it may bring in a feeling of
regeneration but that is no specific aim of
tragedy. Tragic delight does not arise out of
the enactment of a natural law by the tragic
characters in a play, but out of a half-
understood and half-felt operation of a
spiritual principle that stands justified by the
action and suffering of - the tragic heroes. 31
In the Last Plays alone there are provisions far
miscellaneous experiences, diverse situations, variety of
characters, profuse symbols and lavish mythical
references, The final vision that evolves from P_ericles,
-, ma Winterra T m , and The Te- is the
existence of a close affinity of the natural and the
supernatural with the human dimensions of reality. They
show how the universe is a well-fused and integrated whole
where God's immanence and transcendence accentuate human
regeneration.
The picture of death in Shakespeare has generated
much discourse. It is not the clinical aspect that
Shakespeare dramatises because it only describes death as
the stoppage of the functions of the brain and heart. He
is not concerned w i t h the psychological aspect of death
because it only draws death as a passive state of mind in
slumber, a dreamless condition of the human mind. It is
not h i s purview to explain death as a physiological
process because it can only show that every seven years
several cells in the human body die and therefore death is
a process, not an act,
Shakespeare recognizes t h e dignity of man and
therefore death is a ceremony where all persons
participate in and are united i n t o a whole. Obviously
Shakespeare looks on death from the point of a view of
finality; man is the temple of the s p i r i t and hence death
is a phenomenon of the transition of the spirit from the
body. He regards death as an eschatological departure of
the immortal soul from the mortal cage into i t s eternal
destiny. Shakespeare perceives death from the Christian
cultural stance, according to critical consensus. The
question under discussion is this: how do G . Wilson Knight
and E. M. W. Tillyard look at the cultural heritage of
death.
Shakespeare's dramatization of death is found best in
the words of Robert Stevenson:
In h i s histories and tragedies set in Christian
times and countries 31 persons die on the
stage. Hone, however, dies with so much as the
name of Christ on h i s lips. Only one mentions
the name of God at the hour o f his death--King
Henry VI. If all Shakespeare's Christians d i e
as did Hamlet with no other fast comment than
V h e rest is silencew priest's omission of any
appropriate words expressing Christian faith
when officiating at Ophelia's burial service
merely conforms with an observable pattern in
his plays. 3 2
An eminent Shakespeare critic John Bayley maintains
that in Shakespeare tragedies death is very much a part of
human life. He argues that major tragedies profess
the idea of human regeneration in the sense of the
resurrection of the soul to its original abode. Death is
only a necessary passage of the human soul to enter into
immortality. m3 Shakespeare tragedies reiterate that
death is the beginning of a higher state of existence and
that it is the symbol of fulfilment through human
regeneration,
Human regeneration is ultimately based on faith in
God. In Shakespeare and in the whole cast of the medieval
mind, there is the constant supposition of a fourth
dimension--the relation of human choice to the suprahuman
world, principally the divine force but also the angelic
and the demoniac.
Throughout the thinking of the Middle Ages there was
the pervasive feeling that human conduct takes place in a
set of circumstances which are partly by human planning
(chronos) but partly and principally by divine planning
(kenos) . The "divinity which shapes out endsfm is
conceived as an infinite p o w e r guiding all things to a
definite destination. Such guidance, far from conflicting
with human free will, actually employs and directs free
will, making of it one of the agents which fulfil t h e
divine plan. Besides, limited human intelligence cannot
know fully what the results of huaaan action will be.
As agents of human a f f a i r s , the medieval mind also
accepted angels and demons; these were never looked on as
mere personification or mental embodiments of the p o w e r s
of good and evil within man. They were thought of as real
and intelligent substances, lower than the divine but much
more powerful than man, as able to communicate some of
their powers to men, They were considered able to league
themselves to men to accomplish certain f o m s of good and
evil. The fullest use of this belief is made in mcbea,
perhaps t h e moot sensible treatise on demonology in t h e
language. It is Banquo who speaks for the more sane and
balanced medieval view on man's dealings with the demons:
Often times to w i n us to our harms
The instruments of darkness tell us truths
Win us w i t h honest trifles to betray us
In deepest consequence. (UcbeW X.iii.123ff)
T h e 'instruments of darkness are n o t only t h e
witches, but also the 'murdering ministers' and
'metaphysical aid' which Macheth and h i s wife believe to
be as real as themelves.
In The WofLifelsoson Knight sees Shakespeare
moving from problem plays and tragedies to myths of
immortality in his final plays, which are not to be read
as pleasant fancies: rather as parables of a profound and
glorious truth. Knight sees Shakespeare working out a new
mythology, which makes use of both pegan and ~hristian
myths but recombines them in a new way. Numerous other
critics have followed Knight's lead, and unquestionably it
is in the interpretation of the Last Plays that ritualists
have been most influential. By offering an interpretation
which includes and welcomes such striking features as the
vision of Jupiter, the resurrection of Thaisa, Perdita's
pastorals, and Hermione's 'ras~rrection,~ they have
broadened and deepened our understanding of these playa.
Yet in a way they have been so successful to t h e point
that the plays in their analyses have seemed to lose their
literary character and to become literally myths. Colin
Still's interpretation of The T e m w s t as a mystery play is
a case i n point. Richard Wincor has treated the romances
as if they were merely 'festival playsf of the St- George
variety. 34
Wilson night has proposed that incense be burned at
their performances. Knight's most interesting follower,
D. G. James accepts h i s view that the Last Plays seek to
create a personal mythology but then argues that they
fail: *'the making of a mythology is too great a work for
one mind, though that mind be Shakespearef s. m35 He shows
how Shakespeare's myths conflict love with royalty,
regeneration with evil. He criticises Knight's myth of
resurrection and shows that it is weakened by attempts at
plausibility. But he does not indicate how the qualities
which produce the failure of t h e plays as a 'Ihuman
mythologym might contribute to their success as works of
art .
The Greek myths of the immortality of the human soul
can be traced back to the dialogue of Socrates on the
meaning of death, This spiritual heritage was enriched by
the philosophers of the succeeding ages. In the wake of
Catholicism t h i s school of men modified and reinterpreted
some arguments on the relevance of physical survival in a
transcendent state of existence.
Louis D. Nordstorm describes the course of the
dialogue between Socrates and his disciple Phaedo.
Sacrates bade Cabes tell Evenos, an absent friend, to
follow him soon; when Cabes expressed surprise at this,
Socrates said that Evenos would be willing to die, since
he was a philosopher, but would not commit suicide. He
would not take the latter course because all men were in
the custody of the gods and could not dispose of
themselves as they would, I v C a b e s pointed out that God
cared well for human beings and that they are his
possessions, Man should n o t seek to escape from life; yet
socrates himself was willing to accept death. mr36
Socrates undertook to show his friends why he hoped
for some good after him death. He maintained that
philosophy itself is the practice of death: he explained
that by showing that both death and philosophy w e r e one
for the true philosopher who is indifferent to the
pleasures of the body. Since reason d e a l s with pure
concepts which are obscured by the bodily senses, and
operates best when nothing bodily disturbs it, the
philosopher, in the pursuit of knowledge is necessarily
trying to escape from t h e budy. There is thus hope for
achieving a state of perfect knowledge after death, when
the soul will be totally free from t h e body. Socrates
showed that the philosopher would possess true wisdom and
courage, being indifferent to the things of the body. Ha
related the philosopher's striving to myths which promise
bliss to purified souls after death.
The not ion of the immortality of the soul fills a
large place in the structure of man's religious beliefs.
The idea of survival after death has grown in significance
with the growth of religions.
To the earlier Hebrews, Sheol, the abode of the dead
was a dim and shadowy realm lying remote from this world,
a ghostly region aver which yahwehgs rule did not extend.
For the Greeks and Hebrews t h i s belief had no ethical
moaning and man's ghost had no relation to his earthly
mode of life.
In the ancient Egyptian thought the ethical aspect of
the belief in immortality was emphasized. Accordingly,
the soul had a land beyond the grave when the soul was
rewarded or punished for the deeds done on the body. But
it is in Christian religion that the sp ir i tua l and ethical
implications of the belief in immortality are most fully
developed.
The notion of immortality implies three conditions,
namely:
1) The soul continues to exist after the decomposition
of the body.
2 ) That the soul maintains its individuality and remains
conscious of itself and its destiny.
3 ) That this survival is illimited.
Science cannot give any positive evidence far
immortality. If science could show that personal
consciousness is bound up with the present bodily
organism, the hope of a survival after death would be
excluded, But it is one thing to hold that there is a
functional relation between mental and cerebral processes
and it is totally a different thing to declare that
thought is a function of the brain. Dependence of mind on
brain, in the materialistic sense, is impassible. This
being so, the claim of the soul, to exist apart from the
body cannot be ruled out as impossible. Science cannot
disprove any possibility of the survival of the soul t o o .
So far as science is concerned the problem is an open
one. Now it remains to ask whether philosophy can shed
further light upon the question. Philosophers have sought
to command the idea of immortality by metaphysical
arguments and by ethical considerations.
The idea of inmortality remains the object of faith
rather than of reason, And the final ground of our faith
and hope must be the character of God himself from whom
a l l spiritual life proceeds. It is surely a legitimate
trust that the Father of S p i r i t will not destroy t h e
aspiring soul that draws its being from himself, but will
in the end bring it to its goal and grant fulfilment. An
ethical God must be the conserver, not the destroyer of
values. This claim of fa i th in inamortality rests mainly
in the intrinsic character of the spiritual life. Human
regeneration is a supernatural phenomenon; human mind
cannot comprehend a l l aspects of the truth and human
language cannot exhaust all ideas related to the same
t r u t h .
Knight's theory on the myth of immortality has two
ramifications: 1) Myth of reunion of the souls of the
departed in a higher sta te of existence; 2 ) myth of
fertility which refers to the death and resurrection of
nature as a symbol of human regeneration.
Tillyard also interprets the Last Plays in terms of
the myth of fertility. Both of them discern in the L a s t
Plays mythical symbuls and religious formalism.
Knight strengthens h i s thesis with instances of the
myth of fertility in me W- # R T u . There is the
contrast of wintry passion and tragic catharsis with the
rebirth of the year and summer time festival. The long-
lost l a s s Perdita, is a seed sown in winter but it is
growing.
Perdita makes meaningful references to D f s and
Proserpine and the blossoms of spring. Besides the
seasonal myths of fertility there are also the Christian
concepts of death and resurrection in Winter's U.
The oracle of A p l l o and its decisive message corroborate
the relevance of ritual, Hermoine descends to the
repentant and suffering Leontes. She is shown as a
marbled and memorial statue new-waked in the royal
chapel by PaulinaCs music. Temples, chapels, oracles,
resurrections, and the rhythms of the seasons, of death
and rebirth enhance the mythical symbols and religious
formalism.
With reference to tho final plays, El M. W. Tillyard
uses the terms 'mythr and *mythicalg in a particular
sense. "The words 'mythC and 'mythical' refer to the
universal instinct of any human group, large or small, to
invest almost always unconsciously certain stories or
events of place or persons real or fictional with an
uncomon significance.
Myths appeal to emotion rather than to reason. They
have an indefinite past when rational explanations were
neither available nor apparently wanted. A myth is Less
ahistorical than a legend and it is less concerned with
tldidacticismuf than a fable, but a l l three farms are
fictitious stories, many of which have persisted through
oral transmission. n37
E. 14. W. Tillyard writes: "The gods of Greece and
Rome occur very frequently in the L a s t Plays and are
certainly mars than mere embroidery. Apollo is the
dominant God in The Wi&lferls T a and his appearance in
Perditars speech is meant to quicken the reader to
apprehend same unusual significance. He appears as the
bridegroom, whom the pale primroses never know but who
v i s i t s the other flowers, Not to take the fertility
symbolism as intended would be a perverse act of caution.
Perdita should be associated with them, as symbol of the
creative powers of nature, physical fertility and healing
of nature and recreation of the mind.
He adopts pagan myths of fertility to embody h i s
Christian idea. An epitome of the Dionysian myth of
fertility may be attempted. S i r James Frazer furnishes
adequately relevant information in GoUen _Bfiu$&+
Accordingly, in antiquity the civilized nations of Western
Asia and Egypt pictured to themselves the changes of the
seasons, and particularly the annual growth and decay of
vegetation as episodes in the life of gods. They
celebrated the God's mournful death and happy resurrection
with dramatic rites of alternate lamentation and
rejoicing.
L ike other gods of vegetation Dionysus was believed
to have died a violent death, but was brought back to life
and his sufferings, death and resurrection were enacted in
h i s sacred rites. "His tragic story is thus told by the
poet Nonnus. Zeus in the form of a serpent visited
Persephane and she bore him Zagreus, that is, Dionysus, a
horned in fant . Scarcely was he born, when the babe
mounted the throne, for the treacherous T i t a n s , their
faces whitened w i t h chalk, attacked him but he evaded
their assaults by turning himself into various shapes. He
assumed the likeness successively of Zeus and Cronus, of a
young man, of a lion, a horse, and a serpent. Final ly in
the form of a bull he was cut to pieces by the murderous
knives of his enemies. His Cretan myth, runs thus. He
was s a i d to have been the bastard son of Jupiter. The
Cretan King, going abroad, Jupiter transferred the throne
and sceptre to the youthful ion ye us, not knowing that his
wife Juno cherished a jealous dislike of the child. He
entrusted Dionysus to the care of guards upon whose
fidelity he thought he could rely. Juna, however, bribed
the guards and amused the child w i t h rattles. A cunningly
wrought looking glass lured him into an ambush, when her
satellites, the T i t a n s , rushed upon him. They cut him
limb from limb, boiled his body with various herbs, and
ate it. But h i s sister Minerva, who had shared in the
deed, kept his heart and gave it to Jupiter on h i s return,
revealing to him the whole history of the crime. In h i s
rage, Jupiter mads an image in which he enclosed the
child's heart, and then built a temple in h i s honour. In
this version a euphemistic turn has been given to the myth
by representing ~upiter and Juno (Zeus and Hera) as King
and Queen of Crete.
Shakespeare, according to E, M. W . Tillyard's
interpretations of the Last Plays, employed the pagan myth
of fertility as a means t o convey the universal aspiration
for regeneration of the human person which Christian
culture claims as faith in resurrection. In the light of
the Christian heritage the myth of fertility assumes an
eschatological significance. I t develops the richness of
religious belief on the strength of divine revelation,
A s per h i s interpretation Marina, fmogen, Perdita, and
Miranda, who endured misfortunes and survived fatal
separation, represent human regeneration in the full sense
of the myth of fertility which assumes the dimension of
the belief in resurrection.
e Tegppsst is the supreme play among the L a s t Plays.
Prospero the regenerated ruler of Milan symblises a new
order of things that has evolved out of destruction in
the form of suffering. Prospero is the Saviour and
me Tem~est world emerges a purged state on account of the
regeneration of the inhabitants who are stranded there,
Prospero8s reconciliation w i t h his enemies, far the
regional status of Miranda, his self-improvement and
benevolent resumption of the dukedom confirm the truth
that regeneration is possible only through the cross.
Henry Douglas Wilde discusses the relevance of
h e T theme: human capability of transcending
adversity and transforming pain. Man living in t h e
hurricane of the twentieth century should learn to develop
the potential of wisdom, freedom and order within himself.
In Shakespeare's island symbol of man the myth-function
rises out of the sea of being. Radiant gems of unrealised
human potential of discretion, freedom and a sense of
order are latent within man, Under the guidance of
Prospero, opportunity would be afforded for the growth of
brotherly enlightenment. The L a s t Plays display that a
humanistic attitude of life alone can avoid destruction of
a world that places undue faith in science and technology.
I t may be judged from references in and
e Winter's Tale as well as me Te- that Shakespeare
included a much greater span of time and cultural area in
h i s plays than the episodes of Greek and Roman history he
dealt with i n n, -, 3ulius
Cae-, and mtclnv and Cleoeatrw. It is clear that the
poet-mystic was intimately cognizant of the transmission
of wisdom lore in the eastern Mediterranean regions of
Egypt, Phoenicia, Libya, and Chaldea. His reference to
1 ~ 1 - as "Prince of Tyrew carries overtones when we
recall the fact that Pythagaras was a Tyrenean. In
The WiDter's Tale Florizel in h i s fabricated story of
Perditafs origin, presents her as from Libya and as the
daughter of a King. The reference to Dido in me T e e s t
links our thought with Carthaga, known in ancient times as
Tunis, Theseus in A M i m e r Niahtis ID- is Duke of
Athens, that city of prehistoric origins traced back to
Egyptian civilization, and with Eleusis, site of the
mysteries, so much a part of its history.
This accounts for the myth-like Promethean quality i n
Prospero, oriented, as h i s name implies, to the future,
"1 hope forward." Indirectly, the Promethean theme of
Aeschylus reappears in the hero of T h e m . Be is the
image of authentic man whose regeneration fire of
enlightenment, gained by an ordeal of self-transcendence
in defiance of the lordly Zeus, works with the magic of
art to release mankind from enslavement to delusions.
Prospero, like the poet himself whose alter ego he is,
lived to awaken in others the capacity of vision and self-
responsibility required f o r the future drowning of a
peaceful world.
Among these suggested meanings we should include that
of Proepero's daughter Hiranda, a name indicating the act
of wonder and therefore Platonically linked to the birth
of wisdom,
We have been considering Shakespeare and h i s wisdom-
hero, Prospero, in the light of the prophetic tradition.
We have now reached the point where tho massive import of
Tbe T e may be viewed and felt in its relation of the
humanistic crisis of the late sixteenth century in Europe
and likewise of our time. In both cases the question of
the kind of man the existing culture produces, becomes a
dramatic issue in itself,
The relation of all this to The Temogst can be seen
when we consider the fusion of history, ethics and
psychology in C v w as an intended counterforce to the
enfeebling licentiousness and casuistry of Italian
thinking in the 16th century. The political aspect of
that trend was powerfully set forth in biachiavelli8s view
of man as naturally brutish and requiring government by
fear and force. To Shakespeare and the Platonic tradition
of the philosopher-king this swing of the pendulum was as
dangerous as the blind faith which had ravaged Europe with
torture scarcely a century before.
The sensual traits of man depicted in the lower
characters of The w e s t , from tho subhuman Caliban on
up, call for stringent discipline. Even ~erdinand, the
idea l object of 14irandar s love, is not permitted to take
things too much for granted. Nevertheless at no time does
Prospero assume any of these characters to be incapable of
guidance towards self-improvementl Without exception,
strings of their own higher possibilities begin to occur
during the experiences he arranges for them.
The result is t h a t the entire process shines before
us in its sysrbolisn as an example of benevolent sp ir i tua l
energy working creatively with the l a w s of nature for
human redemption. There is no trace of cynicism, brutality
or revenge in Prosperof s conduct of affairs, despite h i s
needed sternness in dealing with Caliban and a tendency to
roughness or abruptness in manner in his initial manner
towards Ariel. In so far as this latter trait is a
failing, he amends it when Arial gently proposes an
attitude of mercy and tenderness toward the schemers who
would wrong him.
These general considerations lead to a closer look at
Prospero's ordeal in eccepting the loss of his dukedom.
Undoubtedly his deep studies had prepared him for a
philosophical acceptance of h i s humiliation. Nevertheless
the path which he, like a l l such heroes, must travel
involved a superrational adjustment 'dying' to, or ceasing
to be identified with, h i s mortal selfhood and its
circumstances. In the face of a l l outer turns of fortune
he must stand aside, firm in h i s awareness of the eternal
principle within h i m , the presence of nProvidence.m
Wisdom is often regarded as n flight of the poetf s
whimsicality appearing in the characters. Nevertheless
h i s serious intention is made evident by his consistency
and by the ensuing consequences. T h e result is an
awakening of wholeness, It is for these reasons of total
harmony of being that the discovery and occupancy of
Prospero's island represents the ageless quest of a l l
mystics, the heart of the teaching of all sages.
Shakespeare's overall theme in marrest points
forward to the eventual victory of man as a conscious
embodiment of the universal life, converting into sublime
opportunities the very limitations, conflicts and defeats
which he endures. Prospero's island is closely allied in
meaning to Budha's likening of man's consciousness to an
island to which he should resort for reflective self-
awakening and ultimate mastery of existence. The island
is the point of conjunction between man's particular and
universal attributes of selfhood,
A prophet is an inspired human messenger of God in
order to interpret contemporary events fram the d i v i n e
plan. His discourses are on ethics and spirituality and
the main theme is often the urgency of conversion, Human
regeneratfan has been the consistent theme of the prophets
of all times. Shakesparefs tragic heroes are miniature
prophets and the heroes of the L a s t Plays are real
prophets: they guide others like the good shepherds.
Prospero is not only Shakespeare's superman, he is also
the greatest of h i s prophets.
Henry Douglas Wildeos philosophy bears out the truth
in Wilson Knight's views. T h e quality of earthly life is
a prelude to t h e perfect life of man beyond the grave.
The outer turns of fortune purify the inner man. Horal
trajectory enables man to restore the spiritual integrity
of the sinner. The truth can be expressed only as a myth.
He endorses the views of E. M. W. Tillyard. In the
appearance of evils man encounters the reality of good.
As man is more of the spirit than the body, he can
retrieve the sanctity of the intellect and the will.
Moral determinism and freedom empower man to repossess
whatever is lost. There is no dichotomy between
terrestrial life and supramundane life. There is a
transcendental relationship between them and it can be
adequately expressed in terns of myths.
Derek Traversi is a staunch supporter of the mythical
interpretation of t h e L a s t Plays. He says: "Death and
birth, the new and the old, are now seen to be more
closely connected than ever in a single, continuous
process.n38 Birth refers to fertility. 'Birth to a
celestial life is suggested by the deities Juno and Cores
in m-~esg while Miranda in her wedded life symbolizes
biological fertility. w39 This is quite in conformity with
the interpretation of the Last Plays as myths of
fertility, by E. M. W. Tillyard. This is one aspect of
the vocation of a man to be reborn i n t o a higher state
of existence: heavenly life according to Christian
eschatology.
G. Wilson Knight's interpretation of the Last Plays
as myth of immortality corroborates the meaningful
explanation of human life as a prelude to life
everlasting. Death is the end of biological life and a
necessary passage of t h e soul to a glorious and
supramundance s t a t e of existence in God through God and
for God. Derek Traversi comments further, when, as a
final tribute to the storm, the sailors insist that the
ship be cleared of the dead, the symbolic action is taken
a decisive step further; for the burial of Thaisa at sea
is not only a sacrifice on the part of Pericles, but is
seen to imply the elimination of emphasis trying to make
itself felt in Periclest dispositions for the funeral.
Thaisa's death, though the result of the "terrible child
birth to which she has been exposed, has found issue,
beyond the suffering which it has involved in the creation
of a new life.tt40
The consignment of Thaisa's body to the sea,
destroyer and preserver, aims at giving the idea of death
as a transforming of remoteness. The imaginative quality
conveyed in the use of 'oozeu to indicate the sea in the
transmuting musicality of 'humming water' a suitable
introduction to the burial of Thaisa with her 'casket and
jewelsr whilst the mention of the satin coffin and t h e
rich rspicesf by which her body is preserved from the
temporal actian of the elements and disposed for the
coming resurrection contributes to the creation of a
subtle effect of harmony.
In pericles and me Winter's Ta& Shakespeare has so
long been concerned with problems of life and death. We
now envisions the sister mystery of birth; birth amid the
chaotic sea of time, beneath the black thunder of
mortality. He considers C- and me T e w as
complex plays and the themes are mainly the ultimate
themes of birth, love, God and the universal mystery of
terrestrial life which is only a sleep, the greater
consciousness in which mortality is only such stuff as
dreams are made an.
Derek Traversi demonstrates the correlation of birth
and death, rnyths of fertility and immortality in his
comments on pericleg. He stresses the relevance of
religious experience and its objectivity in the symbol of
Diana at Epherus. Human life is finite; man does not reap
t h e fruits of h i s actions adequately. Justice demands
rewards and punishments commensurate w i t h human behaviour.
If these are not doled out in this life, right thinking
assumes the form of rnyths. If revelation is limited,
through these myths Shakespeare strengthens the hope for
happiness that is the goal of human existence. He gives
us a higher dimension of life through an aesthetic realm.
G. Wilson Knight and E. M, W . Tillyard are honoured by
Derek Traversits appraisal that the last scene of W c l e s
(V.iii) brings the chief protagonists together before the
altar of Diana at Epherus. The final reunion of ~ericles
with his w i f e , of which Marina is once o r the
instrument, takes place i n the presence of the 'gods' to
whom she has in the intervening years, dedicated herself.
H i s opinion is that nPsricles begins by recalling the
death of Thaisa in childhood and the bringing forth of
their maid child: the self dedication of ~arina to Diana
is also referred to, as are the better s tars which have
preserved her from adverse fortunes and restored her
finally to her father's care. Hearing her own story thus
repeated Thaisa faints. Cerimon, taking up the prevailing
symbolic imagery describes how he found her early in the
blustering morn upon the shore with rich jewels in her
coffin, and how, having restored her, he placed her in the
holy temple. Thaisa's recovery from her swoon is also
simultaneously the awakening into a new condition. She
gropes her way towards tho truth , learning for
enlightenment upon her obecure understanding of the
central symbolic situation by which birth and death,
united in common exposure to adversity, are seen as
related aspects of a single process issuing in a new life.
E. MI W . Tillyard propounded the fertility aspect of
the theme of human regeneration in Shakespeare's L a s t
Plays. In the widest sense it means spiritual rebirth,
renewal of an individual in the s p i r i t of God, baptism and
a sacramental life. Human regeneration in truth and in
the Holy spirit is implied in the symbols of fertility and
immortality.
G , Wilson Knight and E. M. W. Tillyard both deal with
the theme of human regeneration in Shakespeare*~ L a s t
Plays. They gleaned from them resemblances of insight,
self-renewal, reunion, forgiveness of s i n s , resurrection
of the body and immortality of the soul. Frank Kermode
epitomises the various facets of the theme of human
regeneration: "All the Romances treat af the recovery of
lost royal children, usually princesses of great, indeed
semi-divine, virtue, and beauty; they all bring important
characters near to death, and some times feature almost
miraculous resurrectianst they all end with the healing,
after many years of repentance and suffering, of some
disastrous breach in the lives and happiness of princes,
and this final reconciliation is usually brought about by
the agency of beautiful young people; they all contain
material of a pastoral character or otherwise celebrate
natural beauty and its renewal . w 4 1
Knight has done the most toward relating Shakespeare
to the Christian origins of h i s dramatic tradition and to
the Christian tradition generally. In Principles of
Shakespearean Production he sees "the Christian Mass as
the 'central trunkt of Shakespearean tragedy: Each of
Shakespearefs tragic heroes is a miniature Christ. That
is why he has urged the importance of Romeots tragic
ascent, his little Calvary. w 4 2
The responses of Knight constitute the famous theory
of human regeneration in the light of the myths of
immortality and fertility. It is allegorical in
interpretation and theological in quality. It From
Christian allegory G. Wilson Knight evolved a mystical
slant in h i s exegesis of the L a s t Tillyard
worked o u t a development of tragedy into a scheme of
nprosperity, destruction and reconciliati~n.~~ This aspect
of tragedy he qualifies as tragi-comedy. is empirical
in a p p r o a ~ h , ~ ~ He illustrates the t h e m e on the strength
of the myth of fertility. "Knight's mystical and
allegorical interpretation complements, Tillyard's
empirical and teleological exposition of the Last play^,^
Critical analyses of their responses engage cogitation and
association of ideas on human essence and human existence.
notes
~ilson G. Knight, The S h m s ~ e a r e a n Ternnest
(London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1953) v i i .
Alan Hobson, rile: S-re and
221.
Rose Abdelnour Zimbardo, "Form and Disorder in ThS:
-It 125.
Ibid.
-ets Task Plavs 17.
Ibid. 21.
James Walter, "From The Tempest to Epilogue:
Augustine's Allegory in Shakespeare's Dramata, 98,
Dover Wilson, a1 Shakemeare London :
Methuen and Co., 1931) 201.
lo Virgil K. Whitaker, m a r e t . Use of 1.e-
(San Marino: Huntington Library, 1953) 11.
Dean Ebner, "The Tempest: Rebellion and the Ideal
State," -m 16 (Spring 1965): 161.
Richard G . Haulton,
(London: F a b e r and Faber, 1967) 57.
l3 Janet Spens, d of
e t 6 wlv c (London: OUP, 1916) 3 4 .
l4 C . B. Herford, u k e t c h of Recent In-tiaatiom
(London: 1923) 3 5 ,
S. F. Johnson
l6 1bid. 178.
l7 Shakesmarers P r a e n PI.- 32.
Irving Ribner, -ns in S&&eavearean Traaedv
( N e w York: Barnes and Noble, 1960) 136.
l9 Ibid.
20 David iiorowitz, -care: An Ex-al View
(London: Tavistock Publ., 1965) 32.
21 G. K. Hunter, IrThe Last Tragic Heroes, " -near%, eds. John Russel Brown and Bernard Harris
(London: OUP, 1966) 12.
2 2 #. C . Bradbrook, eare: The Poet
Worla (London: Widenfeld and Nicalson, 1978) 191.
2 3 Dover Wilson, "The Enchanted Island : Twentieth
Century Interpretations of The Tempest," ed. Hallet Smith
[London: CUP, 1981) 93.
24 William Perkins, m& 1.455-69f f (London: 1951) :
6-8
25 Aquinas Thomas, 11 I 11 IC XX
and p. 2 2 5 .
26 fohn Norden, 's Practice, 18th
edition (1920) 5 6 .
27 Calvin John, mtita,ltiom (iii-viii) 2 .
28 Sermons (1640/viii, Section 111) 2 8 9 .
29 -as~eue I m t plam 7 2 .
30 Wilson G . Knight, ~ r i n c i ~ e ~ of
(London: 1936); revised and enlarged as
production (1964) 154-
31 Amaresh Datta, a 0
(Delhi: W. D. Pvt. L t d . , 1963) 18,
32 Qtd, in Hartinan Nijhoff, R. ~ronkin
(1958) 30.
3 3 John Bayley, -e and Tra- (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981) 51.
3 4 Richard Wincor , "The Romances, It W e w r r e n r
W w (Oct. 1950): 26.
35 D. G . James, Sce~tici- Poetry (London: OUP,
1937) 12.
36 -are I 6 mt plavs 11.
37 E. M. W. Tillyard,
((London: Chatto and Windus, 1961) 10.
38 Derek Traversi, eare: The Last Phase
(landon: Hollis and Carter, 1955 ) viii.
39 Wilson G. Knight,
(London: Hethuen and Co. Ltd., 1953) 2 6 8 .
40 Derek Traversi, -ear=: The mt P w 41.
41 Frank Kerrnode, are, SDencer. Do-
[London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971) 2 2 0 .
42 4 22 (1946): 107. 4 3 Northrop Frye, W e s ~ e a r e ' s Ro- ( N e w York:
New York UP, 1965) 119.