Considered as Shakespeare’s most consummate play, The Tempest is a complex investigation of government, politics and justice. The main conflict is common to most of the Shakespearean tragedies: the usurpation of a ruler by a treacherous brother. However, The Tempest adds new dimensions to this theme. As it shall be seen, Shakespeare explores here the Machiavellic doctrine of a successful principality. It is obvious that Antonio and Sebastian are conspirers that follow Machiavelli’s principles and adhere to power forcefully, while disregarding any ethical restrictions. As usurpers, they use evil means to attain the political power that they want. When the action of the play begins however, they are already defeated without being aware of it. A seed of Machiavellic thought seems to flourish in Prospero’s mind as well. He is definitely not a common ruler: he commands his enchanted island, the spirits of the air, the natural phenomena and a savage named Caliban. He also begins his plans for winning back his lost dukedom, weaving spell after spell, to enmesh his enemies. Prospero’s utopian government is sustained with the aid of enchanted music, illusions and other magical tricks. The power springs from an unusual source: Prospero’s books.
Therefore, as it shall be seen, Prospero does not typify Machiavelli’s prince, although they do share several common traits. The usurped Duke of Milan entraps his enemies and takes his revenge on them, although he does not cause them any permanent harm. He mimes the absolute power of an extremely powerful monarch, yet his science lies in his books. Without magic, he loses his potency: Prospero is unskilled as a political leader and unprepared to face his enemies and pursue his interests at all costs and by all means. He is the ideal, utopian prince who can exercise an absolute power and weave the spell that would mold the world and the other human beings to suit a high ethical principle. Through Prospero, Shakespeare shows us the magic of books, of philosophy and the human imagination, and projected a utopia where words and thoughts would rule over individual and material interests.
There are several elements in the play that set it apart from the other tragedies with the same theme. First of all, Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, is usurped by his brother Antonio. Significantly, he loses the dukedom to his brother because he is too much absorbed in his philosophical studies to heed to the needs of his state. Philosophy is here clearly contrasted with the worldly affairs of government. Initially, Prospero fails as a governor because of his passion for study and for the occult arts: “Those being all my study,/ The government I cast upon my brother/ And to my state grew stranger, being transported/ And rapt in secret studies.” (I.ii.88-92). He shows repeatedly that he values his books more than he values the government of the state: “Me, poor man, my library/ Was dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties/ He thinks me now incapable” (I.ii.126-128).
Here, Shakespeare invests the arts with political power. To cast his spells, Ariel fills the air with his tunes that envelop the people’s minds. Moreover, with his lore alone and no arms, Prospero is able to capture his enemies and compel them to acknowledge his power and show remorse. While he is the possessor of magic, he is able to conquer the others’ will and exert only his own. He is the colonizer who enslaves the savage Caliban and the wizard who makes the natural and the supernatural to obey his thoughts. The tempest that he creates and then assuages is symbolic: like a true artist, Prospero gives the illusion of reality using only the power of words and magic chants.
As a ruler of the enchanted island, Prospero is the absolute monarch who makes use of his absolute power. However, the power is used only to serve noble purposes. It is not actual revenge against his brother and the other nobles of Milan that Prospero seeks, but rather divine justice. Magic is the device used here to win the rightful power back from the perfidious enemies. Prospero achieves therefore what Hamlet and King Lear were unable to do in the tragedies: he captures his enemies and compels them to give him back Milan. His actions however are meant to restore the moral order and the harmony of the world rather than to assume power. While Prospero does embody the absolute ruler temporarily, the power of his learning and wise thought can easily be overthrown in the real world. He thus fails to be a Machiavellic ruler in the most important aspect: he incorporates only virtue and justice into his actions. Machiavelli’s doctrine of a successful ruler looks at those qualities that will help a prince acquire and maintain absolute control and power over his subjects. The author insists that there cannot be any state in which the prince would be able to rule only by virtuous means: “A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil” (Machiavelli 88). In Machiavelli’s view, evil is inherent in any society and therefore no ruler will survive if he shows only clemency and understanding instead of will. The numerous examples that Machiavelli hoards in his treatise only emphasize the fact that ethical principles must be ignored if the principality would be strong and successful. In fact, for Machiavelli, values become arbitrary and virtue and vice are defined differently from a political point of view: “Something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity” (Machiavelli 90). Notably, Prospero is unable to destroy his enemies and follows only the basic rules of humaneness in his actions. The political plots repeat on the island twice, as they did in Milan: Antonio urges Sebastian to murder the king and seize his crown and Caliban urges Stephano to murder Prospero and seize the island. With the aid of magic, Prospero is able to prevent both of these disastrous acts to take place.
While on the island, Prospero is an absolute ruler who is to be feared and obeyed by his subjects. Caliban’s attitude towards him, shows that his power is manifest: “I must obey: his art is of such power, / It would control my dam’s god, Setebos,/ and make a vassal of him.”(I.ii.437-439). He seems even more ferocious as a ruler in his initial treatment of Ferdinand and Miranda, who have fallen passionately in love. However, it is the last scene and the epilogue which show that Prospero will triumph in virtue rather than in vengeance: “Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,/Yet with my nobler reason ‘gaitist my fury/ Do I take part: the rarer action is/ In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,/The sole drift of my purpose doth extend/ Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel…” (V.i.29-36). His words clearly denote his true purpose in seizing the power and entrapping his enemies: Prospero wants to enact a moral lesson on those who have wronged him in the past. By making them think that Ferdinand had perished in the storm, he points to the value of human life above political interests. When their instincts make them plot again for power, he again shows them that their evil actions brought about irreparable sorrows. The moral lesson that Prospero prepare for his victim is clearly not an action that Machiavelli had intended for his model prince.
Finally, the epilogue of the play brings further evidence for the fact that Prospero is in fact an artist and a philosopher and not a powerful ruler. Once he deserts the island he is deprived of his magical powers and therefore becomes weak: “Now my charms are all o’erthrown,/ And what strength I have’s mine own,/Which is most faint: now, ’tis true,/ I must be here confined by you,/Or sent to Naples”. (V. Epilogue. 1-5). Rather than the model prince designed by Machiavelli, Prospero is the artist who gains power over the material world through his insight and his moral character. The Duke of Milan masters the concentrated power of thought and imagination that he has found in his books, but is unable to rule without taking into account his ethical principles. The Tempest therefore is centered on a tragedy which is reversed: Prospero becomes the rightful ruler again after having been betrayed by his own brother. What Shakespeare intended therefore is to show how the temporarily disrupted balance of the world is entirely restored. The books are here the true heroes, being the source of knowledge and power, as they would be in an ideal world.
Works Cited:
Machiavelli, Nicolo. The Prince. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004.
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
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