Resurrections of the Living and the Dead: Natural and Spiritual Bodies and Souls

Abstract

Is Prospero a hazy approximation of a Christ figure? Scholars have debated this question vigorously, without coming to a definitive conclusion. Prospero certainly behaves in a deeply Christian way at the end of the play when he opts to forgive those who have wronged him. The key statement he makes when he decides to forgive his oppressors and conspirators links the rhetoric of wonder to that of Christian forgiveness: “The rarer action is/In virtue than in vengeance” (5.1.27-28). Prospero’s turn toward forgiveness at the end of the play when all of his enemies are in his power is “rare” on several fronts. Prospero shows considerable vindictiveness throughout the play, so it comes as something of a surprise given his prior behavior; it is unusual in human interactions to forgive those who wrong us; it is a surprise to those familiar with Shakespeare’s fondness for the revenge tragedy tradition; and it is generically unnecessary within the comic tradition since villains are punished even in comedies such as The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night. Here the usurping brother and his diabolical conspirator both avoid retribution, and this represents a wondrous and rare reversal at the end of the play.