Purification as a To-Be : The Tempest and Shakespeare ’ s World of Imagery

As the greatest playwright and poet in the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare, a pious Christian for a life-long time, laid in the rich symbolical Christian tone and religious implications his devout and personalized beliefs in Christianity bestowed upon his humanism ideal. In his play The Tempest, Shakespeare contains much deep meaning by using tempest as his title. The storm or tempest imagery, which appears in the beginning of the play, is entrenched within the ideological heritage of the Bible. In the Bible, the storm is associated with dichotomous extremes of hideousness and beauty, punishment and salvation. The tempest is not only destructive, but constructive as well. Through the tempest, the characters suffer from the purgatory and then achieved the regeneration and redemption. With the help of music, they reach the final fulfillment. Through the study of the tempest imagery, this essay confirms Shakespeare’s humanist concerns and the theme of love.


Introduction
The Renaissance was a time of discovery and emancipation and on every hand new worlds were being opened (Note 1).People's life and their world view were gently changed by the discovery of new lands and the overseas exploration.Consequently they paid more attention on nature.People's view of nature in this period mainly adopted the medieval theological thought.Peoples' view of nature in the sixteenth century were usually connect with the combined elements of Aristotelianism, Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, and Christianity which was universally agreed upon, and which, in its main outlines, was the same as that of the Middle Ages.In Renaissance period, it is still widely believed that God, nature and human constituted an indivisible chain: the "Great Chain of Being" (Note 2), which was based on Ptolemy's theory of the universe.Both nature and human is the creation of God.As nature was harmonious and orderly, the human world should also proceed on this way.With the humanism in the Renaissance come into being, the old world view did not alter.The culture of Christian still plays a predominant role in this period and is the womb of the new culture which never ceases to assimilate fatal nutriment from its maternal body.The humanism and natural science did not involve in the rejection of religion but only the affirmation that areas of humanity and nature could be fruitfully studied by methods and assumptions not directly derived from religion (Note 3).As a mirror of his time, it was inevitable that such a social and cultural milieu might leave a deep and striking imprint of a time of turmoil upon Shakespeare himself and his everlasting works.He, a pious Christian for a life-long time, contrived to create an imaginative artistic world much closer in the depth to the religious reverence and concern for human beings imbedded in major doctrines of the Christianity and its Bible while the newly-born humanism, the key-note of the Renaissance, opened a new window for him to perceive the world as well as instilled into him and his plays a novel feeling of admiration for human beauty and human achievements.Above all, what was especially characteristic of Shakespeare compared with his other radical humanism contemporaries lay in the rich symbolical Christian tone and religious implications his devout and personalized beliefs in Christianity bestowed upon his humanism ideal.element in Shakespeare's plays.Only G. Wilson Knight made a systematically summary the function of tempest in his Shakespearean Tempest.He studied all of Shakespeare's plays from historical plays to the Final plays, whereas, in his view, tempest is destructive elements and predicts evil.However in my paper, the imagery of tempest contains the meaning of Bible and Christianity: one is chaos and sin; the god in bible make the flood to wash away everything because of the sin in the world, so tempest predict the existence of chaos and sins.The other is redemption and love; the water is used as purifier in Christian culture.It embodies the theme of love by redemption.By baptism, the existence of man can get near the sphere of God.Obtaining the purification means that man gets the existence of gods-like.The basic mode of biblical narration has four stages: sin, suffering, repentance, redemption.Shakespeare employs this mode in most of his plays, but his exploration of salvation has passed beyond the context of religion while emphasizes the importance of human beings and human love.And the tempest image in the play is the very example to justify the point.

Trial in The Tempest
The tempest, as the natural element, is endowed with multiple symbolic meanings that are connected with the doctrine of Christianity.The image of water has obvious Christian significance.Though the tempest is the destructive power in most of Shakespeare's plays, it is also constructive at the same time.In the Bible, the God makes use of the flood to clear the confusion and evils in the world.After the flood, God shows much regret and promises not to ruin the living creatures in the world.The flood is treated to be a kind of divine baptism in the New Testament.When people are baptized, they are immerged into the old world and arrive to the new world when they are out of the water.Noah's family gains a new life after the baptism of the floods and the people in the ship also incline to change for better after baptized by the seawater.
In The Tempest, Shakespeare borrowed the same mode from the Bible to build his own new story.tempestuous storm and the persons in the ship experience great horror in the sea.What the deference between them is who arouses the storm.In the play, the Prospero, as a man who has supernatural power is the deputy of god and he uses the tempest as punishment of evil and a way of getting justice.Therefore, the supernatural storm used by Prospero has not destruction but as suffering to make the evil men understand what they had done.Hereby, the storm is endowed with the meaning of Christianity.
Christianity, as one of the mainstream culture of Western society, advocates that people shall be subject to intense mental suffering and pain to get pure and detached nature in soul thinking.In order to realize "spiritual transformation", people would go though great both mental and corporal suffering.Westerners believe that suffering would bring spiritual regeneration.The affliction may come from human world, or the natural world.Only after people go through great pain and affliction can they understand themselves better and have spiritual regeneration.Life goes with tragic elements: vain ambitions, cruel deeds, blind passions and somewhat fatal, inescapable ruins.It seems no one can escape from suffering, however powerful he is.It is likely the destiny of man.Whereas, this doesn't mean man has to wait for misfortune befalling him.Armed with awareness, they can save themselves by learning to discard all the vanities and falsities and seek out those values of goodness and mercy which nothing can destroy.Just like Montano said: "Being aware of the misery of man's plight means raising one's mind to the thought of God who wants us to be subjected to such a trial, for reasons which escape our understanding."(Note 4) Life is characterized by pain and suffering, abundant with miseries and calamities.No pains, no gains.People endure the pain with the hope to get an enlightened soul.According to the doctrine of Christianity, Man can free himself from blind passions only through hard trials, and was endowed with a clear vision.
In Act I, scene I of The Tempest, Antonio and his followers are suffering with the roaring tempest, which implies that there must be evil in these people.Later we learn the crime of Antonio and Alonso from the dialogue between Prospero and Miranda.Antonio intrigues with the king of Naples and snatches the crown of his brother.Later, Alonso suffers from the loss of his son Ferdinand who is saved and stay with Miranda.The purgatory in The Tempest makes the characters go through great both mental and corporal suffering and affliction which come from the human world and the natural world.The suffering and affliction bring them to ponder on the question of to-be.It is the first step to get their redemption.

The Tempest and Redemption
Since the middle ages, the consciousness of repentance and redemption all along exists in the development of western culture.In the Christian doctrine, there are three keys in the process of rebirth by the soul-saving.First, repent for sin.The importance of repentance is that it is the starting point of God's salvation, for the relationship of man and God can be renovated only after having the recognition of his sins and the consciousness of repentance.And the repentance is not only representing in behavior change but also in mental rebirth.
Repentance is an important theme of Christianity.It helps man return to God and reconcile with God again with lamenting on one's sins.From the perspective of moralization, the repentance implies that the evil returns to the good.In Shakespeare's plays, one can sense the combination of the Christian concepts and humanism.The repentance in plays is always used to shape the characters from their inner side, which makes the characters are more realistic and vivid.Thus the characters in Shakespeare's works are involved in moral issue by repenting on their original sin.It is the goodness existing in human heart that urges man to repent.In Macbeth, Macbeth has a strong consciousness of repentance and original sin after killing the king Duncan.In Hamlet, Claudius is also tortured by the sin of murdering his brother.Second, trust in God.The concept of trust is not generally belief in right things, but to entrust oneself to Jesus Christ, to believe in God and to rely on God.Only in this way can people gain happiness.Just as Jesus said, "Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive."(Note 5) Third, based on God's redemption.After the degeneration of men, they have lost their capability of seeking holy.If they want to regain it, they have to seek for the redemption of God and wait for his rebirth.This means that we must be redeemed through the grace of God.The redemption is based on God's love for man, and based on God's grace.
God's redemption usually comes from the Christian spirit of philanthropy and mercy which embody lofty love.Both The Old Testament and The New Testament instruct us not only our friends but also love the ones who hate us.It is love and mercy that shorten the distance of human being with God.According to the view of Christianity, the root of social corruption lies in the degeneration of human nature and relentless human relationship.To improve the world has to perfect human morality and personal value.Love and mercy can save people from original sin and dolorous emotion.
In the Bible, in order to clear the confusion and evils, God makes the flood cover around the whole world.Though God destroys the world with flood, he still shows sympathy toward innocent.He saves Noah's family and some animals to continue their species.Later, he regrets for what he has done and makes a contract with human beings never to destroy the living creatures again.In the New Testament, the water is regarded as kind of divine baptism.When people are baptized, they are ridding of the past and are entering to the new world.Baptism, as the ritual act, was seen as salvation in some sense.Just as Martin Luther said: To put it most simply, the power, effect, benefit, fruit, and purpose of Baptism is to save.No one is baptized in order to become a prince, but as the words say, to "be saved".To be saved, we know, is nothing else than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil and to enter into the kingdom of Christ and live with him forever.
-Luther's Large Catechism, 1529 The tempest, as the water from the sky, is usually seen as kind of baptism.It is both destructive and constructive at the same time.In The Tempest, all men in the ship are plunged into the sea because of the smashing storm but later land safely "not a hair perished".Moreover, they seems get rebirth from the mischance, just as Ariel describes to Prospero as "On their sustaining garments not a blemish, /but fresher than before" (The Tempest.I. ii.218-219).It is just like the floods launched by God in the Bible, and the ship is like Noah's ark.After being baptized by the tempest and sea-water, men in the ship tend to seek for better change which reminds us of Noah's family's new life after the floods.Ariel sings a song to tell the coming change of Alonso: With the purification of tempest, some change is also taking place in Sebastian and Antonio.At first, they do not believe God and think Ferdinand has drowned.Whereas, they begin to admit there may exist something miraculous when they see Ferdinand with Miranda.For Ferdinand's baptism is also obvious.His baptism has something in common with Jesus' baptism in the New Testament.However, he not only confesses for his father's sin, but also helps the other sinners get rebirth.In the end of the play, Gonzalo indicates all the people who are baptized by the storm and sea-water have got rebirth: "All of us (found) ourselves/When no man was his own" (The Tempest.V. i. 212-213).It is also obvious that forgiveness goes though the play.Though Prospero wants to take revenge by arousing a terrible tempest, he does not intend to kill them.He just makes use of tempest to punish the evil men and hopes they can repent for what they have done.The intension can be seen from the conversation between Prospero and Miranda: I have with such provision in mine art So safely ordered, that there is no soul-No, not so much perdition as an hair Betid to any creature in the vessel Which thou heard'st cry, which thou sawst sink.
(The Tempest.I. ii.28-32) Prospero's mercy and blessing is not only given to the men in shipwreck but also to Ariel and Caliban who are finally set free.Many critics tend to regard Prospero as God, who use the flood to punish the evil world and sinful men.He is kind, he does not kill them but let them come out of the sea and tempest with fresh.The men in the ship get rebirth from the calamity, and begin to have a consciousness on their sinful past and repent what they have done.With repentance, they get growth in their moral aspects.With the purification of the tempest, they get redemption and existence of gods-like.

The Tempest and Music
Music in the play, just like tempest, plays an important part in making people purified.According to Boethius' theory, music can be divided as theoretical or speculative music and practical music.Firstly, Music may make the heavens and the elements harmony in their properties and in their movements.In myths, music has strong power to control material objects and other things.Such as with music, Orpheus can make wild beasts tamed and lifeless objects animated; Amphion controlled the scattered stones and make the walls and towers of Thebes; and Arion can calm the sea and charm a dolphin.Secondly, music can blend the body and the soul into rapport and shape one's temperament.Music can perfect human who has been corrupted by the fall.It is the key to gain a harmony among the contradictory aspects of the personality.It implies important ethical and political elements.Its rhythmic concord can prosper the state and society, just like the words of Bruess Pattison, "when the different interests in it danced to a common tune."(Note 6) Thirdly, it also has the curative powers.According to the Greek theory of ethos, music can produce specific and unique emotional effects (Note 7).
The music in Shakespeare's world usually accompanies themes of love and peace, even closely related to the tempests through which its delight is attained.And there is other more universal music itself which made of tempests.Those very tempests, those tempestuous passions called form the surging deep, are the very elements of poetry's resolving, passionate, tempestuous music.D. H. Lawrence once described in The white Peacock (III.i): "The theatre surged and roared dimly like a storm, and swept and rattled at their feet.On the stage the strange storm of life clashed in music towards tragedy and futile death."(Note 8) All poetic music blends of divided words and conflicting passions; all tempests blend of music; music with music.They all involve into harmonious in line, in stanza or plays.In Shakespeare's plays, society disorder and personal love conflict usually accompany with tempests, for tempest-plots was always regarded as the symbolism of the tragedies in the early Romances, whereas, music is seen as more indestructible and sublime and sound a sphere harmonies.
According to G. Wilson Knight, there exist three kinds of music: personal music, communal music and spiritual music.Shakespeare's romantic comedy exists mainly in an area of personal music, aspiring directly to love, through its original are in a tempest area, and usually communal: hence our arrow, starting just inside the area of communal interests, whereas, the spiritual music is given more description in his Final Plays.With the view of music, we can realize that the values of Shakespeare's world correspond roughly to what recent academic study calls "the chain of being".As the eyes moves up, we can see what the characters in Shakespeare's plays aspire to.Human poetic insight runs through from dark eternity to bright eternity.Human passions aspire to love; and political order desires consummation under the magic properties of royalty; both of them hold religious grace, which is illustrated well in The Tempest.In the play, tempest and music involve a lot together.Tempest appears as something disorder and discord.It brings suffering and disaster to the characters in the plays, whereas, this suffering and disaster also can seen as the process of growth and wakening of the soul.Music, as the holy sound from the heaven, is always sounding, always affecting and shaping the lives of the characters.This world is like a gigantic instrument upon which the gods play.When it is in tune, there is peace and harmony; when it is distempered, or out of tune, there is discord and disorder which is always accompanied with some change in nature.The final transformation and reconciliation of the characters is frequently affected by music, just as it is usually paralleled or symbolized by changes in the physical universe and in the accompanying music.And it is also the medium through which order emerges from chaos; it is the agent of suffering, learning, growth, and freedom.
Indeed, the play is throughout compacted mainly of this tempest and music elements.The play starts with a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning.We might observe here the fiery quality of Ariel's 'tempest', recalling Julius Caesar; its 'devils' recalling Macbeth; and the sight-outrunning' lighting, which reminds us of Lear's thought-executing fires'.The whole description of tempest has a quality of agile violence but utterly harmless.And the themes of sea tempest in this play are inter-woven with music, as in Twelfth Night.The melodies of Ariel, disguised as 'a nymph o' the sea' (I.ii.301), yet invisible to all except Prospero and himself, lead Ferdinand on to his meeting with Miranda.Such as Ferdinand said: Where should this music be? i' the air, or the earth?This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owes.I hear it now above me.
(I. ii.375) Hereby, the music allays both grief and the fury of the waters.Ariel's song "Come unto these yellow sands" carries a richer and richer beauty and a more exact meaning which turns life itself into new strangeness, newer beauty.Ariel's song celebrates the simplicity of the calm earth into which Ferdinand has been transported.As an invitation, the song leads Ferdinand goes step by step inside Prospero's magic circle.After making the tempest, Ferdinand uses the magic to enchant Ferdinand, drawing him further into the island and toward Miranda.W. H. Auden has written that "the song comes to him as an utter surprise, and its effect is not to feed or please his grief, not to encourage him to sit brooding, but to allay his passion, so that he gets to his feet and follows the music.The song opens his present to expectation at a moment when he is in danger of closing it to all but recollection."(Note 9) Here all Shakespeare's sea and music thought springs into a new and vivid life, creating its own world as a theatre for profoundest vision.Ferdinand' present hardships are lightened by Miranda's presence.Sea grief and final love and union are blended in a richer, more comprehensive music.
In Act III.iii, Prospero designs a feast with solemn music.After observing these 'strange' occurrences, Alonso said: O, it is monstrous, monstrous!Methought the billows spoke and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.
Therefore my son i'the ooze is bedded, and I'll seek him deeper than e'er plumet sounded And with him there lie mudded.
(III.iii.95) As we have discussed at the beginning of the part, music can reshape the harmony of the universe and human soul.Taking this into account, it seems too plausible to consider the storm as prophecy of disorder or symbolism of the evil deeds and intentions, which is the symbol of the disharmony, of Alonzo, Antonio, and Sebastian, as well as of Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban.The play can be interpreted as a concert metaphorically.With Prospero as the director, he made the discordant elements of nature gradually resolved into concord, reflecting and causing the transformation of all the conspirators form disharmony to the harmony of love and reason.(note10) Here the solemn music accompanies the feast; thunder accompanies those accusations which forbid the sinners to partake of it; and, again, 'soft music' after.And, in Alonso's words, the tempest of guilt themselves become music: the winds 'sing', and the 'thunder' is an 'organ-pipe'.
As we discuss before, music can blend the body and the soul into rapport and shape one's temperament.It can perfect human who has been corrupted by the fall.Caliban is regarded as a ugly monster in the play.Monsters always suggest the inhuman and bestial qualities in man by association or contrast, just as tempests may suggest either direct natural cruelty or the more cruel behavior of mankind.All Shakespeare's intuition of the untamed beast in man is here crystallized in the person of Caliban.And the Calban-Trinculo-Stephano plot suggests greed and the flesh unrefined by spirit.However, music makes him change little by little.Consider the poetry of Caliban's speech, compared with Stephano's: Stephano.This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing.(III. ii. 135) Here Caliban shows more spirituality than the beast that masquerades as man and be near to nature.In The Merchant of Venice Lorenzo' words give more emphasis on the power of music to charm even beasts from their nature, and it's clear opposition to 'treasons, stratagems, and spoils'.Here music temporarily charms Caliban into a fine softening, and is, thus, to be opposed to his bestial and treacherous intent.
Thus, the tempest contains many of our main elements of imagery: a sea-tempest and a wrecked ship; another land-storm later; supernatural appearances in thunder and lightning.This has been blended with music.After the tempest, the men in the ship are undergoing some change.Even Caliban speaks delight in heavenly riches, 'ready to drop upon him', as he listens to Ariel's music and voice which interweave the sea sorrow and the loss with siren music.Tempest and music are, indeed, the main themes here.Loss and suffering in tempest is replaced by revival and restoration on the island of music.And the ship is tossed by tempest, but not lost.Like Boatswain said "the best news is, that we have safely found our king and company: the next, our ship-" (V.i. 221) So sea sorrow, roaring, and howling are blended with miraculous survival.Music makes man find repentance and recognition.Alonso and his companions awake with music: Here the sea is the wide sea of understanding and recognition, and the tempests are stilled on the island of song and music.Thus, The Tempest marks the climax of Shakespeare's use of tempest and music.Tempests are interwoven with themes of peace and music in the play.Tempests predict disorder and discord of the character and the world.And they beget suffering and affliction in the characters which can bring the growth of their soul.They act as the purgatory which gives men the sufferings of mortality, their pain and their redemption.Whereas, music together with love, as the harmony of the universe, not only can solace the body and soul, but also can shape man's personality as a to-be and bring elevation of soul.They are ultimately woven into the play at the conclusion as a symbol of reconciliation, both human and divine.

Conclusion
Christian thought has influenced greatly on Shakespeare and his works.The relationship between Christian Culture and Shakespeare is close-knitted.While Shakespeare inherits the Christian humanism, he also develops it by integrating it with the fresh content of his epoch.The basic mode of biblical narration has four stages: sin, suffering, repentance, redemption.Shakespeare employs this mode in his play The Tempest, but his exploration of salvation has passed beyond the context of religion while emphasizes the importance of human beings.In Bible, after punishing the sin of human beings, God pardons and saves them with almighty power, mercy and love.He sends his only son to suffer in the human world and repentant for the men with the intention of an overall salvation of the human race.However, for Shakespeare, the only one could save men are men themselves.As a follower of the humanism, he believed in the good nature of human beings; men are not only the creation of God but also the master of their own lives.Shakespeare asserts that, men are able to eliminate their sin with their goodness.Only with a universal love and conscience could men make their life meaningful and valuable.
Tempest, as a subtle reference to the Great Flood, is remembered as the most terrible act of God.Through the Flood, God punishes the evil of human beings and brings suffering to them.Nevertheless, suffering is also a way to train men's soul and bestows with the hope of redemption, for mental and corporal suffering can make people achieve spiritual transformation and regeneration.
In Shakespeare' plays, tempests may be used very clearly as pure symbols carefully woven into the plot for a poetic purpose, but in The Tempest, the tempest is a very clearly central part of the play.In addition, Shakespeare uses the image of tempest in the play according to the mode of biblical narration.Tempest is firstly used to punish sin and evil.Living in his times, Shakespeare sees clearly the spectacle of evil or generous people faced with great odds or victims of others' blows, crushed by hostile circumstances.While, as a Christian humanist of the Renaissance, Shakespeare believe man can be saved from suffering, for no one can spare form the spectacle of defeat, calamity and undeserved humiliation which is a hard fact of life.Tempest from the natural world and human heart is the process of the purgatory which makes them achieve the regeneration and redemption.With suffering the inside and outside of tempest, the characters realize their existence of sin and absurdness, which is the first step to purify their soul, made it qualified for the salvation.However, for Shakespeare, tempest is not the only way to purify man's soul.To achieve the final redemption, music and love is also important.Music and love bring the solace to the soul and make it more close to the holy god.Tempest, together with music and love, helps man find their true self and reach the final fulfillment.In the end, man can get the existence of gods-like with the process of purification.
In conclusion, the imagery of tempest in The Tempest is not only artistic technique but also integral component of the play.The employment of the image of tempests shows Shakespeare's humanist concerns and the theme of love.
Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.
It sounds no more; and sure, it waits upon Some god o' th' island.Sitting in a bank, Weeping again the king my father's wreck, This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury and my passion, With its sweet air: thence I have followed it, Or it hath drawn me rather.But 'tis gone No, it begins again.Ariel sings.………Ferdinand.The ditty does remember my drown'd father.
Caliban.Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked.I cried to dream again.

A
solemn air and the best comforter To an unsettled fancy cure thy brains… (V.i. 58) With the cure of music, their 'clearer reason' emerges again: Their understanding begins to swell, and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shore That now lies foul and muddy.(V.i. 79)