The Purification As A To-Be

As the greatest playwright and poet in the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare wrote a number of excellent plays for the people and was highly praised by Ben Johnson as "soul of the age" and for all time. The Renaissance is a landmark in European history. Though the humanism movement was coming into being, the culture of Christian still played a predominant role in this period and was the womb of the new culture which never ceased to assimilate fatal nutriment from its maternal body. 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, the characteristic of Shakespeare, compared with his other radical humanism contemporaries, laid in the rich symbolical Christian tone and religious implications his devout and personalized beliefs in Christianity bestowed upon his humanism ideal.In most of Shakespeare's plays, there is the same imagery-tempest. The imagery of tempest contains the meaning of Bible and Christianity:one is chaos and sin; the God in Bible makes the flood to wash away everything because of the sin in the world, so the imagery of tempest predicts 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 the imagery of tempest in his plays also adopts this mode. Therein this essay makes attempt to present an elaborate analysis of tempest in Shakespeare's plays from the lens of Christianity as follows:Chapter One focuses on the abnormal natural phenomena such as tempest in Shakespeare's plays, especially the omens of evil in Macbeth and Julius Caesar, and points out that the abnormal natural phenomena actually stand for the disasters resulted from the evil nature of the human being.Chapter Two probes into the baptism of suffering which comes from nature and man. According to Christianity, man can be saved only by a trial of tribulation. In Shakespeare's plays, the scene of tempest plays an important role in character's suffering.Chapter Three makes an analysis of redemption of soul:the purification and transcendence of individual soul. In Christianity, baptism, with the use of water, is seen as salvation. Shakespeare takes the form of tempest in his plays. The discussion of redemption mainly put into King Lear and Tempest, for the imagery of tempest in this two plays is especially important.Chapter Four makes an exploration of music which is another form of purifier of soul and makes a discussion on the function of music and tempest. The purgatory in tempest brings light and growth of the characters'soul. Whereas music together with love solaces elevates their soul, which can make them get close to God, and obtain the existence of gods-like and real redemption.In conclusion, the imagery of tempests in Shakespeare's plays is not only artistic technique but also integral component of some plays. The employment of tempest shows Shakespeare's Christian concern and the theme of love.