Shakespeare’s Paradise Lost and

Paradise Regained

 

DR. M. PADMA

 

Shakespeare, the myriad-minded magician, while exploring the human predicament, depicts the state of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained through his tragedies and tragi-comedies. If Milton employs the medium of epic-poetry to enlighten the fall and rise of Man, thereby justifying the ways of God to men, Shakespeare brings home the truth through the more popular medium of drama. The four major tragedies and the four tragi­comedies of Shakespeare deal with almost the same situations, but the actions and reactions to them culminate into a different setting. While the tragedies have a Paradise Lost offer, the tragi-comedies regain the lost Paradise.

 

Shakespeare in his tragedies poses the fundamental questions on man’s existence, his relationship with God, to what extent man is free or is controlled by predestination, and what will happen to man when he dies. The tragic protagonist is uncertain as to the relation in which he stands to the transcendental real, and he experiences with regret and dread “a sense of separation from a once known normative and loved deity or cosmic order or principle of conduct”.1

 

As Shakespeare moves from tragedies to tragi-comedies one can see a perceptible change. Measure for Measure serves as a connecting link between the world of tragic forces where virtue is not always rewarded though vice may be punished, and the world of tragi-comedies, where divine providence manifests itself through deeds of benevolence to the deserved, and the merited, Shakespeares dramatic art takes a new dimension with Measure for Measure and this is the forerunner for the tragi-comedies. Despite all the trails and tribulations that Isabella faces, she triumphs and through her the forces of virtue succeed. Instead of leaving virtue to be demolished by vice ruthlessly, in Measure for Measure we see justice being done and virtue being rewarded in an ample measure.

 

The tragi-comedies present a life totally different from that of the tragedies. A quiet happy ending, a recognition of long lost daughters, a reunion of husband and wife, typify the world of romances. “It is plainly the golden world in which situations potentially tragic, but softened by decorative poetry, seem to be resolved by fortunate accident”.2 Shakespeare seems to be reverting to romances with a greater understanding of life. The universe, which he has presented as chaos in his tragedies, now turns to be one inhabited by God. In this world of tempests and separations of the loved ones, one is inclined to doubt what the unsearchable dispose of highest wisdom (Samson Agonistes 1. 1746) has in store for them, but in the final analysis it is found that “all is best.” (S. A., 1. 1745)

 

The contrast between the four major tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and the four tragic-comedies, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, Pericles, reveals the inner working of Shakespeare’s mind. Hamlet is the study of revenge. The Tempest presents the virtue of forgiveness. Hamlet maps the progress of Hamlet from self-assertion to self-surrender to the will of God. The Tempest, on the other hand, shows the world of a fully evolved man, the Ideal man. Hamlet, coming from Wittenberg, with his intellectual refinement looks at the rotten state of Denmark with all the zeal of a reformer. He says,

 

The time is out of joint, O cursed spite,

That ever I was born to set it right (I VI 89-190)

 

The sudden death of his father, the hasty marriage of his mother with its incestuous relationship, the revelation of the Ghost with its ambiguity, all these confuse, perplex and puzzle Hamlet’s reasoning power. His moral consciousness, his artistic sensi­bilities, his preparedness to accept responsibility, make him feel the dizziness of a stupendous task lying heavily on his shoulders. He impersonates to himself the role of God and tries to remake the world. Later he accidentally kills Polonius and realises that he has become the scourge of God and that his error is duly punished with his voyage to England and imminent death there. But on his miraculous escape and return to Denmark he accepts the workings of the “special providence” (V. ii, 218) for he says,

 

There is a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will. (V. ii, 10-11)

 

However, he realises that evil inevitably holds a poisoned rapier. In the frankness of his conduct during the fencing match cunningly arranged by Claudius, we see him settling down to the role of a heaven’s patient minister accepting death as retribution. So Hamlet dies at the threshold of revelation, when he has learned to put his bookish knowledge into practice. Though he attains wisdom through his varied experiences of life, he does not live long enough to attain the maturity of Prospero.

 

Prospero, being “rapt in secret studies”, (I, ii, 77) grows strange to his subjects and his kingdom. Taking advantage of this, Antonio, his brother, usurps the throne and puts Prospero and his daughter aboard a “rotten carcass”. Gonzalo, Prospero’s minister, takes pity on him and provides him with essentials and the books he prizes most. Left on the seas, Prospero surrenders himself to the forces above and he is driven to a strange island. Here he masters the art of magic. He is now the all-knowing, all-seeing wizard, and with Ariel as his deputy, he introduces a storm wherein all his former foes get caught but they are safely landed on the island. The island brings about a seachange in them. All of them go through a series of happenings ending in Prospero’s thundering pro­nouncement, through Ariel, of Antonio, Sebastian and Alonso as the “three men of sin.” (III, iii, 53) Ariel lets them remember the dark abysm of time when they wronged Prospero and his daughter,

 

For which foul deed,

The powers, delaying not forgetting; have

Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,

            Against your peace (III, iii, 72-75)

 

Prospero can punish them and the way he deals with Caliban’s rebellion is an example of his power. He tells Ariel,

 

At this hour

Lies at my mercy all my enemies (IV. i, 233-234).

 

He is in an unassailable position unlike Hamlet who is never the master of circumstances. Eagan feels that Prospero, now, has become “a Satanic personification of revenge”.3 Corfield too thinks on the same lines. “As a revenger Prospero assumes the powers of godhead, setting himself up as a substitute for heaven. Implicit in Prospero’s project is a degree of presumption similar in its scope to Hieronimo’s ‘Vindicta mihi!’ and also similar in its precariousness”.4 Here Prospero is like Hamlet in the beginning of the play But Prospero assumes godhead not to revenge but to forgive. In Hamlet’s failure we see the work of a kindness which is “nobler than revenge”. (As You Like It, IV, iii, 128) He lacks the moral detachment that is needed for action. Prospero, on the contrary, develops the qualities that Hamlet lacks. Prospero is like Hamlet with his insight into the manifestation of special providence in “the fall of a sparrow” (V. ii., 1, 217) and in attaining wisdom. He would work his “fury” and would believe that

 

the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance; (V. i. 27-28)

 

He abjures his magic to join the “brave new world” of Ferdinand and Miranda. He forgives the rankest faults of his enemies and promises, “I’ll deliver all”. (V. i, 1.312) The strife and friction of Hamlet is transformed into the “serene air of celestial harmony”5 in The Tempest.

 

Like The Winter’s Tale, Othello is a domestic drama exploring the conflict of good and evil in familial relationships. In Othello Iago is the visible symbol of evil, whipping Othello’s passion of jealousy into a terrific rage, but evil is mysterious, unwarranted and sudden in The Winter’s Tale. Leontes is overpowered by the deadly sin of jealousy that springs like sin from the left side of Satan’s heart, as described by Milton in Paradise Lost, Book ii. It leads to a reversal of values where Leontes takes good for evil. In this state of topsyturvydom he humiliates divine Hermione who stands like a Christ figure in his court, accepting all his vituperation patiently. Desdemona too faces the blind fury of Othello like patient Griselda. She dies forgiving Othello with a divine lie on her lips stating that “Nobody, I myself. Farewell” (V. ii, 127). Like Hamlet, Othello too assumes the role of a justiciar, but his ego is shattered to pieces once Emilia reveals the theft of the handkerchief and proves her mistress to be “ heavenly true.” He recognizes Iago as a demi-devil and tries to stab him. But as in Hamlet, “It is too late.” Othello confesses that he is like “a base Indian”, who “throws a pearl away.” He is “one that loved not wisely but too well” (V, ii, 1346). He repents and stabs himself to death. His final kiss is “the seal of repentance, the promise of his salvation”.6 Like, Othello, Leontes too, despite Apollo’s oracle, proceeds with his arraignment of the queen only to receive the wrath of Apollo in the shape of the sudden death of his son, Mamillius. The queen swoons and is supposed to be dead. In Leontes penitence follows as swiftly as the sin has come to him. Being an extended vision of Othello, he does not commit suicide but controls his passion and performs a saint-like sorrow for sixteen years. But he has to wait for the suspicious appearance of Perdita, his lost daughter, to bless his barren land and to bring comfort to him. The scene of recognition pictures a world ransomed or one destroyed. His patience is rewarded when Hermione appears on the scene. “The restoration of Hermione is a carefully prepared symbol of spiritual and actual resurrection, in which alone true reconciliation may be attained” 7 So what is denied to Othello is given to Leontes in the shape of Paradise Regained.

 

            Lear and Cymbeline deal with family relationships.         Like Gorboduo, Lear plans to divide his kingdom among his three daughters even while he is living. In this process he disowns Cordelia on pretext that she is ungrateful to him. Lear is obsessed with the idea of filial ingratitude, (1. iv, 252-254). If Lear is abandoned by his own daughters, Goneril and Regan, Gloucester is betrayed by his illegitimate son Edmund in the subplot. Cordelia and Edgar lead their parents to the kindly light of heaven. Lear and Gloucester learn the lesson of suffering and accept life with forbearance. However, they cannot escape tragic deaths and the reunion of Lear with his daughter remains a momentary pleasure. But as Arthur Sewell puts it. “Like the promise of rain in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, there are moments and images towards the end of King Lear which give promise of grace and benedictions”8 Cymbeline is the answer to that promise. Cymbeline presents grateful ever-loving children driven away from their parents by the conspiracy of circumstances. Cymbeline under the spell of his “Wicked Queen” and her son Cloten, misunderstands Imogen, “the most tender and the most artless” lady. Imogen laments pathetically,

 

A father cruel, and stepdame false;

A foolish suiter to a wedded lady,

That that her husband banished. (I, vi, 1-3)

 

If Lear suffers for his misdeeds, in Cymbetine, the children bear the brunt of the misfortune. Whereas Lear is responsible for his actions, Cymbeline works under divergent influences. It is only later when he comes out of the wrong influence of his queen that he is allowed the reunion· with his two sons Guiderius and Arviragus and his daughter Imogen. Imogen is united with Posthumus, who, like Othello, was gulled by Iachimo, the lesser Jago. Unlike Iago, Iachimo repents of his sin and Posthumus advises him to have better relationships with others. So the blissful reunion that Shakespeare could not bestow on Lear and Cordelia in King Lear, he confers on Cymbeline, the family bond “renewed in ways that are impossi­ble in King Lear and perhaps in ways that are seldom seen in eal life-analogues”.10

 

Macbeth, the anti-hero, is ambitious, courageous and open to temptations. But he is unwittingly drawn into the vicious world of the Weird Sisters like Pericles who confronts the daughter of Antiochus. Her beauty “enticeth” Pericles to “view” touch and taste and it symbolises forbidden experience. But Pericles is firm and demands that he should read the conclu­sion of the riddle. (I, i. 64-69) Pericles solves the riddle and is able to learn the lesson of distinguishing good from evil. Antiochus’s incestuous daughter represents essential evil. It is often argued that Pericles has to flee the country, disguise himself and suffer, because he has deliberately entered the world of dis­order and is slow at realising the evil appearance. But he is not too slow like Macbeth who exclaims in the fifth act

 

be these juggling fiends no more believed,

That palter with us in a double sense. (V, viii, 19-20).

 

Macbeth has arrived at the stage when in the stream of blood that has been spilled, “Returning were as tedious as go over.” (III, iv, 1.139) He fights with Macduff and is slain. Unlike Othello, Macbeth has committed the crime for his personal gain. So he can neither repent nor seek ways of spiritual enlighten­ment, though he is painfully aware of the wrong path he is treading. It looks as though too much faith in supernatural soliciting has produced tragic dimensions in Macbeth. Both Macbeth and Pericles are tempted though their reactions differ. Macbeth with his vaulting ambition moves from one murder to another. Pericles assumes a vicarious burden of tragic guilt and muses upon the prevailing sins of the world in the manner of Hamlet. Pericles goes from place to place, tossed by tempests and bewildering experiences. At Pentapolis he passes through the trial combat to win Thaisa, who eagerly bestows her love on him. She is quite the opposite of Lady Macbeth, the White Devil, who, while giving milk to her babe, would not hesitate to dash “the brains out.” (I, vii, 1.58) Pericles loses Thaisa in the tempest and he entrusts his newly-born daughter to the care of her nurse. When he goes to Tharsus sixteen years later, to see his daughter. Marina, left with Cleon and Dionyza, they tell him that she is dead and they show her grave. Pericles is overpowered by grief, but finally he is rewarded for his silent suffering and acceptance of God’s will through the recognition of his long lost daughter. Marina, at Myteline, and the reunion of his wife Thaisa at Ephesus where she was restored to life by Cerimion. Pericles says,

 

You gods your present kindness

Makes my past miseries sports ... (V, iii, 41-42)

 

So while Macbeth is an egotist, Pericles is a saintly figure. Macbeth refuses the offer of heavenly forgiveness and his sick heart cannot live for redemption. Pericles faces the trials and tribulations, and suffering with heroic virtue. So the gods become benevolent and he has the beatitude of fulfilment.

 

Shakespeare in his late romances seems to have understood the riddle of life that the lost Paradise can be regained by under­standing God’s ways and by establishing right relationship with God. The self-assumption of godhead for taking revenge in Hamlet, the rage of the “green-eyed” monster in Othello, temptation and misplaced priorities in Macbeth and filial ingratitude, in King Lear all these create such havoc that neither the redeeming figures of Desdemona and Cordelia nor the self-realisation of Hamlet, Macbeth could bring back the Paradise Lost. On the other hand when Prospero forgives his enemies, Leontes sincerely repents of his sin, Pericles faces the trials patiently and Cymbeline accepts “the harmony of this peace” (V. v. 1.465) we have the Paradise Regained. In the tragi-comedies, like Gonzalo in The Tempest, Shakespeare may be dreaming of a golden age and an enlightened commonwealth where

 

nature should bring forth,

Of its own kind, all foison all abundance (II, i, 162-63)

 

to feed the innocent people and to establish peace and harmony.

 

REFERENCES

 

1 Seewall, R. B., The Vision of Tragedy (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1965), p. 44.

2 Frost, David, L., The School of Shakespeare (C. U. P., London 1968), p. 212.

3 Egan, Robert., “This Rough Magic: Perspectives of Art and Morality in The Tempest” Shakespeare Quarterly Vol. 23, 1972, p. 180.

4 Corfield, Cosmo, “Why does Prospero abjure his Rough Magic?” Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 36, 1965, p. 41.

5 Cutts, John, P., “Music and the Supernatural in The Tempest”, 1958, (in The Tempest Casebook Study, Ed. D. J. Palmer, Macmillan, 1968), p. 196.

6 Leech Clifford, “A Study of Reviews - G. R. Elliot, Flaming Minister,” Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 5, 1954, p. 89.

7 Bethell, S. L. The Winter’s Tale: A Study, (Staples Press 1974), p. 103.

8 Arthur Sewell. “Tragedy and the Kingdom of Ends,” Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism, Ed. Leonard F Dean (OUP, 1961), p. 330.

9 Hazlitt, William, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1944), p. 180

10 Bergeson David M. “Cymbeline: Shakespeare’s last Roman Play”, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 31, 1980, p. 41.

 

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