Love and politics in The Tempest

耶魯大學(xué) 周 荃

Introduction

TheTempest(1)Shakespear,W.2004.The Tempest [M].New York:Simon &Schuster.begins as a ship carrying Alonso King of Naples,his son Ferdinand and other nobles is destroyed at sea and lands on a magical island.The sorcerer Prospero,who was the Duke of Milan and usurped by Antonio,conjured the storm with help from the spirit Ariel.Prospero plots to revenge and regain his office by setting up her daughter Miranda with Ferdinand,making the conspirators Antonio,Alonso,and Sebastian plead guilty to their crimes,and ridiculing the comic characters Trinculo and Stephano and Prospero’s monstrous slave Caliban who attempts to raise an ineffective coup.The play ends in harmony as Prospero presents a masque to celebrate Miranda and Ferdinand’s betrothal,forgives the conspirators,frees Ariel,and decides to abjure his magic before returning to Milan.

Critics have often attempted to understand this play’s conclusion—achieving revenge and reconciliation—by privileging the power play over emotional consideration.Remarkably,Paul Brown (1985) has associatedTheTempestwith post-colonialism that sees all characters as exemplifying different race and position in a hierarchy lineage,focuses on Prospero’s enslavement of Caliban,who technically has the right to inherit the land from his mother Sycorax,and examines means by which Prospero utilizes education and freedom as a form of manipulation.Similarly relying on one political philosophy.W.C.Curry (1976) focuses on Prospero’s control through presenting illusions of virtues that people aspire to,and argues that Prospero’s mediating between spirits and men makes him a Neo-platonic ruler:Prospero is the Theurgist who sets about controlling the activities of nature through the subjugation of its guardian spirits to his will.

Unlike most critics who view the dynamics in this play through political lenses,this paper incorporates the notion of love into interpretations and argues that love holds such a significant place that it ultimately determines the political factors in this play.The most direct love relationship is between Ferdinand and Miranda,who fall in love with each other at first sight,but whose minds are manipulated by Prospero through poetic illusions such as Ariel’s songs.While Prospero’s ultimate purpose of revenge and reconciliation prompts his intentional setup of the young couple,the second type of love—the parental love of Prospero towards Miranda—also leads to the decision of choosing Ferdinand,rather than the ugly and uncultured Caliban.The rather vulgar form of love inTheTempestis Caliban’s sexual attraction to Miranda prompted by a post-colonialist vision,which negates the possibility of such integration and convinces Prospero once again of the need to restore his daughter’s identity as a noble.Furthermore,Gonzalo’s utopian speech helps envision another form of love that is characterized by the rejection of a restraining bond between two individuals.The brief discussion of “free love” exemplifies,along with Caliban’s sexual love,oppositions against Ferdinand and Miranda’s marriage.Thus,Caliban and Gonzalo both have ideologies dangerous to Prospero’s scheme,and Shakespeare quickly dismisses them to help establish contrast to the young couple’s pure love and to achieve the final purpose of celebrating the ruling of wise aristocrats.

As this play was performed at court during the marriage celebrations of James I’s daughter Elizabeth,Shakespeare compliments royalty and aristocracy,appealing to King James,whose ruling resembles that of Prospero in the akin setup of their daughters’ marriages for political purpose of reconciliation.Eventually,Shakespeare uses the allegory of this play that celebrates love to give a higher meaning to the realities of politics and power,revealing that a wise setup of an affectionate,aristocratic marriage can help achieve political goals.

1.Caliban,Sexual Love,and Post-Colonialism

Prior to Ferdinand and Miranda’s romance,Caliban’s attempted rape of Miranda reveals a failed,dishonorable form of sexual love,influencing Prospero’s resolutions to leave this post-colonialist system eventually.Tracing back the history of this island,when Prospero and Miranda first arrived,Caliban welcomed them.Prospero might have taken in Caliban as a servant or even a child of his family.Initially treated as a part of the family and cared for by Prospero,Caliban ruined this relationship through his attempt to rape Miranda,transforming Prospero’s affection toward him into hatred and demoting Caliban to the status of slave.Prospero,in response,castigates Caliban:“I have used thee,/Filth as thou art,with human care,and lodged thee/In mine own cell,till thou didst seek to violate/The honor of my child” (Shakespeare 2004:412-418).Caliban’s action serves as the explicit proof that integration would be impossible in the system and that even if possible,a love relationship which is based entirely on sexual attraction would be ultimately doomed to be a failure.Further,the post-colonial political vision has added more to the interpretation of this failed form of love.Prospero’s anxiety,though mainly coming from his daughter being insulted,may also be accompanied by the fact that a successful rape would threaten his other valuable possession,the island.On the other hand,Caliban,the enslaved native on this island,understands the complication of Prospero’s sources of fear:“O ho,O ho!Would’t had been done!/Thou didst prevent me;I had people else/This isle with Calibans”(Shakespeare 2004:352-354).His speech is a clear indication that his attempted rape stands as part of his desire to regain his right to inherit this island by impregnating Miranda and populating the island with his offspring.As postcolonial critics have discussed,Caliban’s political attempt to take back the island is an act of resistance of the oppressed:“This island’s mine,by Sycorax my mother,/Which thou take’s from me” (Shakespeare 2004:334-335).(2)For example,Paul Brown (1985:49) examines the role of Caliban and treats him as a victim of Prospero the colonizer’s oppression and as a politically conscious dissident.Other postcolonial critics who see Caliban in the light of sympathy include Francis Barker and Peter Hulme (1985:192),who argued that Caliban’s violent attempt at raping Miranda is a display for the “final and irrevocable confirmation of the natural treachery of savages”.Thus,the rivalry between Prospero and Caliban causes the breakdown of their previously harmonious relationship,as the attempted rape of Miranda becomes politically central.The value of love based on sexual attraction is hereby negated,and Prospero is convinced once again of the necessity to seek a proper husband for his daughter and to restore their white,aristocratic identities out of both a fatherly love and his political considerations.

2.Gonzalo,Free Love,and Utopia

The love of Ferdinand and Miranda at first sight intimates what will become explicit in Acts IV and V of the play—though utopian communities are quite impossible in chaotic political systems,an ideal relationship is still potentially achievable for worthy individuals.But for such relationships to flourish,obstacle has to be conquered,as Gonzalo’s commonwealth speech in Act II contains illogical or incomplete views on utopianism that have to be dispelled before the “harmonious” and “majestic vision” (Shakespeare 2004:118-119) of the nymphs and the reapers could come to fruition.His speech simultaneously and ironically illustrates human faults and foibles which prohibit the achievement of utopian contentment on a grand scale,and Gonzalo’s proposition that endows the greatest degree of freedom to love at once stands on the exact opposite of Prospero’s arrangement of Miranda and Ferdinand’s marriage.

Taken from Montaigne’s famous essay “Of Cannibals” and based on the Golden Age of classical mythology,Gonzalo’s vision is noble yet implausible,even self-contradictory.Noted by the wicked Sebastian and Antonio in their remarks interruption to Gonzalo’s blank verse,he would need power to create his society without power.Extolling what Bloch (1970) labels as the “primitive commune” concept of utopia,Gonzalo is ridiculed—“the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning” (Shakespeare 2004:156)—for celebrating a communistic society with Gonzalo as sovereign.When Gonzalo says that,“I would...execute all things” (Shakespeare 2004:140-141),he implies that he would be sovereign.Yet there would be no sovereignty in his anarchistic commonwealth.Paradoxically,he must force men to be free,and the speech itself reveals his limited ability to fully construct this community even in his imagination.Additionally,other physical shortcomings of humanity preclude such social perfection.For instance,Caliban immediately provides the ironic antithesis to Gonzalo’s vision,the bestial reality of a purely “natural” existence.Gonzalo’s commonwealth abolishes the need for education and for sovereignty,but both remain necessary for social order,as the irresponsible and ignorant behavior of Caliban,Stephano,and Trinculo demonstrates when they later conspire to overthrow Prospero.

A crucial freedom that Gonzalo wants to secure in his commonwealth is free love,meaning that this radical utopian vision eliminates the presence of marriage.On the other hand,marriage is one essential part that constitutes Prospero’s scheme as it unites his daughter and the son of his previous enemy.It is only through marriage that Prospero is capable of finding his daughter a reliable and aristocratic husband,ensuring the success of his scheme and bringing about the potential of constructing a new order and restoring justice via Ferdinand and Miranda.Gonzalo’s speech and commonwealth,therefore,are easily dismissed;nonetheless,his utopian vision serves as a crucial tool in examining the value of wise,aristocratic rule in light of humanity’s foibles,follies,and flaws.

3.Prospero,the Masque,and Neo-Platonism

The parental love which Prospero offers Miranda is another form of love preceding the romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda,presented throughout the play and mixed evenly with Prospero’s Neo-platonic political visions.Prospero’s single parenting has not only made Miranda a wonderful being whose qualities of purity and innocence are commendable especially in the chaotic outside world “Miranda’s upbringing has also cultivated in her a sense of justice and compassion,which are of crucial importance in shaping a wise and kind future ruler” (Shin 2008).When Miranda is first introduced,her image is that of a compassionate young woman who asks her father about the lives of strangers suffering in the tempest:“O,I have suffered/With those that I saw suffer” (Shakespeare 2004:5-9).Prospero replies to his sympathetic daughter with a rather positive voice to assure her that the accident would not hurt anyone.Here,Prospero appears as a loving,single father who does not chide Miranda for her naivety,but rather encourages Miranda’s loving and “piteous heart” (Shakespeare 2004:14).The play displays many other examples of Prospero’s loving and caring aspect,including Prospero’s repeated emphasis on reminding Miranda to protect her own virginity and commanding that Ferdinand and Miranda not break “her virgin-knot before/All sanctimonious ceremonies” (Shakespeare 2004:15-16),and this effectively avoids another incident like Caliban’s attempted rape.

Thus,while Prospero’s upbringing and education of Miranda exhibit his fatherly affection and parental care for this girl,he is also seeking to cultivate in his daughter a sense of empathy and morality possibly in an understanding of Miranda’s future position as the dukedom’s ruler upon her betrothal with Ferdinand,thereby achieving his ultimate political goal to restore justice and order.Paul Brown(1985:60) remarks upon Miranda’s education but quickly brushes it off as a strategy of Prospero’s political ambition:“to engineer another courtship,between Miranda and the son of his old enemy—his daughter having been duly educated for such a role.” However,instead of being the production of mere political calculations,Miranda’s education could well be a representation of where Prospero’s love intersects with his political visions,including his Neo-platonic idealization as well as Machiavellian plotting practices.Prospero’s political aspiration,therefore,is not necessarily the only influence behind his loving relationship with Miranda.His parental love and trust for Miranda prompts that it is also a possibility for his daughter and future son-in-law to aid him and potentially take the job of reestablishing justice and creating a new order in Milan.His power of Neo-platonic idealization is hereby of crucial importance in convincing Ferdinand and Miranda of the beauty and virtue of his ideals,and therefore accomplishing his goal.

TheTempest’s illustration of the power of poetic illusion and idealization through Prospero’s utilization of his arts is elaborate and spectacular.Not only does the most magnificent scene—the wedding masque—present the very beauty of this play,the love between Ferdinand and Miranda,the involvement of an idealized order also acts as a commentary on the pressures of harsh reality in the disorder of outside society,highlighting the idealized good in stark contrast.AsTheTempestopens with the macro-cosmic world in natural chaos,nature’s disturbance echoes the political disorder in the human world,pointing to a world that is disjointed and desperately in need of a renewed,albeit illisionary harmony.Against the severely disordered externality,the supremely ordered island kingdom is set in Act I,scene two.The island itself is fantastical enough,with the presence of magical spirits aiding Prospero in creating the idealized good and virtue that people aspire to.

Given a chance to start over on this island,where isolation from external conflicts allows the creation of new orders,Prospero,with his accumulation of knowledge,constructs a little world distinct in its social order from Milan,which he has left.Under his governance,the island society is free from,or puts a limitation on,the problems that plague all political states.Furthermore,a seemingly definite system of justice reigns here,where virtue is preserved,and the penalty fits the crime,as exemplified by Prospero’s punishment of Caliban with no more than “cramps” for his attempted rape of Miranda.This is congruent with the neoplatonic argument that Prospero is a theurgist who exemplifies White Magic that stands against the Black Magic as practiced by the witch Sycorax,and who employs beneficent spirits for benevolent purposes to assist his wise ruling.Essentially,Prospero,with control of his art and the agency of Ariel,possesses power and omniscience which are unrivaled and is enabled to conduct the storm,indicating that he has the kind of absolute control any monarch would aspire to;again,as Prospero attained his power due to his previous acquisition of superior education,his power is desirable and associated with moral and political virtue in the context of the Renaissance.

Worth mentioning is that this Neo-platonic idealization to create illusions of goods does not equal to creating a utopian society.Instead,Shakespeare treats the enthusiasm for utopias with heavy dose of irony.Shakespeare’s England at the time of the composition ofTheTempestwas not prepared for a social revolution grounded in liberty,fraternity and equality.This distinction between a Neo-platonic idealization and a utopian vision reveals further a comparison between the flawed ideal of Gonzalo’s commonwealth and a culmination in the nuptial ceremony of Ferdinand and Miranda that represents the noblest Edenic vision in the play.Gonzalo’s description of a utopian commonwealth is at once idealistic,and illogical,defining human happiness by negation,such as “no sovereignty” “no kind of traffic” and saying that “l(fā)etters should not be known.” (Shakespeare 2004:162-171).Though attractive in appearance,Gonzalo’s vision is severely unsound,as it overlooks the vicious and selfish inclination of human nature as shown by the conspiracies of Antonio and Sebastian,positing an invariable model of perfection that is unreal and unrealizable.Instead of approving Gonzalo’s value,Shakespeare turns to his fullest and richest presentation of his favored ideal in Act IV.Whereas Gonzalo’s utopia is essentially one of negation and absence,the marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda is an affirmation of the highest and noblest possibilities of human intercourse.

The wedding masque is the most obvious example of the intersection of love and politics in the play.It gives form to the play’s ultimate Neo-platonic horizon,disclosing the fruitful union of the natural world as personified by Ceres,human society as personified by Juno,the goddess of marriage,and the divine as personified by Iris,the messenger of the gods (Gilman 1980:216).Miranda and Ferdinand thereby join in “a contract of true love” (Shakespeare 2004:133),wherein erotic desires and vile emotions have no part,as the injury to Ceres and her consequent avoidance of Venus and Cupid unveils that the prosperity and fertility of young lovers would depend utterly on the chasteness of their characters.The use of the masque,a genre associated with the court,helps underscore the nobility of the vision.Additionally,the dance of the nymphs and the reapers in the masque bring about a reconciliation of the fundamental dichotomies in human existence—nature and culture,sense and spirit,male and female,heightening the integrating effect of this bond of love.

Though his art includes the masque,Prospero simultaneously presents a paradise similar to the Garden of Eden,designed to teach Ferdinand and Miranda a lesson and to propose a positive alternative to the current political,social,and cultural systems,where everything is in its original form that has not been influenced by the existence of corrupting civilization.Prospero’s political exertions aim at an idealism that can renew the harsh outside worlds of Milan and Naples by transforming those of their residents detoured to this island retreat.Most obvious is how the beauty of the masque invites Ferdinand to dream of Paradise,while implicitly rendering him more fit to dwell within,or able and simultaneously willing to recreate the outside world to something similar to Paradise.This vision,which is intrinsically Neo-platonic,leads temporarily to an Edenic vision that might make this Paradise directly comparable to Eden,where the young,innocent male and female are controlled by a fatherly presence and where even Caliban can be compared to Lucifer,whose malice aims at degrading this heavenly presence.However,this vision in the play differs from the Edenic ideal in which Ferdinand and Miranda do not resemble Adam and Eve.Since Paradise for the former is not a permanent domicile,they are rather intended to carry their innocent nature into a malevolent chaos outside where,by their rule,the process of redemption and the dispensing of justice can be carried forward.For now,however,such a blissful moment of the masque is attainable only in a microcosmic sense and remains to be inherently an illusion that idealizes the social order:other than Ferdinand,Miranda,and Prospero,only spirits attend this wedding.Moreover,such perfection is temporary.Immediately after,Ferdinand comments on Prospero’s vision with the word “paradise”,the wondrous presentation of a utopian vision is interrupted by the sudden reminder of Caliban’s conspiracy,showing that “the baseless fabric of this vision” must of necessity dissolve in the light of basic social realities.

Yet these realities do not invalidate Prospero’s ideal vision.While his masque is an “insubstantial pageant” (Shakespeare 2004:155),Act V resolves conflicts,and a new,better social arrangement starts to emerge.At the very least,many positive changes occur.Ariel is released after twelve years of servitude;the spirit obtains freedom as well.Alonso repents of his political transgressions and is reconciled to his son and future daughter-in-law.The virtuous and loyal Gonzalo is restored to his role as an advisor.Antonio and Sebastian are not treated with extremely cruel punishments and are put in their right place,warned by Prospero against subsequent wrongdoings.Even the most uncivilized and bestial existence,Caliban,recognizes his mistakes and asks for grace while vowing to be “wise hereafter” (Shakespeare 2004:294),illustrating the potential of redemption.

In a broader picture that reasonably extends out of the play,promising to break his staff and drown his books,Prospero acknowledges the desirability of a society based primarily on love rather than on power.A just society must allow the existence of a certain degree of freedom of choice and personal liberty,even though potential mishaps may take place.Thus,Prospero relinquishes his absolute authority,after completing his role as the Theurgist,and reveals his ultimate Neo-platonic ideal by forgoing the love of power for the power of love (and its corollary,forgiveness).The reasonable love,which is the foundation of Ferdinand’s union with Miranda,will become the foundation for their political administration.For a true new order to be established,aristocrats as well as plebeians must subscribe to a common justice advocating mercy,as demonstrated by Prospero in his masque and his final reconciliation.

Generally,magnificent as it is,the masque of Prospero is an aesthetic effusion and poetic illusion in which the artists are idealized to present the clarity of absolute truth and beauty instead of the vagueness of life and the darkness in human heart.With the interruption,the Neo-platonic vision and a temporary Edenic ideal is immediately replaced by a Machiavellian one.

4.Prospero,the Setup,and Machiavellianism

The play’s Machiavellian vision stands as the most obvious and indubitable one as clearly demonstrated by Prospero’s scheme.It is noted by critics that “plotting,or the forging of linked chains of causality,is recommended by Machiavelli,who writes of the necessity of controlling fortune” (Abrams 1978:45).Prospero certainly practices Machiavellian plotting on the island;from his raising of the sea-storm in the opening scene to his claiming of the entireTempestto be his project in the epilogue,Prospero not only dominates the action of the play as its powerful protagonist,but also curiously stands behind the action as a prime mover.Shakespeare hints at Prospero’s identity as a plotter through intentionally making Prospero’s first exchange with Ariel to be “Hast thou,spirit,/Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?”(Shakespeare 2004:30) As a plotter and a dramatist in this “performance,” Prospero carries out his scheme by instructing Ariel to perform as well.The metaphor of performance recurs in reference to Ariel’s impersonation of a harpy and in anticipation of the betrothal masque,linking the staging of the tempest to a specifically theatrical enterprise within the play.

From such perspectives that treat Prospero as a schemer,the love between Ferdinand and Miranda is not merely composed of the simplest form of romantic attraction—it is nurtured gradually with Prospero’s art in the form of Ariel’s songs.The intentional setup starts even before Ferdinand meets Miranda,since Prospero orders Ariel to separate Ferdinand from the others and relocate him on the island.Ariel’s music descends upon him while he struggles for his life against the sea;it accompanies him on the beach as he laments the loss of his father,and it directs Ferdinand to the vicinity of Prospero’s cell.While Ferdinand is uncertain about the music’s source and meaning,he surely experiences the consoling effect and is made to feel the presence of solicitous supernatural powers as preparation for his encountering Miranda—“the goddess/On whom these airs attend” (Shakespeare 2004:424).Similarly,Miranda,through her extraordinary inexperience that is accompanied by the art-induced sleep through which Prospero has been manipulating Miranda for years,views the brave form of Ferdinand “a thing divine”.With Prospero’s planning and his employment of musical illusion,Ferdinand and Miranda naturally and instantly fall in love.Because of the strong forces of their love,they view the world through romantic lenses;such is particularly the case with Ferdinand who,despite unjust accusation by Prospero,still expresses his pleasure in doing log-carrying labor so as to serve the wonderful Miranda.As Ariel’s music attends all of these occasions to aid in developing their love relationship,the wedding masque is indeed Prospero’s most elaborate attempt at poetic illusion that,if examined from a Machiavellian standpoint,is inherently still part of politics despite its apparent Neo-platonic ideals.The express purpose of the masque,which reveals a dangerous presumption in its creator,is to make amends for having “too austerely punished” (Shakespeare 2004:1).Ferdinand by blessing his union with Miranda.In effect,Prospero extends to Ferdinand the same pacifying sympathy that soothes Miranda’s emotional turbulence caused by the wrecked ship at the beginning of the play,simultaneously impressing Ferdinand with the splendor of his power.Eventually,by manipulating the minds of Ferdinand and Miranda,Prospero is enabled to achieve multiple purposes,including ensuring good care of his daughter and the success of his own final revenge and reconciliation.

Thus,the love between Ferdinand and Miranda is not as natural as it appears to be—this love is also nurtured and protected by Prospero through way of summation of his art’s effects,as Ariel aids him in influencing their minds through songs,revealing to the couple the significance of self-restraint and preparing them to play their role in the redemption of Milan and Naples.Prospero’s art,including his soliloquies,songs,and masque,transmits a lesson to all characters who fall under its influence,Ferdinand and Miranda being the most heavily affected.

According to Stephen Orgel (1975:40),Prospero’s use of his magic “presents the triumph of an aristocratic community;at its center is a belief in the hierarchy and a faith in the power of idealization.Philosophically,it is both Platonic and Machiavellian;Platonic because it presents images of the good to which the participants aspire and may ascend and Machiavellian because its idealization is designed to justify the power they celebrate”.Through both the Machiavellian and Platonic political visions that lay behind Ferdinand and Miranda’s love,the audience observes Prospero’s ideals and witnesses the ironic nature of his experiences.While he is Duke of Milan,Prospero is basically apolitical;but during his exile on a primitive,isolated island,devoid of human beings except himself and his beloved daughter,Prospero is given a chance to reestablish a new order,and he has,under such circumstances,hindered vices such as Caliban’s attempted rape and potential opposition like Gonzalo’s commonwealth,and developed into the exemplary political man with Platonic philosophy and Machiavellian power unrivaled by any of the conspirators.

5.Love and Politics under a Broader Context

TheTempest’s celebration of aristocracy,nobility and gentry,besides paying homage to its audience,further indicates an approval of political obedience that composes,in the broadest terms,“a nationalist reaction to a threat which was seen to be primarily foreign rather than primarily domestic” (Yachnin 1991:16),particularly the danger from Spanish Catholic subordination within the English Protestant commonwealth.In bothTheTempestand in Elizabethan and Jacobean England,the essential threat to social order and national sovereignty was the conflicts between different ideals,whether political or religious.This is the pattern in Shakespeare’s play where Antonio usurps Prospero’s throne with the King of Naples,and where,even in very reduced circumstances,Prospero’s authority is again threatened by the uncultured,vulgar Caliban who conspired with Trinculo and Stephano.Such pattern of sedition,invasion and usurpation in the play is homologous with the concept of England’s political situation throughout the Elizabethan and Jacobean period,according to which England was the embattled representative of apostolic Christianity,vulnerable to subornation by the Catholic empire of Rome and also Spain.Further,if the play is put under a broader historical context,King James shared great resemblance to Prospero in their similar intention to achieve reconciliation and establish peace between ideological dichotomies.More essentially,both rulers attempted to do so through arrangement of marriage and love:King James sought to encourage peace between Catholics and Protestants by setting up his son Charles’ marriage with the Spanish Infanta and his daughter Elizabeth’s marriage with the leader of the German Protestants,Frederick,whereas Prospero similarly transforms the political situation of Milan by turning a former foreign enemy into part of an extended family.

While the politics in the play mirrors that situation in history,the marriage of Elizabeth and Frederick which the play was celebrating resembles in part the union of Miranda and Ferdinand.The intertwined nature of politics and love inTheTempestdisplays a gradual and vacillating cultural shift from “deference and patriarchy” characterized by distance within the family and marriage for the good of the male line to “affective individualism” that epitomizes increasingly affectionate families in the 17thcentury.Though Ferdinand and Miranda’s marriage is contrived as part of an impassive political calculation to achieve patriarchal values,it is indeed loving and respectively egalitarian,making it both a politically arranged marriage as well as an example of affective individualism.Similar case took place in history.While Elizabeth was admired by many for her golden-haired looks,King James considered many husbands for her and chose Frederick,aiming for the maximum political advantage.Both zealous Protestants,Elizabeth and Frederick spent a substantial amount of time together and were very attracted to each other.Again,a pattern appears as this royal couple,like Miranda and Ferdinand,demonstrates “affective individualism” under the condition of “deference and patriarchy” (Stone 1979:10),and their similar passion for Protestant ideals creates for them a shared political vision to base their future ruling on.

In conclusion,four modes of love and politics intersect with each other inTheTempest,leading to either failed attempts or successful fulfillment of goals.Specifically,the merging of Caliban’s sexual love and post-colonist vision leads to an inevitable failure in his attempts to attain Miranda and the island;Gonzalo’s free love idea developed as part of his utopian vision is unrealizable as the utopia’s self-contradictory and ironic nature negates the possibility of its existence,whereas multiple examples of humanity’s malignant side in the play automatically stand as the proof that dismisses Gonzalo’s commonwealth ideal;Prospero,the ultimate heroic figure and ruler in this play,utilizes Machiavellian strategies in his manipulation of other characters and his plotting of a grand scheme,successfully achieving his political goals of seeking revenge and fulfilling his parental love for Miranda by arranging her marriage with someone worthy of her love;further,Prospero preeminently relies on his Neo-platonic power to propel conspirators to acknowledge their own faults and inspire Miranda and Ferdinand to cherish their innocent love by showing them images of an idealized world.It can be reasonably presumed that,after Prospero abjures his magical power and therefore his unchallengeable,absolute authority,it is his wish that the loving young couple,Miranda and Ferdinand,would be capable of carrying out justice and mercy,at last,to assist him in constructing an ideal world where virtue would replace vice and reign.Eventually,Shakespeare’sTheTempestdemonstrates and insinuates to Kings James that love holds such a crucial place in politics that its influence can determine the nature of social orders—a belief in love based merely on sexual attraction and excessive freedom could lead to disorder and potential social upheaval.Whereas a pure,affectionate relationship can help rulers achieve maximum political interests.