Transcending Justice, Transcending Human Control: Overarching Providence in Shakespeare's Comedies and Romances

Abstract

This essay discusses how in Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, providential events that work over and above those plays' benevolent manipulators serve to help bring about these plays' comic endings in ways that transcend human control, both its well-intended aspects as well as its problematic aspects. These providential events also offer grace and mercy toward the plays' various transgressors who, demonstrating repentance, are freed from the justice their transgressions merit and are consequently granted hopeful futures. By contrast, in the tragedies Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and King Lear, acts of misfortune help aid the malevolent machinations of those characters that manipulate others for their own wicked ends. But these incidents of bad fortune are not sufficient to bring about tragedy, but rather act in conjunction with the stubborn and violent decisions of the tragedy's protagonists, whose poor choices coincide with unfortunate developments to bring about tragedy for the protagonists and those whom they love. This essay maintains that the workings of Providence in these comedies and romances is in keeping with the Christian grounding evident throughout Shakespeare's dramas, concluding that in a fallen world, tragedy is normative, whereas providential intervention is necessary for the happy endings of the discussed comedies and romances.