THE LAST PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE

Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest are considered to be the last plays of Shakespeare. They are mutually connected with one another. The prospect of understanding Cymbeline without The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest is really poor. The most successful of the three, The Tempest is understood well when supported by the others.
Critics differ about what Shakespeare was trying to do in these plays. We are told that Shakespeare had become religious and attempted to render a mystical conceptions of the universe in his last phase. Lytton Strachey feels that he ended his days in boredom, cynicism and disillusion and that the technique of verse was all that remained in life to interest him.
During the last phase, Shakespeare made use of improvements in theatrical devices (Eg. Indoor theatres suited to masque and pageantry) Beaumont and Fletcher seem to have influenced Shakespeare at the time. Behind them all was a stock of romantic incident, the common property of the early Jacobean age. This stock was partly medieval and partly classical. Shakespeare began using the romantic material.
In the last three plays, the old order is destroyed as thoroughly as in the main group of tragedies and it is this destruction that altogether separates them from the realm of comedy in general and from Shakespeare’s own earlier comedies in particular.
Examining the bare plots, rather than the total impression of the last plays, we find in each the same general scheme of prosperity, destruction and recreation. The main character is a King. At the beginning he is in prosperity. He then does an evil or misguided deed. Great suffering follows but during this suffering or at its height the seeds of something new to issue from it are germinating, usually in secret. In the end, this new element assimilates and transforms the old evil. The king overcomes his evil instincts, joins himself to the new order by an act of forgiveness or repentance and the play issues into a fairer prosperity than had first existed.
These plays exhibit remarkable similarities in imagery, symbols and language. We find that the language is overworked and at times even breaks down. In fact, the complexity of the language of these plays is the richness of its imagery and symbols. A recurrent image of the last plays is that of flower suggestive of recreation and regeneration. It is significant that the young heroines are associated with flowers to suggest their freshness and vitality. (Eg. Strewing of flowers by Marina in Pericles, Arviragus in Cymbeline strews flowers over Imogen supposing her dead).
Another significant and recurrent symbol is the tempest. It stands for destruction, containing itself at the same time seeds of reconstruction. It is to be noted that only after the outbreak of a tempest, causing destruction to the old order a new order emerges. In The Winter’s Tale, the tempest scene is laid in the middle of the play, serving thus as a structural principle. As for The Tempest the whole play is suffused with the tempest image.
Music is used repeatedly in these plays as an agent of recreation. The regenerative phase is in fact, set in motion by music. Ariel’s songs fill the air in Prospero’s island and produce the proper atmosphere for repentance and regeneration. Even Caliban is charmed by music.
In certain external details too, the plays reveal significant similarities. The recurrence of the masque scene is an instance in point. This accounted for by the fact that these plays were staged in Blackfriars – an indoor theatre – where gorgeous settings such as the masque required were possible and light effects could be manipulated.
It is in recognition of these characteristics which bind these plays together while setting their apart from tragedies or comedies that critics have grouped them together as dramatic romances. The term romance has been applied probably because of their resemblance in pastoral settings to contemporary romances like Sidney’s Arcadia.