Transcending Justice, Transcending Human Control: Overarching Providence in Shakespeare's Comedies and Romances.
A Lecture by Dr. David Urban, Calvin University
Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 7:00 PM | Bakke Auditorium, Wade Center
This presentation 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’ (mostly) benevolent manipulators serve to help bring about these plays’ comic endings in ways that transcend human control. 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 granted hopeful futures. By contrast, in the tragedies Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and King Lear, acts of misfortune help aid the malevolent machinations of characters that manipulate others for their own wicked ends.
Nonetheless, 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 presentation suggests that the workings of Providence in these comedies and romances are in keeping with the Christian grounding evident throughout Shakespeare’s dramas, concluding that tragedy is normative in a fallen world, whereas the happy endings depicted in these comedies and romances require providential intervention.