The romances were heavily influenced by court masques, lavish entertainment consisting of song , dance, mime and spectacular sets and costumes.
When Cymbeline was first published in 1923 it was categorized as tragedy. There was no category for romance. The tempest was also placed in this category. Although The Tempest does end happily, Ferdinand is reunited with his father, wrongs are forgiven, and people promise to change their ways, there was no other way to categorize the play at the time.
In plays such as the winters tale and the tempest, Shakespeare combines a mixture of comic and tragic styles, incorporating elements of romance and realism in a manner which differs distinctly from the style of his earlier plays. Technically speaking, both The Winters Tale and the tempest adopt a comic style with the 'bad' characters being punished, and all strife reaching the comic plane of resolution at the end. However, although the suffering is overcome, in neither play can we find harmony restored in the way that it usually is in comedy. In the Tempest the final reconciliation of Prospero and Antonio has none of the vitality of comic harmony in it. Even in the words of forgiveness which Prospero speaks there is a note of blame:
For you, most wicked sir, whom I call brother
Would infect my mouth, I do forgive
Thy rankest fault. Act 5 scene 1 line 158
Resolution is diluted by the lingering remembrance of earlier discord, so the general effect of the plays is far more bleak than would be typical of a comedy.
In the tempest the plot can be viewed as matching perfectly the typical Elizabethan revenge tragedy, up until the point when Prospero and Miranda are banished on the sea. Bradley claims that we can categorize a play as a tragedy when a person of high rank suffers a fatal fall and experiences exceptional suffering. However when we compare the main characters suffering with that of, for example, Macbeth, we cannot but be struck by the different effect of the reader or audience. By this standard the plays do not fit the tragic pattern
[Also, in the tempest there are no deaths, all that were split in the storm were reunited at the end of the play]
This point between two styles to which Shakespeare brings us in the last plays, with for example the characters poised just on the brink of death, is neither comedy nor tragedy. This type of scenario has lead to the Tempest being labeled a Tragi-comedy. According to Greenblatt a feature of the tragi-comedies is that they expect us to imagine a turn of events against the evidence of our senses.. In the tempest we are also presented with element s of romance, complete with the unrealistic location of a magical island, inhabited by the unlikely creatures such as Ariel, a magical spirit, and impulsive events such as the survival of Prospero and Miranda in their insubstantial vessel against all the odds of the tempestuous winds. Despite this romantic style of presentation, however, the overall effect of the play is not on the whole unrealistic. This is because Shakespeare combines a mixture of realism with the romance, so that we are able to believe the unbelievable.
Shakespeare uses an extraordinary skill in his transition from one style to another, combining the disparate elements in order to achieve an overall unity. I will discuss a passage showing the two styles combined:
The marriage celebration of Ferdinand and Miranda, complete with spirits, seems at first to be a straight forward romantic celebration of the symbolic marriage of reconciliation: the masque element heightening the celebration, and with the plentiful riches equaling the riches of the occasion. Juno's song illustrates this. It seems as f we have reached the harmonious ending of comedy and romance. But this impression is soon over thrown by another change in style. For through Prospero's sudden, anguished remembrance of a "foul conspiracy" of Caliban we are yanked back into the tragic plot: Caliban's plot being a microcosm of Alonso and Antonio's usurpation of Prospero's dukedom. as this change of tone occurs all traces of the masque vanish. The idealized world of plenty and romance is swallowed up into the corruption which exists in the real world. Magic and romance must be laid to rest, and the resolution is achieved through realistic means. In the tempest, the unity is finally achieved through the tragic style.
This theme of renewal and regeneration is the moral message which ties together not only the disparate elements of style, but also the last plays as a whole. The themes of innocence and experience are tied up in this regeneration, the new offering innocent hope for an older, corrupted generation. Miranda and Ferdinand, unite the broken relations of their fathers and seal the band of reconciliation. In The Tempest Prospero himself can also be seen to embody regeneration and spiritual development, for through his magic he brings about the repentance of Antonio and Alonso, and the marriage which is to achieve the regeneration.
Through Prospero also, the disparate styles are united. He is the symbolic figure in which the tragic events are rooted, for he is both victim of revenge tragedy and the hero who suffered from a fatal flaw. So too is he the instigator of the play's romance. With his magic wand we find he has caused the shipwreck of the first act, which initially seemed to be rooted in realism.
The mixture of styles in both plays are, then, successfully combined. They work together to produce a unified whole; separately and collectively combing to 'exert [an] energy' which enhances and balances the moral message of Shakespeare's last plays.
