Abstract

In a classical understanding of satire, its secondary status—giving in to literary distortions of an underlying reality—leads to a paradoxical trap. Satire seeks to reinstate a nonliterary norm by literary means. Shakespearean romance shares the paradoxical character of the satirical, but opens up an alternative response. Instead of attempting to eliminate the violation of norms, romance confronts an underlying tragic subplot of violence and crime with a decisively theatrical solution that acknowledges the secondary character of this response. The paradigmatic romance The Tempest exposes this trait in a specific sea-change, a shift of focus toward the non-serious and non-realistic. This sea-change culminates in a comic solution that takes place within a literary setting and remains, in a sense, ineffective, especially if one takes into account the latent threat and latent presence of the usurper’s son, which most critics, like the protagonist, have persisted in overlooking.