Import of “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty†in Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Abstract

This article is an attempt to probe the preconceptions prevalent in the most perfect of Shakespeare’s plays Tempest. Since the inequity of the playwright’s approach towards the characters is more pronounced, a genuine effort to bring it out has been initiated herewith. Keats is the proponent of the most popular line “Beauty is Truth, Truth beauty†which ignites many literary minds with sparks of ontological and epistemological questions and the search for the rationale behind it and its connotation remain an ongoing process. The article uses the etched line of the romantic poet to state that the concept is not a new one since the Bard of Avon had already employed it in a unique way in his last play The Tempest. It also rationalizes the way in which Prospero ill-treats and exploits the natives - Caliban and Sycorax - and compromises with the renegades from Naples which substantiates the Eurocentric White man’s bias against the black and the consequential racial legacy of ‘otherness’.