Ferdinand: No, My Dearest Love, I Would Not For The World. (act V, Scene I)

Ferdinand: No, my dearest love, I would not for the world.
(Act V, Scene I)
As we have seen, then, a knowledge of contemporary socio-politics and culture is not only beneficial to an understanding of The Tempest but, virtually, integral to it. However this must always be tempered with an appreciation of the psychological motivations of the author. It is also only through an appreciation of contemporary debates that we hope to equate Shakespearian drama to our own social and political climates. At the beginning of a new millennium we are, perhaps, ideally situated to appreciate the many socio-political leitmotifs in the play, the many poetic tropes surrounding the notion of beginning again and new horizons. Prospero's Epilogue, as well as being a veiled reference to Catholic absolution and indulgence is a hymn to political clemency and unity, it is only in such a climate can art and literature truly flourish:
Unless I reliev'd by prayer,
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be
Let your indulgences set me free.
(Epilogue)
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