Idea of a “Great Chain of Being” by William Shakespeare
Words: 1049 Pages: 3 9078During the period in which Shakespeare lived and wrote, there was a widely held belief in the idea of a ‘Great Chain of Being’, which asserted that “...every existing thing in the universe had its “place” in a divinely planned hierarchical order…”. With its constant references to hierarchy and social order, the narrative of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ can be interpreted as a discussion of the ‘Great Chain of Being’ - more specifically, a discussion of whether the order inherent in […]