Shakespeare’s Tempest framed civilization as the mastery of unruly nature and human passion.

Evidence

The violence of nature contrasts with the ease of life made possible through human skill and ingenuity. If the forces of disorder could be harnessed, the tempest itself could be created and manipulated—a lesson taught by such Renaissance handbooks on natural magic as those of Agrippa and Della Porta. Neither physical nature nor human nature should be allowed to go untamed like the bestial nature of the cannibal Caliban. True civilization can be achieved only through the full exercise of power and control in both the physical and mental realms. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 553

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the eco-justice strand on worldview licensing domination; pairs with Merchant’s thesis that Renaissance natural magic flowed into mechanism.
• ADDENDUM: Prospero as tamer of a raw landscape paralleling settlers’ dominion imagery; connects to the Sacrifice article’s hierarchy themes lightly.