템페스트에 나타난 자유의 회복과 공적 이성

The Tempest, William Shakespeare’s last play, is known as a work in which the play-wright bids farewell to the audience. In this drama, Prospero ends the play by forgiving the traitors, giving up his power of magic, deciding to return home, and asking the audience, ‘set him free’. So, the ending predicted by Prospero ostensibly implies the sentiments of the writer who is about to retire. Contrary to this interpretation, Shakespeare’s work is understood to exemplify and recognize freedom, autonomy, and diversity. With this view in mind, Prospero seems to have decided to relinquish the magic, the power to control everyone, and to return home because his concept of freedom results in abandonment of power symbolized by his magic. We can see clues to Shakespeare’s perception of the problems raised in real politics that include a means of exercising power or authority. This article aims to explain the practical problem of political diversity through Montaigne and John Rawls. Montaigne had a great influence on Europeans and Shakespeare not only through the attitude of giving up the perspective of superior imperialists but open-mindedness to unfamiliar cultures and races from the early days of the discovery of the new world and colonialism. In addition, Prospero will govern the city in the position of Duke after returning to Milan, where his future depends on the wisdom of rule that accommodates the diversity of society. In this precise regard, we have suggested answers that Rawlsian theory of public reason inspires us to pursue. It is not well known that Rawls’s idea presents a modern inheritance of Montaigne; yet the implications of public reason are crucial if examined in the extension of Montaigne’s tolerant attitudes towards freedom, autonomy, and diversity.