Gauging Shakespeare’s lifevision via his characters’ development—their inner battles, conflicts, and decisions. The author sets off on a fresh inquiry regarding these developments, starting from Prospero’s vision of the ‘insubstantial pageant’ of the world in The Tempest (Act IV, Sc. i). Divided into two parts, this book delves into ten of Shakespearean plays. Part I shows how the ethereal utterance betrays a curious lack of connection with Prospero’s character, with the dramatic action of the play and, ultimately, with the entire world of Shakespearean dramatic thought. Part II involves a close study of the nine plays and concludes that at the end of the phase Shakespeare’s vision of evilridden reality came to confront an impasse, rendering further progress in that direction impossible. The recoil from the dark tragic impasse, of which the romantic tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra affords a foretaste, leads Shakespeare on to the final romances and ultimately to the vision of the ‘insubstantial pageant’.