Prospero New Born undermines the conventional concept of Shakespearean criticism and establishes that The Tempest is Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. The criterion of tragedy is not the final death of the protagonist, but is the constant torment he is subjected to during his life, leading him to his inner purification, self-realisation and rebirth and thus taking him to the grandeur of an Ideal Man, a Purushottama. Prof. KV Ramakrishnan evaluates Shakespeare using this novel critical paradigm evolved out of the great Indian tragedies of universal dimen-sion, Ramayanam and Maha Bharatham and substantiates that Shakespeare is, through all his earlier plays, searching for Prospero experimenting with various heroes and incidents, reaching finally in his Purushottama and that Prospero is thus Shakespeare's grandest tragic hero.