The Most Dreadful Tempest
Brandy Smith 2010

 

William Shakespeare is known for a multitude of literature and plays. According to The Necessary Shakespeare 3rd edition by David Bevington, his plays are separated into four categories. The categories are comedies, tragedies, romances, and histories. The one play that should be looked at however, is The Tempest. This play is considered to be one of the romances that Shakespeare had created, however looking back on the play now, one might consider it more so a history play. Many historians believe that Shakespeare’s The Tempest was influenced by other occurrences during his time. It is an argument even in today’s time as to whether or not Shakespeare used information about a sea voyage to the new world as the basis of this play.

One of these sources that was a textual influence for The Tempest is A True Reportory of the Wreck and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, upon and from the Islands of the Bermudas: His Coming to Virginia and the Estate of that Colony Then and After, under the Government of the Lord La Warr, July 15, 1610 by William Strachey. The problem with proving this as an influence to Shakespeare’s The Tempest is all about timing. The story by William Strachey was not published until 1625 and The Tempest is thought to have been written between 1610 an 1611 since it was performed to the court in November of 1611. “A recent essay poses new challenges to the standard interpretation… contending that his (Strachey) narrative was largely derivative and that it was not completed on 15 July 1610 and sent immediately to London with Sir Thomas Gates, as the heading in Pvchas His Pilgrimes implies, but that it reached England too late to have had any influence on Shakespeare’s play” (Vaughan 1). Because of this Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky believe that it “is no longer even a possible source for Shakespeare’s Tempest” (Stritmatter 447-72).

Even though there is so much contest to the belief that Strachey’s story was and influence on Shakespeare’s play because of the date it was published it is important to recognize when it was actually written. There were also other influential texts written at this time about the same voyage that also could have sparked Shakespeare’s interest enough to influence him to write a play with similar contexts.

“Several accounts of the wreck and survival of the “Sea-Venture” were rushed into print in the fall of 1610. The first of these, A Discovery of the Barmudas, came out in October; it was written by Sylvester Jourdain, who had been aboard the “Sea-Venture” and had returned to England with Gates. A month later A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia was published. This was edited together from various documents as a piece of pro-Virginia propaganda on behalf of the Virginia Company, the consortium of investors who had underwritten the trip; The subtitle indicated that it included “a confutation of such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise.” Shakespeare almost certainly red the two above pamphlets and used them in writing The Tempest, but more important than either was William Strachey’s True Reportory of the Wrack, and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight. Though it was not published until 1625, Strachey’s account is dated July 15, 1610, and circulated among those in the know; it is addressed to an unidentified “Excellent Lady,” who was obviously familiar with the doings of the Virginia Company… William Shakespeare had multiple connections to both the Virginia Company and William Strachey, and it is not at all surprising that he would have had access to Strachey’s letter… This letter saturates The Tempest providing the basic scenario, many themes and images, and many details of plot and language” (Kathman 1).

The voyage of 1609 to colonize Virginia was an expedition that aroused a public sensation. Finding a new world was most certainly news heard by everyone, as it was an important part of history to everyone at this point in time. The question no longer can be asked about whether or not Shakespeare read Strachey’s letter because it was almost inevitable that Shakespeare knew what was going on according to this voyage because of the public interest of the adventure.

“Shakespeare’s island is to be found both somewhere and nowhere. On the narrative level, it is located in the Mediterranean Sea. Yet there are overtones of the New World, the Western Hemisphere, where Thomas More had situated his island of Utopia. Ariel fetches dew at Prospero’s command from the “Bermudas” (1.2.230). Caliban when prostrate reminds Trinculo of a “dead Indian” (2.2.33) (Bevington 845).
There are important similarities to take into consideration when comparing the works of Strachey and Shakespeare. It is almost too obvious to believe anything other than Strachey’s work influenced the writing of The Tempest. Comparing just the story line is very similar in that, Strachey’s account carried Gates who would be governor of Virginia and his entourage; a storm crashed the ship into the Bermudas leaving the rest of the fleet believing that Gates had drowned. In The Tempest a fleet travels to Naples carrying a king and his entourage when a storm shipwrecks them on some uninhabited island it is assumed that the king had drowned.

There are many similarities and parallels in the stories to make one believe that there was some sort of connection between the two. Even in The Tempest with its supernatural overtone, it is easy to compare to a story of a shipwreck in the Bermudas because “The Bermudas had a reputation as a place of devils and wicked spirits” (Kathman 1). In both the story and the play everybody on the ship safely makes it ashore an uninhabited island. Also in Strachey’s account the shipwreck splits up the people into two groups. Also in The Tempest the cast is split into two main groups.

In comparison to the Bermudas and the play, “given over to the Devils and wicked spirits” (Strachey 14). Also Sylvester Jourdain makes similar notations “these Islands of the Bermudos have ever beene accounted as an enchaunted pile of rockes, and a desert inhabitation for Divels; But all the Fairies of the rocks were but flocks of birds, and all the Divels that haunted the woods, were but heards of swine” (Jourdain 10-11). This is important when we take into consideration that Ariel quotes Ferdinand as saying “Hell is empty and all the devils are here” (1.2.214-15). Not to mention that the word “devils” is mentioned a dozen times in the play.

Even in language it is easy to see some similarities in the text. In Strachey’s account he speaks about a “Tortoyse” which “is such a kind of meat, as a man can neither absolutely call Fish nor Flesh, keeping most what in the water, and feeding upon Sea-grasse like a Heifer”(Strachey 24). In The Tempest Prospero calls Caliban “thou tortoise” (1.2.316). Also in the same distinction Trinculo wonders whether Caliban is “a man or a fish” (2.2.25). In this case we can see similarities and accept the creative innovations of Shakespeare to place this instant in his play.
Even in the horrible events that took place, such as the shipwreck and storm, there are other similarities between the two stories. “It please God to give us opportunitie, to performe all the other Offices, and Rites of our Christian Profession in this Iland: as Marriage” (Strachey37-38). This was in reference of the wedding between Thomas Powell and Elizabeth Persons. This part of the story is suggested to have led Shakespeare in the direction of writing a marriage between Miranda and Ferdinand.

There are even small instances of verbal parallels that seem to be more than just a mere coincidence. Something as little as when Strachey says “the sharpe windes blowing Northerly” (Strachey 16), and when Prospero states “the sharp wind of the north” (1.2.254). Even in Strachey’s writing we find a possible reason for the naming of the characters in Shakespeare’s play when Strachey cites “Gonzalus Ferdinandus Oviedus” who was the Spaniard who wrote the first description for the Bermudas.

While it is unknown for sure whether or not Shakespeare has ever read William Strachey’s “A True Reportory” it cannot not be dismissed as impossible. It is also important to recognize that there are many connections that could have led to the possibility of Shakespeare crossing paths with Strachey’s letter, one of them being the fact that Strachey himself was involved with the London Theater. Even so if the letter never reached the hands of Shakespeare it was quite possible that Shakespeare knew the story since the voyage had such high anticipation and because of the fact that there were many connections between Strachey and Shakespeare.

There are still many arguments today about whether or not Strachey’s work had any effect on the writing of The Tempest, but it is easy to see the similarities between the two stories. It is almost uncanny that the two stories have so much in common and it’s sad to think that the truth may never be known as to where Shakespeare received his inspiration for when writing The Tempest. However, the obvious similar story line and occurrences throughout the story and even in the language used cannot be ignored. It is safe to say that the feeling brought forth in The Tempest were surely brought from some outside influence referring to the new mystical world that would now be part of history.


Works Cited

Bevington, David. The Necessary Shakespeare Third Edition. The University of Chicago, Pearson Education, Inc 2009.

Hulme, Peter, and William H. Sherman, eds. “The Tempest” and Its Travels. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. Situates the play amid local and global contexts.

Kathman, David. Dating The Tempest. www.shakespeareauthorship.com/tempest.

Linton, Joan Pong. The Romance of the New World: Gender and the Literary Formations of English Colonialism. Cambridge studies in Renaissance literature and culture, 27. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Sokol, B. J. A Brave New World of Knowledge: Shakespeare's The Tempest and Early Modern Epistemology. Madison, NJ--London, England: Fairleigh Dickinson UP--Associated UP, 2003.

Strachey, William. A True Reportory of the Wreck and Redemption…from the Islands of the Bermudas. 1625

Stritmatter, Roger and Lynne Kositsky. Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited. Review of English Studies, n.s. 58 (2007).

Vaughan, Alden T. William Strachey’s “True Reportory” and Shakespeare: A Closer Look at the Evidence. Volume 59, Number 3, 2008.

Wright, Louis B., William Strachey, and Silvester Jourdain. A Voyage to Virginia in 1609; Two Narratives: Strachey's "True Reportory" and Jourdain's Discovery of the Bermudas. Charlottesville: Published for the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities [by] University Press of Virginia, 1964.