Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited

A two-century critical tradition that the 1609 Bermuda shipwreck literature (Jourdain 1610, 'True Declaration' 1610, Strachey 1625) establishes a terminus a quo for The Tempest is incorrect. Strachey's True Reportory, the only Bermuda pamphlet now thought to have significantly influen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Review of English studies 2007-09, Vol.58 (236), p.447-472
Main Authors: Stritmatter, Roger, Kositsky, Lynne
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boats
Dramatists
Narratives
Plagiarism
Seas
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Ships
Shipwrecks
Source studies
Strachey, William (1572?-1621)
Theater
Travel
Written composition
Written narratives
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Summary:A two-century critical tradition that the 1609 Bermuda shipwreck literature (Jourdain 1610, 'True Declaration' 1610, Strachey 1625) establishes a terminus a quo for The Tempest is incorrect. Strachey's True Reportory, the only Bermuda pamphlet now thought to have significantly influenced The Tempest, was put into its only extant form too late to be used as the play's source and probably after the play had already been produced in 1611. Strachey, a notorious plagiarist even by early modern standards, borrowed much that his narrative shares with The Tempest from earlier sources also accessible to Shakespeare.
ISSN:0034-6551
1471-6968
DOI:10.1093/res/hgl152