The Review of English Studies Advance Access originally published online on April 17, 2007
The Review of English Studies 2007 58(236):447-472; doi:10.1093/res/hgl152
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press 2007; all rights reserved
Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited
Roger Stritmatter Coppin State University
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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.