What Shakespeare thought if the American Indian

Louis Proyect lnp3 at panix.com
Sun Dec 6 08:39:27 PST 1998


Frances Bolton wrote:


>Actually, the evidence that Shakespeare did not set The Tempest in Bermuda
>is overwhelming. I did a bit of research--he read the Bermmuda accounts
>but the play is more based on continental north America.

Frances, thanks for the fascinating followup that I will crosspost. I guess I wasn't clear enough. I don't think the island is supposed to be Bermuda, only that accounts of a shipwreck on Bermuda were the inspiration for the play. It is probably true that Shakespeare pulled together pits and pieces from different travelogues about the New World and produced a composite roughly based on them. As your citation put it nicely, all these sources "set Shakespeare's fancy working."

Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)



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