William Strachey's ‘A True Reportory of the Wracke and
Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight’, an eyewitness report of the real-life
shipwreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 on the island of Bermuda while sailing towards
Virginia, is considered by most critics to be one of Shakespeare's primary
sources because of certain verbal, plot and thematic similarities. It has been
identified as Shakespeare's "main authority" for The Tempest, and critics
say Shakespeare "surely drew" on the account for specific passages in
the play.
There has, however, been some scepticism about the alleged
influence of the play. Kenneth Muir argued that although "there is little
doubt that Shakespeare had read ... William Strachey's True Reportory" and
other accounts, "the extent of the verbal echoes of the Bermuda pamphlets
has, I think, been exaggerated. There is hardly a shipwreck in history or
fiction which does not mention splitting, in which the ship is not lightened of
its cargo, in which the passengers do not give themselves up for lost, in which
north winds are not sharp, and in which no one gets to shore by clinging to
wreckage," and goes on to say that "Strachey's account of the
shipwreck is blended with memories of Saint Paul's, in which too not a hair."
Gonzalo's description of his ideal society thematically and
verbally echoes Montaigne's essay ‘Of the Canibales’, Caliban being a play on the word cannibal. Montaigne praises the society of the Caribbean natives: ‘It is a nation ...
that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of Letters, no intelligence of
numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie; no use of
service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no successions, no dividences,
no occupation but idle; no respect of kinred, but common, no apparrell but
naturall, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corne, or mettle. The very
words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousnes, envie,
detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them.’
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