Secondary Sources
"Shakespeare's New World Fantasia" Robert Scanlan
Written to stir interest in an American Repertory Theater production of The Tempest, this two page paper supports the theory that Shakespeare combined the reports of the Bermuda episode with Montaigne's essay "On Cannibals" when creating this play. Scanlan includes basic nformation about the ten months spent in Bermuda and a brief analysis of Montaigne's essay as "a source for the deeper meditations the play contains on cultural relativism and the vexed question of European colonial prerogatives."
Accessible for high school students
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~art/center.html
Illinois Shakespeare Festival "The Tempest" Elizabeth Reitz Mullenix
Mullenix introduces this essay with a brief description of the Bermuda story, but the brief (1.5 page) paper actually address the question of whether this is a play more about Caliban than Prospero.
For higher level students
http://orathost.cfa.ilstu.edu/shakespeare/research/ISFtempest.html
"Dating The Tempest" by Dave Kathman
This eleven page paper has a twofold purpose: to support the belief that Shakespeare is the true author of the play and to show that he had access to Strachey's account of the Bermuda incident, which he argues, is the basis for the play.
The paper contains "a list of thematic, verbal and plot correspondences" that link The Tempest to Strachey's letter concerning the shipwreck in Bermuda, the ten months on the island and the subsequent voyage to Jamestown.
The paper is very carefully organized. Accessible to good students
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/tempest.html
"The Tempest and the Bermuda Shipwreck of 1609"
A dissenting view: The author argues that Shakespeare used no identified souce for this play. He states that all shipwrecks have similarities and finds more between a Biblical account of St. Paul's wreck and The Tempest's than between Strachey's and Shakespeare's.
First printed in the Summer 1999 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter
Accessible to students
http://www.everreader.com/tempdate.htm
"The Chronicle of the New World, Shakespeare's The Tempest and and ESOL Instruction" Norine Polio
This is meant for teachers. The author offers suggestions for teaching the play with a focus on parallels to other writings of discovery and of colonialism. She refers to works by Columbus, Cortes, Castillo and others as well as the native writers of Broken Spear.
The author's students are Caribbean born Hispanics, so the primary focus highlights her interest in communication between "conqueror and the conquered." In addition to issues of communication, she includes themes her students can relate to -island life, storms, shipwrecks and magic. The references to historical works are organized scene by scene, and suggestions for discussions and assignments.
Though the writer had E.S.O.L. students in mind when preparing this paper, it is certainly more than servicable for other students. It would be especially good if taught in conjunction with the early conquests of the New World.
14 pages, including bibliography and notes
http://www.cis.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1986/2/86.02.06.x.html
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