Considerations upon Geographical Importance in Shakespeare’s The Tempest
Considerations upon Geographical Importance in Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Summary/Abstract: . Debates over Shakespeare’s The Tempest have seen critics try to establish whether the play should be read as European (the action takes place on an unnamed island in the Mediterranean, the characters are Italian, and the action refers back to events in Milan and Naples) or belonging to the colonial New World (Shakespeare seems to have read William Stratchey’s pamphlets telling the story of his shipwreck on Bermuda, and Caliban is a near-anagram of ‘cannibal’). The point is undoubtedly that the play situates itself within both continents; or, rather, that Renaissance English writers were reluctant to divide the world of their imagination up so neatly? This article aims to bring considerations upon the complex issue regarding importance of the geographical division of world, in literature, taking a closer look on Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the great maps of the period.

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