Читать книгу The Shakespeare-Expositor - Thomas Keightley - Страница 22

Edition. Only in the folio, 1623.

Date. As it (II. 1) copies a passage from Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays, published in 1603, we may assume that it is posterior to that year; and Malone has directed attention to the shipwreck of Sir George Somers on the island of Bermuda in July 1609, which may have suggested the scene of "The Tempest." We may therefore venture to assume that it may have been written not long after the account of that event reached England.

Origin. Collins, the poet, told Warton that he had seen a romance called "Aurelio and Isabella," printed in Italian, Spanish, French, and English in 1588, which was the original of the Tempest. But no such romance has ever been discovered, and it may justly be questioned if ever such a one existed. Still it is not improbable that Shakespeare may have heard or read some story of people cast away on a desert island. There is also a German play by Jacob Ayrer of Nuremberg, who died early in the seventeenth century, named "Die schöne Sidea," which in its plot and principal characters, bears so strong a resemblance to The Tempest that it is very difficult to avoid supposing a connexion between them; and it might thence appear that Collins was correct, for Shakespeare could hardly have had any knowledge of a German drama. It may, however, be said that he got his knowledge of the plot, &c., from one of the English actors who, as it is now well known, used to go over and perform in Germany.