On the Date, Sources and Design of Shakespeare's The Tempest

This book challenges a longstanding and deeply ingrained belief in Shakespearean studies that The Tempest, long supposed to be Shakespeare's last play, was not written until 1611. In the course of investigating this proposition, which has rarely been questioned and has not received the critical inquiry it deserves, a number of subsidiary and closely related interpretative puzzles have come sharply into focus. These include the plays sources of New World imagery; its festival symbolism and structure; its relationship to William Strachey's True Reportory account of the 1609 Bermuda wreck of the Sea Venture (not published until 1625) and the tangled history of how and why scholars have for so long misunderstood these matters. When some preliminary elements of the case were published in leading Shakespearean journals (starting in 2007), the sometimes intemperate responses they received became part of the critical history, and some scholars supposed that we had been answered. Our reply to these criticisms is here given in full.

Roger A. Stritmatter is an associate professor of Humanities at Coppin State University and general editor of Brief Chronicles: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Authorship Studies. He has published on Shakespearean topics in a range of academic journals, including Notes and Queries, The Shakespeare Yearbook, Review of English Studies, Critical Survey, The Tennessee Law Review, and the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Lynne Kositsky is a poet, author, and independent researcher whose honors include the E.J. Pratt Medal and Award for Poetry and the Canadian Jewish Book Award for Youth. Her articles with Roger Stritmatter on the dating and sources of Shakespeare's The Tempest have appeared in journals such as The Oxfordian and Critical Survey. She lives in Vineland, Ontario.