World Events Influencing Shakespeare¨s The Tempest Essay...

â€Å"What’s past is Prologue† – William Shakespeare Shakespeare lived and produced much of his famous works during the time when Queen Elizabeth ruled England and Ireland. This era was known as the Elizabethan Era. The world and its people were quickly evolving. It was the â€Å"golden age† of poetry, music and literature. It was in the midst of European exploration that Shakespeare wrote, The Tempest. It would be safe to suggest that many of the worldly events during this time, such as the shipwreck of Sea Venture, global colonization, and the works of Michel de Montaigne, had prodigious influences on Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. The Tempest starts aboard a ship in the middle of the sea caught in a violent hurricane. Members of the audience†¦show more content†¦After finding shelter on the island in the Bermuda’s, the survivors were dehydrated and suffering from food deprivation. It is suggested that the reports within Strachey’s letters of a bright light seen upon the island during the aftermath may be Shakespeare’s inspiration for Ariel within his play, The Tempest. One of the survivor reports: An apparition of a little round light, like a faint star, trembling and streaming along with a sparkling blaze,†¦shooting sometimes from shroud to shroud, tempting to settle as it were on any of the four shrouds:†¦half the night it kept with us, running sometimes along the main yard to the very end, and then returning. In The Tempest, Ariel refers to himself as a â€Å"flam[ing] amazement, divid[ing] and burn[ing] in many places. /On the topmast, / The yards, and bowsprit would I flame distinctly, / Then meet and join. / Jove’s lightning, the precursors† (Act 1 Scene 2). Furthermore, Shakespeare uses the word â€Å"Bermoothes’ when Ariel talks about the Island in the Bermuda’s they habitat. The Bermuda islands are known as the â€Å"devil’s island† when searched in the English dictionary. In fact, Ferdinand refers to the Bermuda Island where they are stranded as â€Å"Hell [being] empty [because] all the devils are here (Act1 Scene 2). Strachey’s letters