The Tempest and The Faerie Queene

Abstract

Strangeness occurs in many places and in a variety of forms in Shakespeare, but nowhere more compellingly than in The Tempest. This late, ‘magical’ play distinguishes itself by its depiction of the bizarre and the unusual in terms both of character and incident. In this article, I argue that, in deploying and developing his understanding of the strange, Shakespeare takes his cue to a degree from The Faerie Queene of Edmund Spenser, whose allegorical method also employs the odd and the unfamiliar. Spenser’s epic poem was published in three separate editions in the course of Shakespeare’s writing career: at its beginning in 1590 (the first three books), again in 1596 (six books), and in 1609, a year or two before the composition of The Tempest.