Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site

FALSE PARALLELS IN DAVID KATHMAN’S ‘DATING THE TEMPEST’ 10
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The Tempest. What could I say about it? Oh, I have it! I'll say: 'This ship is as leaky as
an unstanched wench'. Could anything be more nonsensical than to claim that the one
was the inspiration for the other? One might as well claim that a tornado was the
inspiration for the line: 'A light breeze played through the leaves of the trees'.
David Kathman’s false parallel can thus be analyzed as follows:
A huge leak in the ship lets in water five feet deep which requires constant bailing
by passengers and crew for three days and four nights.
Not true for The Tempest.
True for the Strachey letter.
Ergo: a false parallel.
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(5) David Kathman writes:
Strachey tells how "we . . . had now purposed to have cut down the Maine Mast" (12);
the boatswain in the play cries, "Down with the topmast!" (1.1.34).
David Kathman’s comparison is egregiously misleading. Here is a fuller quotation from
Strachey:
But it did not light us any whit the more to our known way, who ran now (as do
hoodwinked men) at all adventures, sometimes north and northeast, then north and by
west, and in an instant again varying two or three points, and sometimes half the
compass. East and by south we steered away as much as we could to bear upright, which
was no small carefulness nor pain to do, albeit we much unrigged our ship, threw
overboard much luggage, many a trunk and chest (in which I suffered no mean loss), and
staved many a butt of beer, hogsheads of oil, cider, wine, and vinegar, and heaved away
all our ordnance on the starboard side, and had now purposed to have cut down the main
mast the more to lighten her. (Wright, pp. 13-4)
Although Strachey mentions a plan to cut down the main mast to lighten the ship which
was not carried out, there is no mention whatever in The Tempest of cutting down the
mainmast, nor, in fact, any mention of the main mast at all. The nautical manoeuvre
discussed in The Tempest ('Down with the topmast!') is the lowering of the topmast so
that the ship, which is under sail, can round a point of land. David Kathman’s alleged
parallel is thus both misleading and false.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the two masts as follows, giving quotations from
Shakespeare for both:
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