Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
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FALSE PARALLELS IN DAVID KATHMAN’S ‘DATING THE TEMPEST’ 32<br />
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Soon after arriving in Bermuda the survivors of the shipwreck remodelled the longboat<br />
which had been on the Sea Venture, and on the 28 th of August Henry Ravens, Thomas<br />
Whittingham, and six sailors sailed for Jamestown to let the colony there know that the<br />
Sea Venture had been wrecked in Bermuda. (Wright, pp. 35-6)<br />
On the first of September a plot was discovered, and the six men involved (John Want,<br />
Christopher Carter, Francis Pearepoint, William Brian, William Martin, and Richard<br />
Knowles) were exiled to another of the islands. Upon their repentance shortly thereafter,<br />
they were allowed to rejoin the main group. (Wright, pp. 41-2)<br />
When nothing had been heard from Virginia, and Ravens was feared lost, on the 27th of<br />
November Sir George Somers, with two carpenters and twenty men, went over to the<br />
main island to build another boat in addition to the one Robert Frobisher was building on<br />
the island on which the main group lived during the entire time in Bermuda. (Wright, pp.<br />
38-9)<br />
On the 18th of March, another group of men, involved in a plot with one Henry Paine<br />
(who was hanged for his part in it), took to the woods and lived like outlaws. (p. 49)<br />
Eventually all but two of these men (Christopher Carter and Robert Waters) rejoined the<br />
main group. Carter and Waters were left behind when the survivors of the Sea Venture<br />
later sailed for Jamestown. (Wright, p. 53)<br />
Two main groups? Absolutely not. Neither in <strong>The</strong> Tempest, nor in Bermuda.<br />
David <strong>Kathman</strong>'s false parallel can thus be analyzed as follows:<br />
A shipwrecked party splits into two groups.<br />
Not true for <strong>The</strong> Tempest.<br />
Not true for the Strachey letter.<br />
Ergo: a false parallel (or rather, a completely non-existent parallel).<br />
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&<br />
(18) David <strong>Kathman</strong> writes:<br />
Strachey writes about how it had been thought that the Bermudas were "given over to<br />
Devils and wicked Spirits" (14); Jourdain calls it "the Ile of Divels" (title page) and "a<br />
most prodigious and enchanted place" (8); A True Declaration says that "these Islands of<br />
the Bermudos, have ever beene accounted as an enchaunted pile of rockes, and a desert<br />
inhabitation for Divels; but all the Fairies of the rocks were but flocks of birds, and all<br />
the Divels that haunted the woods, were but heards of swine" (10-11).<br />
© 2005 Nina Green All Rights Reserved<br />
http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/