Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
FALSE PARALLELS IN DAVID KATHMAN’S ‘DATING THE TEMPEST’ 38<br />
________________________________________________________________________<br />
Use of the rare word 'thunderstroke’.<br />
True for <strong>The</strong> Tempest.<br />
Not true for the Strachey letter.<br />
Ergo: a false parallel.<br />
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&<br />
(20) David <strong>Kathman</strong> writes:<br />
Strachey also writes of the "many scattering showers of Raine (which would passe swiftly<br />
over, and yet fall with such force and darknesse for the time as if it would never bee<br />
cleere again)" (16).<br />
In the course of Trinculo's monologue at 2.2.18-41, a storm with "black cloud[s]" (20)<br />
passes over quickly.<br />
David <strong>Kathman</strong> is in error. His point is that storms in the Bermudas and in <strong>The</strong> Tempest<br />
'pass over quickly'. It is necessary to quote more fully from Strachey to demonstrate the<br />
falsity of this statement with respect to Bermuda. Strachey writes:<br />
[T]he storms continually raging from them, which once in the full and change commonly<br />
of every moon (winter or summer) keep their unchangeable round and rather thunder<br />
than blow from every corner about them, sometimes forty-eight hours together. . . . In<br />
August, September, and until the end of October we had very hot and pleasant weather;<br />
only (as I say) thunder, lightning, and many scattering showers of rain (which would pass<br />
swiftly over and yet fall with such force and darkness for the time as it would never be<br />
clear again) we wanted not any; and of rain more in summer than in winter. (Wright, pp.<br />
20-1)<br />
From this fuller quotation it is clear that the storms in Bermuda, far from passing over<br />
quickly, often lasted for forty-eight hours at a time, all year round (although it is true that<br />
Strachey says that downpours of rain within these two-day storms passed over quickly).<br />
However this is ultimately irrelevant, because David <strong>Kathman</strong>’s claim that a ‘storm’ in<br />
<strong>The</strong> Tempest ‘passes over quickly’ is also false. In fact, the storm in <strong>The</strong> Tempest<br />
mentioned at the beginning of Act 2, Scene 2 never materializes, although thunder is<br />
heard. Trinculo’s talk of this storm merely serves as a pretext for his taking cover under<br />
Caliban’s gaberdine, thus giving rise to the ‘monster of the isle with four legs’ which<br />
Stephano sees when he passes by.<br />
David <strong>Kathman</strong>'s false parallel can thus be analyzed as follows:<br />
Storms which pass over quickly.<br />
© 2005 Nina Green All Rights Reserved<br />
http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/