The tempest is thought to have been written around 1610/11. It is also believed to be the last play Shakespeare would have written entirely himself. The Tempest and Love’s Labor’s Lost are the only two Shakespeare plays with a completely original story line.
An event that may have been part of the inspiration for writing 'The Tempest' was the storm of off Bermuda which Shipwrecked the 'Sea Venture'. This was a seventeenth century sailing ship, she was the flagship boat for the Virginia company. These were boats sailing from Plymouth to Virginia in 1607. They established settlements in Virginia in 1607 and additional settlers came in 1608. The Sea venture set sail in 1609 from Plymouth along with two other ships. It was bound for Virginia. It carried 500 to 600 people. However, a storm on the 24th July caused the ships to be separated. The other two ships survived. However, the fact that the Sea Venture was newly built meant that the timbers hadn't set well which meant it began leaking and filling with water and the ship began to break. The Admiral on the morning of the 25th saw land, he drove the ship onto the reef of Bermuda, this meant 150 people and a dog were lead safely ashore.
As well as this the Philosopher Michel de Montaigne was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. He wrote an essay called 'Of the Cannibals' which was translated to English in 1603. This was thought to be part of the inspiration for The Tempest. This essay looked at the relationships between the colonizer and the colonized. It is thought that the name 'Caliban' in the Tempest derives from the word cannibal, which is what the essay focused on. Almost every character within The Tempest questions what it would be like if they were given power over the island. This is also why this essay could have inspired Shakespeare's writing.
People around this time were aware of the Governments work on discovering un-colonized islands. This was around the time they were discovering America and therefore people became curious about how indigenous people were surviving in societies so different to their own. In The Tempest we see Prospero, Miranda and Caliban all surviving and living in a culture very different to the Elizabethan England Shakespeare knew, there fore he may have heard these stories which inspired these ideas.
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