Introducing the New World through Shakespeare

The Age of Exploration is a time period where Europeans discovered the America’s and they were eagerly exploring them in the hopes of finding trade routes, knowledge, and riches. During this time period many accounts of the New World were recorded through things like letters and journals, describing the land and the people found in the America’s. A lot of the information in these accounts was featured in works of literature during this time period, such as in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, providing a window into the Age of Exploration as well as the interaction between the Old and New World. This is evident in The Tempest as observed through the interactions between the characters. We can see parallels of interactions between indigenous people in the play and indigenous people as described in travel journals, as well as the interactions that the Europeans have and the varied opinions of the natives they hold.

In The Tempest there are two characters that can be considered to be, and compared to, indigenous people. These two characters are Miranda who is the daughter of Prospero, the main character of the play, and Caliban who was born on the island that Miranda and Prospero are exiled on and is essentially a slave to Prospero. Miranda can be compared to being indigenous in the way that the island is the only thing she knows and while she has been educated by her father, which Prospero claims ‘Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit Than other Princes can, that have more time For vainer hours and tutors not so careful.’ (Act I, Scene II, Lines 206-208), she is obviously kept ignorant as in the way that he chooses to tell her about how they arrived at the island in Scene II of Act I for the first time in the twelv...

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...trade that began to occur between the New and Old world. This trade was only possible because the Europeans came to the America’s and took everything as theirs despite the fact there were people already living there and despite the fact that sometimes those goods were owned by the natives. That’s why wars began to occur during the Age of Exploration in the Americas, and why the native’s population began to decrease so much, all because of the European’s believe they deserve ownership simply because they’re Europeans.

The Tempest is a play that serves as a window into what it was like during the Age of Exploration as well as what encounters between the old and new world were like. Through Shakespeare’s characters it is evident what interactions between Europeans and natives were like during this time, as well as what society thought of such experiences.