Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky at Crater Lake National Park -- Oregon, Sept. 2010
After five years of work on their joint project about Shakespeare's TheTempest, Roger Stritmatter, PhD and Lynne Kositsky have completed the manuscript of A Movable Feast: Sources, Chronology and Design of Shakespeare's Tempest, a closer look at the sources and dating of the play.
In a joint statement, Stritmatter and Kositsky said:
We have no doubt that the book will be extremely controversial. It rebuts the usual theory -- together with its architects and latest contributors, Tom Reedy and Alden Vaughan -- that Strachey was the primary source of the Tempest, and demonstrates instead how many earlier texts such as Eden, Erasmus, and Ariosto are a better and more plausible fit than Strachey. If Strachey's True Reportory, dated by most orthodox scholars to 1610 but actually published in 1625, was not the source, then the play could be much earlier. Depending on texts that seem to demonstrate allusions to Tempest, we date it to or before 1603.
Regarding a publisher, Kositsky said, "We've had some interest, but will continue to query publishers of scholarly books. We are now ready to send out our finished draft."
Off to Ukraine
Stritmatter and Kositsky plan to travel to Ukraine this May to speak at a Shakespeare authorship conference sponsored by the Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University. William Leahy author of Shakespeare and his Authors and Peter Dawkins author of The Shakespeare Enigma are also expected to attend. In addition to her work on The Tempest, Kositsky will also speak to students about the art of writing and her two latest publications: Minerva's Voyage and Rachel.Stritmatter & Kositsky published articles on The Tempest:
- “Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited.” Review of of English Studies. September, 2007 (published online June, 2007), 447-472.
- “Pale as Death: The Fictionalizing Influence of Erasmus’ ‘Naufragium’ on the Renaissance Travel Narrative.” Festschrift in Honor of Isabel Holden, fall 2008, Concordia University, 141-151.
- “O Brave New Worlde: The Tempest and Peter Martyr’s De Orbe Novo,” Critical Survey 21: 2 (Summer 2009), 7-42.
- "A Moveable Feast: The Liturgical Symbolism and Design of The Tempest" The Shakespeare Yearbook, 2010.
NOTE: Jan, 27, 2011
See also Stritmatter & Kositsky's Internet site, Shakespeare's Tempest at: http://shakespearestempest.com/