Shakespeare’s Montaigne: Maps and Books in The Tempest

Frank Lestringant’s chapter focuses on knowledge and Renaissance discoveries. It examines how the playwright used books and maps—geometry being part of the medieval quadrivium—and how he reassessed their functions. In The Tempest, Lestringant once more reminds us that Shakespeare skilfully relies on Montaigne’s Essays and cleverly re-appropriates the negative formula of the essay entitled “Of Cannibals”. Indeed, Gonzalo’s famous tirade, in act 2, scene 1, is drawn from Montaigne’s chapter on cannibals, translated by John Florio in 1603. Commenting on this almost-literal and well-known borrowing, Lestringant shows how Shakespeare manages to dramatize Montaigne’s observations and how he lionizes the old lord Gonzalo thanks to his indirect quote. Doing so, he reexamines Gonzalo’s role in The Tempest and rehabilitates his humanist education.