The Bard and the Boundless Sea

Though William Shakespeare frequently wrote about the sea—capturing its tides, fleets, shipwrecks, and the awe of its vastness—there is no evidence he ever sailed the Atlantic himself. Yet, the ocean loomed large in Elizabethan England’s consciousness. By 1611, when he penned The Tempest, tales of Atlantic voyages and disasters had become part of London’s lore. The play, often considered his final solo masterpiece, may have drawn inspiration from a real 1609 shipwreck near Bermuda, a story that captivated the English public.

Shakespeare’s fleeting reference to the “still-vexed Bermoothes” suggests he knew of the archipelago. That year, the Sea Venture, a ship bound for Jamestown, was wrecked there during a hurricane. The crew’s survival and their eventual rescue became legendary, blending maritime peril with colonial ambition—a narrative ripe for theatrical adaptation.

From Shipwreck to Stage

The Sea Venture’s saga had all the elements of drama: a violent storm, eerie St. Elmo’s fire, and stranded aristocrats. Survivors, including Admiral George Somers, built new ships from Bermuda’s cedar and sailed to a near-starving Jamestown. Somers later returned to Bermuda, where he died; his heart was buried there, marking Britain’s early claim to the Atlantic isles.

Centuries later, in 2009, Bermuda celebrated its 400th anniversary with a performance of The Tempest in Hamilton—a fitting tribute to the play’s possible origins. The production, starring a dashing Prospero, drew crowds, linking Shakespeare’s imagination to the island’s history.

Poetry of the Perilous Deep

Long before Shakespeare, poets grappled with the Atlantic’s majesty. Early Irish and Anglo-Saxon verse, like the 8th-century Gaelic Storm at Sea, depicted its fury:

> The wind blows from the west,
> the waves roar eastward,
> toward the sun’s golden tree,
> rooted in the sea’s breast.

The Exeter Book, a 10th-century anthology, includes The Seafarer, a melancholic ode to ocean life. Ezra Pound’s 1912 translation captures its duality—the hardship and the haunting pull of the waves:

> …Few know
> the comfort of land,
> while I, lonely, drift
> in winter’s grip,
> far from kin…

These works reflect a growing maritime identity, framing the sea as both adversary and muse.

Monsters and Myths

Medieval maps teemed with sea monsters, like the 200-foot serpent Olaus Magnus described off Norway. Art and legend amplified these terrors: whirlpools, krakens, and mermaids populated Atlantic lore. Even Saint Brendan was depicted saying Mass on a whale’s back in 1621 engravings.

Yet Indigenous cultures, like the Inca, revered the ocean as Mamacocha (Mother Sea), a life-giver. African traditions celebrated water spirits like Mammy Water, a figure later carried across the Atlantic by the slave trade.

Painting the Ocean’s Moods

By the Renaissance, artists shifted from fear to fascination. Dutch masters like the van de Veldes painted storm-tossed ships with precision, while Claude Lorrain romanticized Mediterranean harbors. In Spain, Alejo Fernández’s Virgin of the Navigators (1531) depicted Columbus’s voyages under divine protection, symbolizing the Atlantic as a pathway to empire.

J.M.W. Turner and Winslow Homer later captured the ocean’s sublime power—Turner with his luminous seascapes, Homer with stark dramas like The Gulf Stream, where a lone sailor battles sharks and storms.

Cities by the Sea

Atlantic ports became hubs of commerce and culture. Cádiz, founded by Phoenicians, thrived as a gateway to the Americas. Santo Domingo, established by Columbus’s brother, echoed this legacy with its colonial grid and fortress walls.

New York, the “gate of sunset-red waves,” emerged as a modern titan, its skyline a testament to transatlantic ambition. Cape Town, framed by Table Mountain, balanced natural grandeur with colonial history. And Jamestown, on remote St. Helena, preserved an 18th-century outpost’s quiet charm, where Napoleon once gazed at the same endless horizon.

The Sea in Symphony

Composers embraced the Atlantic’s drama. Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage evoked its moods, while Debussy’s La Mer painted sonic waves. Later, Britten’s Peter Grimes and Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony wove maritime themes into orchestral tapestries.

Literature’s Lasting Tide

From Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World to Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us, writers have mirrored humanity’s bond with the ocean. Slocum’s 1898 circumnavigation epitomized solitary courage:

> “I was in the world of fog, cut off from all else… Yet the moon, rising like a friend, spoke to me of calm.”

French sailor Bernard Moitessier, abandoning a race to sail on, wrote:

> “I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation… where the sea reigns.”

Legacy of the Tempest

Shakespeare’s The Tempest endures as a metaphor for exploration and encounter. The Atlantic, once a barrier, became a bridge—for trade, art, and ideas. Its waves, real and imagined, continue to inspire, reminding us of the ocean’s dual role: as a force of peril and a source of wonder.

In the end, the Atlantic is not just water, but a stage for human dreams—a truth as resonant today as in Prospero’s time.