Gurr found, that ‘six of the plays have shipwrecks’.1
Any result will depend on how one counts and what is included in the listing. In the following I present the results of my own count.
I find, that in five plays, shipwreck – real or presumed – is central to the plot:
- The Comedy of Errors (a storm separates a couple as well as two sets of identical twins)
- The Merchant of Venice (failed ventures at sea cause Antonio to be indebted to Shylock)
- Twelfth Night (a storm separates the twin siblings Sebastian and Viola, who are shipwrecked and washed ashore in Illyria)
- Pericles (in the first storm Pericles is shipwrecked and washed ashore at Pentapolis, where he can win the favour of princess Thaisa; in a second storm the newlywed couple is separated again; Thaisa is assumed to have died in childbirth and the sailors – ‘strong in custom’ – insist on casting her overboard: Per 3.1.52)
- The Tempest (the name-giving storm brings several groups of shipwrecked survivors separately to an island).
In four plays, I find shipwreck (or near shipwreck) prominently mentioned or important for one aspect of the plot:
- Henry VI, Part 2 (Margaret admonishes her weak husband Henry in a speech describing the hazards of her travel to England: ‘was I for this nigh wrecked upon the sea’, 2H6 3.2.82–113)
- King John (the Dauphin’s supply is reported to be wrecked on Goodwin Sands: KJ 5.3.9–11 and 5.5.12–13, while the Bastard’s troops are devoured by Lincoln Washes: ‘half my power this night, passing these flats, are taken by the tide’, KJ 5.6.39–41)
- Othello (the Turkish fleet is dispersed by a storm: Oth 2.1.10–24)
- The Winter’s Tale (in a storm, Antigonus’s ship is observed from land to be ‘swallowed with yeast and froth’: WT 3.3.79–88).
In three plays, shipwreck is mentioned at least passingly or used as a metaphor:
- Romeo and Juliet (Romeo addresses Cupid, his pilot, ‘that hath the steerage of my course’, 1.4.110 shortly before his death, 5.3.117–118)
- Measure for Measure (Mariana’s brother Frederick ‘was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister’, MM 3.1.209–211)
- The Two Noble Kinsmen (the Jailer’s Daughter observes a ship sinking after running on a rock: ‘up with a course or two, and tack about, boys! Good night, good night; you’re gone’, TNK 3.4.10–11).
To make this discussion of nautical hazards a more complete one, we might include pirates. Then we can identify six plays, in which pirates are essential to propel the plot:
- Henry VI, Part 2 (Suffolk dies by pirates, 2H6 4.1.33–139)
- Hamlet (on his journey to England, where Claudius wants him to be killed, Hamlet is famously taken and rescued by pirates, and he reports his adventure in a letter to Horatio; Ham 4.3.12–27)
- Twelfth Night (Antonio ‘shakes off’ the name of pirate in TN 5.1.66–70, but admits that he had fought against Orsino on a ship others describe as ‘baubling vessel … For shallow draught and bulk unprizeable’, TN 5.1.49)
- Measure for Measure (‘One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate’ died conveniently on the same morning in the prison, so that his head can be exchanged for Claudio’s, MM 4.2.64)
- Antony and Cleopatra (‘Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates, / Makes the sea serve them, which they ear and wound / With keels of every kind’, AC 1.4.48–50; Pompey agrees with the triumvirate to ‘rid all the sea of pirates’ in AC 2.6.36)
- Pericles (Pirates ‘rescue’ Marina from being murdered in Per 4.1.90–100, but will sell her to a brothel later on).
Finally, I would like to mention that in at least two plays storms without shipwrecks are important for the plot: in Julius Caesar and King Lear.
- Gurr, 2010, Baubles on the Water: Sea Travel in Shakespeare’s Time, in SEDERI – Sociedad Española de Estudios Renacentistas Ingleses, 20, p. 68. ↩︎
Shakespeare's Shipwrecks 