Leo Marx

“Although most earlier versions of pastoral had been set in never-never lands, and although The Tempest contains only one allusion to the actual New World, its setting is not wholly fanciful. We begin with a commonplace event of the age: a ship caught in a storm and beached on an uninhabited island. It is like an Elizabethen news report.”

“...romantic weltschmerz, a state of feeling thought to be basically subversive yet in most cases, like 'beat' rebelliousness today, adolescent and harmless.”