ABSTRACT
While many melodramatic plots come from foreign plays or adapted fiction, Charles A. Somerset drew inspiration for “The Sea!” from two different kinds of sources. The first was a popular song “The Sea” by Barry Cornwall, a lawyer, poet, and playwright who studied at Harrow School with Lord Byron as his classmate. A second influence on the play comes from two paintings by Henry Edward Dawe, his 1831 My Child! My Child! and his 1832 A Mother and Child Rescued from a Watery Grave. “The Sea!” tells a two-part story of Harry Helm, his wife Mary, and their son Jack, opening with Harry serving on the Windsor Castle under Captain Mandeville, who attempts first to seduce and later to rape Mary. In “The Sea!”, the large Malay crew outnumbers British sailors, who find themselves overpowered when trying to save Harry and resist Captain Mandeville.
