Pirates Everywhere!

Byron introduced the pirate as love interest, an idea further explored by Italian opera composer Vicenzo Bellini, with Il Pirata. The 1827 opera featured protagonist Gualtiero, a privileged aristocratic count, living in exile as a pirate and feared by society. Suffering and singing as he wanders in search of his lost love, Gualtiero, like Conrad, keeps the audience on his side  

Pirates as romantic heroes dashed through the novels of Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950), who also wrote significant female characters. Sabatini’s protagonist was a man of good background who had been thrown into piracy by some social injustice. He redeemed his moral standing by rescuing a damsel in distress and protecting her from other pirates. Two Sabatini books, The Sea Hawk (1915) and Captain Blood (1922) were made into successful Hollywood movies and launched the career of Erroll Flynn, who became a star specializing in playing swashbuckler roles.  

Today, pirate stories remain a popular subgenre of romance fiction. A typical plot features a fiercely independent heroine meeting a rebellious pirate captain with a troubled past and a yearning for redemption. They often begin as enemies, but as the adventure continues, their attraction grows. (A growing number of gay pirate romances follow the same pattern, only here both protagonists are men.) Susie Morrow, a romance novelist, suggests pirate romances invite “a deep dive into stories of freedom, redemption, and the passionate bonds that can only form when you're living on the edge of society's norms.”   

On the opposite side of the coin, the criminality and violence of pirate history has inspired a treasure trove of compelling villains. One of the most influential depictions in Johnson’s General History was Blackbeard (also known as Edward Teach), who lived from 1680-1718.  Describing Blackbeard’s long, wild beard tied into braids, a shoulder sling carrying three pistols, and fierce, wild eyes, Johnson claimed “the imagination cannot form an idea of fury, from hell, to look more frightful.” Even today, representations of Blackbeard abound: from the fictional and fantastic Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Disney 2011) to the factual (if embellished) The Lost Pirate Kingdom (Netflix 2021).  

Jonhson likely provided inspiration for two of the best-known literary pirate villains. In Treasure Island (1883), Robert Louis Stevenson created Long John Silver, the iconic peg-legged pirate with a parrot on his shoulder. The book also introduced popular pirate tropes such as treasure maps and black-sailed ships. Stevenson’s pirates are duplicitous and violent men, willing to do anything to acquire the buried treasure, but Silver is more complex. He first appears kindly and charming, with a veneer of respectability that allows him to win over the novel’s young hero, Jim Hawkins. By inviting readers to see Silver through Jim’s innocent perspective, Stevenson demonstrated the capacity of the most dangerous and murderous of pirates to draw us into their confidence.  

The infamous Captain Hook took the stage in J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play, Peter Pan, and later in the book version, Peter and Wendy (1911). Hook is another complex villain whose aristocratic mannerisms and appearance contrast with his capacity for violence and cruelty.  Barry took inspiration for Hook’s regal clothing and sweeping black curls from paintings of King Charles II of England, and he created a fictional backstory with Hook attending the elite school Eton before turning to piracy. On the darker side, Hook had “cadaverous” dark skin, and melancholy blue eyes that would light up red when he “was plunging his hook into you.” Hook and Silver serve the function of all storybook villains. First and foremost, they motivate the action of their stories, and they also allow us to vicariously indulge our fantasies of acting out on the darker, unexpressed impulses of our own personalities.  

Audiences today are probably most familiar with Captain Hook through Disney’s 1953 animated film, which added layers of foppish comedy and vulnerability to Hook’s character. Disney also presented softer versions of Long John Silver, beginning with its 1950 feature film Treasure Island, again in Muppet Treasure Island (1996) and the animated Treasure Planet (2002). Long before Disney’s versions of Hook, Silver, or the popular Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (all targeted for younger viewers), Gilbert and Sullivan revealed the comic potential of piracy with Pirates of Penzance. 

In their previous hit HMS Pinafore (1878) and again in Pirates, the duo parodied a well-known stage genre, the nautical melodrama. Popular in England and the US in the early 19th century, nautical melodrama featured virtuous sailor heroes caught between two forces: pirates and criminals who defied the law, and oppressive agents of authority (such naval officers, judges, bailiffs), who unjustly abused its power. Gilbert and Sullivan applied their “topsy-turvy” approach to these tropes:  Frederic, struggling to uphold his duty to the pirates he is bound to serve, is an exaggeration of the sailor hero, while the Pirate King and his sentimental, domesticated gang parody typical melodrama villains. Instead of abducting women, these pirates plan to legally marry Major General Stanley’s wards (albeit against their will), and their weakness for orphans impedes their ability to effectively steal or plunder. Ultimately, the pirates’s loyalty to Queen Victoria and their revealed noble origins removed any hint of danger.  

These ridiculous pirates gave Gilbert and Sullivan a sharp edge to satirize the economic piracy they faced within the unregulated marketplace for creative property. Due to limited copyright protections in both Britain and America, authors and playwrights had no ability to protect their work after it was published or performed. American copyright laws did not extend to British writers, which allowed anyone to produce Gilbert and Sullivan’s work without permission or payment. In 1879, their previous show, HMS Pinafore was performed in over 100 unauthorized productions—with eight in New York alone. Gilbert, Sullivan, and their producer Richard D’Oyly Carte premiered The Pirates of Penzance in New York and toured their own production across the US, in an attempt to protect their work. By satirizing piracy as a business like any other, the duo could skewer the theatre producers who stole their property (in this case the music, lyrics, and dialogue) with no consequence. 

Thus, Gilbert and Sullivan launched a new tradition of pirates as comedic characters. More recently Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Jack Sparrow has driven the success of Disney’s lucrative Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, based on the popular Disneyland ride. Sparrow shows us the pirate as trickster, described on Disney’s website as “a captain of equally dubious morality and sobriety, a master of self-promotion and self-interest, (who) fights a constant and losing battle with his own best tendencies.” Depp, who drew on rock-and-roller Keith Richards and cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew for inspiration, spoke of a purity he found in Sparrow’s irreverence. Depp suggested that Sparrow’s appeal lied in his ability to “get away with things that we all wish that we could get away with.” Indeed, this wish suggests another reason why, centuries later, fictional pirates across different genres and perspectives, continue to hold us in their grip.