Caliban is one of the primary antagonists in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
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Description
While he is referred to as a calvaluna/mooncalf, a freckled monster, he is the only human inhabitant of an island that is otherwise "not honour'd with a human shape“ (Prospero, I.2.283). In some traditions he is depicted as a wild man, or a deformed man, or a beast man, or sometimes a mix of fish and man, stemming from the confusion of two of the characters about what he is, found lying on a deserted island. Caliban is the son of the luciferous woman Sycorax by (according to Prospero) a devil. Banished from Algiero, Sycorax was left on the isle, pregnant with Caliban, and died before Prospero's arrival. Caliban refers to Setebos as his mother's god. Prospero explains his harsh treatment of Caliban by claiming that after initially befriending him, Caliban attempted to sexually assault Miranda. Caliban confirms this gleefully, saying that if he hadn't been stopped he would have peopled the island with a race of Calibans. Prospero then entraps Caliban and torments him. Resentful of Prospero, Caliban takes Stephano, one of the shipwrecked servants, as a god and as his new master, after being given some of Stephano's alcohol. Caliban urges Stephano to kill Prospero and become lord of the island. Caliban learns that Stephano is neither a god nor Prospero's equal in the conclusion of the play, however, and Caliban agrees to obey Prospero again.
Despite his portrayal, he also has moments in which he delivers beautiful speeches, such as in Act 3, Scene 2:
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.
Etymology
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The name "Caliban" is an anagram of the Spanish word canibal, also the source of the English word "cannibal". Canibal comes from Christopher Columbus' designation Caniba for the Caribs.[1]
Trivia
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Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (July 2009) |
The figure of Caliban, or just his name, has been used by many writers, musicians and filmmakers over the years.
In literature
Robert Browning wrote one of his dramatic monologues from the point of view of Caliban, Caliban upon Setebos, in which he views Caliban as a Rousseauian "natural man." Caliban also gives a lengthy monologue in the style of Henry James in W.H. Auden's long poem The Sea and the Mirror, a meditation on the themes of The Tempest.
Ernest Renan's philosophical drama Caliban represents the struggle between aristocratic and democratic principles, represented by Prospero and Caliban.
The American poet Louis Untermeyer (1885–1977) wrote Caliban in the Coal Mines, published in 1914 in his collection Challenge.
Fantasy author Tad Williams retells the story of Caliban from his point of view in the short novel Caliban's Hour (1993).
Inspired both by The Tempest and Caliban upon Setebos, Caliban is revived as a monstrous inhuman beast in Dan Simmons' literary science fiction duology Ilium/Olympos.
Caliban also is mentioned in the Preface of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, albeit very briefly, as quoted below:
- "The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
- The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass."
In John Fowles' novel The Collector, one of the main characters, Miranda, constantly compares her abductor, Frederick Clegg, to Caliban. He reminds her of a monstrous savage, deprived of any human emotion.
In P.G. Wodehouse's novel Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit Percy Gorringe, a poet, is mocking the crude Stilton Cheesewright in a poem called Caliban at Sunset.
In James Joyce's novel, Ulysses, Malachi "Buck" Mulligan compares Stephen Dedalus with Caliban. Also, the analogy becomes a political reference in terms of the Irish desire for "Home Rule" in place of British occupation.
"The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If Wilde were only alive to see you!" - Ulysses, Chapter One: Telemachus
In Jeanette Winterson's novel Written on the Body, the narrator compares himself/herself (the gender is unspecified) to Caliban, chained to a rock, ostensibly by love.
"Caliban" is also the alias of the protagonist in Michael Pryor's 1996 novel The Mask of Caliban.
Nineteenth-century Russia is referred to as the "Caliban of Europe" in Tom Stoppard's play The Coast of Utopia.
"Caliban" serves as a metaphor for U.S. and British imperialism and Anglo-Saxon backwardness in Rubén Darío's "El Triunfo de Calibán" (1898). The same analogy is utilized by the Uruguayan essayist José Enrique Rodó, whose influential Ariel (1900) posits the Shakespearean spirit against Caliban in an argument for the superiority of the more culturally (if perhaps not materialistically) developed Latin America.
In a Hartford Evening Press editorial in March 1860, Gideon Welles described Abraham Lincoln by saying “He is not Apollo, but he is not "Caliban". He is in every way large, brain included, but his countenance shows intellect, generosity, great good nature and keen discrimination.”
Caliban Leandros is a main character in supernatural series by author Rob Thurman. His mother, Sophia, named him after the character from Shakespeare's The Tempest because he is half-human and she saw him as a monster.
C. L. R. James refers to himself, and by extension all West Indians, as Caliban in the preface to his "Beyond a Boundary." "To establish his own identity, Caliban, after three centuries, must himself pioneer into regions Caesar never knew." Caesar is a metaphor for the British colonialists.
"Caliban" appears as a the beast-man from Shakespeare made flesh in Dan Simmons' 2003 novel Ilium. The creature inhabits (along with a holographic Prospero) a dead city built upon an asteroid circling the earth where he eats the humans sent to the 'firmary' for repair after every twenty years of life on Earth or when they are injured or killed before their 100th birthday to be rebuilt.
"Caliban" or "Isaac Asimov's Caliban" is a science fiction novel by Roger MacBride Allen (1993) [Ace Books} exploring the concepts behind Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, their deleterious effects on humanity in the Spacer Worlds, and potential solutions through New Law and No Law robots. Caliban itself is a No Law robot, neither human nor robot slave, neither man nor beast, or maybe both.
In music
Grace Slick references Caliban in her song "Fishman" on the album Baron von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun saying that Fishman is "the son of Caliban / he roams the ocean land."
"Caliban" is referenced by British heavy metal band Cradle of Filth's song "The Byronic Man" off of their 2006 album Thornography.
"Caliban" is also a metalcore band from Germany.
In film
In the 1961 film Victim, when the main character, Melville Farr, a lawyer, punches a gay character for mentioning Farr's homosexual past, another character comments that "it is the rage of Caliban on seeing his own reflection".
In the Swedish animated film Resan till Melonia, which is very loosely based on The Tempest, Caliban is depicted as a creature made entirely of vegetables.
In the 1956 American science fiction film Forbidden Planet, which is loosely based on The Tempest, "The Caliban" refers to the deadly and powerful so-called "id monster" that was subconsciously unleashed by Dr. Morbius using the ancient Krell machinery.
In the film Doctor Zhivago, Komarovsky self-deprecates himself as a "Caliban" in his attempt to persuade Zhivago to convince Larissa (Lara) to accept Komarovsky's protection from the Red partisans coming to execute her.
In the film Clash of the Titans, there is a character called Calibos, who bears some resemblance to Caliban.
Others
In Jack Kirby's New Gods saga, the sons of Darkseid are Orion and Kalibak, the latter's name being based on that of Caliban.
"Caliban" is the name of the home planet of the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
The video game Silent Hill: 0rigins features a monster known as 'Caliban' that is described as someone's 'twisted memory of The Tempest.'
In 1925, W. H. Auden played Caliban in a Gresham's School production of The Tempest.[2]
Caliban is the name of the intelligent squid in The Web Between The Worlds by Charles Sheffield
The comic book series X-Men Has a recurring character named Caliban.
The webcomic Kevin & Kell partially takes place at a private school, named "Caliban Academy".
Notable performances of Caliban
References
- ^ Cannibal – Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ Wright, Hugh, Auden and Gresham's in Conference Common Room, Vol. 44, No. 2, Summer 2007 online at schoolsearch.co.uk (accessed 25 April 2008)
External links
- Caliban at Sunset, a poem by P. G. Wodehouse.
- "Something Rich and Strange": Caliban's Theatrical Metamorphoses
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