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could you please tell me who was caliban in shakespeare's play?? was he a slave or servant or sth like that??
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enthusiast
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Caliban is a character in Shakespeare' s "The Tempest." He is a sub-human, born to a witch, and is kept in subjugation by Prospero, a nobleman with magical powers, who has been shipwrecked on a remote island. Caliban usually appears on stage dressed in animal skins, walking on all fours.
This quote, from an essay on "The Tempest," adds a bit more detail:
"According to the other inhabitants of the island, Caliban is a monster. He is a symbol of what they never want to become. Caliban reminds them to act as though they are worthy of their high social status. He is the painfully realistic entity around whom the other rulers on the island silently rally in order to maintain a social balance. They abhor him but desperately desire to possess him at the same time. On a narrower scale, the oppression of the underdog is obvious in the undesirable Caliban and his relationship to [the other characters]."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear slithy: Nice post. I wonder where Shakespeare got the name. If "Cali-" is from the Greek root meaning "beautiful", where does the " -ban" come from. That would make it a one-word oxymoron, as discussed in another thread. I found a discussion of Caliban at: http://www.arches.uga.edu/~slacheen/bibpage.htmlThe only suggestions about origin of name I saw were "anagram of cannibal" and "Kali = Hindu goddess of destruction. I suspect that would be an anachronism, since I doubt that Shakespeare was familiar with Hindu religion.
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Carpal Tunnel
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where Shakespeare got the name
It has been said that it is an anagram of canibal, Shakespeare's spelling of cannibal and that it evokes Cariban, a native of the Caribbean.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Caliban is also (1) one of the moons of Uranus, (2) a computer language and (3), perhaps most interestingly, a common noun meaning a monsterous person.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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All derived from Shakespeare's use of the name.
Take *that, Jackie!
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I think the moon was named for the Caliban of literature / mythology.
1. In Clash of the Titans, the bad guy was CaliBOS whom I think I recall reading was based on the Caliban character.
2. In Justice League of America - the old one - there was a villain named "CalaBAC" who was pretty gruesome-looking. He worked, along with De Sade, for his father. (I can't recall his father's name - apocalypse maybe - I remember thinking maybe the xmen's Apocalypse might be somehow related.)
It's odd how these things percolate through our culture. I wonder if it's related to the fact that people respond to what they know. One method of effective communication is to the sprinkle the message with things the receivers already know. Gives everyone a reference point.
k
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Carpal Tunnel
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Unlike the moons of the other planets in our Solar System, the sattelites of Uranus are named (primarily) for Shakespearean characters: Cordelia (King Lear), Ophelia (Hamlet), Bianca (Taming of the Shrew); Cressida (Troilus and Cressida); Desdemona (Othello); Juliet (Romeo and Juliet); Portia (Julius Caesar); Rosalind (As You Like It); Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream); Miranda (The Tempest); Ariel (The Tempest); Titania (A Midsummer Night's Dream); Oberon (A Midsummer Night's Dream); Caliban (The Tempest); Sycorax (The Tempest); Prospero (The Tempest); Setebos (The Tempest); Stephano (The Tempest).
Caliban wasn't "discovered" until 1997, but followed the pattern in acquiring its name.
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Pooh-Bah
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Thank you for that, Father Steve. I only knew a couple of the names, and hadn't made the connection.
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Pooh-Bah
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Fascinating - with a definite bias in favour of The Tempest and The Dream
Picking the usual nits, though - surely Portia is in The Merchant of Venice? Can't recall a Portia in Caesar at all, at all.
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