could you please tell me who was caliban in shakespeare's play?? was he a slave or servant or sth like that??

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]."

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.html

The 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.

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.

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.

All derived from Shakespeare's use of the name.

Take *that, Jackie!

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

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.

Thank you for that, Father Steve. I only knew a couple of the names, and hadn't made the connection.

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.

There is a well-known Portia in Merchant of Venice. There is also a Portia in Julius Caesar. She is Brutus' wife.

Portia is Brutus's wife, but a minor character compared to her namesake in Merchant. It does seem likely that the moon is named for the latter.

I've just googled:

Uranus Portia "Julius Caesar"

...and sites come up indicating that the Portia orbiting Uranus is the one from "Julius Caesar" and not from "Merchant of Venus."

That's curious. I, too, would have thought the Portia from "Merchant"--but Google, at least, takes us elsewhere.

Edit: Here's the listing from one site, similar to Father Steve's above:

"SATELLITES: Cordelia (daughter of Lear in Shakespeare's “King Lear”); Ophelia (daughter of Polonius, fiance of Hamlet in Shakespeare's “Hamlet”); Bianca (daughter of Baptista, sister of Kate in Shakespeare's “Taming of the Shrew”); Cressida (title character in Shakespeare's “Troilus and Cressida”); Desdemona (wife of Othello in Shakespeare's “Othello”); Juliet (heroine of Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet”); Portia (wife of Brutus in Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar”); Rosalind (daughter of the banished duke in Shakespeare's “As You Like It”); Belinda (character in Pope's “Rape of the Lock”); Puck (mischievous spirit in Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream”); Miranda (the heroine of Shakespeare's “The Tempest”); Ariel (a benevolent spirit in Shakespeare's “The Tempest”); Umbriel (a malevolent spirit in Pope's“ Rape of the Lock”); Titania (the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream”); Oberon (the king of the fairies in “A Midsummer Night's Dream”); Caliban (the brutish slave in Shakespeare's “The Tempest”); Sycorax (Caliban's mother in “The Tempest”); Prospero (the rightful Duke of Milan in “The Tempest”); Setebos (a false god worshiped by Caliban in “The Tempest”); Stephano (a drunken butler in “The Tempest”)."

No Google hits for:

Uranus Portia "Merchant of Venice"

Merchant of Venus Ohmigawd.

Take *that, Jackie! [grabbing the protruding hilt of the sword in my abdomen] Cough! Co-ugh-gh-gh. C... [thud]

Oh, when I read "Merchant of Venus", I just assumed a chain of sex shops in deepest, darkest Virginia. Did I get it wrong?

I wondered whether anybody would catch that or not. I thought it looked so bizarre when I mistyped it--but let it stay hoping that at least the Asp would catch it.

Now about those satellites: Did you notice that it was Bianca from the Shrew and not Kate who was named? I think that's worse than Portia from Caesar over Portia from Merchant of Venus or Merchant of anything...

Now, just what kind of business would the Merchant of Venus be having with Uranus, hmmm?

Now, Connie! That pronunciation went out when the discovered a ring around it.

What does the starship Enterprise do circling round Uranus?

What does the starship Enterprise do circling round Uranus? Oh gawd--do we really want to know?

do we really want to know?

Knowing Pfranz, I doubt it.

well, it ain't Romulans...

...for eight(8)-year olds in Information and announcements?? where are the gutter police?

see what Shakespeare does to us?

Dear God, what HAVE I released?

Oh gawd--do we really want to know

Why do I suspect that all subsequent posters DO know?

well, it ain't Romulans... - etaoin

Ha!

well, it ain't Romulans... - etaoin

Ha!

Well, he's right. It ain't.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/05/10/offbeat.klingon.interpreter/index.html

Coworker just told me about this. I thought he was joking, but I looked it up.

k

Fallible,

There are fans and there are fans...[rolling eyes-e]

"Situation Vacant"

http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=announcements&Number=104286

Come, Bingley--let us shelter under your mantle. I'll be the starship... (Nobody can comment on this, 'cause we're invisible.)

This story reminded me of something, a short story we read in german class some years ago, called "Ein Tisch ist ein Tisch" by Peter Bichsel.

It's about this lonely old man who amuses himself by changing the meanings of the words in his diction. I don't recall the details, but the man might have said that, for example, the newspaper was now called the dresser, and the dresser was called the door, and walking was called swimming - I'm making all these up, but you get the picture. At the end of the story, the fellow tries to have a trivial conversation with his neighbors and discovers he can't understand what they're saying.

Some people in my class thought the story was very funny - and it was in a macabre sort of way. Mostly I just thought it was depressing.

I just did a search on the web and found http://www.fliff.com/films2002/table.htm which appears to be a retelling (?) of the story as a movie. But this sounds like the story has a happy ending. (Crap, I've forgotten any german i knew, but I'm still tempted to find my old text and try to read this again.)

k

I remember having read the English translation of this story (titled "A Table is a Table," of course) in school. I agree completely that it was a sad, depressing story... a reminder of how already isolated individuals get alienated from the mainstream society, compounding their lonliness and misery.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/klingon.asp

snopes has spoken...

oh, damn! i've been had again!

thanks,
k

Thanks, eta, for the link, and for the reminder about snopes. Somebody e-mailed me (yep, another one of those) that story about the man who supposedly set his new RV on cruise control, then went in the back to make himself a cup of coffee. I just checked snopes, and found what I expected; I was glad it was there.