In "Caliban Upon Setebos" by Robert Browning, the creature Caliban from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, reveals his views concerning life, religion, and human nature. In The Tempest Caliban is portrayed as a spiteful, brutish, and drunken beast who despises his powerful master Prospero and his beautiful daughter Miranda. He often appears as a coarse and thick headed character; he is overwhelmed by the wine that he is given by the butler Stephano and worships him as a god. Browning's poem shows a lighter, more eloquent and sensitive side of Caliban, offering restitution to Caliban, who may not have gotten a fair deal in his first appearance. Caliban pauses in his island labors to ponder the world and life around him. He attempts to account for the cruelties that persist on the island and justify his god's malevolent actions. Caliban's increasingly convoluted explanation demonstrates one of the difficulties the Victorian world was having with religion: theology was having to......
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Approximate Word Count: 1849
Approximate Pages: 8 (260 words per double-spaced page) |