Where Does Caliban’s Name Come From?

John Hamilton Mortimer, Etching of Caliban from Twelve Characters from Shakespeare (1775). From the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This post was originally published on February 5, 2018.

Listening to Dr. Lewis’s lecture today about who the island belongs to, I was reminded of when I first read Shakespeare’s The Tempest in high school. I couldn’t figure out who or what Caliban was. On a first reading, it seems a little ambiguous whether he is a supernatural creature, a monster, or just as human as Prospero and Miranda. In the cast of characters at the beginning of the book, he is called “a savage and deformed slave,” with no other mention of his inhumanity (2). Yet, in the early illustrations of the play, he is almost always depicted as a fishy monster, probably in response to Trinculo’s description of Caliban as “A strange fish” (II.ii.28). If we continue listening, however, Trinculo goes on to say that “this is no fish, but an islander that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt” (II.ii.36-38). Even more curiously, in one of those delightful moments of breaking the fourth wall of the stage, Trinculo critiques the audience listening to him, saying that English people wouldn’t give a penny to a poor beggar, but they’ll “lay out ten to see a dead Indian” (II.ii.34). Although most signs point to a small Mediterranean island as the setting of The Tempest, is it possible that we are also meant to read Caliban as an “Indian,” that is, someone from the New World?

We can begin exploring the answers to this question by looking at Shakespeare’s sources. One of the things I’d like to do in this blogpost is introduce you to the enormous wealth of digitized books available on the internet, particularly through a service called Early English Books Online (EEBO), which includes virtually every piece of material published in English between 1473 and 1700. Although the story of The Tempest seems to be original to Shakespeare (unlike most of his other plays), he was inspired by a number of other texts. One source that has begun gaining more attention recently is Peter Martyr d’Anghiera’s early compilation of New World accounts from the early days of colonization. Although this Italian historian wrote in Latin for the Spanish crown, his De Orbe Novo was translated into English in 1555 as Decades of the New World by Richard Eden. It compiles the accounts given by Gonzalo Ferdinando de Oviedo of his time colonizing the Caribbean, the rivalry between King Ferdinand II of Spain and Naples and Alonso King of Portugal (Afonso V), Ferdinand Magellan and his pilot Antonio Pigafetta’s circumnavigation of the globe, the voyages of Sebastian Cabot, and even mentions a “greate devyll Setebos” worshiped in Brazil (219; discussed in Stritmatter & Kositsky 25-34, passim). Do any of these names sound familiar? Although there is no mention of a Prospero or a Miranda, there is a great deal of discussion surrounding cannibals in the “West Indies” and South America, a subject we will return to momentarily.

First page of Sylvester Jourdain’s “A Discovery of the Barmudas” (1610). Full text available on Early English Books Online.

In 1611, when Shakespeare wrote The Tempest, the British did not yet have any colonies in the Caribbean. They had, however, just discovered an island in the Atlantic under wondrous circumstances involving a shipwreck. As Dr. Lewis noted in her lecture today, The Sea Venture was blown off-course en route to the Virginia colony, and then wrecked off of coast of the Bermudas, where they spent the next nine months (rough life!). They later built two boats and sailed to the Jamestown colony, and the news of their survival was published in 1610 by one of the sailors, Sylvester Jourdain, in A Discovery of the Barmudas. Jourdain claims that “the Ilands of the Barmudas, as every man knoweth that hath heard or read of them, were never inhabited by any Chiftian or heathen people, but ever esteemed, and reputed, a most prodigious and inchanted place, affording nothing but gusts, stormes, and foule weather,” and thus they have been shunned by European explorers and settlers of the New World (8). However, as Sommers and his crew discovered, it was “the richest, healthfullest, and pleasing land… and merely natural, as ever man set foote upon” (10). As far as I have been able to research, the Bermudas were not inhabited by other people when the English settlers were shipwrecked there. Yet there were both pigs and tobacco on the island when these castaways arrived, neither of which are native to those islands, which suggests that they were brought from somewhere else. In the official True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia, also published in 1610, this was chalked up to God’s providence in providing for the English mission of the new world, for it “increaseth wonder, how our people in the Bermudos found such abundance of Hogs…” (23). Another source often held up as an inspiration for Shakespeare’s play is William Strachey’s account of the Sea Venture Shipwreck, “A True Repertory of the Wreck and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight,” in which he surmises that the pigs came as the result of having “escaped out of some wracks” previous to the tempest that drove Sommers and his crew there. Although this report was not published until 1625 as part of Samuel Purchas’ Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes, it is possible that Shakespeare had seen a draft of this report prior to writing The Tempest since he was an investor in the Virginia Colony (Vaughan & Vaughan 11-12). (Nerd alert: The digitized copy of Purchas available through archive.org was originally owned by John Adams, second president of the United States, and you can see his signature in the top right corner of the title page.) Dr. Lewis made the case that these convergences of shipwrecks, and a stormy island reputed by most to be inhabited by devils or spirits, (and I would add the apparently providential supply of pigs) might lead us to believe that these accounts of Bermuda shaped the “qualities” of Caliban’s island (I.ii:337).

What of Caliban himself? As Jourdain says, Bermuda was “never inhabited by any Chiftian or heathen people,” so how did this character come to be there? Shakespeare tells us that his mother Sycorax, a witch from “Argier” (Algiers), gave birth to him on the island after she had been exiled there (I.ii. 263-284). Since Alonso and his company have recently come from a wedding in Tunis, these locations in North Africa should bring our attention back to the Mediterranean (II.i.72-74). In the 19th century there was a theory that Caliban’s name came from an Arabic insult, يا كلب [ya kalib], meaning “you dog” (Vaughan & Vaughan 33). Just like today, Arabic was the common language of North Africa, so it is possible that Shakespeare had somehow heard this expression and decided to use it in his play. Whether or not this is true, it is important that Caliban’s name was given by his mother, not by Prospero. Just like the names Sycorax, Setebos, and Ariel, Caliban does not have a clear European origin.

Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus (1519). From the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Another etymology, one I find more convincing, is that Caliban’s name is related to the word “cannibal.” Shakespearean scholars since the late 18th century have noticed that Caliban’s name is an anagram of the Spanish spelling of this word: canibal (Vaughan & Vaughan 26). We can date with precision the day that this word first came into contact with European languages, since it is a loan word from the Caribbean and is first recorded in Christopher Columbus’s journal of his first voyage to the New World. On Friday, November 23, 1492, a little more than a month after first landing in the Bahamas, Columbus was off the coast of Haiti. Some natives of the Greater Antilles who were on board warned him about the men who lived there:

The wind was East-Northeast, and they could shape a southerly course, but there was little of it. Beyond this cape there stretched out another land or cape, also trending east, which the Indians on board called Bohio [Haiti]. They said that it was very large, and that there were people in it who had one eye in their foreheads, and others whom they called canibales, of whom they were much afraid. (English translation by Clements R. Markham, slightly revised)

When Columbus introduced this word to Europe upon his return, it did not yet mean what we usually think of. Instead, it referred to a specific people who lived in the Eastern Caribbean. The men on board who warned Columbus were Taino or Lucayans, groups that spoke closely related Arawakan languages in the Western Caribbean. The neighbors they feared were a different group of people who lived in the Eastern Caribbean islands and on the northern coasts of South America. These people are the Kalinago, called Caribs in English, and in fact, the words ‘Carib,’ ‘cannibal,’ and ‘Caribbean’ all come from their name.

Taino and Island Carib Territories map from The Decolonial Atlas

How did this come to be? It is difficult to say much with certainty about the languages of the native inhabitants of the Caribbean in 1492. But using historical linguistics we can make educated guesses about the word Columbus may have heard and why he wrote it down the way he did. In the Kari`nja [or Kali`nja] language spoken by the Kalinago today, the word kari`na means “human being,” and Karinago means “the people.” However, the /r/ used to spell this language does not correspond to the same [r] sound we have. Instead, it refers to [ɽ] a sound made by flicking the tongue very quickly against the alveolar ridge behind your teeth. To someone who doesn’t speak Kari`nja [kaɽiɁnʲa], this might sound like an [r] or an [l], which is why their name is variously transcribed as ‘Carib,’ ‘Kali`na,’ ‘Kari`nja,’ ‘Kalinya,’ ‘Cariña,’ ‘Carib,’ or even ‘Galibi.’ Behrend Hoff, a linguist who specializes in Cariban languages, suggests that this word was originally *kari:pona in prehistory (“Language Contact” 35). After the speakers of this prehistoric language spread apart to different parts of the Caribbean, the word came to be pronounced differently in various dialects, and it was also borrowed into other languages like Taino. This could account for how the word took so many written forms. Thus, in modern Arawak (spoken by the Lokono people in Suriname and neighboring Guyana), the word has become karipna; the Garifuna, descendants of Island Caribs and Africans who live on the eastern coasts of Central America, took the word as their name; in the jungles of southern Venezuela, another Cariban group call themselves the Carihona (Aikhenvald 41-43). The dispersion of Carib groups across present-day Venezuela, Suriname, and Guyana led this region to be labeled Caribana on many early maps of South America (Vaughan 28-29). On Columbus’s ship in November of 1492, the word *karibna may have been pronounced *kanibna because the western dialects of Taino did not have an [r] sound and often replaced it in loanwords with [n]. Thus Columbus wrote “caniba,” “canima,” and “canibal” over the course of his journal. But it is possible that eastern Taino speakers would have said *kalibna, that is, Caliban.

It is often claimed that the word cannibal came to have its more familiar meaning because the Caribs that Europeans encountered in the New World really did eat human flesh. However, there is very little direct evidence that this is true. The first time the charge of man-eating is leveled against the Caniba it is second-hand. On December 17, 1492, Columbus’s records his disbelief when his Taino guides accuse the “canibales” of eating their enemies:

The sailors were sent away to fish with nets. They had much intercourse with the natives, who brought them certain arrows of the Caniba or Canibales. They are made of reeds, pointed with sharp bits of wood hardened by fire, and are very long. They pointed out two men who lacked certain body parts, giving to understand that the Canibales had taken bites out of them. The Admiral [Columbus] did not believe it. (English translation by Clements R. Markham)

Although Columbus never saw Caribs eating other people, this accusation is repeated several times in his journal, and is picked up in the accounts of other early European explorers. What Columbus did not know in 1492, but historians now suspect, is that the Taino felt that they were in competition with Caribs over territory. One reason to suspect this is that the inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles in the late 15th century called themselves Carib, but spoke an Arawakan language called Iñeri. To distinguish them from the Caribs who lived on the mainland of South America, Europeans came to call these people Island Caribs, and they later discovered that the Island Carib men spoke Iñeri in public and to their families, but spoke a reduced version of a Cariban language among themselves. The traditional explanation of this anomaly is that Caribs from the mainland invaded these islands by force, killed and ate all of the men, and then took the women as wives a few generations before Columbus’s arrival, thus creating a gender distinction in language. These same Island Caribs were then encroaching on the islands of the Greater Antilles, such as modern-day Puerto Rico and Haiti.

Roberto Fernández Retamar, Cuban poet and essayist

Whatever the truth might be (and we will return to this later), some strife between themselves and the Carib led the Taino to spread anti-Carib propaganda to their new Spanish “allies.” Although there is no good evidence for the practice of cannibalism among Island Caribs, there is direct evidence from Columbus’s journal and from later adventurers that Island Caribs violently resisted European colonization. And as Philip Bouchard has written, the Spanish found these “grossly distorted charges of man-eating” quite useful in justifying the enslavement and depopulation of Carib people. “Whatever the reality of Island Carib practices, Europeans created the myth of Caribs as ferocious, insatiable cannibals. As with some other peoples who resisted European incursions, Caribs found themselves saddled with this indictment” (7). We might recall here Matthew Restall’s claim that Europeans saw the native inhabitants of the Americas as “cultureless, innocent, or nefarious” (105) and note that these characterizations seem to develop immediately upon contact between Columbus and the people of the New World. Roberto Retamar, a Cuban intellectual, makes this division of nefarious and innocent specific to the Taino and the Caribs in the way they received Spanish colonization.

The Taino will be transformed into the paradisical inhabitant of a utopic world; by 1516 Thomas More will publish his Utopia, the similarities of which to the island of Cuba have been indicated, almost to the point of rapture, by Ezequiel Martínez Estrada. The Carib, on the other hand, will become a caníbal – an anthropophagus, a bestial man situated on the margins of civilization, who must be opposed to the very death. (Retamar 6-7)

In the Fall Quarter we saw how Jean-Jacques Rousseau used the Khoisan (i.e. “Hottentot”) people to frame his rejection of “progress,” but we should also recall that the people he refers to as “the people that until now has wandered least from the state of nature” are Caribs (65). Rousseau might be thinking here of Montaigne‘s “On the Cannibals,” which we read for class today and which depicts the Tupinamba people of the Amazon and their rituals of eating human flesh. Yet it also paradoxically praises the nobility of these cannibals:

It is a nation… that hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politic superiority; no use of service, of riches, or of property; no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation but idle; no respect of kindred but common, no apparel but natural, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulations, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them. (qtd. in Shakespeare 103)

If that English translation rings a bell, it is because Shakespeare borrows liberally from it in Gonzalo’s speech about what he would do with Prospero’s island if he were given control of it (II.i.152-61, 164-69). Montaigne’s Essais were translated into English in 1603 by John Florio, one of Shakespeare’s close friends. So we know that Shakespeare was reading Montaigne, and probably also reading Peter Martyr’s account of New World exploration. So when he named Caliban, did he have in mind the noble savage crushed by European colonization, or was he instead thinking of a nefarious man-eater who would kill his neighbors given the chance?

The word “cannibal” does not appear in The Tempest, but Shakespeare does make use of it in some of his earlier plays, each time in reference to a bloody, violent people. In Othello, he makes it explicit, calling them “the Cannibals, that eat each other” (I.iii.473). This is the same way that both Purchas and the English translation of Peter Martyr unambiguously use the term. In the earlier text, there is still an etymological connection observed between the word cannibal and Carib: “The wylde and myschevous people called Canibales, or Caribes, whiche were accustomed to eate mannes flesshe…” (27). Sixty years later when Purchas was writing, this link had been severed, and he could state that Caribs “are certain Canibals, which used inhumane huntings for human game, to take men for to eate them…” (730). This has lead many to see Caliban’s name as an indictment of his character, a not-so-subtle hint that Prospero’s slave, like other cannibals, is “inhumane.”

Joos van Winghe (designer) and Theodor de Bry (engraver), Depiction of Spanish atrocities committed in the conquest of Cuba in Las Casas’s “Brevisima relación de la destrucción de las Indias” (1663). Image from Wikipedia.

But other interpretations are possible. Between 1585 and 1604, England and Spain were in a state of constant but undeclared war, and there was a great deal of Anti-Spanish propaganda circulating in London when Shakespeare was writing his plays. One piece in particular, published in 1583, was entitled The Spanish Colonie, or Briefe chronicle of the acts and gestes of the Spaniardes in the West Indies, an English translation of Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias. This book lays out a devastating eyewitness account of the genocide and cruelty perpetrated by the Spanish in the Caribbean. De las Casas was a Dominican missionary sent by the Spanish crown to convert the Taino, and he lamented that although their souls could be saved, most of them were dead by the time he arrived:

Upon these lambes so mecke, so qualified & endewed of their maker and creator, as hath bin said, entred the Spanish incontinent as they knew them, as wolves, as lions, & as tigres most cruel of long time famished: and have not done in those quarters these 40 yeres be past, neither yet doe at this present, ought els save teare them in peaces, kill them, martyre them, afflict them, torment them, & destroy them by straunge sortes of cruelties never neither seene, nor reade, nor hearde of the like (of the which some shall bee set downe hereafter) … We are able to yield a good and certaine accompt, that there is within the space of the said 40 years, by those said tyrannies & devilish doings of Spaniards …into death unjustly and tyrannously more than twelve Millions of soules, men, women, and children. And verily do believe, and think not to mistake therein, that there are dead more that fifteen Millions of soules. (De las Casas 10-11)

Historians dispute the accuracy of these numbers, and this text is very much a part of the Black Legend that we heard about from Restall (118-119). It is undeniable, however, that Spanish diseases, enslavement, and outright slaughter killed the majority of the native peoples of the Caribbean. This is one of the reasons that we will never know if it were Tainos or Lucayans who introduced the word kanibna to Columbus. His first landfall was in the Bahamas, the homeland of the Lucayans, a few of whom he kidnapped and tortured for information about where to find gold. When Columbus returned as the “Governor of the Indies,” he imposed a tax on every Taino man to produce either one pound of gold or twenty pounds of cotton every year. When people refused, he cut off their hands. Further expeditions from Spain to the Caribbean lead to the outright enslavement and deportation of most of the native inhabitants of the Bahamas to be slave laborers on Hispaniola. By the time de las Casas left Hispaniola, the Lucayans had been completely annihilated, and the Taino population was cut in half. De las Casas says that 500,000 people lived in the Bahamas before Columbus’s arrival; after the last eleven people were deported in 1520, the islands were considered “uninhabited” until 1648, when it was recolonized by the British, just like Bermuda. Indeed, another theory for why Island Caribs spoke both Iñeri and Carib is, according to Boucher, that “in historical times Island Caribs received constant infusions of Arawakan-speakers. Some of these were prisoners of war from the Greater Antilles; others, especially those from Puerto Rico, were refugees from Spanish persecution. Island Caribs, their numbers thinned by Old World diseases and by Spanish slave traders, no doubt integrated, especially the Arawakan women.” This is not to suggest that the Spanish were uniquely cruel. After all it was the British who, after taking the independent island of St. Vincent by force in 1796, slaughtered most of the Garifuna and deported the survivors almost two thousand miles away to the coast of Honduras, a journey upon which half of the prisoners died.

The descendants of these people still live today along the coast of Central America. Their music and culture are world renowned, as you can see in this 2013 music video for “Móungulu” by The Garifuna Collective, a group based in Belize who sing in Garifuna.

English brutality towards the residents of St. Vincent began more than a century and a half after Shakespeare died. Perhaps, like Shylock in the Merchant of Venice, Caliban represents a problematic, misunderstood, but very human character. In the context of the Anglo-Spanish wars and the Black Legend, it is possible that we are meant to sympathize with poor Caliban suffering under Prospero’s heel (as Dr. Lewis mentioned, Milan in Shakespeare’s day was ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs). Although it is unlikely that Shakespeare knew this, it seems like more than mere coincidence that Caliban’s name means “human being” in the Cariban languages, and that his last words in the play highlight his intention to “seek for grace,” whatever that might entail (V.i.296). For Roberto Retamar, Caliban is the symbol of the Caribbean people and their struggles against European colonialism.

This is something that we, the mestizo inhabitants of these same islands where Caliban lived, see with particular clarity: Prospero invaded the islands, killed our ancestors, enslaved Caliban, and taught him his language to make himself understood… I know of no other metaphor more expressive of our cultural situation, our reality. (Retamar14)

It is not impossible that Shakespeare might have agreed.

Works Cited

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. The Languages of the Amazon. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.

Boucher, Philip P. Cannibal Encounters: Europeans and Island Caribs, 1492-1763. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992. Print.

Hoff, Berend. J. “Language Contact, War, and Amerindian Historical Tradition: The Special Case of the Island Carib,” Wolves from the Sea: Readings in the Anthropology of the Native Caribbean. Edited by Neil Whitehead. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1995. 37-60. Print.

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2003. Print.

Retamar, Roberto Fernández. Caliban and Other Essays. Translated by Edward Baker. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. Print.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Basic Political Writings. Translated and Edited by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2011. Print.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Edited by Robert Langbaum. Newly Revised Edition. New York, Signet Classics, 1998. Print.

Stritmatter, Roger A. and Lynne Kositsky. On the Date, Sources and Design of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2013. Print.

Vaughan, Alden T. and Virginia Mason Vaughan. Shakespeare’s Caliban: A Cultural History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print.


Ben Garceau is a scholar of early medieval and late antique literature with particular interests in early Britain, translation studies, and critical theory. He received a dual Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and English from Indiana University in 2015. His work has appeared in PMLATranslation Studies, and the Yearbook of Comparative Literature. He has also contributed to the HC Research Blog on the topic of textual criticism and the Aeneid. When he isn’t leading seminars in Humanities Core, he likes hiking, working on his science fiction novel, and digging through record shops.

40 thoughts on “Where Does Caliban’s Name Come From?

  1. Josh

    I truly enjoyed reading your interpretation of the origin of Caliban’s name. What I was quite surprised about is how much your analysis of the etymology of Caliban’s name relates to my historical analysis essay and the ideas behind how colonizers were able to justify their maltreatment of indigenous people.

  2. Mary Kim

    Before reading this post, I hadn’t realized that I did not think so much of Caliban’s name, and just thought that the name came from the word “cannibal” to emphasize his inhumane, beastly, state of slavery. However, I thought it was very interesting how there are so many different explanations and interpretations as to how this name came to be and the meaning behind it. I thought it was very interesting how the word “cannibal” did not mean what we think it means today, but that it was derived from and refers to the pacific people in the East Caribbean (Kalinago). I also thought that it was interesting that Columbus thought of the people on the islands as cannibals (eating human flesh), that they invaded the islands, ate the men on the islands and captured the women, and taught them their language, although he had not directly seen and there was no real evidence of this, But I thought it was amazing how this explanation fits so well with the actual story of Caliban in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, how Prospero killed his ancestors and enslaved Caliban, even teaching him language. It was pretty amazing to see how much the history of Columbus, Incas, and “The Tempest” all relate to language and the impact it has on empire and Shakespeare’s story.

  3. Jose A Serrano

    I would love to start by stating that I am beyond amazed the depth you were able to take a topic that would appear to simple, a name, and were able to make a very long and elaborate study upon it. When I first read the Tempest in High School, I wasn’t really fascinated with Caliban in the absolute least as I just saw him as a monster, but now I’ve really been made to question him. I never really saw him as the villain though as at the end, when he could so easily attack Prospero, he merely leaves and takes on his freedom.

    The fact that Caliban might be a reference as to coming from the term Cannibal is one that fascinates the living heck out of me. Especially after learning from Professor O’Toole that there was so much propaganda against the Spanish, it all slowly makes sense. I was fascinated in your paragraph in which you elaborated that the Spanish had propaganda against them feeding into the idea of Cannibalism. I was wondering if you have analyzed and interpreted how we as a society have made Caliban more human over the generations and what you believe to be the most accurate depiction of Caliban is to date.

  4. Sabrina Mah

    I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, as it was very informative and went into great depth regarding Shakespeare’s possible motives for naming Caliban as he did. Near the beginning of the post you mentioned how one of Shakespeare’s sources of inspiration for The Tempest “that has begun gaining more attention recently is Peter Martyr d’Anghiera’s early compilation of New World accounts from the early days of colonization”. Seeing that many of the names of the other characters in the play seem to come from these accounts that revolved around cannibals in the Caribbean and South America, it would not be surprising if Caliban’s name were to have roots in colonialism in the Caribbean as well. You also mention above that “between 1585 and 1604, England and Spain were in a state of constant but undeclared war” and “a devastating eyewitness account of the genocide and cruelty perpetrated by the Spanish in the Caribbean” was translated. It is possible that Shakespeare may have named Caliban’s character similar to the word ‘cannibal’ or reminiscent of the Caribbean to make a political point. Since throughout the play Caliban becomes more and more humanized, this could be Shakespeare using his play as a way to comment that the Caribbean people are humans who need saving, as in the idea of the White Man’s Burden. Naming Caliban as he did and developing his humanity throughout the play may have been Shakespeare’s way of using his literary standing to comment on the world around him. Similarly, the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding can be taken as commenting on its historical context of the Cold War.

  5. Sunny Rong

    Hi Dr. Garceau,

    I found it very intriguing that you bring up the question of where Caiban’s name comes from. When I read the first couple scenes, I was actually very lost as to who Caliban was as well. We were given a very limited image of who Caliban is, mostly coming from Prospero, who described him as a slave or property meant to serve him. Prospero called him dehumanizing names like monster or devil, almost as if he is instilling that idea into Caliban that that is all he is. I enjoyed reading all these possible explanations of where “Caliban” is derived from. The one I found particularly interesting was that Columbus’s usage of the word may actually relate to “human being.” I think it ties in to the portrayal of Caliban as a “problematic, misunderstood, but very human character.” I sympathize with him because he seems to be a character always taken advantage of, and seen with no value as a human being. Adding to this point, I remember Professor Lewis bringing up the point that both Caliban and Prospero are trying to learn what it is like to be a human throughout the course of the play. I think Shakespeare allowed us to draw this connection back to this meaning.

  6. Marlon Chavez

    This is a very insightful post that examines the origin of the name Caliban and provides additional context to the character. The etymology of the name Caliban does in fact lead the reader into making a connection to the word cannibal. AS presented in the book and mentioned in this post, the inhumane characteristics seem to paint Caliban as a native cannibal. This is paralleled with the descriptions that we see Prospero and Miranda give that present Caliban as a slave subhuman that seems to depict that of a noble savage. The underlying history regarding the language to which Shakespeare may have interpreted and connected certain linguistic features to the title of his characters is interesting. There seems to be a clear understanding that Shakespeare had a great deal of influence from his contemporary historians with their detailing of the mentioned lands in the Tempest. As mentioned in the end, the Montaigne’s description of the indigenous people in his writings present such inhabitants as being noble in their own right. As mentioned, Shakespeare may himself seen this correlation and may have been indirectly supporting the breakthrough of the people among the islands. Would his underlying reason for choosing the name Caliban serve as a critique to those fabrications of cannibalism and savagery, while praising the nobility of such individuals? The final note mentioning the current descendant inhabitant’s interpretation of the play seems to truly depict Caliban as a representative figure to the oppressed in their encounters with the Spanish.

  7. Andrea Ayala

    Before reading this I hadn’t realized how little of a description we got of Caliban and I hadn’t thought of what what the meaning behind his name. I remember one of my english teachers once told me that there are no mistakes in writing, that there is a meaning behind every name, letter and comma. Your analysis on Caliban’s name brought this to mind because as you described all the possible meanings behind Caliban’s name it became more and more evident that Shakespeare put thought behind Caliban’s name.

    I enjoyed the part of your analysis, where you show the process of how an “kariˊna” somehow became “Caliban” it goes to show how the Europeans came and made things their own and giving them the meaning they thought was right. I like the idea that Shakespeare named Caliban “caliban” because it originally meant “human being” and he was trying to subtly point out that the indigenous people that the Europeans were conquering were in fact human too, but a big part of me believes that is not the reason behind the name. I think that like Columbus, he believed the stories that the indigenous people were cannibals even though they never actually saw it. Shakespeare was only trying to get people to attend his plays, he was writing to entertain which is why I believe he was going with what was common belief (that the indigenous people ate each other) rather than advocating for them.

  8. Andy Yam

    Thank you so much for crafting this thought provoking piece on the origin of Caliban’s name. The more that I say the name Caliban in my head it does begin to sound like cannibal after a few times. I also do agree and believe that the Caliban in this work stands for the Indians that were originally conquered and enslaved by the arrival of the Spanish to their island. In the novel, Caliban is the only true native to the island as he was born on the island versus his mother who had moved to the island similar to the American Indians who I would argue are the true inhabitants of their land as they were born and raised there. Taking this interpretation a bit further, the character of Caliban was always seen as a cannibalistic, sub-human character which is in line to what the Spanish perceived Indians to be and thus the Spanish aimed to rear them in their control much like how Prospero rears in Caliban throughout the novel. I feel that these numerous similarities are likely to be intentional and thus drawing the link between Caliban and the ‘cannibal’ Indians encountered by Colombus. I look forward to reading more into it!

  9. Briana Borunda

    Awesome work! I found this blogpost to be well articulated and clarifying of the possible interpretations that could be made of Caliban’s name, and the evidence that correlates with each interpretation is astounding. I never really considered that there was a possibility that the names of characters were established to have significant meaning that goes beyond just being a title chosen for each individual involved. Initially I while I read The Tempest, I never hesitated to consider that Caliban’s name could’ve had ties to historical recollections such as Columbus speaking of indigenous people as cannibals, but the connection to cannibals definitely builds up Caliban’s character as a monster of inhumane nature, a savage as he is described by Prospero. I appreciated the analysis of each of the connotations associated with each possible background influence for Caliban’s name. I was able to connect with how you tied in the historical context of how it connotes an indigenous person. As I read through your blog I had a revelation of sorts and I was able to understand all these connections and I found it interesting about the name associated with indigenous people. In a way it influenced me to feel more empathetic towards his character because of how we learned about how the indigenous people were being misrepresented/ stereotyped in the past. It made me consider how Caliban’s true character might vary if we hadn’t based our depiction of him solely on how Prospero and Miranda talked so lowly of him. Interestingly, depending on which way you look at the origins of Caliban’s name, it seems to shift your perception of how you view and empathize for his character. Similarly how different perspectives might influence one to form a specific opinion of the Spanish conquering the Incas (in reference to the works we read earlier in the quarter). I find that Shakespeare’s plays always contain a significant amount of underlying context and I feel that this blogpost explicated a great deal of that in regard to the origin and significance of Caliban’s name. While there is no right or wrong way to interpret his name, I feel that this is just one example of how one should go about explicating work on a deeper analytical scale. It leaves us to question how much more hidden meaning can be found through other components in Shakespeare’s play, and in other works overall.

  10. Karla Gonzalez

    As I was first reading The Tempest, I will be sincerely honest that I did not make the connection of Caliban’s name reflecting the word cannibal. It wasn’t until Professor Lewis stated it during lecture through which I made the obvious connection. I, however, did not know that the words ‘Carib’, ‘Cannibal’, and ‘Caribbean’ all derived from the same place being the different dialects of the Kalinago. Your analysis on the historical linguistics behind the word ‘kari`na’ was beyond eye-opening and truly keeps a precise connection on Profssor Lewis’ hypothesis that language is a partner of empire. I was really surprised that the word ‘kari`na’ means human being and that through different dialects and forms of speech the word was changed and eventually turned into ‘canima’, ‘caniba’, or ‘canibal’ which was then referred to as the name Caliban as Shakespeare uses it. The meaning of the word did not change, but the word itself did and I think this says a lot about language and its shift because we now essentially have a word with a double meaning; and not only is it a double meaning, but the two meanings are on different sides of the spectrum, they are like two different extremes. The fact that one of the meanings is ‘human being’ and the other meaning is ‘human eater’ definitely creates a contradiction within the interpretation of Caliban itself. To connect this a bit more to Professor Lewis’ hypothesis, we can see how the different meaning of a word in one language creates a vast difference of another and there is no true set interpretation of the name Caliban. The language has taken over the true intention of the word and can be used either for the one side of the argument (Caliban reflects humanity as a whole) or the other side of the argument (Caliban reflects a heinous monster).

  11. Nick Krentel

    After reading this post I was left with several intern dialogues about Caliban and his character running through my head, but the one most prevalent question was about Shakespeare himself. What exactly was his intent with the character of Caliban, or, better yet, how exactly did Shakespeare want his audiences to perceive Caliban? Are audiences supposed to pity the creature and his tragic fate or, instead, revere him as a foul monster deserving of all the torment that plagues him? Or, even, is Caliban a monster at all? Perhaps he is just a man like Prospero and the rest—severely disfigured from years of torment and tricks. As is customary with Shakespeare, especially in more modern sensibilities, this is all up for debate and interpretation from production to production, but, still, I’m left wondering what Shakespeare himself thought of Cannibal. In your post you mentioned anti-Carib propaganda… could the character of Caliban be a prime example of such propaganda? Here with have an “Indian” whose name draws connotations from, as you argue, the Carib and he plays an ultimately antagonistic role: trying to procreate with Miranda, using Prospero’s “gift” of language against him, and attempting to usurp the island from his “master.” So, if Caliban truly is a figure of the Carib, then Shakespeare’s characterization of him could surely suggests a generalized portrayal of the Carib as wicked savages. Or perhaps, he’s merely just slyly commentating on said generalization? There are so many interpretations of Caliban and his purpose in The Tempest, and adding historical contexts only brings more questions and possible arguments to be pursued when questioning Shakespeare’s intentions. This is one of those situations where a hypothetical time machine could come in handy so we could ask good ole Bill Shakes himself about the mystery that is Caliban.

  12. Sharon Chi

    This post was very intriguing to me due to the amount of attention it gave to Caliban, a character I didn’t think much of while reading the play. I was more focused on those who I thought were the major characters, like Prospero and Ferdinand, which all the more supports Retamar’s point that “Caliban is the symbol of the Caribbean people and their struggles against European colonialism.” In the case of colonization, the focus is primarily on the conquerors, the “winners,” while the viewpoint of the conquered is not really emphasized. The thing that surprised me the most is that Caliban’s name means “human being” in the Cariban languages. The contradiction between the meaning of his name and the way he is portrayed highlights the misconceptions the indigenous people experienced through myths that were perpetrated. As Garceau points out, he is only called a “savage and deformed slave” in the book, but he is often depicted as a subhuman monster. This parallels how the Europeans disseminated mostly false accounts of indigenous people to help justify their actions. In The Tempest, Prospero was portrayed in a positive light for stopping Caliban from doing evil. However, it’s controversial whether Prospero was really the good guy and Caliban the bad guy.

  13. Amanda Alvarado

    Having been explicitly stated in the play’s dramatis personae as a “savage and deformed slave,” I never really gave much thought or attention towards Caliban upon my initial reading of The Tempest; I was so concerned with trying to understand what he is rather than who he is. Granted, being the offspring of the witch, Sycorax, and the devil himself does warrant some level of deformity, I do agree that he is much more than a mere “slave.” More specifically, I was enthralled at the connection between his name to another meaning, “human being” and “the people.” Rather than being a character I initially thought to despise (because of his outright disobedience and defiance and his past attempts of raping Miranda), I came to sympathize with him as he became more and more humanized, and eventually grew to assert his humanity. To many, Caliban’s character is a symbol of colonial injustice; a particular connection I see here is to that of the Spanish and the Inca. Just as Caliban adapted and learned Prospero’s own language against him in aims to bite back at his tyrant of a master, the Inca also incorporated Spanish customs as a means of adapting and preserving their Inca culture. In their own way, they were asserting back their humanity.

  14. Angie Lo

    This was an in-depth, informative, and overall great post. It was very interesting to read the possible etymology of Caliban’s name, and I can’t help but wonder about Shakespeare’s real attitude towards this topic, especially when you alluded to it right at the very end of your blog post.
    Reading some excerpts from Retamar I can’t help but think why Shakespeare included Caliban in the play, especially when compared with Gonzalo, who “incarnates the Renaissance humanist” when he liberally quotes Montaigne, as you mentioned in your post (15). Retamar seems to think that Shakespeare “confirms that both ways of considering the American… were perfectly reconcilable”, saying that Caliban’s existence and Gonzalo’s beliefs are compatible (15). He portrays Caliban as inhuman and savage while Gonzalo as almost idealistic. He goes on to say Caliban’s portrayal is parallel to a typical portrayal of “barbarians” that was used to justify taking away land, but doesn’t really say much about Gonzalo. Considering how much Shakespeare seems to have been influence by Montaigne it’s an interesting point to consider.
    There is also Prospero’s character to think about; many people interpret Prospero as a stand-in for Shakespeare himself. If we consider that to be true, then would Prospero, who was cruel to Caliban but had nothing but good words to say about Gonzalo, represent how Shakespeare felt?

  15. Briana Nguyen

    Who knew there would be so much history behind a name? I didn’t think much about Caliban’s name, assuming that Shakespeare made up some name on the spot. Nevertheless, I found it intriguing the way you were able to apply a variety of secondary sources when searching for the source behind Caliban’s name; so many different soures were taken apart and thoroughly analyzed all while connecting to one another. The part I particularly found the most interesting was when you mentioned the Caribs and how they were viewed as “ferocious, insatiable cannibles” – a common European myth. I thought that this parallels with Caliban who appears to symbolize misrepresentation. Even I admit that I initially perceived Caliban as a monstrous being with no emotions or any human traits. However, I think I have a better understanding of his character now, somewhat pitying Caliban, especially when you questioned whether Shakespeare had a “noble savage crushed by European colonization” or a “nefarious man-eater” in mind. As a result, this specific quote caused me to reflect on Prospero’s character in The Tempest. In my mind, I thought of him a a European colonizer as he was also someone trying to control a misunderstood subordinate like Caliban himself. Furthermore, just like the Caribs, it can be quite easy to misinterpret something or someone that one does not truly understand. Overall, your thought process behind a seemingly insignificant topic (Caliban’s name) continues to fascinate me since it opens up so many different perspectives, highlighting real-life aspects connected to the play.

  16. Andrew Ward

    This blog post was full of a ton of fantastic information about the origin of Caliban’s name. I love the connection you found between the names of explorers and the names of characters in The Tempest. I think I agree with your supposition that Shakespeare based this play largely on the writings of these explorers in order to furnish his magical island. And the possible etymology of Caliban’s name, coming from various names used for people of the Caribbean, was very insightful. I think your post could have given a better look at how ther Black Legend, or the conflict between Spain and England in the 1600s, influenced this process, because in your article it felt like more of a tangent than a concluding point of analysis. Although, I do beleive that there is some history there.

  17. Iva Khauv

    This was a very elaborate and detailed read about the etymology of Caliban, the seemingly unconnected relations between languages and coincidences aligning so much that they are anything but. One small thing that stuck out to me, though, was that you said it was important that Caliban’s name was given to him by his mother Sycorax, not Prospero. That raises a few questions and observations — for example, since Prospero is not the one who names (or renames) Caliban, might it be an act of mercy (letting Caliban retain his identity) on his part? Or, perhaps ‘Christianizing’ or ‘civilizing’ Caliban makes him less despicable, and Prospero wants Caliban to keep his native identity that retains his inferior social position as a slave?

  18. Randy Schmidt

    I found your analysis of possible origins for Caliban’s name very intriguing as I normally don’t consider what a character’s name could mean as much as I try to determine what or who they are. When I read that Caliban is a savage and deformed slave and when Miranda described him as a villain, I immediately made a connection to Gollum from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. This connection, based purely on his proclaimed deformity and his description as a villain, gave me a strong bias stacked against Caliban. I assumed that he was a corrupt creature only bent on taking back what is rightfully his. I always viewed Caliban as Prospero’s foil because Prospero, with his command of magic and people through words, seems beyond human while Caliban appears less than human. It wasn’t until Dr. Lewis pointed out that both Caliban and Prospero, throughout the course of The Tempest, struggle with what it means to be human and with Caliban’s parting lines, I realized Caliban is not the monster I made him out to be at the start of the play. Looking back on the words “deformed” and “savage”, they are essentially words that describe something other than normal. Looking back on Waiting for the Barbarians, one of the questions brought up was “what does it mean to be a barbarian/savage?” I think we can apply that question to The Tempest as well when looking at Caliban. I believe it is likely that Caliban had a physically detrimental deformity, inhibiting his ability to move, speak, or learn. But I think it is equally likely that this “deformity” came in the form of a different skin color or any kind of physical attributes that wouldn’t make one person any less human than another. This leads me to believe that Shakespeare left Caliban’s deformity vague to allow for either interpretation, both of which lead to a connection to the European conquest of the New World and the enslavement of native peoples, which is similar to the claim Retamar is making at the end of your post.

  19. Sumerpreet Rai

    After reading the Tempest myself, I agree with the argument that Caliban represents the Caribbean people who suffered under the process of colonization. Especially because of the way that he was portrayed as subhuman, part human – part fish, really emphasizes the Spanish perspective on the original inhabitants of these places, in that they they were nothing like the Europeans. The myths of the indigenous peoples that we studied during Professor O’ Toole’s lectures are observed through Caliban and how he is portrayed. For example, when he is approached by Stephano and Trinculo, he practically takes them and treats them as if they were god’s even though he has just met them by automatically pledging his services to them because they possess alcohol.

    However if Shakespeare meant to portray Caliban as representing indigenous people, it is interesting how Caliban’s character spoke up against his original master Prospero as soon as he had the chance and convinced Stephano and Trinculo to kill Prospero. If Caliban was a “stupid indigenous” person why did Shakespeare choose to make Caliban speak out? This is especially odd to me because Shakespeare supported colonization efforts by funding the Virginia Company’s expiditions. Although I agree with Dr. Garceau’s points, I am still confused on whether Shakespeare was on the side of the colonizer or the colonized.

  20. Claudia

    Dr. Garceau,
    Your interpretation of Caliban’s role and name in The Tempest. I never really thought about where his name came from, or why we never have any actual description of who he is beside “a savage and deformed slave.” Therefore, I began to sympathize with Caliban and wonder if he was the one with ownership of the island. Your ideas began to make me wonder how Shakespeare portrayed all his cast. Shakespeare didn’t give us an actual background of any character besides a small title of their role in the play. When comparing the name Caliban to Spanish words such as Canibal, is one interpretation I made. As a Spanish speaking person, I initially thought of how similar the two are (they’re even more similar than cannibal). I too didn’t know where I stood with Caliban and whether or not he was really a savage from birth or created into a savage by Prospero. This helps tie in the role of many conquered people and whether or not these Incan people or even the Native Americans from fall quarter were as bad they were portrayed to be. We are often granted only one side of the story, for example, growing up most children are never exposed the Native Americans’ perspective of Thanksgiving but simply the idea that both Natives and Pilgrims were happy and easily unified. Not until college do we become exposed to different perspectives of cultures and pov’s in history. The role of Caliban is very similar; we read about him and he says a couple lines, but we never really know his side of the story. Born to a witch on the island, does he automatically become the next to own, or is he born a savage even under his mother?

  21. Kaitlyn Danlinhton

    This was interesting to read because I had wondered what Caliban looked like throughout my reading of The Tempest. I did not make this connection until reading this post, but I had found in one of the readings I used for my essay that the Spanish believed that the natives were corrupted by the devil because of their naivety. If Shakespeare had projected these same ideas into his work, then his description of Caliban being the son of the devil and the witch Sycorax (a pagan and thus a believed follower of a religion corrupted by the devil) then it would align with the beliefs of the time. The origin of the word ‘cannibal’ and its connection to the word Caribbean really emphasizes a stronger connection to Caliban’s humanity, as rather than the portrayal of Caliban as a subhuman like so many of the productions of The Tempest had, it shows that he was a human that made mistakes as a human would.

  22. Jan Josef

    I believe that the beauty of The Tempest is found in the characters and how Shakespeare decided to present the idea of the pursuit of freedom. In particular, Caliban is a role that should not be overlooked as he speaks of such “tyranny” that Prospero holds him to. Often times we may overlook such characters and not think much of them; however, what makes Caliban unique is that he is a personality that has been interpreted in NUMEROUS ways, by different people for many years. This particular post explores how the name Caliban came about and how it has fashioned European’s ideas of people from the New World.

    In my opinion, I believe that when looking at the origins of Caliban’s name, Roberto Retamar’s essay is an excellent source in interpreting how the name Caliban came to be. This essay particularly focuses on the idea that our understanding of ‘canibals’ emerges from the “…degraded vision offered by the colonizer of the man he is colonizing (Retamar 14).” With this in mind, I made the connection to my favorite topic in core which was orientalism. Misconceptions and myths had created the European experience, fashioning their understanding of people from the East: uncivilized. With this in mind, Caliban is an example of how Europeans saw people from the new world, often times associating Caribs with being savage/animalistic. In a sense, I would like to say that Shakespeare chooses Caliban as a victim of misrepresentation from Europeans and their understanding of people from the new world. He vies for freedom from the tyranny of Prospero which also parallels to the freedom inhabitants of the Caribbeans fought for during the colonization of the French, English & Spanish.

  23. Andreana Chen

    This is a very well researched and written post about Caliban! It’s interesting to learn that the word cannibal is very likely derived from a word meaning “human being” in Kari`nja. It seems from that then Caliban represents the misunderstood and oppressed indigenous of the New World. However, the fact that Caliban’s mother was from Algiers, in northern Africa, which does not the previous statement. I do recall that Dr. Lewis has contemplated in one of her lectures the question of where the island in The Tempest is, and the fact that there is ample evidence that the island could be in the Mediterranean or in the New World could show that this imagined island is representative of all societies anywhere on Earth. However, I think it would also make sense to say that this generalization is also likely indicative of the prejudice the Europeans have about non-Europeans, specifically that those who are not European are inferior like Caliban. And this parallels to the novel Waiting for the Barbarians that we read last quarter. Both conjure up a hypothetical society that could exist anywhere and show the relations between what is “civilized” and what is “barbaric”. Ultimately, though, concepts of civility and barbarism are subjective, and I would argue that every human is both civilized and barbaric, just as no human is purely good or purely evil.

  24. Luke Sumaquial

    I really enjoyed reading the progression of your thought process as you investigated the possible origin of Caliban’s name in the real world. Although the connection between the name Caliban and the supposed cannibals in the Caribbean was mentioned during Dr. Lewis’ lectures, with Caliban being suggested as an anagram of cannibal, your post delved much deeper and made a more solid connection between Caliban and the indigenous Caribbean people. It does make sense for events such as the newly discovered islands and people in the relatively distant Caribbean, which were fresh in people’s memory, to likely be an influential topic in Shakespeare’s writing. Similarly, as you stated, there was a great deal of anti-Spanish literature being produced and distributed in Shakespeare’s time, antagonizing them and highlighting their mistreatment of indigenous American people. In your post, though, you saw Caliban as a symbol of colonial oppression over indigenous people as exerted by Europeans in general, and not just the Spanish. However, the propaganda arguing for the Spanish living up to their mythical violent nature was more likely to be seen as true by the general population, as a result of lesser information available on the Spanish conquests at the time. With that said, would you say that Shakespeare was critiquing European conquest as a whole, or simply following the path of others during his time and solely critiquing the Spanish? The Bard’s choice of names for nobles, such as Gonzalo or Ferdinand, seems to elicit the idea of such characters being representative of the Spaniards. It’s possible though that the Spanish were represented because they serve as a more digestible target for audiences at the time to critique European colonial practices, but I am curious to hear your stance.

  25. Vian Nguyen

    Hi Dr. Garceau,

    I genuinely enjoyed following your thought-journey in deciphering the origins and different interpretations of Caliban’s name. One part of your post that particularly resonated with me was when you posed the question of whether Shakespeare named Caliban with the intentions of making him into a “noble savage crushed by European colonization” or a “nefarious man-eater who would kill his neighbors given the chance”. To answer your question, I’d like to say that he definitely was a noble savage exploited by the same powers of European colonization.
    When I was first getting acquainted with this book, I went back and forth trying to determine my feelings about this character. I wasn’t sure if I felt sorry for him for even with all the physical and mental suffering he had to endure he also did something terrible by trying to rape Miranda (1.2.348-349). I simply couldn’t see him as a victim but more as a person being punished by a loving father for his evil intentions towards his only daughter. Moreover, he didn’t even feel sorry about this and had the audacity to say that he would have done so to populate “this isle with Calibans” (1.2.351). However, after doing some research on this issue in the context of colonialism, I realized how detrimental the effects of colonialism was on both the colonizer and the colonized, for it was the system of colonization that may have caused Caliban to act in this way. Caliban was a victim of colonization and his evil intentions were induced by this fact. It is possible to say that his attempted rape of her was an exercise of “territorial lust” and his determination to take back the island that he claims to be his own (Skura). Before Prospero and Miranda inhabited his island, Caliban, like the noble savage did not have “knowledge of letters…no use of service, of riches, or of property; no contracts…no use of wine, corn or metal” (Shakespeare 103). If they had not come there in the first place and tried to colonize him for their own benefit, he would not have become such a wretched character. Additionally, Like the colonizers of the time, no matter what Prospero and Miranda could have taught him, nothing would make up for the fact that they were exploiting him and his way of life. Teaching Caliban language was a means for Prospero to have control over him, not an act of goodwill as he thinks. Notably, the fact that Shakespeare has Caliban challenge this notion signifies the playwright’s criticism towards colonialism (1.2.364-365). With all the historical and etymological evidence you had presented to us, I am convinced that Shakespeare intended for Caliban to represent the victims of colonization in a time when this enterprise was at high.
    Thank you so much for this post, Dr. Garceau!

    Works Cited:

    Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Edited by Robert Langbaum. Newly Revised Edition. New York, Signet Classics, 1998. Print.

    Skura, Meredith Anne. “Discourse and the Individual: The Case of Colonialism in ‘The Tempest.’” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 1, 1989, pp. 42–69. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2870753.

  26. Zhavierre McGowan

    I was very intrigued by your exploration of what is in a name and the origin of Caliban’s name. It made me recall that in some cultures a name is deemed a powerful tool, sometimes a weapon. The term is called true name, it appears in history and literature, mainly in myths and religion. The power a name holds can be used to have power over someone, a person’s name can be used to control them. Like how Caliban’s name whether it means cannibal or human being, it has power over him and power over the way people view him. Prospero uses Caliban’s name to wield power over him, as Caliban is made to seem to be animalistic and in need of human guidance, this gives Prospero the power to control and enslave Caliban. It seems to me that the meaning and power behind a name is also at play. The name Caliban is a mysterious name that has a powerful meaning behind it that can be used to control and shape him in the Tempest.

  27. Paiam Moghaddam

    I found your in depth analysis of the origins of the name Caliban very intriguing. My first impression of Caliban was just sort of monstrosity that was meant to reflect the concept of a contemporary cannibal, man-eater, or some monstrous humanoid creature that one would think a cannibal would look like. However, your expansive analysis of the various versions and interpretations of the word cannibal, from its Caribbean origins to the Spanish/European interpretation of indigenous people to even a possible Arabian insult, convinced me that Caliban is indeed reflective of the word cannibal, but not its contemporary form, rather the one you described in the post. I believe that his name is most likely reflective of the image of the indigenous people and portrays their mistreatment by the Spanish and European colonizers. However, I have only a small complaint with this. We, as a contemporary audience, can see that Caliban name is reflective of the indigenous people of the New World and of the Caribbean, but how does Shakespeare’s audience view Caliban’s name and character? Did his audience recognize that he was meant to show the mistreatment dealt by the European people onto the indigenous people, or did they see Caliban as an example of the monstrous interpretation of the natives of the Americas. So, if the audience interprets Caliban as simply a monstrous “Indian,” then did Shakespeare also intend for the character to share that interpretation? My question, essentially, is whether or not the Shakespeare audience interpreted Caliban as we, a contemporary audience, do today and did Shakespeare intend to depict Caliban’s character as what we interpret him to be or as the audience of his time interpreted it or even a combination of both?

  28. Sophia M

    This exploration of attempting to determine the origin of Caliban’s name was truly intriguing and captivating. I enjoyed how in depth the research is and the different layers of information given to provide proof for a connection between “Caliban”and “cannibal”. This insightful post lead me to gain further knowledge of what Shakespeare may have been inspired by while writing The Tempest, as well as how the power dynamics between the natives of the Caribbean and the Spanish may have served as a possible model for Prospero and Caliban’s relationship. I especially enjoyed your idea that “Caliban represents a problematic, misunderstood, but very human character”; I agree entirely with this characterization of Caliban, he is a character demonized by his colonizer despite the fact that he, in my opinion, is the rightful owner of the island. I thoroughlly enjoyed reading this and it has lead me to obtain a better interpreation of the play.

  29. Julie Roberts

    I thoroughly enjoyed reading your discourse on the origin of Caliban’s name. It was interesting to see it being traced through cultures, and the possible implications for the many connotations of the name. I personally agree with the last few paragraphs that solidify the idea of Caliban being a character we are supposed to sympathize. It makes sense, given the historical context of the Anglo-Spanish Wars you brought up, that Caliban’s story is one of native conquest that is all too familiar for us in Humanities Core. I wouldn’t necessarily equate Caliban’s story to that of the Inca that Professor O’Toole told in lectures, because while both recognize the tragedies with conquest, O’Toole’s characterization and of the Inca do not invoke pity like Caliban does (in my view), but rather enlightens and disspells the popular desolation myth held by many to this day. Nonetheless, there are many aspects to Caliban’s character that fits the empire vs. indigenous relationships developed in this course thus far. His mother is killed by a strange invader from another nation – one with much more power than him. He is taught the language of this invader and is forced to be his slave. As for Shakespeare being aware of the metaphor he was creating with Caliban, I can’t give an answer to that. However, a large part of me wants to think that he was making an awesome and critical statement with Caliban, but that is most likely fueled by my fondness of his works. Thank you for writing such an amazing post that truly made me think deeper on the meaning of a name – something I don’t think I would’ve ever caught on alone.

  30. Natalia Pinpin

    The ambiguity of the word “cannibal” and its different forms is I believe what helps make Caliban such a multi-dimensional character. Regardless of who Caliban actually is, he can be made into both the uncivilized savage and the noble savage; it is in a way up to interpretation. This calls into attention the role of the “colonizer” in influencing people’s perceptions of others. Caliban is not unlike the Incas who were created into barbaric “others” whom the Spanish believed needed to be civilized. And in The Tempest, Prospero plays the role of the colonizer.
    The relationship between Caliban and Prospero is not black and white, leaving it up in the open as to who is the “good guy” of the play. Prospero, the main character, is presumably the hero of the story, but his despotic treatment of Caliban makes him seem more like a villain. In fact, I was quite confused by Shakespeare’s characterization of Prospero, as he transforms from a tyrannic sorcerer to a forgiving old man in the course of just days. It’s also not to say that Caliban doesn’t have his own character flaws. As shown by the thorough historical evidence you provided in this blog, there is no doubt that the historical context of colonization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries highly influenced Shakespeare’s writing of The Tempest. I think Shakespeare exposes a lot of the gray areas associated with colonization and calls for his viewer (or reader) to question power hierarchy and the morals that go along with it.

  31. Marina Hartogs

    This is an extremely insightful blog and I found it very interesting how many possible interpretations could be made just from the name of one of the characters in this play. My initial belief when reading The Tempest was that the name Caliban was a variation of the word canibal. Of course, the only definition of this word that I was familiar with was the one that came after Columbus meaning a human who ate the flesh of another human. I found it very interesting that this blog went in depth into the actual origin of this word in order to show another possible interpretation to ponder when trying to understand the name of Caliban. Since canibal could simply be referring to an indigenous person of the Caribbean, or even mean “human being” this gives a completely different understanding of Caliban. When analyzing the meaning of Caliban’s name with the first definition, this adds to the belief that Caliban is some horrifying, inhuman monster, which is how he is portrayed and described by Prospero. However, when thinking about his name in reference to the interpretation as an indigenous person, this humanizes Caliban and almost brings out feelings of sympathy that his island was taken away from him by Prospero and he was forced into slavery. This is similar to how Columbus came and took land and tortured the indigenous people. Though it can be confusing at times, I find it interesting that there are so many possible interpretations of Caliban’s name and that there is no one right answer.

  32. Wendy Chi

    This was a very engaging read of one of the minuscule details of Shakespeare’s works. Whenever I read a Shakespeare play, I tend to not worry about why certain names were chosen for a particular character, but rather follow the story and its protagonist. In The Tempest, Caliban wasn’t a huge antagonist and didn’t feel like a character I could sympathize with because he was simply seen as a “deformed slave” or basically someone one wouldn’t want to associate with. He was a character that degraded himself because of how he was treated and it plays a part in his mentality of being anything but human. However, I agree that Shakespeare meant for this character to be one that can be different depending on the reader. Caliban could have been a victim of prejudice, for being the son of a witch, even though he was at first adopted by Prospero. On the other hand, Prospero claims that he tried to rape Miranda, which automatically makes him a bad person. There are endless perspectives on how Caliban can be seen.

    In your introduction, when you first mentioned the possibility of Caliban being an Indian, or Native South American, I immediately thought of the image where Amerigo Vespucci is approached by an indigenous woman in the New World. That image consisted of many incorrect ideas of the natives, where they are living with wild animals, wear little to no clothing, do not have a civilization, and eating one another, or cannibalism. Since the word cannibal sounded eerily similar to Caliban, as I continued to read, I was sure there was going to be some sort of connection between the two. Surely, there was and I was intrigued by how much thought Shakespeare put into making his plays and how those small details can be missed the first time reading it.

  33. Stefana LoTempio

    I was really intrigued by how many possible explanations there could be for Caliban’s name. I always assumed Caliban was just some deviation of “cannibal”, implying that he’s a monster. However, I was struck by the revelation that his name also means “human being”. This connection to his desire to “seek for grace” forces me to look at Caliban from a completely new light. Initially, I always thought of him as someone rather primitive and taken advantage of, someone not quite human, and someone to be pitied. I suppose this is because, on the surface, this is the way he is portrayed. However, upon considering this new information about the origin of his name, he becomes not only humanized but also empowered as an individual to stand up for himself and take his future into his own hands — something he slightly does when he attempts to overthrow Prospero. Although from the perspective of the audience his switched allegiance to Stephano is one of ignorance and folly, perhaps it is the start for Caliban to begin holding his own ground. The meaning of his name can go from implying his subhuman-ness to asserting his humanity, and through reading The Tempest from a Human Core perspective, I’d like to think of Caliban as a human exploited by empire but slowly regaining his identity.

  34. Camille Morfin

    Dr. Garceau,

    I truly enjoyed reading your interpretation of the origin of Caliban’s name. What I was quite surprised about is how much your analysis of the etymology of Caliban’s name relates to my historical analysis essay and the ideas behind how colonizers were able to justify their maltreatment of indigenous people. In my essay, I focus on the Spaniard’s use of Christianity as a means of exerting control over Andean people. As Restall mentions in his book, Europeans often used religion as a means of deciding whether or not their ruling of indigenous peoples was justified. Since most natives of the New World lacked a concept of religion, let alone Christianity, Europeans had no trouble justifying presiding over these indigenous tribes. Their ignorance of Christianity categorized them as savage and thus unfit to rule themselves.
    Your interpretation of Caliban’s name in relation to the word cannibal is quite telling of European tendencies to justify their wrongdoings. If, in fact, the interpretation of Caliban’s name stemming from cannibalism is true, it makes sense as to why Shakespeare portrays Prospero as ‘rightfully’ enslaving Caliban. Cannibalsim is an action only a true savage would partake in. Thus, being clear reference to the term, Caliban’s name connotes certain details about his personality and behavior that may frighten Prospero or other voyageurs to the island. Caliban’s implied savagery makes him the perfect subject of enslavement (it is unlikely that a colonizer would justify unreasonably enslaving a creature named beauty, for example). Caliban’s connoted savage personality makes it ‘OK’ for Prospero to control him due to his ‘inherently cannibalistic nature”. This assumption of native behavior is apparent not only in Shakespeare’s writing, but also in historical instances. Europeans would often assume that all descendants of indigenous people were savage and are thus deserving of poor treatment. The Europeans categorized natives as a separate beings and justified treating them differently because of their past actions, which in reality, may not have even occurred (just as you mentioned that there is no substantial evidence for the appearance of native cannibalism).

    Thank you for your post,

    Camille Morfin

    1. Ben Garceau

      Hi Camille, I like all of these connections you are making to Dr. O’Toole’s lectures, and to Matthew Restall. I agree that European colonization of the Americas had terrible consequences, and that many of the justifications for the awful things Europeans did still carry a legacy today. One of the questions I was trying to explore in this post is whether Shakespeare may have been critical of the way Europeans were treating people from the New World. So, I think it is possible that Shakespeare is on Prospero’s side, and scholars have often pointed to the similarities between Prospero’s character and Shakespeare’s role in the theater, and thus believes he is justified in enslaving Caliban. But it is also possible that Shakespeare gives the ironic possibility that, as Dr. Lewis said in lecture, Caliban is the real hero of the play.

  35. Saadia Karim

    This is an excellent blog post, one that i really enjoyed reading. The way you took apart every source of the word ‘Carib’ and cannibal’ history, and brought them together to come to this layered conclusion of where Caliban’s name originated from, really emphasizes the importance of Caliban himself. I remember reading ,in The Tempest, Caliban’s song, where he was singing a song that consisted a play of his name ‘ban, ban, Ca-Caliban’, and thinking that Caliban’s name must have some importance in the purpose of his character. One thing that stood out to me was how Caliban was described before his part in the play, and that his name which can easily be referred to as ‘cannibal’, was shown before he was, just like the native americans were referenced in Columbus’s journals and other first hand-accounts. This parallel that is referenced by you and Retamar reminded me of Professor O’Toole beginning lectures and her discussion of the two primary sources, by Jerez and Yupanqui, and how they both differed in the portrayal of the Andeans and what actually happened to Atuahalpa. Ultimately, It’s all about opinions and point of view, and Shakespeare did a good job of pointing that out by showing us what’s said about Caliban, and the showing us the actual actions of Caliban, and letting the audience/readers realize that Caliban’s original portrayal maybe biased.

    1. Ben Garceau

      Thanks Saadia! I think you are totally right that we are given biased information about Caliban before we ever meet him. Prospero and Miranda both say nasty things about him, and Shakespeare himself also refers to him in the cast list as a “savage and deformed slave.” I like your idea that we as the audience get to decide what we think of Caliban by watching his action. Maybe we are meant to see Caliban as a character who has to prove himself, and that is why at the end he says he will “seek for grace.” As you’ll see next week, people in the 20th century reinterpreted Caliban in new ways, so we’ll get to read something like an alternate primary source about him with a different point of view.

  36. Brian Chiang

    I really resonated with this post as I was wondering what Caliban was after reading the Tempest. I always thought it strange that his name had some similarities to the word ‘cannibal’, even though the island is clearly indicated as ‘uninhabited’, so I always wondered how he could be a cannibal if he never had the chance to consume human flesh in the first place. What I found particularly interesting about your post was the etymology of the word cannibal, more specifically how the word cannibal was used by sailors to describe the people who had supposedly taken bites out of human bodies. From what I can tell, this assumption evidently has no proof as mentioned by Columbus, but in my opinion, became a way to degrade the native people and pose Europeans as superior.

    Thus when Caliban, whose name is evidently made to degrade himself due to its relation with the word cannibal, was first introduced, I always saw him as a misunderstood character, who like many of the colonized populations that we have talked about, just wanted his freedom from slavery. I started seeing parallels with the Inca and Caliban. The Inca rebelled in the Tupac Amaru Rebellion against the colonial practices of the Spanish, and were forcefully put down for it. Afterwards, The Spanish fearing another future rebellion, punished the Incan people and forced them to give up their culture and having even stricter constraints put upon them. These punishments would be felt for years to come by their descendants. Similarly, Caliban is a being that was initially judged based off what his predecessor, Sycorax, was guilty of. Thus he is put in the same boat and treated as an inhuman inhabitant of the island, immediately relegated to the role of slave by Prospero.

    1. Ben Garceau

      Great points Brian! I think the patterns that you are noticing are really important to understanding the history and literature we are talking about in Core. One of the things I wanted to question in this post is whether Caliban must be thought of as a villain, and whether we can read more closely and see other possibilities. With your interest in rebellion and resistance, I think you will find our readings that begin next week really interesting, particularly Aimé Césaire’s rewriting of The Tempest with a much stronger, more heroic, and more politicized version of Caliban.

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