Caliban Upon Setebos

Robert Browning, one half of the masterful Browning couple, who in the nineteenth century was critically outshone by his semi-invalid wife Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, author of such works as Aurora Leigh and  Sonnets from the Portuguese
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Writing during a time of upheaval in every sense, Browning's poetry often represents the turbulence of the Victorian period, massive upheavals including the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of Darwin's theory. Along with a decline in moral and religious vales and in turn a rise in Science and reason this renders the literature produced during this period particularly questioning and changeable.

Browning is known for his use of the dramatic monologue, a keen interest in the grotesque, a love of classical art and architecture and a penchant for Renaissance and European settings. I would like to briefly talk about one of Browning's most famous dramatic monologue Caliban Upon Setebos which embodies all of the mentioned features and yet stands out as a particularly inaccessible piece of work by Browning
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The setting we encounter in this poem is the island of Shakespeare's The Tempest and our protagonist, Caliban, an unpleasant native of the island who covets and attempts to rape or court (depending on your reading) Prospero's daughter Miranda and so is enslaved by the magician.

So here we encounter Caliban; at first the language of the abused salve seems angry and irrational, his words are taken from the things that surround him and his own experiences. He is a creature kept down in every way by Prospero without even the gift of eloquent language to express himself. The work is written in unrhymed pentameter lines with metrical irregularities suggesting the speaker is uneducated and course in nature. Noticeably Caliban speaks of himself in the first person, often without using pronouns such as "conceiveth" and "believeth" reflecting Caliban's theological speculations and is comparisons of himself and God. This association is often cruel for example his treatment of the crabs;

"Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea;
Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
Loving not,hating not, just choosing so.
Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots
Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off,
Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,
And two worms h whose nippers end in red;
As it likes me each time, I do: so He." (100-109)


Caliban explores the idea of predestination and his power over those who are weaker than him as he decides which crabs will live or be maimed.

Caliban only knows hate and the negative side of existence, he associates his God Setebos with vengeful malevolence and he associates his master in much the same way,keeping him from the only thing he desires - Miranda - who represents goodness. It is no secret that Prospero treats Caliban badly, this is expressed in both The Tempest and the poem, particularly in the lines below;

"if he caught me here,
O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"
Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,
Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,
Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,
Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste." (269-274)

So  Caliban is enslaved in more than just the traditional sense and  it can be seen that he not only desires freedom from his situation but also freedom to have Miranda and so to obtain these he must have freedom from the constraints of his master or God and therefore, religion. His frequent mention of birds, a creature associated with the trinity but also freedom, he wishes he himself were a bird or that he could fashion himself wings from clay, the traditional creation material of God. So that he could still keep God's grace but evolve to a being that could escape from his unpleasant situation and it angers him that god cannot provide this escape for him and therefore, he must be either cruel or too weak to enforce these changes.

The point made by Browning throughout the poem is that in his eyes, a person cannot accept that God is good unless he has had some experience of good in his life or has seen goodness around him.
The thought present in many aspects of Victorian theology is that God is forgiving, loving and non-judgmental however, Browning is arguing that this view, as written by the upper class of society is flawed in that they did not experience the negativity in life that might make an individual question the altruistic goodness of God.

There is also the interesting question of the setting, Shakespeare's England was not only one of high art but one of religious turbulence which relates in many ways to the new turbulence facing Victorian England. It as written at a time when Victorians were struggling with Christianity and Darwinism and how the two were connected. While once faith had been accepted as absolute and little thought was given to how the world world  how humans developed or the laws of physics and chemistry  now everything was being thrown in to question and doubt.


On a contemporary and somewhat amusing  note, Caliban in this poem has been likened to Gollum of Tolkien's creation, a bitter, despised creature who addresses himself and an unknown listener  also thought to be himself. Indicating he has been driven mad and is suffering from a split personality disorder.


If you would like to appreciate the poem for yourself please follow the link below.


Caliban Upon Setebos - R.Browning.

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