Caliban upon Setebos
Caliban upon Setebos is a
Psalm 50:21, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself." This could be taken as God mocking Caliban (and Browning's contemporaries) for their methods of attempting to understand Him (see note at the bottom of "Caliban upon Setebos | Representative Poetry Online"
. rpo.library.utoronto.ca. Retrieved 2016-07-21.).
Excerpt
The poem begins (text in [brackets]) with a brief narration, but quickly moves to Caliban's monologue, in which he contemplates his god:
['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.
...
And talks to his own self, howe'er he please,
Touching that other, whom his dam called God.]
...
Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!
'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.
'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:
Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.[4]— Lines 1-3, 15-16, 24-30
Citations
- ^ Tracy, 487
- ^ Tebbetts, 366
- ^ Tebbetts, 367
- ^ Browning, Robert (1897). The Poetical Works. Vol. 1. London: Smith Elder and Co. pp. 593–594.
References
- Tracy, C.R. (1938). "Caliban Upon Setebos". Studies in Philology 35 (3): 487–499.
- Tebbetts, T.L. (1984). "The Question of Satire in 'Caliban Upon Setebos'". Victorian Poetry 22 (4): 365–381.
External links
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