Caliban upon Setebos

Caliban upon Setebos

"Caliban upon Setebos" is an 1864 poem written by the British poet Robert Browning. It deals with Caliban, a character from Shakespeare's "The Tempest", and his reflections on Setebos, the brutal god he believes in. Some scholars see Browning as being of the belief that God is in the eye of the beholder, and this is emphasized by a barbaric character believing in a barbaric god. Others feel that he was satirizing theologians of his time, who attempted to understand God as a reflection of themselves; this theory is supported by the epigraph, 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 [http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem267.html] .)

The poem is referred to in Dan Simmons' science fiction books "Ilium" and "Olympos", in which Caliban and Setebos are villains.

External links

* [http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/browning/section12.rhtml Sparknote's study guide of the poem]
* [http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/267.html The text of the poem at the University of Toronto Libraries]


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