Posted by wendy b. on November 8, 2001, at 9:45:26
In reply to Caliban, beauty, and the gift of God., posted by kid_A on November 5, 2001, at 14:19:02
I'll have to brush up on my Shakespeare to be able to fathom a response to this one. It's "The Tempest," yes?
Anybody else who wants to read it again, see:
http://www.gh.cs.usyd.edu.au/~matty/Shakespeare/texts/comedies/tempest_1.html#xref000
for the full text. (What a marvelous site!)
a hug to you Kid,
Wendy
>
> You see, Caliban was horrible creature, a deformed slave born of the witch Sycorax, on an Island in the Bermudas... In Caliban is represented all of man's uncivilized traits, wanton alcoholism, a seeking for greater meaning, a search for a god, horrible untamed nature at it's worst.
>
> Then we have Prospero, a god of sorts, unlike Caliban's false god Stephano... So we have a sort of dichotome between Caliban, the horrible pre-dawn man-creature, and Prospero, the giver of life, the Magician, whos minions such as Ariel control the seas and the weather and give life to the island.
>
> And so we are all Caliban? We are all untamed souls that seek peace through the kiss of a pill? We seek God's touch that relieves us of our inhumanity, our inability to deal with reality, to deal with loss, to deal with pain?
>
> And inhumanity is so perfectly depicted through Caliban, the horible deformed monster, craving enlightenment, made almost a poet by the music that he hears.
>
> Prospero, doctor, lifegiver, pillpusher, keeping us alive another day to go back time and time again to the medicine cabinet, our alter, our chalice, our little communion wafers one in the morning, one in the evening, two before bedtime... Little prayers in pill form.
>
> Are we all beautiful creatures truely? Is the myth of Caliban and Prospero a lie, or are we truly outcasts, reaching desperately to touch God's finger across the Chapel ceiling...?
poster:wendy b.
thread:13525
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011105/msgs/13648.html