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and animosity towards his oppressor. And despite being frequently

referred to as a crude savage, disfigured, and evil Caliban exemplifies

a better set of values than most of the ‘civilised’ characters in the

play. This image derives from speculation regarding the popular

English belief that uncivilised pagans were below their civilised

counterparts in the hierarchy which had God at its apex and inanimate

nature at it base. However a few individuals were beginning to

question this assumption and ‘there is evidence in the play that

Shakespeare believed that the corruption in a civilised man was more

abhorrent than any natural albeit uncivilised behaviour.’14 At a time

when many books and sermons, effected a characteristic Renaissance

union between moral and political implications, and concerned

themselves with the task of persuading the public that exploration was

an honourable and indeed a sanctified activity and Drake was compared

to Moses, combining voyaging and mystagogy a practical justification

of “the lawfulnesse of Discovering”. It was a somewhat sophistical

argument by Purchas, in favour of the propriety of usurping the

rights of native populations, and an insistence, half-mystagogic,

half-propagandist, on the temperate, fruitful nature of the New World,

and the unspoilt purity of its inhabitants. ‘The True Declaration

defends colonizing, on the ground that it diffuses the true religion

and has authority from Solomon’s trade to Ophir (whether it lay in the

East or, as Columbus thought15 in the West Indies). There is room for

all; and in any case the natives cannot be regarded as civilized

people.’16 The revelations of The Tempest of watching Caliban suffer at

the hands of Prospero affords interesting material for examination.

Caliban endures his abuse and insistent that he has deprived him of

what is rightfully his, and this perhaps may have been Shakespeare’s

way of confronting his contemporary pro-colonising audience with the

problems of ownership of newly discovered lands.

32c

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