Caliban
The Missing Link

Daniel Wilson (1816–92) brings together science and literary commentary in this 1873 exploration of evolutionary principles in The Tempest.

Daniel Wilson (Author)

9781108063678, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 August 2014

298 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.7 cm, 0.38 kg

Having acquired a Shakespeare folio for a few shillings, anthropologist Daniel Wilson (1816–92) found in The Tempest a source of scientific intrigue. Writing more than two hundred years before Darwin propounded his theory of evolution, in his final play Shakespeare had created a missing link caught between the animal and the human. In this monograph, first published in 1873, Wilson uses the strange and unfortunate character of Caliban as a means through which to explore the principles of evolution. He traces many of the play's plot devices back to real events that perhaps inspired them - from storms in Bermuda to records of semi-human creatures around the world - and brings literary commentary into science as he links the relationships set out in the play to anthropological principles. This interdisciplinary approach makes the book both an entertaining exegesis of the play and a uniquely accessible explanation of contemporary scientific theories.

1. In the beginning
2. The Caliban of evolution
3. Caliban's island
4. The Tempest
5. The monster Caliban
6. Caliban, the metaphysician
7. Caliban, the theologian
8. The supernatural
9. Ghosts and witches
10. Fairy folk-lore
11. The commentators
12. The folios
13. Notes on The Tempest
14. A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]