Caliban the Bestial Man

PMLA ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 793-801
Author(s):  
John E. Hankins

The character of Caliban continues to be a source of speculation to readers of The Tempest, but gradually we are learning those elements of sixteenth-century thought which suggested him to Shakespeare. Some years ago Mr. Morton Luce pointed out that Caliban can be viewed in three separate ways: 1) as a hag-born monstrosity, 2) as a slave, and 3) as a savage, or dispossessed Indian. The second of these ways may be explained by the third, since the English could read many accounts of the manner in which the Spaniards had reduced the Indians to slavery. But, while Caliban worships a Patagonian god, he is the child of an African witch from Argier (Algiers). This would seem to indicate that Shakespeare is not trying to represent primarily a red Indian from the New World but has broadened the conception to represent primitive man as a type. The name Caliban, a metathesis of canibal, supports this view, for contemporary voyagers, as well as early travelers from Homer and Herodotus to Mandeville, had found cannibals in many different quarters of the world.

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (60) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Olstein

Abstract World history can be arranged into three major regional divergences: the 'Greatest Divergence' starting at the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 15,000 years ago) and isolating the Old and the New Worlds from one another till 1500; the 'Great Divergence' bifurcating the paths of Europe and Afro-Asia since 1500; and the 'American Divergence' which divided the fortunes of New World societies from 1500 onwards. Accordingly, all world regions have confronted two divergences: one disassociating the fates of the Old and New Worlds, and the other within either the Old or the New World. Latin America is in the uneasy position that in both divergences it ended up on the 'losing side.' As a result, a contentious historiography of Latin America evolved from the very moment that it was incorporated into the wider world. Three basic attitudes toward the place of Latin America in global history have since emerged and developed: admiration for the major impact that the emergence on Latin America on the world scene imprinted on global history; hostility and disdain over Latin America since it entered the world scene; direct rejection of and head on confrontation in reaction the former. This paper examines each of these three attitudes in five periods: the 'long sixteenth century' (1492-1650); the 'age of crisis' (1650-1780); 'the long nineteenth century' (1780-1914); 'the short twentieth century' (1914-1991); and 'contemporary globalization' (1991 onwards).


1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-372
Author(s):  
Joseph S. Szyliowicz

Today we are witnessing a very rare phenomenon in world history: a state suddenly deluged with an apparently inexhaustible amount of wealth as occurred in sixteenth-century Spain and Portugal when the riches of the New World flowed to the Iberian peninsula. Now the ‘black gold’ under the sands of the Arabian desert has provided one of the most underpopulated and under developed regions of the world with an equivalent bonanza. The new wealth of Spain helped to ruin that country. What will be the fate of Saudi Arabia and its small neighbors?


2020 ◽  
pp. 13-24
Author(s):  
I. V. Bocharnikov ◽  
O. A. Ovsyannikova

Тhe article reveals the main directions of transformation of the modern world order caused by the decline of the American-centric system, as well as the crisis of European integration. The main factors that determine the development of these processes, problems and prospects for the formation of a new world order at the beginning of the third decade of the XXI century are determined. The most significant aspects of the transformation of the policy of the United States and its European allies in relation to Russia are considered, and historical analogies are drawn with the processes of transformation of the world community in the XIX and XX centuries.


1877 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 267-297
Author(s):  
Sydney Robjohns

The mariners of the sixteenth century are no exception to the rule that the biography of great men illustrates the period in which they lived. Francesco Pizarro might have been a cowherd at Seville for ever, instead of a viceroy at Lima, for any value attaching to his biography to the student of European politics; but he and Cortez, Cartier, Hawkins, Drake, and many another, marked an epoch in the history of maritime adventure, namely, the period which witnessed the union of science and enterprise—a union enabling the sailor to navigate his bark into the wide and unknown seas, where no landmark points the course—a union which gave to civilisation another world. The Phoenician groping his way, hugging the land along the shores of Africa and Spain, and shooting across the channel, with the sun and stars alone to steer by, until he touched the lonely but rich shores of the Cassiterides, was a mariner of equal daring with those who, westward ho! set sail for the Spanish Main; but, with an increase of knowledge, there had been discovered a new world—a world that, without the sensitive needle, and the discovery of the fact that it was ever true to its magnetic principle, true as the star to which the sailor from Tyre had in his day attached his faith —and for the subduing of that world it was necessary there should be a new departure, not in enterprise, for that was conspicuous in the earth's central sea, but a union of scientific knowledge with the enterprise and energy common to all young nations—at least to all nations which have made their mark in the world, and left the impress of their life upon time's honourable records.


Itinerario ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-57
Author(s):  
M. N. Pearson

“Goa has never been other than fundamentally Indian …” J.M. Richards, 1982.“The posteritie of the Portingales, both men and women being in the third degree, doe seeme to be naturall Indians, both in colour and fashion.” J.H. van Linschoten, c. 1590.“Rich on trade and loot, Goa in the halcyon days of the sixteenth century was a handsome city of great houses and fine churches… In the eyes of stern moralists the city was another Babylon, but to men of the world it was a paradise where, with beautiful Eurasian girls readily available, life was a ceaseless round of amorous assignments and sexual delights”. G.V. Scammell, 1981.


2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 220-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Anooshahr

AbstractThe sixteenth century witnessed the flowering of European literature that claimed to describe the encounter between Western travelers and the indigenous population of the rest of the world. Similarly, some Persianate writings of the same period present a dialogical encounter, not so much with the Europeanother, but with rival Muslim empires. One of the writers in this genre was Jaʿfar Beg Qazvīnī, sole author of the third part of theTaʾrikh-i alfī(Millennial History), supervised by the Mughal emperor Akbar. In his book, Jaʿfar Beg drew on an unprecedented store of sources from rival courts and treated the Ottomans, Mughals, and Safavids as essentially equal political and cultural units following identical historical trajectories. He also developed one of the earliest Mughal expressions of “Hindustan” encompassing South Asia in its entirety. While most analyses of this outstanding example of dialogical historiography have downplayed its value because of its paucity of new information, the present article will seek instead to demonstrate its significance for its unusual worldview.


1985 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 436-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris H. W. Engstrand

The Enlightenment in Spain defies definition. In certain respects it was a viable force opening up new vistas of knowledge and understanding, while in others it was a mild breeze rustling some leaves of insight into the possibility of human equality. For certain of Spain's royal officials, the ideas of the eighteenth century philosophes were refreshing and undeniably sound; for others even the gathering of knowledge in the new encyclopedias was a dangerously democratic trend. In some areas of national life, reforms gained immediate acceptance, in others the old ways remained entrenched.Spain has always been a country of extremes, of absolute alternatives. Spaniards strive to achieve impossible goals or they remain incredibly inert. With the discovery of America their ambitious undertakings excelled those of England or France, but subsequent neglect brought about failures of equal magnitude. In the sixteenth century they thought to conquer the world; in the next their weakened Hapsburg monarchs squandered the wealth of the New World while the country fell into economic ruin.


Movoznavstvo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 313 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
L. F. Fomina ◽  

The article explores the names of The Great Bear, Orion and the star constellation of Pleiades in the eight full translations of the Bible into the Ukrainian language of XIX–XXI c. Besides the Introduction and the Brief summary of the Ukrainian translations history, the article is made up of three sections. In the first section we analyze the ancient Hebrew names, such as Ash, Kima and Kesil, which are found in the translation by Patriarch Philaret (Denysenko) of the Synodic Bible (1876), and also in the New World Translation, made by the religious society “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. The second chapter focuses on the folk Ukrainian names, also typical for the whole Slavic world, such as Viz, Volosozhar, Kvochka, Kosari, used in the first full translation of the Bible into Ukrainian — Kulish᾽s Bible, which, by its authority, has created a certain tradition, proclaiming the authenticity and comprehensiveness of the Ukrainian language, and has become the standard, later followed by Ivan Ogiyenko and Ivan Khomenko. The third section is dedicated to such Graecisms as Pleiads, Orion, Arcturus, being equivalents for the nominations, presented in the protograph Septuaginta, found in the translation by Father Raphael. The author comes to the conclusion that all the translators in their clerical work aimed to make the astronomic names available and understandable to the orthodox reader of the biblical texts, but for each period of time this aim was achieved differently: if for the XIX century such understandable ones were folk names, in XX and XXI centuries they have been forgotten and replaced by the more familiar Greek-originated and common The Great Bear, Orion and Pleiads. This concerns also the translation of the Ostrog Bible, whose astronomic names had been formed in the times of the first Slavic enlighteners Cyril and Methodius and have become too archaic for our times. The author states that different ethno-cultures have been reflected in the astronomical names: Judaic cosmonymy is more of the anthropomorphic character, while Slavic, including the Ukrainian one, reflects the villatic view to the world and the sky of stars.


2006 ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Moiseev

The number of classical banks in the world has reduced. In the majority of countries the number of banks does not exceed 200. The uniqueness of the Russian banking sector is that in this respect it takes the third place in the world after the USA and Germany. The paper reviews the conclusions of the economic theory about the optimum structure of the banking market. The empirical analysis shows that the number of banks in a country is influenced by the size of its territory, population number and GDP per capita. Our econometric estimate is that the equilibrium number of banks in Russia should be in a range of 180-220 units.


2006 ◽  
pp. 126-134
Author(s):  
L. Evstigneeva ◽  
R. Evstigneev

“The Third Way” concept is still widespread all over the world. Growing socio-economic uncertainty makes the authors revise the concept. In the course of discussion with other authors they introduce a synergetic vision of the problem. That means in the first place changing a linear approach to the economic research for a non-linear one.


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