[App. a variant of CANNIBAL, or perh. actually a form of Carib. It does not appear, however, where Shakespeare found the form.] The name of a character in Shakespeare’s Tempest, ‘a saluage and deformed slaue’ (Dram. Personæ); thence applied to a man of degraded bestial nature. Hence Calibanism.
[1610. Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 308. Wee’ll visit Caliban, my slaue, who neuer Yeelds vs kinde answere.]
1678. Butler, Hud., III. I. 17/282.
| I found th’ Infernal Cunning-man, | |
| And the Under-witch his Caliban, | |
| With Scourges (like the Furies) Arm’d. |
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., IV. xxix. Grandcourt held that the Jamaican negro was a beastly sort of baptist Caliban.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock (1861), 69. Where is the Dutch pug? Where is that Narcissus of canine Calibanism?
