Key Quote
“"Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not"”
Caliban · Act 3, Scene 2
Focus: “delight”
Caliban's most lyrical speech reveals poetic sensitivity that contradicts Prospero's presentation of him as a 'monster' — the colonised subject possesses a beauty the coloniser cannot perceive.
Technique 1 — LYRICAL PROSE / SENSORY IMAGERY
Caliban speaks in lyrical prose — rhythmic, musical language that approaches poetry without formal verse structure. The sensory imagery of 'noises, sounds and sweet airs' creates an aural (relating to hearing) landscape of natural beauty. The tricolon (three parallel elements: noises, sounds, sweet airs) builds from neutral ('noises') through pleasant ('sounds') to beautiful ('sweet airs'), charting a progression toward wonder.
The phrase 'hurt not' is quietly devastating: Caliban reassures others that the island's sounds are harmless, revealing a character who understands the difference between beauty and threat — a distinction Prospero, who weaponises everything, has lost. Shakespeare gives the 'savage' greater aesthetic sensitivity (appreciation of beauty) than the 'civilised' master.
Key Words
RAD — PROGRESS
This speech marks Caliban's most significant progression in the play: from cursing and plotting to expressing genuine aesthetic wonder. It reveals an inner life that Prospero's colonial narrative — 'a thing of darkness' — refuses to acknowledge. Caliban progresses beyond his assigned role as monster to become the play's most eloquent (fluent, expressive) voice for natural beauty.
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Technique 2 — SUBVERSION OF CHARACTER EXPECTATIONS
Shakespeare subverts audience expectations by giving the play's most beautiful speech to its supposed 'monster.' The rhetorical sophistication and emotional depth of Caliban's language directly contradicts Prospero's characterisation of him as sub-human. This is a deliberate act of dramatic irony: the audience is forced to recognise that Prospero's colonial narrative about Caliban is a lie — the 'savage' possesses greater sensitivity than those who enslave him.
The imperative 'Be not afeard' positions Caliban as comforter and guide — roles normally reserved for authority figures. In this moment, Caliban exercises hospitality (welcoming generosity) toward strangers on HIS island, reversing the colonial dynamic where Europeans claim the right to welcome natives to their own land.
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Context (AO3)
THE NOBLE SAVAGE
Montaigne's essay 'Of Cannibals' (1580) argued that 'primitive' peoples were morally superior to 'civilised' Europeans — the Noble Savage concept. Shakespeare engages with this idea: Caliban's speech demonstrates natural wisdom and beauty, but the play resists simple idealisation by also showing Caliban's capacity for violence.
MUSIC IN SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare associated music with harmony — both literal (pleasing sounds) and metaphorical (social order, moral rightness). Caliban's sensitivity to the island's music suggests a natural moral harmony that colonialism disrupts.
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WOW — ECOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS (Morton)
Timothy Morton's concept of the ecological mesh — the interconnectedness of all living and non-living things — illuminates Caliban's relationship with the island. Caliban does not stand apart from nature observing it (as Prospero does through his books); he exists WITHIN the ecological mesh, hearing the island's 'noises' as communication rather than background. Morton would identify Caliban as a figure of ecological attunement — someone whose consciousness is shaped by environmental intimacy rather than intellectual distance. Prospero's magic extracts power FROM nature; Caliban's poetry emerges from immersion IN nature. Shakespeare thus stages two competing relationships with the natural world: instrumental (nature as tool, Prospero) versus relational (nature as community, Caliban).
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