Gonzalo's speech in The Tempest echoes descriptions of native peoples in Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals" that portrayed them as living in an idealized state of nature without complex societies, private property, or hierarchy. The document discusses how Gonzalo's vision of a utopian commonwealth without trade, law, property, or social classes directly quotes and alludes to Montaigne's account of Brazilian tribes who similarly lacked these European concepts. It also examines how Caliban is portrayed as a villain by Miranda despite initially being taught language, in contrast to the idealized view of native peoples in Montaigne and Gonzalo's speech.

1. To Be Caliban or to Be a Cannibal—That is the Question:
Utopia, Nature and Culture in The Tempest
Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.
―Benjamin Disraeli
Dr. Khan Touseef Osman
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Daffodil International University
Bangladesh

2. Utopian Literature in the Renaissance

3. Arcadia

4. Discovery of the New World:
Colonization

5. Cultural Primitivism in Montaigne’s
“Of Cannibals”
It is a nation… that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of letters, no
intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike
superioritie; no use of service, of riches or of povertie; no contracts, no
successions, no partitions, no occupation but idle; no respect of kinred,
but common, no apparell but naturall, no manuring of lands, no use of
wine, corne, or mettle. The very words that import lying, falshood,
treason, dissimulations, covetousnes, envie, detraction, and pardon, were
never heard amongst them.

6. Gonzalo’s Speech in The Tempest
and Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals”
Gonzalo’s Speech:
I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure:
No sovereignty;-
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
I would with such perfection govern, sir,
T' excell the Golden Age.
Montaigne’s Account of
Brazilian Tribes:
It is a nation… that hath no kinde
of traffike, no knowledge of letters,
no intelligence of numbers, no
name of magistrate, nor of politike
superioritie; no use of service, of
riches or of povertie; no contracts,
no successions, no partitions, no
occupation but idle; no respect of
kinred, but common, no apparell
but naturall, no manuring of lands,
no use of wine, corne, or mettle.

7. The Golden Age

8. Caliban the Villain
Miranda:
Abhorred slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known.
But thy vile race
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures
Could not abide to be with....

9. Shipwreck Accounts

10. Thanks!