Caliban: the Missing Link

Caliban: The Missing Link by Daniel Wilson is a scholarly exploration of Shakespeare's Caliban as the missing link between brute and human, viewed through the lens of 19th-century science. The book surveys the Caliban figure across Shakespeare’s Tempest and related works, arguing that Shakespeare anticipated evolutionary and metaphysical debates about the origin of mind, language, and humanity. In the Preface, Wilson situates Caliban within a long tradition of contemplation on the brute-progenitor and the ascent to reason, drawing connections to Browne, Darwin, and Browning to illustrate how literature can mirror scientific inquiry. The subsequent chapters examine Caliban’s evolution, his island, and his encounters with Prospero, the supernatural, ghosts, and fairy folk, pairing literary analysis with scientific discourse on brain development, moral sense, religion, and the nature of belief. The work also engages with The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, tracing how Caliban functions as a bridge between myth and modern thought, while acknowledging ongoing debates about humanity’s ultimate origins.