Faust (/faʊst/; German:[faʊ̯st]) is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain.
The Faust of early books – as well as the ballads, dramas,
movies, and puppet-plays which grew out of them – is irrevocably damned
because he prefers human knowledge over divine knowledge: "He laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of medicine".
Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were
popular throughout Germany in the 16th century, often reducing Faust and
Mephistopheles to figures of vulgar fun. The story was popularised in England by Christopher Marlowe, who gave it a classic treatment in his play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (c. 1592).
In Goethe's reworking of the story
over two hundred years later, Faust becomes a dissatisfied intellectual
who yearns for "more than earthly meat and drink" in his life.
Summary of the story
Faust is unsatisfied with his life as a scholar and becomes depressed. After an attempt to take his own life, he calls on the Devil
for further knowledge and magic powers with which to indulge all the
pleasure and knowledge of the world. In response, the Devil's
representative, Mephistopheles,
appears. He makes a bargain with Faust: Mephistopheles will serve Faust
with his magic powers for a set number of years, but at the end of the
term, the Devil will claim Faust's soul, and Faust will be eternally
enslaved.
During the term of the bargain, Faust makes use of Mephistopheles in various ways. In Goethe's
drama, and many subsequent versions of the story, Mephistopheles helps
Faust seduce a beautiful and innocent young woman, usually named
Gretchen, whose life is ultimately destroyed when she gives birth to
Faust's illegitimate son. Realizing this unholy act, she drowns the
child and is sentenced to death for murder. However, Gretchen's
innocence saves her in the end, and she enters Heaven.
In Goethe's rendition, Faust is saved by God via his constant striving –
in combination with Gretchen's pleadings with God in the form of the eternal feminine.
However, in the early versions of the tale, Faust is irrevocably
corrupted and believes his sins cannot be forgiven; when the term ends,
the Devil carries him off to Hell.
The tale of Faust bears many similarities to the Theophilus legend recorded in the 13th century writer Gautier de Coincy's Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge.
Here, a saintly figure makes a bargain with the keeper of the infernal
world but is rescued from paying his debt to society through the mercy
of the Blessed Virgin. A depiction of the scene in which he subordinates himself to the Devil appears on the north tympanum of the Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris.
The origin of Faust's name and persona remains unclear. In the Historia Brittonum, Faustus is the offspring of an incestuous marriage between king Vortigern and Vortigern's own daughter.
The character is ostensibly based on Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540), a magician and alchemist probably from Knittlingen, Württemberg, who obtained a degree in divinity from Heidelberg University in 1509, but the legendary Faust has also been connected with an earlier Johann Fust (c. 1400–1466), Johann Gutenberg's business partner,
which suggests that Fust is one of the multiple origins to the Faust story.
Scholars such as Frank Baron
and Ruickbie (2009)
contests many of theseprevious assumptions.
The character in Polish folklore named Pan Twardowski
(Sir Twardowski in English) presents similarities with Faust. The
Polish story seems to have originated at roughly the same time as its
German counterpart, yet it is unclear whether the two tales have a
common origin or influenced each other. The historical Johann Georg
Faust had studied in Kraków for a time and may have served as the inspiration for the character in the Polish legend.
The first known printed source of the legend of Faust is a small chapbook bearing the title Historia von D. Johann Fausten,
published in 1587. The book was re-edited and borrowed from throughout
the 16th century. Other similar books of that period include:
Das Wagnerbuch (1593)
Das Widmann'sche Faustbuch (1599)
Dr. Fausts großer und gewaltiger Höllenzwang (Frankfurt 1609)
Dr. Johannes Faust, Magia naturalis et innaturalis (Passau 1612)
Das Pfitzer'sche Faustbuch (1674)
Dr. Fausts großer und gewaltiger Meergeist (Amsterdam 1692)
Das Wagnerbuch (1714)
Faustbuch des Christlich Meynenden (1725)
The 1725 Faust chapbook was widely circulated and also read by the young Goethe.
Related tales about a pact between man and the Devil include the plays Mariken van Nieumeghen (Dutch, early 16th century, author unknown), Cenodoxus (German, early 17th century, by Jacob Bidermann) and The Countess Cathleen (Irish legend of unknown origin believed by some to be taken from the French play Les marchands d'âmes).
Locations linked to the story
Staufen, a town in the extreme southwest of Germany, claims to be where Faust died (c. 1540); depictions appear on buildings, etc. The only historical source for this tradition is a passage in the Chronik der Grafen von Zimmern, which was written c. 1565,
25 years after Faust's presumed death. These chronicles are generally
considered reliable, and in the 16th century there were still family
ties between the lords of Staufen and the counts of Zimmern in nearby
Donaueschingen.
In Christopher Marlowe's
original telling of the tale, Wittenburg—where Faust studied—was also
written as Wertenberge. This has led to a measure of speculation as to
precisely where his story is set. Some scholars suggest the Duchy of Württemberg; others suggest an allusion to Marlowe's own Cambridge (Gill, 2008, p. 5)
The early Faust chapbook, while in circulation in northern Germany, found its way to England, where in 1592 an English translation was published, The Historie of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Doctor Iohn Faustus credited to a certain "P. F., Gent[leman]". Christopher Marlowe used this work as the basis for his more ambitious play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (published c. 1604). Marlowe also borrowed from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, on the exchanges between Pope Adrian VI and a rival pope.
Another important version of the legend is the play Faust, written by the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The First Part, which is the one more closely connected to the earlier legend, was published in 1808, the Second appeared posthumously in 1832.
Goethe's Faust complicates the simple Christian moral of
the original legend. A hybrid between a play and an extended poem,
Goethe's two-part "closet drama" is epic in scope. It gathers together references from Christian, medieval, Roman, eastern, and Hellenic poetry, philosophy, and literature.
The composition and refinement of Goethe's own version of the
legend occupied him, off and on, for over sixty years. The final
version, published after his death, is recognized as a great work of
German literature.
The story concerns the fate of Faust in his quest for the true essence of life ("was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält").
Frustrated with learning and the limits to his knowledge, power, and
enjoyment of life, he attracts the attention of the Devil (represented
by Mephistopheles), who makes a bet with Faust that he will be able to
satisfy him. Faust is reluctant, believing this will never happen. This
is a significant difference between Goethe's "Faust" and Marlowe's;
Faust is not the one who suggests the wager.
In the first part, Mephistopheles leads Faust through experiences
that culminate in a lustful relationship with Gretchen, an innocent
young woman. Gretchen and her family are destroyed by Mephistopheles'
deceptions and Faust's desires. Part one of the story ends in tragedy
for Faust, as Gretchen is saved but Faust is left to grieve in shame.
The second part begins with the spirits of the earth forgiving
Faust (and the rest of mankind) and progresses into allegorical poetry.
Faust and his Devil pass through and manipulate the world of politics
and the world of the classical gods, and meet with Helen of Troy
(the personification of beauty). Finally, in anticipation of having
tamed the forces of war and nature and created a place for a free people
to live, Faust is happy and dies.
Mephistopheles tries to seize Faust's soul when he dies after
this moment of happiness, but is frustrated and enraged when angels
intervene due to God's grace. Though this grace is 'gratuitous' and does
not condone Faust's frequent errors with Mephistopheles, the angels
state that this grace can only occur because of Faust's unending
striving and due to the intercession of the forgiving Gretchen. The
final scene has Faust's soul carried to Heaven in the presence of God by
the intercession of the "Virgin, Mother, Queen, ... Goddess kind
forever ... Eternal Womanhood".
The woman is thus victorious over Mephistopheles, who had insisted at
Faust's death that he would be consigned to "The Eternal Empty".
Goethe's Faust is a genuinely classical production, but the
idea is a historical idea, and hence every notable historical era will
have its own Faust.
Thomas Mann's 1947 Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde
adapts the Faust legend to a 20th century context, documenting the life
of fictional composer Adrian Leverkühn, as analog and embodiment of the
early 20th century history of Germany and of Europe. The talented
Leverkühn, after contracting venereal disease from a brothel visit,
forms a pact with a Mephistophelean character to grant him 24 years of
brilliance and success as a composer. He produces works of increasing
beauty to universal acclaim, even while physical illness begins to
corrupt his body. In 1930, when presenting his final masterwork (The Lamentation of Dr. Faust),
he confesses the pact he had made: Madness and syphilis now overcome
him, and he suffers a slow and total collapse until his death in 1940.
Leverkühn's spiritual, mental, and physical collapse and degradation are
mapped on to the period in which Nazism rose in Germany, and Leverkühn's fate is shown as that of the soul of Germany.
Faust and Marguerite, a short copyrighted by Edison Manufacturing Co. in 1900
Faust, an obscure (now lost) 1921 American silent film directed by Frederick A. Todd
Faust, a 14 minute-long 1922 British silent film directed by Challis Sanderson
Faust, a 1922 French silent film directed by Gérard Bourgeois, regarded as the first ever 3-D film
Murnau's Faust
F.W. Murnau, director of the classic Nosferatu, directed a silent version of Faust that premiered in 1926. Murnau's film featured special effects that were remarkable for the era.
In one scene, Mephisto towers over a town, dark wings spread wide, as a
fog rolls in bringing the plague. In another, an extended montage
sequence shows Faust, mounted behind Mephisto, riding through the
heavens, and the camera view, effectively swooping through quickly
changing panoramic backgrounds, courses past snowy mountains, high
promontories and cliffs, and waterfalls.
In the Murnau version of the tale, the aging bearded scholar and
alchemist is disillusioned by the palpable failure of his supposed cure
for a plague that has stricken his town. Faust renounces his many years
of hard travail and studies in alchemy. In his despair, he hauls all his
bound volumes by armloads onto a growing pyre, intending to burn them.
However, a wind turns over a few cabalistic leaves, and one of the
books' pages catches Faust's eye. Their words contain a prescription for
how to invoke the dreadful dark forces.
Faust heeds these recipes and begins enacting the mystic
protocols: On a hill, alone, summoning Mephisto, certain forces begin to
convene, and Faust in a state of growing trepidation hesitates, and
begins to withdraw; he flees along a winding, twisting pathway,
returning to his study chambers. At pauses along this retreat, though,
he meets a reappearing figure. Each time, it doffs its hat in a greeting
that is Mephisto confronting him. Mephisto overcomes Faust's reluctance
to sign a long binding pact with the invitation that Faust may try on
these powers, just for one day, and without obligation to longer terms.
Upon the end of that day, the sands of twenty-four hours having run out,
after Faust's having been restored to youth and, helped by his servant
Mephisto to steal a beautiful woman from her wedding feast, Faust is
tempted so much that he agrees to sign a pact for eternity (which is to
say when, in due course, his time runs out). Eventually Faust becomes
bored with the pursuit of pleasure and returns home, where he falls in
love with the beautiful and innocent Gretchen. His corruption (enabled,
or embodied, through the forms of Mephisto) ultimately ruins both their
lives, though there is still a chance for redemption in the end.
Similarities to Goethe's Faust include the classic tale of a man
who sold his soul to the Devil, the same Mephisto wagering with an angel
to corrupt the soul of Faust, the plague sent by Mephisto on Faust's
small town, and the familiar cliffhanger with Faust unable to find a
cure for the Plague, and therefore turning to Mephisto, renouncing God,
the angel, and science alike.
Directed by René Clair, 1950 – An adaptation in which Michel Simon plays a dual role as Mephistopheles and the older Faust, with Gérard Philipe playing Faust as transformed into a youthful form.
Directed by Brian DePalma,
1974 – A vain rock impresario, who has sold his soul to the Devil in
exchange for eternal youth, corrupts and destroys a brilliant but
unsuccessful songwriter and a beautiful ingenue.
Directed by Jan Švankmajer,
1994 – The source material of Švankmajer's film is the Faust legend;
including traditional Czech puppet show versions, this film production
uses a variety of cinematic formats, such as stop-motion photography
animation and claymation.
Directed by Philipp Humm, 2019 – a contemporary feature art film directly based on Goethe's Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two. The film is the first filmed version of Faust I and Faust II as well as a part of Humm's Gesamtkunstwerk, an art project with over 150 different artworks such as paintings, photos, sculptures, drawings and an illustrated novella.
Audio adaptations
The Christopher Marlowe play has been broadcast on radio many times, including:
On 29 June 1932, the BBC Regional Programme broadcast "A Tragical History of the Renaissance Arranged in ten Scenes for Broadcasting by Barbara Burnham", with Ion Swinley as Faustus and Robert Farquharson as Mephistophilis.
On 19 September 2021, a third BBC Radio 3 adaptation of the Marlowe play, adapted and directed by Emma Harding, was broadcast, with John Heffernan as both Faustus and Mephistopheles, Pearl Mackie as Wagner and Frances Tomelty as The Good Angel.
A five-part adaptation by Martin Jenkins dramatized by Jonathan Holloway was broadcast as part of BBC Radio 4's 15-Minute Theatre 18–22 February 2008. The cast included Julian Rhind-Tutt as Faustus, Mark Gatiss as Mephistopheles, Thom Tuck as Wagner, Jasmine Guy as Gretchen/Demon and Pippa Haywood as Martha.
"The Small Print" by English rock band Muse. From the album Absolution. Originally title Action Faust, it is an interpretation of the tale from the Devil's perspective.
"Urfaust", "The Calling", "The Oath", "Conjuring the Cull", and "The Harrowing" by American death metal band Misery Index. The first five tracks from the album The Killing Gods. A five-song, modern interpretation of Goethe's Faust.
Faust, a character in the 2023 video game Limbus Company created by South Korean studio Project Moon.
'The Wicked Trilogy', a set of three albums by German symphonic power metal band Avantasia, consisting of The Scarecrow, The Wicked Symphony, and Angel of Babylon; the trilogy is loosely based on the story of Faust
In psychotherapy
Psychodynamic therapy uses the idea of a Faustian bargain to explain defence mechanisms,
usually rooted in childhood, that sacrifice elements of the self in
favor of some form of psychological survival. For the neurotic,
abandoning one's genuine feeling self in favour of a false self more amenable to caretakers may offer a viable form of life, but at the expense of one's true emotions and affects.
For the psychotic, a Faustian bargain with an omnipotent-self can offer the imaginary refuge of a psychic retreat at the price of living in unreality.
In some versions of the myth, he is also credited with the creation of humanity from clay. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and for being a champion of mankind and is also generally seen as the author of the human arts and sciences. He is sometimes presented as the father of Deucalion, the hero of the flood story.
The punishment of Prometheus for stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to humans is a subject of both ancient and modern culture. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods,
condemned Prometheus to eternal torment for his transgression.
Prometheus was bound to a rock, and an eagle—the emblem of Zeus—was sent
to eat his liver (in ancient Greece, the liver was thought to be the
seat of human emotions). His liver would then grow back
overnight, only to be eaten again the next day in an ongoing cycle.
According to several major versions of the myth, most notably that of Hesiod, Prometheus was eventually freed by the heroHeracles. In yet more symbolism, the struggle of Prometheus is located by some at Mount Elbrus or at Mount Kazbek, two volcanic promontories in the Caucasus Mountains beyond which for the ancient Greeks lay the realm of the barbari.
In another myth, Prometheus establishes the form of animal sacrifice practiced in ancient Greek religion. Evidence of a cult to Prometheus himself is not widespread. He was a focus of religious activity mainly at Athens, where he was linked to Athena and Hephaestus, who were the Greek deities of creative skills and technology.
In the Westernclassical tradition,
Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving (particularly
the quest for scientific knowledge) and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded in the Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy: Mary Shelley, for instance, gave The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein (1818).
Etymology
The etymology of the theonymprometheus is debated. The usual view is that it signifies "forethought", as that of his brother Epimetheus denotes "afterthought". Hesychius of Alexandria gives Prometheus the variant name of Ithas, and adds "whom others call Ithax", and describes him as the Herald of the Titans. Kerényi
remarks that these names are "not transparent", and may be different
readings of the same name, while the name "Prometheus" is descriptive.
It has also been theorised that it derives from the Proto-Indo-European root that also produces the Vedicpra math, "to steal", hence pramathyu-s, "thief", cognate with "Prometheus", the thief of fire. The Vedic myth of fire's theft by Mātariśvan is an analogue to the Greek account. Pramant was the fire-drill, the tool used to create fire. The suggestion that Prometheus was in origin the human "inventor of the fire-sticks, from which fire is kindled" goes back to Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC. The reference is again to the "fire-drill", a worldwide primitive method of fire making using a vertical and a horizontal piece of wood to produce fire by friction.
Myths and legends
Possible sources
The Torture of Prometheus, painting by Salvator Rosa (1646–1648)
The oldest record of Prometheus is in Hesiod, but stories of theft of fire by a trickster figure are widespread around the world. Some other aspects of the story resemble the Sumerian myth of Enki
(or Ea in later Babylonian mythology), who was also a bringer of
civilization who protected humanity against the other gods, including
during the great flood,
as well as created man from clay. While the theory lost favour in the
20th century that Prometheus descends from the Vedic fire bringer Mātariśvan, it was suggested in the 19th century and is still supported by some.
The first recorded account of the Prometheus myth appeared in the late 8th-century BC Greek epic poet Hesiod's Theogony (507–616). In that account, Prometheus was a son of the TitanIapetus by Clymene or Asia, one of the Oceanids. He was brother to Menoetius, Atlas, and Epimetheus. Hesiod, in Theogony, introduces Prometheus as a lowly challenger to Zeus's omniscience and omnipotence.
In the trick at Mecone (535–544),
a sacrificial meal marking the "settling of accounts" between mortals
and immortals, Prometheus played a trick against Zeus. He placed two sacrificial
offerings before the Olympian: a selection of beef hidden inside an
ox's stomach (nourishment hidden inside a displeasing exterior), and the
bull's bones wrapped completely in "glistening fat" (something inedible
hidden inside a pleasing exterior). Zeus chose the latter, setting a
precedent for future sacrifices (556–557).
Henceforth, humans would keep that meat for themselves and burn the
bones wrapped in fat as an offering to the gods. This angered Zeus, who
hid fire from humans in retribution. In this version of the myth, the
use of fire was already known to humans, but withdrawn by Zeus.
Prometheus stole fire back from Zeus in a fennel stalk and restored it to humanity (565–566). This further enraged Zeus, who sent the first woman to live with humanity (Pandora, not explicitly mentioned). The woman, a "shy maiden", was fashioned by Hephaestus out of clay and Athena helped to adorn her properly (571–574).
Hesiod writes, "From her is the race of women and female kind: of her
is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to
their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth" (590–594).
For his crimes, Prometheus was punished by Zeus, who bound him with
chains and sent an eagle to eat Prometheus' immortal liver every day,
which then grew back every night. Years later, the Greek hero Heracles, with Zeus' permission, killed the eagle and freed Prometheus from this torment (521–529).
Prometheus Brings Fire by Heinrich Friedrich Füger. Prometheus brings fire to mankind as told by Hesiod, with its having been hidden as revenge for the trick at Mecone.
Works and Days
Hesiod revisits the story of Prometheus and the theft of fire in Works and Days (42–105).
In it the poet expands upon Zeus's reaction to Prometheus' deception.
Not only does Zeus withhold fire from humanity, but "the means of life"
as well (42).
Had Prometheus not provoked Zeus's wrath, "you would easily do work
enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon
would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by
ox and sturdy mule would run to waste" (44–47).
Hesiod also adds more information to Theogony's story of the first woman, a maiden crafted from earth and water by Hephaestus now explicitly called Pandora ("all gifts") (82). Zeus in this case gets the help of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, the Graces and the Hours (59–76).
After Prometheus steals the fire, Zeus sends Pandora in retaliation.
Despite Prometheus' warning, Epimetheus accepts this "gift" from the
gods (89). Pandora carried a jar with her from which were released mischief and sorrow, plague and diseases (94–100).
Pandora shuts the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil
plights that escaped, but Hope is left trapped in the jar because Zeus
forces Pandora to seal it up before Hope can escape (96–99).
Interpretation
Casanova (1979), finds in Prometheus a reflection of an ancient, pre-Hesiodic trickster-figure,
who served to account for the mixture of good and bad in human life,
and whose fashioning of humanity from clay was an Eastern motif familiar
in Enuma Elish. As an opponent of Zeus, the titan Prometheus can be seen as characteristic of the titans
in general, and like other titans, was punished for his opposition. As
an advocate for humanity he gains semi-divine status at Athens, where
the episode in Theogony in which he is liberated is interpreted by Casanova as a post-Hesiodic interpolation.
According to the German classicist Karl-Martin Dietz,
in Hesiod's scriptures, Prometheus represents the "descent of mankind
from the communion with the gods into the present troublesome life".
The Lost Titanomachy
Release of Prometheus, 1864 oil on canvas by Carl Bloch, considered lost until 2022.
The Titanomachy
is a lost epic of the cosmological struggle between the Greek gods and
their parents, the Titans, and, in addition to the works of Hesiod, is a probable source of the Prometheus myth. Its reputed author was anciently supposed to have lived in the 8th century BC, but M. L. West has argued that it can't be earlier than the late 7th century BC.
Presumably included in the Titanomachy is the story of Prometheus,
himself a Titan, who managed to avoid being in the direct
confrontational cosmic battle between Zeus and the other Olympians against Cronus and the other Titans (although there is no direct evidence of Prometheus' inclusion in the epic).
M. L. West notes that surviving references suggest that there may have
been significant differences between the Titanomachy epic and the
account of events in Hesiod; and that the Titanomachy may be the source
of later variants of the Prometheus myth not found in Hesiod, notably
the non-Hesiodic material found in the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus.
Athenian tradition
The
two major authors to have an influence on the development of the myths
and legends surrounding the Titan Prometheus during the Socratic era of
greater Athens were Aeschylus and Plato.
The two men wrote in highly distinctive forms of expression which for
Aeschylus centered on his mastery of the literary form of Greek tragedy,
while for Plato this centered on the philosophical expression of his
thought in the form of the various dialogues he wrote during his
lifetime.
Aeschylus and the ancient literary tradition
Prometheus Bound, perhaps the most famous treatment of the myth to be found among the Greek tragedies, is traditionally attributed to the 5th-century BC Greek tragedian Aeschylus. At the centre of the drama are the results of Prometheus' theft of fire and his current punishment by Zeus. The playwright's dependence on the Hesiodic source material is clear, though Prometheus Bound also includes a number of changes to the received tradition. It has been suggested by M.L. West that these changes may derive from the now lost epic Titanomachy.
Before his theft of fire, Prometheus played a decisive role in the Titanomachy,
securing victory for Zeus and the other Olympians. Zeus' torture of
Prometheus thus becomes a particularly harsh betrayal. The scope and
character of Prometheus' transgressions against Zeus are also widened.
In addition to giving humanity fire, Prometheus claims to have taught
them the arts of civilisation, such as writing, mathematics,
agriculture, medicine, and science. The Titan's greatest benefaction for
humanity seems to have been saving them from complete destruction. In
an apparent twist on the myth of the so-called Five Ages of Man found in Hesiod's Works and Days
(wherein Cronus and, later, Zeus created and destroyed five successive
races of humanity), Prometheus asserts that Zeus had wanted to
obliterate the human race, but that he somehow stopped him.
Heracles freeing Prometheus from his torment by the eagle (Atticblack-figure cup, c. 500 BC)
Moreover, Aeschylus anachronistically and artificially injects Io,
another victim of Zeus's violence and ancestor of Heracles, into
Prometheus' story. Finally, just as Aeschylus gave Prometheus a key role
in bringing Zeus to power, he also attributed to him secret knowledge
that could lead to Zeus's downfall: Prometheus had been told by his
mother Themis, who in the play is identified with Gaia
(Earth), of a potential marriage that would produce a son who would
overthrow Zeus. Fragmentary evidence indicates that Heracles, as in
Hesiod, frees the Titan in the trilogy's second play, Prometheus Unbound.
It is apparently not until Prometheus reveals this secret of Zeus's
potential downfall that the two reconcile in the final play, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer or Prometheus Pyrphoros, a lost tragedy by Aeschylus.
Prometheus Bound also includes two mythic innovations of omission. The first is the absence of Pandora's
story in connection with Prometheus' own. Instead, Aeschylus includes
this one oblique allusion to Pandora and her jar that contained Hope
(252): "[Prometheus] caused blind hopes to live in the hearts of men."
Second, Aeschylus makes no mention of the sacrifice-trick played against
Zeus in the Theogony. The four tragedies of Prometheus attributed to Aeschylus, most of which are lost to the passages of time into antiquity, are Prometheus Bound (Prometheus Desmotes), Prometheus Unbound (Lyomenos), Prometheus the Fire Bringer (Pyrphoros), and Prometheus the Fire Kindler (Pyrkaeus).
The larger scope of Aeschylus as a dramatist revisiting the myth
of Prometheus in the age of Athenian prominence has been discussed by
William Lynch.
Lynch's general thesis concerns the rise of humanist and secular
tendencies in Athenian culture and society which required the growth and
expansion of the mythological and religious tradition as acquired from
the most ancient sources of the myth stemming from Hesiod. For Lynch,
modern scholarship is hampered by not having the full trilogy of
Prometheus by Aeschylus, the last two parts of which have been lost to
antiquity. Significantly, Lynch further comments that although the
Prometheus trilogy is not available, the Orestia trilogy by
Aeschylus remains available and may be assumed to provide significant
insight into the overall structural intentions which may be ascribed to
the Prometheus trilogy by Aeschylus as an author of significant
consistency and exemplary dramatic erudition.
Harold Bloom,
in his research guide for Aeschylus, has summarised some of the
critical attention that has been applied to Aeschylus concerning his
general philosophical import in Athens.
As Bloom states, "Much critical attention has been paid to the question
of theodicy in Aeschylus. For generations, scholars warred incessantly
over 'the justice of Zeus,' unintentionally blurring it with a
monotheism imported from Judeo-Christian thought. The playwright
undoubtedly had religious concerns; for instance, Jacqueline de Romilly
suggests that his treatment of time flows directly out of his belief in
divine justice. But it would be an error to think of Aeschylus as
sermonising. His Zeus does not arrive at decisions which he then enacts
in the mortal world; rather, human events are themselves an enactment of
divine will."
According to Thomas Rosenmeyer,
regarding the religious import of Aeschylus, "In Aeschylus, as in
Homer, the two levels of causation, the supernatural and the human, are
co-existent and simultaneous, two ways of describing the same event."
Rosenmeyer insists that ascribing portrayed characters in Aeschylus
should not conclude them to be either victims or agents of theological
or religious activity too quickly. As Rosenmeyer states: "[T]he text
defines their being. For a critic to construct an Aeschylean theology
would be as quixotic as designing a typology of Aeschylean man. The
needs of the drama prevail."
In a rare comparison of Prometheus in Aeschylus with Oedipus in Sophocles, Harold Bloom states that "Freud called Oedipus
an 'immoral play,' since the gods ordained incest and parricide.
Oedipus therefore participates in our universal unconscious sense of
guilt, but on this reading so do the gods" [...] "I sometimes wish that
Freud had turned to Aeschylus instead, and given us the Prometheus
complex rather than the Oedipus complex."
Karl-Martin Dietz
states that in contrast to Hesiod's, in Aeschylus' oeuvre, Prometheus
stands for the "Ascent of humanity from primitive beginnings to the
present level of civilisation."
Plato and philosophy
Olga Raggio, in her study "The Myth of Prometheus", attributes Plato in the Protagoras as an important contributor to the early development of the Prometheus myth.
Raggio indicates that many of the more challenging and dramatic
assertions which Aeschylean tragedy explores are absent from Plato's
writings about Prometheus.
As summarised by Raggio,
After
the gods have moulded men and other living creatures with a mixture of
clay and fire, the two brothers Epimetheus and Prometheus are called to
complete the task and distribute among the newly born creatures all
sorts of natural qualities. Epimetheus sets to work but, being unwise,
distributes all the gifts of nature among the animals, leaving men naked
and unprotected, unable to defend themselves and to survive in a
hostile world. Prometheus then steals the fire of creative power from
the workshop of Athena and Hephaistos and gives it to mankind.
Raggio then goes on to point out Plato's distinction of creative power (techne), which is presented as superior to merely natural instincts (physis).
For Plato, only the virtues of "reverence and justice can provide
for the maintenance of a civilised society – and these virtues are the
highest gift finally bestowed on men in equal measure". The ancients by way of Plato believed that the name Prometheus derived from the Greek prefixpro- (before) + manthano (intelligence) and the agent suffix -eus, thus meaning "Forethinker".
In his dialogue titled Protagoras, Plato contrasts Prometheus with his dull-witted brother Epimetheus, "Afterthinker". In Plato's dialogue Protagoras, Protagoras asserts that the gods created humans and all the other animals, but it was left to Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus
to give defining attributes to each. As no physical traits were left
when the pair came to humans, Prometheus decided to give them fire and
other civilising arts.
Athenian religious dedication and observance
It
is understandable that since Prometheus was considered a Titan
(distinct from an Olympian) that there would be an absence of evidence,
with the exception of Athens, for the direct religious devotion to his
worship. Despite his importance to the myths and imaginative literature
of ancient Greece, the religious cult of Prometheus during the Archaic and Classical periods seems to have been limited. Writing in the 2nd century AD, the satirist Lucian points out that while temples for the major Olympians were everywhere, none for Prometheus is to be seen.
Heracles freeing Prometheus, relief from the Temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias
Athens was the exception; here Prometheus was worshipped alongside Athena and Hephaestus. The altar of Prometheus in the grove of the Academy was the point of origin for several significant processions and other events regularly observed on the Athenian calendar. For the Panathenaic festival,
arguably the most important civic festival at Athens, a torch race
began at the altar, which was located outside the sacred boundary of the
city, and passed through the Kerameikos, the district inhabited by potters and other artisans who regarded Prometheus and Hephaestus as patrons. The race then travelled to the heart of the city, where it kindled the sacrificial fire on the altar of Athena on the Acropolis to conclude the festival. These footraces took the form of relays in which teams of runners passed off a flaming torch. According to Pausanias (2nd century AD), the torch relay, called lampadedromia or lampadephoria, was first instituted at Athens in honour of Prometheus.
By the Classical period, the races were run by ephebes also in honour of Hephaestus and Athena. Prometheus' association with fire is the key to his religious significance
and to the alignment with Athena and Hephaestus that was specific to
Athens and its "unique degree of cultic emphasis" on honouring technology. The festival of Prometheus was the Prometheia (τὰ Προμήθεια). The wreaths worn symbolised the chains of Prometheus.
There is a pattern of resemblances between Hephaestus and Prometheus.
Although the classical tradition is that Hephaestus split Zeus's head to
allow Athena's birth, that story has also been told of Prometheus. A
variant tradition makes Prometheus the son of Hera like Hephaestus. According to that version, the Giant Eurymedon
raped Hera when she was young, and she had Prometheus. After Zeus
married Hera, he threw Eurymedon into Tartarus and punished Prometheus
in Caucasus, using the theft of fire as an excuse. Ancient artists depict Prometheus wearing the pointed cap of an artist or artisan, like Hephaestus, and also the crafty hero Odysseus. The artisan's cap was also depicted as worn by the Cabeiri,
supernatural craftsmen associated with a mystery cult known in Athens
in classical times, and who were associated with both Hephaestus and
Prometheus. Kerényi suggests that Hephaestus may in fact be the "successor" of Prometheus, despite Hephaestus being himself of archaic origin.
Pausanias recorded a few other religious sites in Greece devoted to Prometheus. Both Argos and Opous claimed to be Prometheus' final resting place, each erecting a tomb in his honour. The Greek city of Panopeus had a cult statue that was supposed to honour Prometheus for having created the human race there.
Aesthetic tradition in Athenian art
Prometheus'
torment by the eagle and his rescue by Heracles were popular subjects
in vase paintings of the 6th to 4th centuries BC. He also sometimes
appears in depictions of Athena's birth from Zeus' forehead. There was a
relief sculpture of Prometheus with Pandora on the base of Athena's
cult statue in the Athenian Parthenon of the 5th century BC. A similar rendering is also found at the great altar of Zeus at Pergamon from the second century BC.
The event of the release of Prometheus from captivity was frequently revisited on Attic and Etruscan vases between the sixth and fifth centuries BC. In the depiction on display at the Museum of Karlsruhe and in Berlin,
the depiction is that of Prometheus confronted by a menacing large bird
(assumed to be the eagle) with Heracles approaching from behind
shooting his arrows at it.
In the fourth century this imagery was modified to depicting Prometheus
bound in a cruciform manner, possibly reflecting an Aeschylus-inspired
manner of influence, again with an eagle and with Heracles approaching
from the side.
Other authors
Creation of humanity by Prometheus as Athena looks on (Roman-era relief, 3rd century AD)Prometheus watches Athena endow his creation with reason (painting by Christian Griepenkerl, 1877).
Some two dozen other Greek and Roman authors retold and further
embellished the Prometheus myth from as early as the 5th century BC (Diodorus, Herodorus) into the 4th century AD. The most significant detail added to the myth found in, e.g., Sappho, Aesop and Ovid
was the central role of Prometheus in the creation of the human race.
According to these sources, Prometheus fashioned humans out of clay.
Although perhaps made explicit in the Prometheia, later authors such as Hyginus, the Bibliotheca, and Quintus of Smyrna would confirm that Prometheus warned Zeus not to marry the sea nymph Thetis. She is consequently married off to the mortal Peleus, and bears him a son greater than the father – Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. Pseudo-Apollodorus moreover clarifies a cryptic statement (1026–29) made by Hermes in Prometheus Bound, identifying the centaur Chiron as the one who would take on Prometheus' suffering and die in his place.
Reflecting a myth attested in Greek vase paintings from the Classical
period, Pseudo-Apollodorus places the Titan (armed with an axe) at the
birth of Athena, thus explaining how the goddess sprang forth from the forehead of Zeus.
Other minor details attached to the myth include: the duration of Prometheus' torment; the origin of the eagle that ate the Titan's liver (found in
Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus); Pandora's marriage to Epimetheus (found
in Pseudo-Apollodorus); myths surrounding the life of Prometheus' son, Deucalion (found in Ovid and Apollonius of Rhodes); and Prometheus' marginal role in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (found in Apollonius of Rhodes and Valerius Flaccus).
"Variants of legends containing the Prometheus motif are widespread in the Caucasus" region, reports Hunt, who gave ten stories related to Prometheus from ethno-linguistic groups in the region.
Prometheus finally makes an appearance in Athenian playwright Aristophanes's comedy The Birds, where he is seen living on Mount Olympus
after the end of his long torture, apparently having reconciled with
the other gods. He is presented not as the dauntless rebel who
questioned Zeus, but rather as a timid god who goes to negotiate with
the titular Birds disguised, so that Zeus will not notice him talking to
the enemy.
Zahhak, an evil figure in Iranian mythology, also ends up eternally chained on a mountainside – though the rest of his career is dissimilar to that of Prometheus.
Late Roman antiquity
The three most prominent aspects of the Prometheus myth have parallels within the beliefs of many cultures. "The Prometheus myth of creation as a visual symbol of the Neoplatonic concept of human nature, illustrated in (many) sarcophagi, was evidently a contradiction of the Christian teaching of the unique and simultaneous act of creation by the Trinity." This Neoplatonism of late Roman antiquity was especially stressed by Tertullian who recognised both difference and similarity of the biblical deity with the mythological figure of Prometheus.
The imagery of Prometheus and the creation of man used for the purposes of the representation of the creation of Adam
in biblical symbolism is also a recurrent theme in the artistic
expression of late Roman antiquity. Of the relatively rare expressions
found of the creation of Adam in those centuries of late Roman
antiquity, one can single out the so-called "Dogma sarcophagus" of the Lateran Museum
where three figures (commonly taken to represent the theological
trinity) are seen in making a benediction to the new man. Another
example is found where the prototype of Prometheus is also recognisable
in the early Christian era of late Roman antiquity. This can be found
upon a sarcophagus of the Church at Mas d'Aire as well, and in an even more direct comparison to what Raggio refers to as "a coarsely carved relief from Campli (Teramo)
(where) the Lord sits on a throne and models the body of Adam, exactly
like Prometheus". Still another such similarity is found in the example
found on a Hellenistic relief presently in the Louvre in which the Lord gives life to Eve
through the imposition of his two fingers on her eyes recalling the
same gesture found in earlier representations of Prometheus.
In Georgian mythology, Amirani
is a cultural hero who challenged the chief god and, like Prometheus,
was chained on the Caucasian mountains where birds would eat his organs.
This aspect of the myth had a significant influence on the Greek
imagination. It is recognisable from a Greek gem roughly dated to the
time of the Hesiod poems, which show Prometheus with hands bound behind
his body and crouching before a bird with long wings. This same image would also be used later in the Rome of the Augustan age as documented by Furtwangler.
In the often cited and highly publicised interview between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers on Public Television, the author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces presented his view on the comparison of Prometheus and Jesus.
Moyers asked Campbell the question in the following words, "In this
sense, unlike heroes such as Prometheus or Jesus, we're not going on our
journey to save the world but to save ourselves." To which Campbell's
well-known response was that, "But in doing that, you save the world.
The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there's no doubt about it.
The world without spirit is a wasteland. People have the notion of
saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules [...] No,
no! Any world is a valid world if it's alive. The thing to do is to
bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own
case where the life is and become alive yourself." For Campbell, Jesus
suffered mortally on the Cross while Prometheus suffered eternally while
chained to a rock, and each of them received punishment for the gift
which they bestowed to humankind, for Jesus this was the gift of
propitiation from Heaven, and, for Prometheus this was the gift of fire
from Olympus.
Significantly, Campbell is also clear to indicate the limits of applying the metaphors of his methodology in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces
too closely in assessing the comparison of Prometheus and Jesus. Of the
four symbols of suffering associated with Jesus after his trial in
Jerusalem (i) the crown of thorns, (ii) the scourge of whips, (iii) the
nailing to the Cross, and (iv) the spearing of his side, it is only this
last one which bears some resemblance to the eternal suffering of
Prometheus' daily torment of an eagle devouring a replenishing organ,
his liver, from his side.
For Campbell, the striking contrast between the New Testament
narratives and the Greek mythological narratives remains at the limiting
level of the cataclysmic eternal struggle of the eschatological New
Testament narratives occurring only at the very end of the biblical
narratives in the Apocalypse of John (12:7) where, "Michael and
his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought
back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them
in heaven." This eschatological and apocalyptic setting of a Last
Judgement is in precise contrast to the Titanomachia of Hesiod which serves its distinct service to Greek mythology as its Prolegomenon,
bracketing all subsequent mythology, including the creation of
humanity, as coming after the cosmological struggle between the Titans
and the Olympian gods.
It remains a continuing debate among scholars of comparative religion and the literary reception
of mythological and religious subject matter as to whether the typology
of suffering and torment represented in the Prometheus myth finds its
more representative comparisons with the narratives of the Hebrew
scriptures or with the New Testament narratives. In the Book of Job,
significant comparisons can be drawn between the sustained suffering of
Job in comparison to that of eternal suffering and torment represented
in the Prometheus myth. With Job, the suffering is at the acquiescence
of heaven and at the will of the demonic, while in Prometheus the
suffering is directly linked to Zeus as the ruler of Olympus. The
comparison of the suffering of Jesus after his sentencing in Jerusalem
is limited to the three days, from Thursday to Saturday, and leading to
the culminating narratives corresponding to Easter Sunday.
The symbolic import for comparative religion would maintain that
suffering related to justified conduct is redeemed in both the Hebrew
scriptures and the New Testament narratives, while in Prometheus there
remains the image of a non-forgiving deity, Zeus, who nonetheless
requires reverence.
Writing in late antiquity of the fourth and fifth century, the Latin commentator Marcus Servius Honoratus explained that Prometheus was so named because he was a man of great foresight (vir prudentissimus), possessing the abstract quality of providentia, the Latin equivalent of Greek promētheia (ἀπὸ τής πρόμηθείας). Anecdotally, the Roman fabulistPhaedrus (c. 15 BC – c. 50 AD) attributes to Aesop a simple etiology for homosexuality, in Prometheus' getting drunk while creating the first humans and misapplying the genitalia.
Middle Ages
Perhaps the most influential book of the Middle Ages upon the reception of the Prometheus myth was the mythological handbook of Fulgentius Placiades. As stated by Raggio,
"The text of Fulgentius, as well as that of (Marcus) Servius [...] are
the main sources of the mythological handbooks written in the ninth
century by the anonymous Mythographus Primus and Mythographus Secundus. Both were used for the more lengthy and elaborate compendium by the English scholar Alexander Neckman (1157–1217), the Scintillarium Poetarum, or Poetarius."
The purpose of his books was to distinguish allegorical interpretation
from the historical interpretation of the Prometheus myth. Continuing in
this same tradition of the allegorical interpretation of the Prometheus
myth, along with the historical interpretation of the Middle Ages, is
the Genealogiae of Giovanni Boccaccio.
Boccaccio follows these two levels of interpretation and distinguishes
between two separate versions of the Prometheus myth. For Boccaccio,
Prometheus is placed "In the heavens where all is clarity and truth,
[Prometheus] steals, so to speak, a ray of the divine wisdom from God
himself, source of all Science, supreme Light of every man."
With this, Boccaccio shows himself moving from the mediaeval sources
with a shift of accent towards the attitude of the Renaissance
humanists.
Using a similar interpretation to that of Boccaccio, Marsilio Ficino in the fifteenth century updated the philosophical and more sombre reception of the Prometheus myth not seen since the time of Plotinus. In his book written in 1476–77 titled Quaestiones Quinque de Mente,
Ficino indicates his preference for reading the Prometheus myth as an
image of the human soul seeking to obtain supreme truth. As Raggio
summarises Ficino's text, "The torture of Prometheus is the torment
brought by reason itself to man, who is made by it many times more
unhappy than the brutes. It is after having stolen one beam of the
celestial light [...] that the soul feels as if fastened by chains and
[...] only death can release her bonds and carry her to the source of
all knowledge." This sombreness of attitude in Ficino's text would be further developed later by Charles de Bouelles' Liber de Sapiente of 1509 which presented a mix of both scholastic and Neoplatonic ideas.
Renaissance
Mythological narrative of Prometheus by Piero di Cosimo (1515)
After the writings of both Boccaccio and Ficino in the late Middle
Ages about Prometheus, interest in the Titan shifted considerably in the
direction of becoming subject matter for painters and sculptors alike.
Among the most famous examples is that of Piero di Cosimo from about 1510 presently on display at the museums of Munich and Strasburg (see Inset). Raggio summarises the Munich version
as follows; "The Munich panel represents the dispute between Epimetheus
and Prometheus, the handsome triumphant statue of the new man, modelled
by Prometheus, his ascension to the sky under the guidance of Minerva;
the Strasburg panel shows in the distance Prometheus lighting his torch
at the wheels of the Sun, and in the foreground on one side, Prometheus
applying his torch to the heart of the statue and, on the other, Mercury fastening him to a tree." All the details are evidently borrowed from Boccaccio's Genealogiae.
The same reference to the Genealogiae can be cited as the source for the drawing by Parmigianino presently located in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. In the drawing, a very noble rendering of Prometheus is presented which evokes the memory of Michelangelo's works portraying Jehovah.
This drawing is perhaps one of the most intense examples of the
visualisation of the myth of Prometheus from the Renaissance period.
Writing in the late British Renaissance, William Shakespeare uses the Promethean allusion in the famous death scene of Desdemona in his tragedy of Othello.
Othello in contemplating the death of Desdemona asserts plainly that he
cannot restore the "Promethean heat" to her body once it has been
extinguished. For Shakespeare, the allusion is clearly to the
interpretation of the fire from the heat as the bestowing of life to the
creation of man from clay by Prometheus after it was stolen from
Olympus. The analogy bears direct resemblance to the biblical narrative
of the creation of life in Adam through the bestowed breathing of the
creator in Genesis. Shakespeare's symbolic reference to the "heat"
associated with Prometheus' fire is to the association of the gift of
fire to the mythological gift or theological gift of life to humans.
The myth of Prometheus has been a favourite theme of Western art and literature in the post-renaissance and post-Enlightenment tradition and, occasionally, in works produced outside the West.
Post-Renaissance literary arts
For the Romantic era,
Prometheus was the rebel who resisted all forms of institutional
tyranny epitomised by Zeus – church, monarch, and patriarch. The
Romantics drew comparisons between Prometheus and the spirit of the French Revolution, Christ, the Satan of John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the divinely inspired poet or artist. Prometheus is the lyrical "I" who speaks in Goethe's Sturm und Drang poem "Prometheus" (written c. 1772–74, published 1789), addressing God (as Zeus) in misotheist accusation and defiance. In Prometheus Unbound (1820), a four-act lyrical drama, Percy Bysshe Shelley rewrites the lost play of Aeschylus so that Prometheus does not submit to Zeus (under the Latin name Jupiter), but instead supplants him in a triumph of the human heart and intellect over tyrannical religion. Lord Byron's
poem "Prometheus" also portrays the Titan as unrepentant. As documented
by Raggio, other leading figures among the great Romantics included
Byron, Longfellow and Nietzsche as well. Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein
is subtitled "The Modern Prometheus", in reference to the novel's
themes of the over-reaching of modern humanity into dangerous areas of
knowledge.
Goethe's poems
Prometheus is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in which a character based on the mythic Prometheus addresses God (as Zeus) in a romantic and misotheist
tone of accusation and defiance. The poem was written between 1772 and
1774. It was first published fifteen years later in 1789. It is an
important work as it represents one of the first encounters of the
Prometheus myth with the literary Romantic movement identified with
Goethe and with the Sturm und Drang movement.
The poem has appeared in Volume 6 of Goethe's poems (in his Collected Works) in a section of Vermischte Gedichte (assorted poems), shortly following the Harzreise im Winter. It is immediately followed by "Ganymed", and the two poems are written as informing each other according to Goethe's plan in their actual writing. Prometheus
(1774) was originally planned as a drama but never completed by Goethe,
though the poem is inspired by it. Prometheus is the creative and
rebellious spirit rejected by God and who angrily defies him and asserts
himself. Ganymede,
by direct contrast, is the boyish self who is both adored and seduced
by God. As a high Romantic poet and a humanist poet, Goethe presents
both identities as contrasting aspects of the Romantic human condition.
The poem offers direct biblical connotations for the Prometheus
myth which was unseen in any of the ancient Greek poets dealing with the
Prometheus myth in either drama, tragedy, or philosophy. The
intentional use of the German phrase "Da ich ein Kind war..." ("When I was a child"): the use of Da is distinctive, and with it Goethe directly applies the Lutheran translation of Saint Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, 13:11: "Da ich ein Kind war, da redete ich wie ein Kind..."
("When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish
things"). Goethe's Prometheus is significant for the contrast it evokes
with the biblical text of Corinthians rather than for its similarities.
In his book titled Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence, C. Kerényi states the key contrast between Goethe's version of Prometheus with the ancient Greek version.
As Kerényi states, "Goethe's Prometheus had Zeus for father and a
goddess for mother. With this change from the traditional lineage the
poet distinguished his hero from the race of the Titans." For Goethe,
the metaphorical comparison of Prometheus to the image of the Son from
the New Testament narratives was of central importance, with the figure
of Zeus in Goethe's reading being metaphorically matched directly to the
image of the Father from the New Testament narratives.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Shelley published his four-act lyrical drama titled Prometheus Unbound
in 1820. His version was written in response to the version of myth as
presented by Aeschylus and is orientated to the high British Idealism
and high British Romanticism prevailing in Shelley's own time. Shelley,
as the author himself discusses, admits the debt of his version of the
myth to Aeschylus
and the Greek poetic tradition which he assumes is familiar to readers
of his own lyrical drama. For example, it is necessary to understand and
have knowledge of the reason for Prometheus' punishment if the reader
is to form an understanding of whether the exoneration portrayed by
Shelley in his version of the Prometheus myth is justified or
unjustified. The quote of Shelley's own words describing the extent of
his indebtedness to Aeschylus has been published in numerous sources
publicly available.
The literary critic Harold Bloom in his book Shelley's Mythmaking
expresses his high expectation of Shelley in the tradition of
mythopoeic poetry. For Bloom, Percy Shelley's relationship to the
tradition of mythology in poetry "culminates in 'Prometheus'. The poem
provides a complete statement of Shelley's vision." Bloom devotes two full chapters in this 1959 book to Shelley's lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound.
Following his 1959 book, Bloom edited an anthology of critical opinions
on Shelley for Chelsea House Publishers where he concisely stated his
opinion as, "Shelley is the unacknowledged ancestor of Wallace Stevens' conception of poetry as the Supreme Fiction, and Prometheus Unbound is the most capable imagining, outside of Blake and Wordsworth, that the Romantic quest for a Supreme Fiction has achieved."
Within the pages of his Introduction to the Chelsea House edition
on Percy Shelley, Bloom also identifies the six major schools of
criticism opposing Shelley's idealised mythologising version of the
Prometheus myth. In sequence, the opposing schools to Shelley are given
as: (i) The school of "common sense", (ii) The Christian orthodox, (iii)
The school of "wit", (iv) Moralists, of most varieties, (v) The school
of "classic" form, and (vi) The Precisionists, or concretists.
Although Bloom is least interested in the first two schools, the second
one on the Christian orthodox has special bearing on the reception of
the Prometheus myth during late Roman antiquity and the synthesis of the
New Testament canon. The Greek origins of the Prometheus myth have
already discussed the Titanomachia as placing the cosmic struggle
of Olympus at some point in time preceding the creation of humanity,
while in the New Testament synthesis there was a strong assimilation of
the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew prophets and their strongly
eschatological orientation. This contrast placed a strong emphasis
within the ancient Greek consciousness as to the moral and ontological
acceptance of the mythology of the Titanomachia as an
accomplished mythological history, whereas for the synthesis of the New
Testament narratives this placed religious consciousness within the
community at the level of an anticipated eschaton not yet
accomplished. Neither of these would guide Percy Shelley in his poetic
retelling and re-integration of the Prometheus myth.
To the Socratic Greeks, one important aspect of the discussion of
religion would correspond to the philosophical discussion of 'becoming'
with respect to the New Testament syncretism rather than the ontological discussion of 'being' which was more prominent in the ancient Greek experience of mythologically oriented cult and religion.
For Shelley, both of these reading were to be substantially discounted
in preference to his own concerns for promoting his own version of an
idealised consciousness of a society guided by the precepts of High British Romanticism and High British Idealism.
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley when she was 18, was published in 1818, two years before Percy Shelley's above-mentioned play.
It has endured as one of the most frequently revisited literary themes
in twentieth century film and popular reception with few rivals for its
sheer popularity among even established literary works of art. The
primary theme is a parallel to the aspect of the Prometheus myth which
concentrates on the creation of man by the Titans, transferred and made
contemporary by Shelley for British audiences of her time. The subject
is that of the creation of life by a scientist, thus bestowing life
through the application and technology of medical science rather than by
the natural acts of reproduction. The short novel has been adapted into
many films and productions ranging from the early versions with Boris Karloff to later versions including Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film adaptation.
Franz Kafka wrote a short piece titled "Prometheus", outlining what he saw as his perspective on four aspects of this myth:
According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the
Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent
eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.
According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the
tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he
became one with it.
According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course
of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by
himself.
According to the fourth, everyone grew weary of the meaningless
affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed
wearily.
There remains the inexplicable mass of rock. The legend tried to explain
the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in
turn to end in the inexplicable.
This short piece by Kafka concerning his interest in Prometheus was
supplemented by two other mythological pieces written by him. As stated
by Reiner Stach, "Kafka's world was mythical in nature, with Old Testament
and Jewish legends providing the templates. It was only logical (even
if Kafka did not state it openly) that he would try his hand at the
canon of antiquity, re-interpreting it and incorporating it into his own
imagination in the form of allusions, as in 'The Silence of the
Sirens,' 'Prometheus,' and 'Poseidon.'" Among 20th century poets, Ted Hughes wrote a 1973 collection of poems titled Prometheus on His Crag. The Nepali poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota (d. 1949) also wrote an epic titled Prometheus (प्रमीथस).
In his 1952 book, Lucifer and Prometheus, Zvi Werblowsky presented the speculatively derived Jungian construction of the character of Satan in Milton's celebrated poem Paradise Lost.
Werblowsky applied his own Jungian style of interpretation to
appropriate parts of the Prometheus myth for the purpose of interpreting
Milton. A reprint of his book in the 1990s by Routledge Press included
an introduction to the book by Carl Jung. Some Gnostics have been associated with identifying the theft of fire from heaven as embodied by the fall of Lucifer "the Light Bearer".
Ayn Rand cited the Prometheus myth in Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, using the mythological character as a metaphor for creative people rebelling against the confines of modern society in The Fountainhead and for the punishment given to "Men of Production" for their productivity and ability in Atlas Shrugged.
The Eulenspiegel Society began the magazine Prometheus in the early 1970s; it is a decades-long-running magazine exploring issues important to kinksters,
ranging from art and erotica, to advice columns and personal ads, to
conversation about the philosophy of consensual kink. The magazine now
exists online.
The artificial chemical element promethium is named after Prometheus.
Works of classical music, opera, and ballet
directly or indirectly inspired by the myth of Prometheus have included
renderings by some of the major composers of both the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. In this tradition, the orchestral representation of
the myth has received the most sustained attention of composers. These
have included the symphonic poem by Franz Liszt titled Prometheus from 1850, among his other Symphonic Poems (No. 5, S.99). Alexander Scriabin composed Prometheus: Poem of Fire, Opus 60 (1910), also for orchestra. In the same year Gabriel Fauré composed his three-act opera Prométhée (1910). Charles-Valentin Alkan composed his Grande sonate 'Les quatre âges' (1847), with the 4th movement entitled "Prométhée enchaîné" (Prometheus Bound). Beethoven composed the score to a ballet version of the myth titled The Creatures of Prometheus (1801).
An adaptation of Goethe's poetic version of the myth was composed by Hugo Wolf, Prometheus (Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus, 1889), as part of his Goethe-lieder for voice and piano, later transcribed for orchestra and voice. An opera of the myth was composed by Carl Orff titled Prometheus (1968), using Aeschylus' Greek language Prometheia. A tradition has of course grown among critics of finding allusions to Prometheus Bound in Richard Wagner's Ring cycle.
Rudolf Wagner-Régeny composed the Prometheus (opera) in 1959. Another work inspired by the myth, Prometeo (Prometheus), was composed by Luigi Nono between 1981 and 1984 and can be considered a sequence of nine cantatas. The libretto in Italian was written by Massimo Cacciari, and selects from texts by such varied authors as Aeschylus, Walter Benjamin and Rainer Maria Rilke and presents the different versions of the myth of Prometheus without telling any version literally.
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