Prometheus
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals for their use. His myth has been treated by a number of ancient sources, in which Prometheus is credited with (or blamed for) playing a pivotal role in the early history of humankind.
Prometheus, in eternal punishment, is chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where his liver is eaten out daily by an eagle or vulture,or in some cases, a crow only to be regenerated by night. Years later, periods of which vary from thirty years, to four hundred thousand years, to 3 million years, the Greek hero Heracles (Hercules) would shoot the vulture and free Prometheus from his chains.
Other figures in Greek mythology punished by the gods include:
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Classical tradition
The myth of Prometheus has been a favorite theme of Western art and literature in the classical tradition, and occasionally in works produced outside the West.
Literature
For the Romantic era, Prometheus was the rebel who resisted all forms of institutional tyranny epitomized 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 ca. 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. Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein is subtitled "The Modern Prometheus", in reference to the novel's themes of the over-reaching of modern man into dangerous areas of knowledge.
Franz Kafka (d. 1924) wrote a short piece on Prometheus, outlining what he saw as the four aspects of his 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. (Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir)
The British poet Ted Hughes titled a 1973 collection of poems Prometheus On His Crag. The Nepali poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota (d. 1949) wrote an epic entitled Prometheus (प्रमीथस).
Classical music, opera, and ballet
Works of classical music, opera, and ballet based on the myth of Prometheus include:
- Beethoven, The Creatures of Prometheus (1801), ballet.
- Franz Liszt, Prometheus (1850), Symphonic Poem No. 5 (S.99).
- Hugo Wolf, Prometheus (Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus, 1889), part of his Goethe-lieder for voice and piano, later arranged for orchestra and voice.
- Alexander Scriabin, Prometheus: Poem of Fire, Opus 60 (1910), for orchestra.
- Gabriel Fauré, Prométhée (1910)
- Carl Orff, Prometheus (1968), opera using Aeschylus' original Greek Prometheia.
In painting
See also
- Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan
- Amirani, a name of a culture hero of a Georgian Epic who resembles the Classical Prometheus.
- Prometheism, a political project in Poland named for Prometheus.
- Prometheus the Fire-Bringer or Prometheus Pyrphoros, a lost tragedy by Aeschylus.
![[1]](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piero_di_cosimo,_prometeo.jpg){kind=link}