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Literary References to Prometheus

Prometheus has inspired writers through the ages as a symbol of brave resistance to authoritarian injustice. 

Aeschylus’s Greek tragedy, Prometheus Bound, dramatised the struggle between Zeus’ tyrannical power and Prometheus’ immoveable will. 

Prometheus was particularly celebrated in the Romantic period.  Byron wrote the poem ‘Prometheus’ in 1816, and Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the revolutionary Prometheus Unbound (1820) in response to Aeschylus.  It was a closet play (i.e. one intended to be read, not performed) about tyranny and defiance.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is subtitled: ‘Or the Modern Prometheus’.   Note that whereas Prometheus created man in a godlike image and was punished for trying to help his creation, Frankenstein created a hideous approximation of a man and was punished for abandoning his creation.

Stop! Think!

Did you know: ‘promethean’ refers to acts of bravery, intellect and creativity

Other Gods and Goddesses:

Paul Manship’s modern statue of Prometheus bringing fire to mankind, outside the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.

Prometheus

Creator and Trickster

Prometheus was a Titan, son of Iapetus, and brother of Atlas and Epimetheus.

Prometheus and Epimetheus travelled to earth from Mount Olympus where they formed clay figures in the shape of the gods, and Zeus breathed life into them.  They became mankind. 

Zeus demanded a sacrifice from Man as proof of their allegiance to him.  But Prometheus tricked Zeus into receiving the bones and fat, rather than the meat, as sacrifice.

Angered by the trick, Zeus hid fire from Man.  But Prometheus stole it from Mount Olympus and took it to Earth.  Divine law determined that Zeus could not take back from Man what had been given to them by another god.  Furious Zeus punished mankind and Prometheus.

Prometheus and Pandora

To counteract the gift of fire and to punish mankind, Zeus sent the first mortal woman, Pandora, to earth.  Epimetheus (whose name means hindsight) fell in love with her and married her despite his brother Prometheus’ warnings. 

Zeus gave Pandora a box but told her not to open it.  Unable to resist she opened the box and unleashed all the horrors of mortality upon mankind.

Eternal Punishment

Prometheus was chained to cliffs in the Caucasus, where he was visited each day by an eagle (sometimes misrepresented as a vulture) which ate his liver.  Because he was immortal, his liver replenished itself, so Prometheus had to endure the torture daily . 

About twelve generations later, Heracles rescued Prometheus who captured the eagle and ate its liver in retribution. 

Zeus was pleased that his son, Heracles had won glory by the rescue, but he had committed Prometheus to the rocks for eternity.  Zeus solved the problem by making Prometheus wear a ring made from the cliff-face so that he was still bound by the rock.