Sign in with Facebook
Steve R's Reviews > Prometheus Unbound
Prometheus Unbound
by
by
This 1819 epic play by Shelley is far from easy to comprehend. More a poem than a play, its recurrent waves of imagery depicting natural phenomena, sounds, and emotional extremes frequently overcomes whatever thematic basis that he may have intended to present, and when one seems to get close to understanding what he was thinking, one is more often than not carried away by another flood of imagery: beautifully written but maddeningly obscure.
Based on the Prometheus story from Aeschylus of how the hero stole fire from the Gods for mankind and was chained to a rock by Jupiter, Shelley also incorporates the idea that the God demanded Prometheus reveal something about his eventual destiny, which the hero refused to divulge. It seems Shelley carried the story even further, in order to espouse the essential atheistic core of his world view: Prometheus would appear to represent mankind, and Jove both spiritual deities and temporal authorities that man has created out of his imagination and allowed to rule over him. Prometheus’ work allowed man to learn to speak and write, to create buildings and other works, and to get closer to the realization that he, not any universal power, was both responsible for the world’s problems and the source to be looked at for their eventual solution. By becoming ‘unbound’ mankind has achieved the final act of self-realization and assumed the peaceful, loving role which allows him to truly develop his innate powers.
But maybe I’m reading too much thematic underpinning into this work of fantastic natural imagery and passion. Page after page is filled with mountains, thunder, winds, rivers, forests, and assorted flora and fauna. Two fauns actually have speaking roles in Act II, as do the Furies and Spirits who seem to be only vaguely identified. The Earth and the Moon have a lovely exchange of beautiful verses in Act IV. Prometheus is not alone on his cliffside, as Panthea and Ione sit beside him while Mercury comes to demand he give up his secrets. His lover, Asia, dominates the second Act with a surfeit of vivid romantic imagery. In the third Act, Demogorgon brings about the fall of Jove, Hercules released Prometheus and a new world order is initiated:
And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked one with the other even as spirits do, none fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear, self-love or self-contempt on human brows no more inscribed.
Natural imagery seemed to work even better for Shelley to describe this wonderous change:
It is the delicate spirit that guides the earth through heaven, from afar the populous constellations call that light the loveliest of the planets; and sometimes it floats, along the spray of the salt sea, or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud, or walks thro’ fields or cities while men sleep, or o’er the mountain-tops, or down the rivers, or through the green waste wilderness, as now, wondering at all it sees.
The play closes with an almost musical chorus around Prometheus, who has gone with his lover Asia to live in a cave, surrounded by Ione, Panthea, a Voice from Above, a Voice from Below, the Earth and the Moon, all of whom chant a pantheon of praise to reborn humanity.
Love, firm from its awful throne of patient power in the risen heart, springs and enfolds over the world its healing wings. Gentleness, Virtue. Wisdom and Endurance: These are the seals of that most firm assurance which bars the pit over Destruction’s strength … This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
In other works of his, I’ve felt that Shelley’s thematic conceptions were more critical to his presentation than his literary expression, but that is not the case in this work. It is the emotional rapture of the release of feeling which makes the imagery so critical: the spiritual and temporal powers which had controlled mankind being overthrown to allow a new utopian sense of peace and love had to be celebrated with ecstatic, visionary imagery and verse.
Strongly recommended.
Based on the Prometheus story from Aeschylus of how the hero stole fire from the Gods for mankind and was chained to a rock by Jupiter, Shelley also incorporates the idea that the God demanded Prometheus reveal something about his eventual destiny, which the hero refused to divulge. It seems Shelley carried the story even further, in order to espouse the essential atheistic core of his world view: Prometheus would appear to represent mankind, and Jove both spiritual deities and temporal authorities that man has created out of his imagination and allowed to rule over him. Prometheus’ work allowed man to learn to speak and write, to create buildings and other works, and to get closer to the realization that he, not any universal power, was both responsible for the world’s problems and the source to be looked at for their eventual solution. By becoming ‘unbound’ mankind has achieved the final act of self-realization and assumed the peaceful, loving role which allows him to truly develop his innate powers.
But maybe I’m reading too much thematic underpinning into this work of fantastic natural imagery and passion. Page after page is filled with mountains, thunder, winds, rivers, forests, and assorted flora and fauna. Two fauns actually have speaking roles in Act II, as do the Furies and Spirits who seem to be only vaguely identified. The Earth and the Moon have a lovely exchange of beautiful verses in Act IV. Prometheus is not alone on his cliffside, as Panthea and Ione sit beside him while Mercury comes to demand he give up his secrets. His lover, Asia, dominates the second Act with a surfeit of vivid romantic imagery. In the third Act, Demogorgon brings about the fall of Jove, Hercules released Prometheus and a new world order is initiated:
And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked one with the other even as spirits do, none fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear, self-love or self-contempt on human brows no more inscribed.
Natural imagery seemed to work even better for Shelley to describe this wonderous change:
It is the delicate spirit that guides the earth through heaven, from afar the populous constellations call that light the loveliest of the planets; and sometimes it floats, along the spray of the salt sea, or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud, or walks thro’ fields or cities while men sleep, or o’er the mountain-tops, or down the rivers, or through the green waste wilderness, as now, wondering at all it sees.
The play closes with an almost musical chorus around Prometheus, who has gone with his lover Asia to live in a cave, surrounded by Ione, Panthea, a Voice from Above, a Voice from Below, the Earth and the Moon, all of whom chant a pantheon of praise to reborn humanity.
Love, firm from its awful throne of patient power in the risen heart, springs and enfolds over the world its healing wings. Gentleness, Virtue. Wisdom and Endurance: These are the seals of that most firm assurance which bars the pit over Destruction’s strength … This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
In other works of his, I’ve felt that Shelley’s thematic conceptions were more critical to his presentation than his literary expression, but that is not the case in this work. It is the emotional rapture of the release of feeling which makes the imagery so critical: the spiritual and temporal powers which had controlled mankind being overthrown to allow a new utopian sense of peace and love had to be celebrated with ecstatic, visionary imagery and verse.
Strongly recommended.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Prometheus Unbound.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
July 18, 2022
–
Started Reading
July 18, 2022
– Shelved as:
to-read
July 18, 2022
– Shelved
July 23, 2022
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-2 of 2 (2 new)
date
newest »
newest »
I've now got Mask of Anarchy and Julian and Maddalo to go before tackling the Holmes biography. I'm finding Shelley quite a challenge - he almost out does Robert in terms of incomprehensibility for me, but this difficulty is much more than compensated for by my broad sympathy and wonder at the fervent radicalism of his social analysis. Not having read the Greek dramatists, I have to get them as well as well as Milton's Samson Agonistes.
Hearing from you with your responses to each new reading really helps as well. Thanks so much!
With all your recent exegeses of Shelley, I’m more curious than ever to hear what you might make of the same Holmes biography that I read. (Not to pressure you into reading it, of course!)
I’ve always loved this work. Despite its flaws, I think Shelley really did something artistically unique and original to his philosophical worldview in Prometheus. The Greek tragedians - and especially Aeschylus - were writing philosophical drama in lush, musical lyric poetry, and I think, at his best, Shelley is one of the very few English poets capable of the same thing. He didn’t have many chances to pull it off in his short life, but I think this work is probably the closest proof we have to his dormant capacity for an English equivalent of Greek drama. Maybe I’m far off, but the only other English work that comes to mind in its approach (and is greater in execution) is Milton’s Samson Agonistes. In any case, I think Prometheus the strongest case for Shelley’s immortality as a poet.
Finally, there is a lot of good background to this work in that Shelley bio - the books he was reading around that time, how he was writing it in Rome. In case I can tempt you into reading it!