Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Prometheus Unbound by Shelley is the most ambitious poem of the Romantic

Movement.Percy Bysshe Shelley, who belongs to the younger generation of Romantic

English poets, espouses the necessity of freeing Man from the darkness of inherited beliefs

and values. Prometheus Unbound is an exemplary work of Shelley’s deep conviction that

moral regeneration is a form of revolt and an agent of social and political change

Shelley's narrative drama in four acts and first published in 1820.The poem concerned with

the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus.The work, considered Shelley’s

masterpiece, was a reply to Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, in which the Titan Prometheus

stole fire from heaven to give to mortals and was punished by Zeus (Jupiter).

In this work Shelley deal with so many objects of human thought and feeling. Man's relation

to nature,to art,to his fellow-man and to the absolute forces in the universe are all dwelt

upon.The drama may therefore be called the poetic,that is: the emotional expression of

Shelley’s view of life.

Many Romantic poets were influenced by Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound and found in its

protagonist a model for the ideal Romantic hero; they created heroes possessing some of

the characteristics of the Promethean figure, which are consonant with the Romantic spirit.

The Prometheus myth figures prominently in important works by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

According to Greek mythology, Prometheus is one of the sons of the Titans, the banished

gods of old. Unlike many of the Olympian gods, Prometheus has a special fondness for

mankind, wanting them to progress and succeed. He steals fire from Olympus and gives it to

man. For this, he is punished by Jupiter (Zeus) himself. Prometheus is chained to a rock,

where every day an eagle devours his liver, only to have the organ regrow the next day, and

the cycle is repeated, eternally.

For Shelley, Prometheus came to symbolize the mind or soul of man in its highest potential.

Two of Shelley's favorite themes lie at the heart of Prometheus Unbound: the external

tyranny of rulers, customs, or superstitions is the main enemy, and that inherent human

goodness will, eventually, eliminate evil from the world and usher in an eternal reign of

transcendent love.

His Prometheus is compared to the Satan of ‘Paradise Lost’.However,he deliberately makes

his arch-rebel his hero, gives him all the virtues, and ends the poem with his triumph. Thus;

the new ideas of an age of revolution are expressed through his myth.The myth provides to

express man’s life experiences and the experiences of generations. Shelley’s myth expresses

his own limited experience and peculiar ideas.

Prometheus Unbound is an example of how “Shelley is a symbolist and mythologist” whose

poetry is highly “metaphorical”, attempting “to create a new myth of the redemption of the

earth”.The symbolism employed in this work is best understood in reference to the French

Revolution, which Shelley believes to be “the master theme of the epoch in which we live”

In the poem Zeus stands for law,for faith christianity,custom,superstition,wrong, for every

tyranny over the human mind; and Prometheus for the universal love which dissolves all law

and leaves man free.Prometheus who is deliverer of mankind from oppression is the hero of

the poem,the opposer of Zeus.At first under the thraldom of Zeus,he at least escapes and

beholds the downfall of the tyrant.Shelley does not represents Zeus as ‘law,faith,

Christianity’.He certainly does let him stand for false’ custom, superstition and every

tyranny’.Zeus did represent perverted Christianity.

In Prometheus Unbound, Shelley seeks to justify the ways of man to nineteenth-century

men by examining the origin of evil, the fallen state of man, the means for his regeneration,

and the perfectibility of the universe. Unlike Christian metaphysics, Shelley's

system is humanistic: man is a thinking creature who creates his own enslavement to a God

whom he invented. Also contrary to Christian dogma, Shelley's man has the ability to free

himself from this servitude by the exercise of his own will and love.

The reader can clearly notice the portrayal of Prometheus as a Christ figure who sacrifices

his life and endures pain for the deliverance of mankind, when he is referred to as “a youth/

With patient looks nailed to a crucifi x” (1.1. 584-85). According to Christian theology, man

can reach salvation by the imitation of Christ’s morality. By the same token, Shelley presents

a view of the ideal man whose example humans must follow in order to reach salvation.

Shelley explains that Prometheus represents a commended type of heroism, “the type of the

highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and the truest

motives to the best and noblest ends”

Love and nature in Prometheus Unbound: Percey Shelley’s notion of love transcends the

human individual. He is absolutely committed to exemplary love. It is internal as well as

external, something that can be voiced and felt. It is what causes the main character in

Prometheus Unbound to overcome his internal and external struggles. Nature is the all-

powerful force that shapes this universe.Shelley believes that love is human nature, and that

humans are born searching for this love, this completion of self that can only be defined

from the depths of the internal human.

General Themes:

Prometheus monarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits But One, who throng those

bright and rolling worlds Which Thou and I alone of living things Behold with sleepless eyes!

regard this Earth Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou Requitest for knee-

worship, prayer, and praise, And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts.

Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change? To these All things are subject but eternal Love.

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and

joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life; Joy, Empire, and Victory!

To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign;

Evil minds Change good to their own nature.

In each human heart terror survives The ruin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they

would disdain to think were true.

Many a million-peopled city Vomits smoke in the bright air! Mark that outcry of despair!

The good want power, but to weep barren tears. The powerful goodness want; worse need

for them. The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom;

For now there are two worlds of life and death: One that which thou beholdest; but the

other Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit The shadows of all forms that think and live,

Till death unite them and they part no more; Dreams and the light imaginings of men, And

all that faith creates or love desires, Terrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes

The idea that Shelley's verse is enchanting appears in the earliest criticism of the poet's

work,though it is hardly presented as a compliment.To the contrary,readers use this claim as

a means of damnation, and often a corroboration of their prior judgments against Shelley on

political,moral or philosophical grounds. Some critics,for example,suggest that Shelley

attempts to trick the reader into accepting positions that are seen as reprehensible through

such devices as the repetition of abstract words.

In conclusion,Shelley carries the rehabilitation of Prometheus's reputation further than any

other Romantics.Since Shelley views the apocalypse as a new creation,or recreation,of the

world,Prometheus Unbound makes a major contribution to the Romantic understanding of

creativity.

Prepared by : Sinde KURT

REFERENCES:

A Harmony of Visions:John F. SCHELL

Prometheus Unbound: A Romantic Rewriting of a Classical Myth: Ghadeer Al-Hasan; Shadi

Neimneh.

The North American Review: Published by: University of Northern Iowa

Creature and Creator: Myth-Making and English Romanticism

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27530603