The Prometheus Myth

• Myth states that Zeus, supreme god of the Greeks, asked Prometheus to create humanity from mud and water.
• Prometheus became a great benefactor of mankind teaching them many useful skills.
• Prometheus later played a trick on Zeus, and he retaliated by withholding the gift of fire to mankind.
• Prometheus defied Zeus and stole fire from the heavens for earth.
• As punishment, Prometheus was bound to a rock where a giant eagle would eat his liver every day, which renewed every night.
• Prometheus was eventually rescued from this suffering by Hercules, the Greek hero.
• Zeus, as a further punishment, caused Pandora to open a jar that released all the ills that afflict humanity.
• Prometheus daring to steal the fire made him an admiral figure among writers of the Romantic and afterwards.
• A play Prometheus bound written by the Greek dramatist Aeschylus had a critical essay written by romantic poet Coleridge.
• German writer Goethe wrote a poem in 1770s seeing him as a figure of humanities creative powers and revolt against social and political restraint.
• Byron also wrote a poem about Prometheus in July 1816 and in the same summer she helped him in making a fair copy of Canto III of his poem Childe Harold which contains referenced to Prometheus.
• Percy Shelley was also writing his lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound in Italy during 1818/19 and will have likely discussed the poem earlier than this.
• Prometheus Unbound follows the view taken by Goethe of Prometheus as a heroic figure defying the tyranny of the gods for humanity.
• Prometheus Unbound is a political allegory aimed at the political oppressions of the day, and science and psychology.
• The punishment of Prometheus and the foolishness of Pandora is a version of the fall and end of innocence as in Genesis.
• Victor can be linked with Prometheus as he harnesses the power of lightning to animate his monster.
• Prometheus defies the supreme being and continues to pursue knowledge (symbolised by fire) until its fatal consequences, paralleling victor clearly.
• Mary Shelley was born in London in 1797, the only daughter after her mother died ten days after her birth.
• Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, raised her and his second wife Mary Jane Clairmont, who Mary Disliked.
• Mary Shelley was educated at home by her father, who was interested in new theories for education, but these were not applied to the upbringing of his daughter.
• The household was intellectual, often visited by leading writers of the period and Mary Shelley read widely, learning Latin, Greek, French and Italian.