Week 12 [25.01.21-31.01.21] The duality of the Promethean archetype

 

 Dirck van Baburen, Prometheus Being Chained by Vulkan

 

The Greek Titan god, thief of fire, creator of humanity. Prometheus has long been a figure capturing human imagination and speaking deeply to us, but the ways in which he does so are curiously split in twain, from almost the very beginning and well into modernity. To some, he’s an almost messianic figure, like to the German romantic poet Johan Wolfgang Goethe. A great rebel against tyranny and injustice, willing to commit the greatest sacrifices for the sake of the common good. To Goethe, Prometheus was a symbol of the coming of a new age, daring to fight for a better tomorrow. It also wasn’t uncommon for the writers and poets of romanticism to draw parallels between the Promethean myth and the French revolution.

And yet to some others, like Mary Shelley, he’s an almost satanic figure, a great blasphemer thinking himself worthy to work the divine flame into artificial life in a great example of classical Greek hubris. The full title of her most famous book, “Frankenstein”, is actually “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus”. Through it, she equates the de facto villain of the story, the failed doctor Viktor Frankenstein, to the Greek titan, drawing a parallel to both his theft of fire, here seen as a metaphor for life, and to Prometheus sculpting humanity from clay. How can this one character elicit such diametrally different interpretations of him?

There are two main ancient sources on Prometheus, Hesiod’s writings from ~700 BC, and the 4^th century BC trilogy of plays by the ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus, called Promethea, of which only the first part – Prometheus Bound (gr. Prometheus Demostes) – survives to this day in full. The two later plays, Prometheus Unbound (Prometheus Lyomenos) and Prometheus the Firebringer (Prometheus Pyrphoros), only survive in fragmentary remains.  This is a sadly very incomplete account, but it already provides us with a very interesting contrast.

In Hesiod’s version, Prometheus is shown as a pretender to the Olympian throne and a challenger to Zeus, who tricks the king of gods into accepting low-quality offerings from humans. Zeus is so angered by this, he hides fire from humanity (of which they had previous use). Only then does Prometheus steal fire and give it back to humankind, and for this he is punished by being chained to a rock and having his liver eaten by a bird every day, for the rest of eternity.

In Hesiod’s version, Prometheus isn’t really a heroic figure. In his account, he’s also not given as the creator of humanity – that honor belongs to Zeus. The Titan is shown as a trickster figure, greedy for power, but still taking the side of humanity in some capacity. He seems to exist as one of many examples of hubris against the Olympian gods being a foolish proposition, as an example of why disobedience against the order of the world, embodied by Zeus and his law, is a sin.

The later account by Aeschylus, however, gives us a markedly different portrayal of the Titan. Here, Prometheus is named the creator of humanity, having sculpted us from clay. In this version, the Titan has also taught humanity art, metallurgy, agriculture, technology. Zeus is shown as a cruel tyrant, who tries to destroy humanity for dissatisfying him. Prometheus takes pity on humans and steals the godly fire to give us a means of defense and survival. In doing so, he prevents Zeus’s plan to kill all humans, and for this he is punished by Zeus for all eternity by being bound to a rock and forced to have his liver eaten every day by a bird – this part remains unchanged since Hesiod. However, in the play Prometheus is approached by another Titan, Oceanus, who comes to offer aid. Prometheus declines, stating that freeing him would put Zeus’s wrath upon Oceanus. This changes the character of his punishment slightly by underlining his selfless nature.

This portrays a clear evolution of the narrative of Prometheus in Greek culture, from a negative figure with some redeeming qualities to a heroic and self-sacrificial one, and a clear champion of humanity among the Greek divines. This trend would later continue within the works of Plato, who portrays Prometheus chiefly as the father of science and the source of human creativity, and in the Greek version of the flood myth, in which Prometheus once again saves humanity from extinction after Zeus floods the world to kill them all, by instructing his son Deucalion to build a chest in which he could hide with his wife and survive until the waters recede.

The duality of Prometheus lies chiefly in his rebellion against Zeus. Whether or not we see him as a negative or positive figure, as a charlatan or as a savior, depends on whether we view Zeus – who in the minds of poets represents monarchy, hierarchy, authority, law, the order of the world – as a positive or negative figure. Is Prometheus rebelling against a genocidal tyrant who oppresses humanity, or against a wise and just steward? By grasping the gods’ fire and giving It to humans, is he saving humanity, or usurping the true god in an unthinkable act of hubris and sin, almost tainting humanity with this unlawful act?

Perhaps the most curious synthesis of both approaches exists in Milton’s Paradise Lost. The main character of the novel, the fallen angel Lucifer, parallels many aspects of Prometheus (as well as other heroes of Greek myth). He is shown in a somewhat sympathetic light, as a tragic figure, rebelling against God because he was stifled by his strict control. He even calls God a tyrant outright, mirroring the antagonism between Prometheus and Zeus. Milton likely drew this parallel intentionally, as he names hell Tartarus, the place unto which Zeus had banished the Titans in Greek myth. However, he lacks the Promethean sympathy for humankind, or his self-sacrifice for the sake of human survival (even though the eternal punishment element of the myth remains in a manner, with Lucifer being forever confined to Tartarus in the form of a snake). The transplantation of some select Promethean characteristics onto Lucifer was nonetheless extremely unorthodox and almost blasphemous, as the fallen angel had been previously shown solely as a horrible demon, a hideous beast with no good qualities what so ever. Through the transposition of Prometheus, Milton’s Lucifer becomes a charismatic, handsome deceiver, driven by a will to rebel against what he sees as tyranny, a tragic figure out of Hellenic myth. Ironically, this almost comes all the way around into how Hesiod had portrayed the Titan thousands of years ago.

Sources (all literary works are in the public domain):

“Prometheus”, Johan Wolfgang Goethe ( https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/1518 )

“Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus”, Mary Shelley (https://www.museumofidaho.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/frankenstein.pdf)

“Prometheus Bound”, Aeschylus (https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/2596054/mod_resource/content/1/PROMETHEUS%20BOUND%20BY%20AESCHYLLUS.pdf)

"Paradise Lost", John Milton

"Lucifer and Prometheus", R.J. Zwi Werblowsky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus

 

Questions:

1.      1. Have you studied Greek mythology before?

2.      2. Do you think Greek myth can still provide us with better understanding of modern archetypes in fiction? Should we still call back to these ancient stories?

3.      3. Do you think Prometheus should be seen as a heroic figure, or as a villainous one? Was his rebellion against Zeus justified? Was his punishment just?