Prometheus was entrusted with moulding mankind out of clay. However his attempts to better the lives of his creation brought him into conflict with Zeus when he stole fire from heaven and delivered it to men. As a punishment for his actions Prometheus was bound to a stake on Mt Kaukasos where an eagle fed upon his liver each day.
Prometheus’s attempts to better mankind saw him adopted as the God of Romanticism.
As the creator of mankind and the bringer of fire he served as an inspiration to many romanticist artists.
Such artists include:
-Ludwig Van Beethoven and his ‘The creatures of Prometheus’ in 1801
-Lord Bryon’s ‘Prometheus 1816
-Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein 1818
-Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound’ 1820
Romanticism itself was a general Euro-American movement arising out of the late 18th and early 19th centuries with Prometheus touted as the champion of oppressed human kind.
He was a god who embodies the spirit of liberty, egality fraternity from the French revolution of 1789.
Percy Shelley’s letter to Lord Bryon in 1816 stated that the ‘The French revolution is the master theme of the epoch in which we live.’
Ozymandias
I met a Traveler from an antique land,
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings."
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings."
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
‘Ozymandias’ is a sonnet which displays Percy Shelley’s own political Prometheanism. His Promethean revolutionary spirit is infused with his 1818 sonnet Ozymandias which is also known as ‘Rameses II.’ The sonnet was composed between the 26th and 28th of December following a visit to the Brtish Museum where he saw the large Ozymandias statue which inspired the sonnet.
The sonnet itself actually mocks Ozymandias and the heart of the sonnet speaks of the connection between poet and sculpter. It articulates a critique of imperial power in the name of revolutionary art via its account of Egypt’s power in similar light to the imperial power of the British Empire at the time. For example Percy had first been inspired to write the poem by seeing an Egyptian artefact in a British museum.
Aesthetic Promethianism:
The aspect of the Promethian myth to do with Prometheus’s making and creating served to inspire romanticist writers such as Joh Keats with his ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ composed May 1819 and published in 1820. This is another example of a writing inspired by an artefact in the British museum, this time a townly vase.
Ode on a Grecian Urn
THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
This ode was an opportunity for Keats to demonstrate his poetic skills in the process of celebrating the very artistry of the Grecian Urn. He uses finely tuned personification and artificially alternating line length to show his creativity.
The ode is another typical romanticist work of protest at the appeared devaluation of art in an industrialist civilisation.
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