Abstract
Prometheus Unbound, a ‘lyrical drama in four acts’, is the greatest, though not the most perfect, of Shelley’s poems, difficult to grasp in all its detail, yet clear enough in its broad aims. We are shown how ‘human kind’ might be unbound from the stifling restraints now prevalent, and might attain the maximum of happiness and freedom. Shelley often uses ‘Man’ for ‘human kind’; consequently I have to do so too. Prometheus represents the mind of Man, and his liberation symbolizes that of human kind.
I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.
St. Luke
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Notes To Ix: Prometheus Unbound
See, e.g., P. Moore, The Sky at Night, Volume Two (1968), pp. 86–94.
A. N. Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics (1911), pp. 217–18.
A. Walker, Familiar Philosophy, p. 323. The ‘morning, noon and night’ theory is propounded in Beccaria’s Treatise on Atmospheric Electricity, English translation, 1776. See C. Grabo, A Newton Among Poets. For the real causes of ionization in the atmosphere, see B. Schonland, Atmospheric Electricity (1953).
Bacon, Novum Organum (New York, 1902), pp. 121–59.
For details, see H. Jeffreys, The Earth (5th ed., 1970), p. 40.
See C. Baker, Shelley’s Major Poetry, pp. 283–6 and Y. Foot, Red Shelley, pp. 191–202. Tom Paine was called Demogorgon by Fuseli: see G. E. Bentley, Blake Records (1969), p. 46.
V. Scudder’s edition of Prometheus Unbound (1892), pages 1 and liv.
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© 1984 Desmond King-Hele
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King-Hele, D. (1984). Prometheus Unbound. In: Shelley. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06803-6_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06803-6_9
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