CB: Shelley's characterization of Zeus as " the Oppressor of mankind" seems to be in sinc with Marx's statement in his thesis. Shelley's modification of Aeschylus is to have Zeus/Jupiter overthrown rather than reconcile with Prometheus. That's certainly Marxist , lol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Unbound_%28Shelley%29 Æschylus Shelley's own introduction to the play explains his intentions behind the work. He defends his choice to adapt Aeschylus' myth - his choice to have Jupiter overthrown rather than Prometheus reconciled - with: I have presumed to employ a similar license. The "Prometheus Bound" of Æschylus supposed the reconciliation of Jupiter with his victim as the price of the disclosure of the danger threatened to his empire by the consummation of his marriage with Thetis. Thetis, according to this view of the subject, was given in marriage to Peleus, and Prometheus, by the permission of Jupiter, delivered from his captivity by Hercules. Had I framed my story on this model, I should have done no more than have attempted to restore the lost drama of Æschylus; an ambition which, if my preference to this mode of treating the subject had incited me to cherish, the recollection of the high comparison such an attempt would challenge might well abate. But, in truth, I was averse from a catastrophe so feeble as that of reconciling the Champion with the Oppressor of mankind. The moral interest of the fable, which is so powerfully sustained by the sufferings and endurance of Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive of him as unsaying his high language and quailing before his successful and perfidious adversary.[14] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
