Prometheus

Prometheus the god stole fire from heaven and bestowed it on humans. In punishment, Zeus chained him to a rock, where an eagle clawed unceasingly at his liver, until Herakles freed him. For the Greeks, the myth of Prometheus's release reflected a primordial law of existence and the fate of humankind. Carl Kerényi examines the story of Prometheus and the very process of mythmaking as a reflection of the archetypal function and seeks to discover how this primitive tale was invested with a universal fatality, first in the Greek imagination, and then in the Western tradition of Romantic poetry. Kerényi traces the evolving myth from Hesiod and Aeschylus, and in its epic treatment by Goethe and Shelley; he moves on to consider the myth from the perspective of Jungian psychology, as the archetype of human daring signifying the transformation of suffering into the mystery of the sacrifice.

<TR>List of Plates<TR>Introduction<TR>IWho Is Goethe's Prometheus?3<TR>IIThe Titanic, and the Eternity of the Human Race19<TR>IIIThe Prometheus Mythologem in the 'Theogony'33<TR>IVArchaic Prometheus Mythology50<TR>VMethodological Intermezzo63<TR>VIThe World in Possession of Fire69<TR>VIIThe Fire Stealer77<TR>VIIIThe 'Prometheus Bound'83<TR>IXPrometheus the Knowing One93<TR>XThe Promethean Prophecy107<TR>XI'Prometheus Delivered'112<TR>XIIConclusion after Goethe129<TR>Abbreviations134<TR>List of Works Cited135<TR>Index145