Poetry for the Inner Ear

Prometheus Unbound is a four-act play by the greatest Romantic poet P. B. Shelley. The play opens a Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. PROMETHEUS is discovered in chains bound to the Precipice. Prometheus is tormented by Zeus. Ultimately, Prometheus is liberated. He is a symbol of the liberation of mankind. He may be described as the correct manifestation of the highest moral and intellectual nature. He is often compared with Satan in Milton’s Paradise. But we should remember that he is devoid of any feeling of revenge or envy that we find in Satan. Shelley himself says: “Prometheus is, in my judgment, a more poetical character than Satan, because, in addition to courage, and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandizement, which, in the hero of Paradise Lost, interfere with the interest.” This book reveals Shelley’s revolutiona...