38 pages • 1 hour read
AeschylusPrometheus Bound
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 456A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: The Myth of Prometheus
Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound dramatizes the Greek myth of the Titan Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. Aeschylus’s play draws on earlier literary sources, especially the poetry of Hesiod, in producing his retelling of the myth. In his Theogony, Hesiod tells of how Prometheus defied Zeus, the ruler of the gods, on a few occasions. First, Prometheus tried to trick Zeus into accepting the inedible portions of the animal as the gods’ share of animal sacrifices. When Zeus later punished humanity by keeping fire from them, Prometheus stole it back and gave it to humanity. Zeus responded by sentencing Prometheus to eternal torment, binding him to a cliff (or a pillar) and sending an eagle every day to eat his liver (since Prometheus was immortal, his liver would regenerate after the eagle devoured it, only to be devoured again on the following day). In another poem, Works and Days, Hesiod also describes in detail the way Zeus punished humanity for Prometheus’s deception through the creation of Pandora, the first woman.
Prometheus embodies several important mythical tensions between the gods and humanity. Prometheus himself was the son of one of the Titans, the generation of gods who ruled the cosmos before Zeus and the Olympians (because of this ancestry, most ancient texts refer to Prometheus as a Titan as well). During the Titanomachy—the war in which the Olympians defeated the Titans and took control of the cosmos—Prometheus sided with the Olympians rather than his fellow Titans, but he and Zeus clashed over the issue of humanity, with Prometheus acting as humanity’s benefactor and protector, even when doing so meant defying Zeus’s new regime.
Authorial Context: Aeschylus and the Authorship of Prometheus Bound
Aeschylus has traditionally been named as the author of Prometheus Bound. Aeschylus, who was born around 525 BCE, was the earliest of the three great Athenian tragedians (the other two were Sophocles and Euripides). Aeschylus introduced important innovations to the Greek theater. Before Aeschylus, Athenian tragedies featured a single actor and a chorus, but Aeschylus added a second actor, enabling dialogue and more complex character interactions. This change allowed for more dynamic storytelling and the exploration of deeper psychological and moral themes. Aeschylus is also thought to have expanded the role of the chorus in drama, using it to comment on the action and reflect on the thematic dimensions of the story. Aeschylus’s surviving works, which include the Oresteia trilogy, often focus on themes of divine justice, human suffering, and fate. Aeschylus was actively involved in Athenian civic and military life but moved to Sicily toward the end of his life. He died there around 455 BCE.
Since the 19th century, however, many scholars have cast doubt on the authorship of Prometheus Bound, arguing that the play—or at least some parts of the play—were composed not by Aeschylus but by somebody else. Some have suggested that the play explores themes such as politics and abuse of power differently from how Aeschylus explores them in other plays. Others have delved into the language and meter of the play to point out considerable differences—in particular, the play does not devote as much space to choral songs. Finally, some scholars have suggested that the challenging staging effects—including the torture of Prometheus, the flying entrances of the Chorus and Ocean, and the earthquake at the end of the play—point to a period after Aeschylus, when such effects were more common. Some have even posited that Aeschylus began the play but that it was only completed and staged after his death, perhaps by Aeschylus’s son Euphorion. This would mean that the play could have been composed as late as the 440s or 430s BCE (but probably not later, as there are already clear allusions to Prometheus Bound in texts from the 420s and 410s BCE).
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