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Kevin Brown
Tom Joudrey
ENGL 222
7 Oct. 2015
The Romantic as Revolutionary in Prometheus Unbound
It is a well-established fact that Percy Bysshe Shelleys Prometheus Unbound is a
revolutionary texteven Shelleys choice to reformulate the character and story of Aeschylus
Prometheus Bound can be viewed as a revolutionary act. What distinguishes Shelleys poetic
closet drama from other revolutionary texts, and makes it recognizable to its own era, is the way
in which it embodies revolutionary ideas. Above all else, Prometheus Unbound is a markedly
Romantic text, one that celebrates the awesome power of the natural world, acknowledges the
importance of the individual in the face of the collective, and endorses the belief that imagination
is fundamental to changing ones surroundings. Shelleys text employs several tenets and tropes
of Romanticism in order to suggest the ways in which its principles intersect with political
revolution. Despite the fact that we tend to think of revolutions as movements created solely by
people, Shelleys poem suggests that revolutions are instead rooted and borne out of the
Romantic view of the natural world; it is the worlds inevitable return to natural order, rather than
the dissatisfaction of men, that ultimately brings about the overthrow of tyrannical and unjust
systems of government. Prometheus Unbound refigures how we think about Romanticism and its
relationship to the world; instead of viewing Romanticism as merely a way to express the beauty
of the world through poetry, Shelleys text invites us to see Romantic thought and the Romantic
perspective as a vehicle for social transformation.

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The importance of the natural world and its role in revolution is integral to Shelleys
poem. Zeus tyrannical reign is illustrated throughout the text as oppressive, not only to
Prometheus, but to several parts of the earth. The pain and suffering experienced by these parts is
illustrated through the personification of several elements of the earth, including what Shelley
deems as the voice of The Earth itself: I dare not speak like life, lest Heavens fell King/Should
hear, and link me to some wheel of pain/More torturing than the one whereon I roll (Greenblatt
801). The Earth is not only subjected to the perpetual pain inflicted by its own current mode of
constantly spinning, but fears the threat of being put into a situation that would be even more
painful than its present one. The suggestion is that The Earth has been enslaved to the act of
eternally revolving by Zeus, and its own liberty to do anything else has been constrained by what
the autocratic god Zeus has deemed to be Earths duty. What is importantly ironic about this
suggestion is that we can also interpret the interminable and involuntary turning of the Earth as
both a literal and metaphoric revolutionthe tyrannically enforced rotation of the Earth can also
be figured as the source of natures own revolutionary powers:
[The poem calls] for the re-emergence of freedom, and [underscores] the place of
the natural world in that resurrection. Throughout, the Prometheus
Unbound

volume remains committed to an investigation of the confluence of

politics and

the natural world andherald[s] liberty as a natural state, the

absolute antithesis

of the unnatural, man-made systems of oppression beneath

which the world lies

locked. (Gladden 253)

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The paradoxical relationship between natures own constrained will and its entanglement with
revolutionary and liberating movements is one of the primary tensions of Shelleys text.
Although the text may suggest that human freedom is the natural way of things, and that nature
will find a way of restoring liberty to humanity when it has been taken away, there is also the
suggestion that nature can never completely eradicate tyrannyit is always lingering, finding
new ways to undermine and subjugate peoples natural freedoms. In this way, the text touches
upon the cyclical nature of oppression, followed by inevitable revolution, and so forth; nature is
always moving toward the most idealized and utopian vision of liberty, but can never quite reach
it.
The poetic drama also stresses the importance of the individual and the individuals
imagination as a force for revolution. Prometheus Unbound does not confront concrete examples
of governmental oppression that would have been typical of the time period in which it was
published, but instead approaches grander and more Romantically inclined notions of freedom
and oppression. Let others flatter Crime where it sits throned/In brief Omnipotence; secure are
they:/For Justice when triumphant will weep down/Pity not punishment on her own wrongs,/Too
much avenged by those who err (Greenblatt 808). Prometheus own situation is a metonym for
the suffering that is imposed on all human beings by oppressive man-made regimes. This
imaginative portrayal of Prometheus and his struggle against the all-encompassing Crime is
representative of Romanticisms own preoccupations with creative invention and the resiliency
of the individual. Shelleys choice to reimagine the story of Prometheus as one about how an
individuals resoluteness overcomes tyranny speaks to both the importance of the imagination in

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revolutionary thought and to how the individual plays a role in changing the mind of the
collective:
Such forms are known and connected in the mind of Prometheus, the hero as ideal
revolutionary poet and liberatorShelleys hero acts as a radiant projection of the
ideas, hopes, and joys nourished within the mind of man. Mrs. Shelley described
Prometheus as Shelleys latest hero-warrior against the Evil Principle,
who,

though scorned and oppressed by the conservatives who accept evil as

mans

necessary portion, ultimately triumphs through hope and fortitude over the
destructive passions which abort mans visions. (McNiece 232)

Prometheus ability to stay optimistic even in the face of Zeus tyranny is suggested to be one of
the abilities of the Romantic poetto be able to see and envision a future that is different than
ones current surroundings. In this way, Romanticism is posited as inherently revolutionary in the
way that it encourages people to view their surroundings; rather than conservatively acquiescing
to the realities of the status quo, Romanticism promotes the liberal act of imagining how things
might be different. We might think of this kind of imagination as being the threat that Edmund
Burke feared would uproot the institutions and conventions of England that had existed for years
rather than honoring tradition, the imagination seeks to break away from it and reinvent it.
It is also through Prometheus own individual vision that the collective vision of revolution
emerges; through the hopeful dream of the individual, the faith of others is also ignited. Shelleys
text emphasizes the Romantic notion of the individual when considering revolution, and further
suggests that the ideas of individuals and their own insights spur collective action.

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The poem also features significant outpourings of emotion and passion as we would
typically expect of Romantic poetry. The most prominent ones present in the poem are usually
presented in a way that juxtaposes them to their polar opposite: joy and despair, love and hatred,
fear and determination. In particular, the emotions of Prometheus are subversive to Zeus forces
and do much to undermine the power that he has over Prometheus will. Even when being
painfully tortured by the Furies, Prometheus still asserts his determination to not reveal what will
overthrow Zeus reign: I laugh at your power and his who sent you here/To lowest scornPour
forth the cup of pain (Greenblatt 810). Although we expect Prometheus to feel terror at the
wrath of Zeus and the Furies, he instead exhibits a staunch perseverance against his oppressor
the strength and passion of his feelings enables him to undermine Zeus efforts to make him
obey. Thus, the exaltation of passionate emotion in this poem is due to its relation to
revolutionary forces; if Prometheus had not felt so passionately about resisting Zeus, we cannot
be sure that he would have been nearly as successful in his resistance. The end of the poem
further emphasizes the ways in which emotions help to cultivate revolution: To suffer woes
which Hope thinks infinite;/To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night;/To defy Power which
seems Omnipotent;/To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates/From its own wreck the thing it
contemplates (Greenblatt 831-832). Emotions are integral to building the resolute character of
resistancethese fervent feelings of injustice are what conjures up in Prometheus his determined
defiance. The state of being constantly oppressed eventually produces emotions of a
revolutionary quality. The situation which the poem addresses is that critical moment when
humanity abolishes the tyrannical principlenot just particular tyrannies, but tyranny altogether.

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The poem investigates the preconditions and consequences of this abolition. What must
humanity do, think, feel, and imagine before it can free itself from hierarchy and domination?
(Scrivener 156). Shelleys poem demonstrates in several instances what humanity must think,
feel, and imagine in order to overcome tyranny; the emotions of every individual who is a part
of the collective resistance must be felt strongly in order to effectively resist oppression. Without
passion (perhaps violent) feeling, resistance cannot maintain itselfit otherwise flounders in
face of its seemingly abject and hopeless situation. For example, the French Revolution was
marked by passionately violent feelingit was not only a rational sense of injustice, but a more
grand feeling of outrage that fueled its violent events.
Prometheus Unbound employs all of the usual elements of Romanticism that we expect,
but engages with those elements in atypical ways. In this way, Shelley has revolutionized and
expanded the capabilities of Romantic thought itself. He repurposes Romanticism as a
perspective that, not only emphasizes the importance of individual and the natural world, but
furthermore enables one to change their social surroundings through the embracing of these
things. Shelleys poem is is important because it makes relevant the central tenets of Romantic
literature to our own social thoughtit justifies the ways in which the imaginative perspective of
Romanticism can contribute to our ever-changing social situation. Prometheus Unbound raises
the political stakes of a literary movement that is unjustly viewed as apolitical: it engages with
the fantastic, not only because we enjoy the power of the imagination, but also because Shelley
realized how important the imagination was to creating social change; it champions the
individuals important contribution to social change in the face of the ever-looming and

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threatening collective; and it reminds us that the natural world will always reign supreme, in
spite of mans machinations to subjugate it to his will.

Works Cited
Gladden, Samuel Lyndon. Shelley's Textual Seductions: Plotting Utopia in the Erotic and
Political Works. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W.W. Norton,
2006. Print.
McNiece, Gerald. Shelley and the Revolutionary Idea. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1969.
Print.
Scrivener, Michael. Radical Shelley: The Philosophical Anarchism and Utopian Thought of
Percy Bysshe Shelley. Princeton UP, 1982. Print.

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