The characteristics of the Prometheus character are aptly analyzed with Cohen's third monster thesis. Thesis III imagines monsters as evolving hybrids. Just as monsters typically escape, they return retooled and imagined, destined to repeat their characteristic terrorizing.
Applying this template to Prometheus explores the experience of the monstrous creature permeated by constant agony. Prometheus desired to defy the natural order of the world, certainly a monstrous trait, and for his transgression was sentenced to endlessly serve his liver to a bird. Byron describes Prometheus' "wretched gift" of eternity, a condemnation to experience the "sufferings of mortality" from the eyes of an immortal. As the fate of Prometheus demonstrates, those monstrous beings who transcend the natural are destined to inhabit the fringes of possibility, left only to demonstrate their vast immutable loneliness.
Applying this template to Prometheus explores the experience of the monstrous creature permeated by constant agony. Prometheus desired to defy the natural order of the world, certainly a monstrous trait, and for his transgression was sentenced to endlessly serve his liver to a bird. Byron describes Prometheus' "wretched gift" of eternity, a condemnation to experience the "sufferings of mortality" from the eyes of an immortal. As the fate of Prometheus demonstrates, those monstrous beings who transcend the natural are destined to inhabit the fringes of possibility, left only to demonstrate their vast immutable loneliness.
1 comment:
Although these monsters articulated through Cohen’s theses play on the fears of culture through their state of being “unnatural,” it is interesting to contrast Cohen’s monsters, who are specifically designed to provoke fear, with Bryon’s Prometheus, who seems to have gained the sympathy of the poet. Similar to Cohen’s depiction of monsters, Prometheus enables the unnatural by providing humanity with fire; however, the intentions of the character (as described by the poet) seem to be righteous. Bryon writes in his third stanza, “Thy Godlike crime was to be kind.” This monster, however unnatural, does not seem to intend evil. However, he suffers alone, as the rest of the creatures described by Cohen.
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.